Being Accountable

Let me clarify. I do not believe in free enterprise. Our human desires and the consequences of achieving those desires requires to be tempered, we each have to exercise restraint. Or have restraint imposed on us. Neither do I believe in some centralised state control, equality for all. We are all too varied in our needs, access to resources and aspirations. No, what I been flogging over many of these blogs is the need to get back to belonging to a community. A caring community that is accountable and responsible to those that relate to it. A community that is meaningful and able to better the quality of life for each of us that belong to it. In this globalised world we exist within, this matrix society, we may belong to a duplicity of communities with varying degrees of weak to very strong bonds. Our membership maybe often be transitory but in key communities membership is non-cancellable, it is lifelong. Our life has to governed by the communities we bond with, with the obligations, responsibilities and expectations that their membership entails. You cannot be honourable and a freebooter. Holding your head up amongst your peers seems to be a core value requisite in each of us as members of a civilised society. Whichever way you frame it, membership has its price but also returns in kind.

Tythings I knew of as a word. I have just finished a book where, for the first time, I encountered an explanation where the full significance dawned. A tything was a medieval unit of ten households where the heads of house looked out for each other head of house and was held to account for any misdoings by anyone within that tything. Not just his own household but anyone properly tied to the group. A collective reprimand for any one individuals failings but also a caring supportive framework for each group member. An automatic support response, regardless of status, wealth or worthiness, just dependant on degree of need.

In arriving at a new definition of community, relevant to our century, we too could do with a tything concept. A core group we are responsible and accountable too. A group of peers bound by familiar circumstances and backgrounds. Able to relate, respond and reprimand as the occasion demands without judgement or censure. Membership where the group can achieve far beyond that of any one individual and can reach out and be significant in a much wider network of like minded groups. That is beginning to sound like a community structure where we can have a voice, a voice that counts, a voice that is tempered by consensus, a voice able to give as well as receive, a voice that can rebuked if too extreme. No room here for smug pleasure seeking self-satisfaction and gratification. Time to stand up and be counted.

Trust v Control

Control is by far away the easiest option. Lay down your parameters, set up monitoring systems and then apply punitive measures on selected defaulters. In principle. In practice entirely a different matter. Parameters have to hit a broadband of human activity which, because it is human and we are all unique, has to cover a wide range nuances. Being human each of us will challenge the parameter as to why it does not apply to us because our own circumstance is different. As individuals we need to be differentiated from the crowd. By claiming that difference we assert our distinction from the crowd we are lumped into. Monitoring has to find that fine line between being too overt, thrusting control too upfront, challenging all comers to defy it or so covert as to be missed, encouraging mass defiance. Then punitive measures have to be applied to carefully selected defaulters, too broad a sweep and the administrative systems are overloaded, to few key representative defaulters and too many other defaulters will consider they have immunity. Being inventive and creative humans, long used to labouring under the choke of authority, we too apply our skills to evade, avoid, confuse, misrepresent or dissemble, anything other than just accept to being controlled by that parameter.

Trust is entirely another matter. Just a broad parameter is all that is needed then each person interprets it application to them within their own framework of experience. All those nuances reflecting individual difference are no longer needed. Maybe an occasional dialogue, indicating some extreme of interpretation, might have to be initiated to remove common misplace understandings. The beauty of trust is that each person does their own self-monitoring but there is the downside. Being people most will comply scrupulously, some will get away will as little restraint as they dare and a few will flout and exploit any apparent laxity. Any overt monitoring will quickly be seen as confounding the trust. If you are going to be checking up then there is no point in my restraint. Come on, lets see how far we can push this. Equally if abuse is too wide spread then dissatisfaction rapidly sets in. "Look they are all getting away with it why should I bother" become the norm of the day. So there has to be covert monitoring to pick out those most public and extreme abuses. Engage in dialogue and it can become almost self-policing. Complaints will readily identify where and almost inevitably the who of the more troubling abuses. Then it is either a matter of corrective dialogue or punitive measures to make a public example of non-compliers. Rather than over-loading the administration with large numbers of defaulters to be processed, all that is needed is a showtrial which has wide spread circulation picking out a blatant defaulter receiving just and equitable punishment.

In the end we do have choices, we do all decide which type of society we want to live in. Either by silent submission or by the clarity of our voiced wishes. What is your choice? Monitors at each and every street corner with ever more draconian rules or a relaxed society able to live with itself and adapt to change?

