Why do I want to do this? What makes an adult want to share what will likely be a stream of very personal consciousness? It's an interesting question. Let me start by explaining what this is not. This is not the beginning of a career in blogging, nor am I looking to create a "community" which I can monetise using the Google content delivery network, the chance would be a fine thing! No this is about something else. This is about Everything that I hold dear.
Well what does this mean? I am less than one hundred words in and already lucidity, sense of purpose and clarity of thought have gone out of the window. Not quite, although if anyone ever reads this, they will of course be the judge. In my daily life, which is pretty normal, kids, family, job etc, I speak to many people and the more people with whom I speak the more concerned I have become.
My perception is that there is a very real but very subtle sense of intolerance emerging. I guess I have always sensed it, but since the economic crisis and the spread of global terrorism, it has really started to poke its head above the parapet. It's almost as if these 2 enormous shifts in our world have cracked the cage and let the darkness out. (I am sure I would have been better off going with a Pandora's box analogy here, but oh well!). Somehow, our most horrendous instincts about "what we want" not as a society but personally now supersede everything else, and my sense is that this brace of catastrophes are somehow justifying this change, and providing legitimacy to what are essentially opinions of prejudice.
Now I am not some wishy washy liberal, but there is a real sense of exclusion and aggression in the way people have turned on their fellow humans, which makes me uncomfortable. I don't feel that it is my position to get people to think in a particular way, or to stop them in thinking what they wish to think. The purpose of my action is to raise some questions, perhaps offer an alternative perspective. My fear is that many of the views I am beginning to hear are in fact simply prejudice, and following what we are being fed by the biased media or our social conditioning. It is easier to listen to others than to think for yourself.
Here are some facts, a historical perspective of our general intolerance and stupidity as a race. Let us not forget that at one time it was considered perfectly acceptable not to "waste" money sending women to schools, or that we could not possibly give women the vote as they were inferior (they only got it in 1929). It was not until 1889 that the first children's act came into play, preventing cruelty to children, it took another 5 years for them to be allowed to give evidence in court! 1807 was the first legislation on the abolition of slavery in the UK and it took another 25 years before it was actually abolished. In the USA it really started under good old Abe in 1862, but it was not until the 1964 that segregation was abolished. This was of course preceded by 250 years of slavery. Hitler and Jews, Apartheid in South Africa (repealed in 1991, yes 1991!!!!) do I need to go on?
The purpose of highlighting all of these things is to make sure we do not forget how quickly we consider that which seems normal to seem like absolute insanity, and the points above are perhaps some of the cruelest things we can consider. Whilst we might all believe these moments of the past to be abhorrent now, if we lived at the time we might consider them normal and things worth preserving, like many of the opinions we hold today. Could it be that we are cherishing the modern equivalent of slavery, misogyny or cruelty to children?
Our world is complicated, and things do not always appear to be what they seem. My position is that people are essentially OK, and it is circumstance that drives behaviour (the detail of this is perhaps for a later blog). If we actually consider things in a logical, factually based way, rather than through a subjective lens then perhaps we might find out something that changes our mind. This is not always going to be the case, but what the hell, its worth a shot.
I hope that this pernicious attitude is just because people are feeling a little less than themselves, money troubles and pressure do strange things to people, but lets not blame the wrong people. History teaches us many things (well not in my case, my history teacher was a shocker, it took university to get me to understand its' wonder), but mainly it teaches us that when the chips are down we turn on each other, typically by picking on the weakest. I hope that we can evolve out of this. Which neatly (you can be the judge of quite how neatly) takes me back to my original point.
The wonder of living in this country is that we are all able to speak our minds without fear of retribution, and it is a wondrous thing. So I am not suggesting we should not think and feel these things, but lets actually have a debate. The world is a very interesting place, the UK is an amazing country about to go through some extraordinary times. Let's engage each other, who knows maybe we might even learn something between us and improve the outcome.
I just could not hold it in any more, there is so much at stake, in fact, Everything that I hold dear. As I continue to blog, and perhaps I might even get heard and read, I will talk about anything and everything, you won't always agree, but just try to see things in a different way, not necessarily my way, but just try it on for size, don't sleep walk your way forward. Really be honest with yourself. Why do you believe these things? What are the alternatives? Do you know or has someone told you? Let's enter the debate without knowing what the outcome might be.
OK, so by now you have probably worked out where I stand, but I hope that over time I can persuade you (is there anybody out there?) not to look at where I am but what is being said.
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