Staking out who we are

In a barely scientific article I am indebted to the New Scientist "Imagine there's no countries" for opening up a new horizon for me. Enabling me to draw together several strands of posts that related but didn't appear to gel. In essence, the article proposes that, the idea of having a Nationality is a construct only a couple of hundred years old. Self identity is all about the pool of people you directly relate to and the lower echelons in the hierarchy of authority you are required to respond to. As Society became more complex, with the growing industrialisation and the Empire, so the need for an ever expanding bureaucracy. The idea of Nationhood emerged to symbolise this overarching administration. You deferred no longer to the Squire, or the Church or the local Lord but to Government. It hardly matters whether or not you accept this premise. Suffice that it raises the subject that there are alternative ways to view allegiances. What ties those allegiance's together is not some despot figurehead but the necessary administrative functions. What keeps the wheels turning, bringing in the finance, making laws and enforcing the rules of conduct. That is at the core of what bonds us, you to me and us to all the rest we recognise as being part of us. Our acceptance of being an essential cog in this great mesh of things that keeps us all healthy, safe and secure.

My fundamental starting point is that we are now a Matrix Society. Our allegiances are now multi-facetted between work, leisure, entertainment, family, friends, education, sport. Not one encompasses all our out there network of known people with all the separate obligations and expectations that arise out of all these disparate networks. Each facet will have its own distinct feel and set of rules. Where now our sense of one Nation?  In my Posts I keep coming back to exploring how we can have any sense of community, how that community has to learn to work together and how being a community can be the only answer to Totalitarianism. Just  dip into some of my past Posts that range over exploring different aspects of Community, living with each other:

• Keeping to Rules
• Checks and Balances
• Held to Account
• In Whom we Trust
• Centre Revolution
• Power to the People
• Of the Community

So the revelation is that we give up this novel idea of belonging to one particular Nation, it is far too limiting and restrictive. Instead under the umbrella of a European Convention we move in and out of differing communities. For example, our work world maybe global and that governs the where and how's of doing business. Our home life maybe regional and we look to the macro Region Administration for the provision of services we rely on. Our children's welfare and education may be District based providing the necessary access and contacts whilst our leisure maybe entirely local dependant on the immediate surroundings network of contacts. Each person with their own unique blend of communities, no rigid boundaries, differing sets of obligations and requirements applying to each community that in turn rely on its own specific authorities. Gone one Nation, welcome to a meld of Regions and clusters of Local Areas. Welcome to this New World.

Redacted

The BBC has lost sight of why TV was created and became so popular. The visual image adds so much more depth to the story that is told. A moving image enhances and expands that depth allowing the viewer to interpolate the sequences with all their own life experiences. What more so than the news stories, pressing home all the varied extremes of human life. Nowadays, more and more often, in the news we are offered a background and pair of shoes! Even worse the frames are deliberately set out of focus so nothing can be seen, just vague impression of, of nothing really. Just the denial of visual media. What is the worst of all are scenes where selected faces are pixelated to ensure that that person cannot be identified. This is all so wrong. If a story is important enough to be told tell it straight.

The news scenes we are shown are recorded in the public domain, out in the open. All observers at that location can readily see what we are prevented from seeing. Why? What are we so afraid of as a Society that we must hide our children away? For fear of what? What tangible dreadful act can be unleashed by showing the faces of our children? Is the location really going to be descended on by hordes of what, to do what, abuse them, vilified them, sneer at them for their social position, ridicule their fashion? No. If adults are out an about behaving in totally inappropriate manners, why should they be protected and obscured out of focus? If you are in public, no matter what the provocation or excuse, you have to conduct yourself with restraint. Incase Society will judge you. If you are empowered by the state to carry out official functions, policemen, prison guard, nurse, border controls, bailiffs, what ever role, why should you need or require to have your identity pixelated out? You are lawfully doing your work within the limits placed on you and carried out with integrity.

In this ever increasing rush to Totalitarianism just pause. Think back to East Germany and the Stasi reign of terror over the cowered a population, ever afraid of who was overhearing or reporting back on your every action. This rush to ever more define, regulate and consequentially reprimand for non-compliance all aspect of human activity obscures the core principle of all societies. What binds us together, are not laws, not GCHQ snoopers, not law enforcers, you cannot coerce citizens into becoming better citizens. What binds society together is our need for acceptance and the fear of disapproval from our social peers within our community. Not what the top dog of the day declares, just the nod of agreement from that neighbour. So faces do matter. They, not shoes, not body movement, not locations, faces are what we scan for clues to belonging, for hanging some sort of relationship onto. Do we know these children or can we relate to them? Are those misbehaving adults part of our group, if so can we express our disapproval? If not can we draw clues as to who in our network may too be inclined to stray. Faces are key. Even more so for officials going about their lawful business. Yes we do need to see them and to be able to recognise them. Yes we do need to be able mix their off-duty life with their official activities. To pass appreciation or reprimand on how they choose to discharge their duties. We should all be in fear of anonymous officials who do not need to account for their actions, are free to officiate without any constraints. When a policeman can choose to refuse to comment or worse lie about actions clearly taken yet still have their superiors support we are in deep trouble. If the face is known, their social peers will make it perfectly clear what behaviour is unacceptable. Quick, salient, efficient and so effective far beyond what rule books, tribunals, inquests, enquiries, reports, all the paraphernalia of top down control can possibly achieve.

Redaction in modern speak is the blackout of evidence which is deemed a risk, legal or security. Just a highfalutin word used to obscure a very nasty truth. Someone with a secret wants to hide what is actually going on because they fear adverse reactions. They wish to set themselves aside from the society they are part of so their society is not able to judge them. Frightening. Openness and having to account to your immediate social peers is the only thing that keeps us on the right track. Everytime you encounter someone deliberately concealing their identity shout out aloud, for all to hear, imposter!

The Political Wilderness

There are two crisis issues staring at us. First the obscenely absurd wealth ratio between the poorest and the richest standing at 1 to 300 and ever rising. Secondly an economy based on ever increasing consumerism but founded on a World now showing that it has very finite resources and capacity to regenerate those resources. The two issues are of course inter-related but necessarily linked. Both issues need to be tackled, urgently. That takes courage, vision and political muscle. Courage because any solution is going to generate upset as toys are taken away. Vision to see through the mires of preconceptions, adherence to comfortable past practice, to look beyond to how a good Society might be solidly founded. Political muscle simply because there are some big heavyweight opinions or organisations who have a vested interest to maintaining the status quo and can call on inter-global support.

We simply do not have a single political leader with the balls and charisma to sell a solution. I do not care particularly which solution, which view of outcome success. The issues are so big it may well be impossible to define one comprehensive approach. I personally doubt that a single strategy is possible, but nibbling away multi-directionally, but always consistently in the 'right' direction, is not only possible but essential if we are to ever stop this slumber walk into the abyss.

Instead all the Political Parties are pre-occupied with throwing sweeties to the voters. Hoping to come up with the 'best' colour wrapper and flavour combinations that will win voter support and give them their majority. Sweeties like 'immigration', 'EU', 'welfare', 'cost of living' in fact such an array of sweeties that are known to have mass appeal. In the absence of any vision of a just and equitable society it is no wonder the voters will hoover up the sweeties on offer, something, even a sweetie, is better than nothing.

With the Election hype escalating around us, all the Parties on offer are digging deep into their sweeties reserves hoping against hope they can differentiate themselves enough to win out. That their nuance's of colour and flavour will standout sufficient to get that crucial vote that puts them in power. The voters will no doubt be bewildered by the sameness Me To sweeties on offer. For me, there is only one possible vote, "None of the Above". I just hope enough of us can make that one sane choice so that the small voice of reason can be heard over the clamour of sweetie distribution. We all need to hear the voice that talks to these big issues facing us. Put sweeties behind you, time for the big boys to come out.

Of the Community

At the time we were too pressed with the urgency of bringing up children, holding down jobs and keeping a wheel on the wagon to notice or comprehended. Those twice a day rituals of meeting at the school gate to drop off or pick up the children were crucial. There were many other subsequent meetings, whether at youth activities, secondary school, sports days, village fetes, but this one, the meeting at school gate was decisive. Now much longer in the tooth, having gone through the many stages of maturing, I have the records to look back at. I can see so clearly how our paths, our children's paths, their friends paths and the social network that I find myself working within are to a very significant degree derived from those early school gate gatherings. This is when we met, got to know each others names, found out about where they lived, gained an inkling of their work and lifestyle. Through these early contacts we got to meet up with others all moving around in similar related circles. This is our community dynamic, the social network of interconnected families with some commonality of past experience or interest linking us together. I not saying lasting friends, I am not even saying companions sharing mutual values, just people who know and can recognise each other and have some basic instinct of the others likely response. Sufficient to give us a common bond, our community, we know you and you are part of us.

Of course in my lifetime we have gone from a plurality of community meeting opportunities, sharing a convivial drink together, to the routine church attendance, to of course the schooling, but also the village shop, doctors surgery, the village social life, to our present state. Even the gathering of parents at school gates is now to be discouraged, children are dropped off out of cars, closure of so many village facilities transferred to remote detached outside communities, a withdrawal from localised activity and diversification to remote anonymised centres. Before my time it was even more intense, you worked where you lived, you seldom travelled beyond your own community and your employer was your load and judge about your moral conduct. I am not bemoaning about changing times, but we do need to understand the processes that meld communities together before we can hope to plan how to reforge community connections in this new dissipated age. Dissipated, because we are longer bound to place but follow our economic fortunes, we are not tied to family and now have serial families and our place of work can be anywhere around the globe working at anything from a smartphone to a command centre. How in a loose fit society do we develop any sense of community? Is it even possible we can find anything we can bond too? Is the only resolution a drift to Totalitarianism, when some detached remote authority determines and controls each and everyone of our freedoms to act. A total loss of all independence because without a tying in to a community the options are only Anarchy or Totalitarianism.

I talk of village life. A town and even a City is but a collection of villages, the collective of villages have another dimension, their relationship with the greater whole of the Town. There are finite limits to how wide a group of people you can relate to and still feel sufficiently close as to bond as a group of Us against Them, the outsiders. No hard and fast figures, different for each of us, the individuals that we are. But there are limits, that number, that distance, that crossing of the line is just that too far. A finite village is clear and simple, a Town is a lot more ambiguous with a lot more factors coming into play. In the end we have up until now related to the place we recognise as our place that we stayed in for some length of time, sufficient to have made some contact with other members of that place. As we withdraw more and more inwardly, within the secure four walls we inhabit, we have less and less connection to the community. The communal actions appear to become increasingly irrelevant. We are isolated islands and Others control all things beyond our island. This then is our challenge. How do we in this fast changing age break down the island defences and help people to reconnect with all those around them that they actually do depend on for the quality of their actual life? Clearly not by central Them government. The Us of the Community have to be given back meaningfully the reins of their own destiny. Not the current government vogue of tokenised responsibility whilst the real control and purse remains tightly held by Westminster, but actual devolved power and accountability. If is important enough to tangibly affect their quality of life, then just maybe the island drawbridges might come down to see what they can influence.

My island person

I had always understood that my one inviolate sanctuary, where I had to account to no one, were the thoughts in my mind. It seems that just because they can our Government have decreed that our personal thoughts are too important and must be monitored. Not just monitored of course, but reacted to should they imply what they consider to be inappropriate. Over any period a gamut of thoughts surge through my mind, shape shifting, getting stronger, weaker, changing focus, convolving to tangent ideas, narrowing down to a focus then off again. To manage my thoughts, to challenge them to see whether there is any substance in them, to consolidate them so they can be subjected to review, I need to try to set the more important ones down. Many people need to share ideas, to test the air, to see where the consensus lies, to confirm a mutual concurrence, to reassure a commonality of experience. Whatever, people chatter, nowadays they bounce words around, just a flux of ideas bouncing around responding to or creating stimuli for other ideas or tired old just going round doing the rounds. Our Government have given themselves the tools and taken the right to monitor all this electronic chatter, shifting for data trends, hotspots and of course making judgements on inappropriate ideas, who might be making them and jumping to (informed?) guesses on possible outcomes.

It is crystal clear to me that there are three key distinct stages, the initial thought which then translates into an intention and finally becomes an idea that is implemented. That tip over point, no longer an abstract thought but an actual observable committed deed that can be held up, scrutinised and the perpetrators of it held to account, for good or bad. So amongst the medley of thoughts that rummage around in my head are the concern about the homeless, hankering for expensive kit and annoyance at a prominent role model so shamefully brushing aside any self-restraint. These shapeless thoughts morph into ill-defined intentions; to donate 10% of my income to charity; to become a millionaire and to proactively promote a Republic State when Prince Charles gets to succeed. 

With their routine surveillance of all us, our government monitors may well pick up on all these intentions of mine and flag me as a person who needs to closely watched. Pre-emptively, so they can get their water cannon in place before any protest kicks off, for the security of the greater good, of course. But intentions can be all, or more often, nothing, anything from empty boasts, still born at inception all the way to imminent implementation over a timescale of immediate to never in a million lifetimes. Logistically how are our government monitors to evaluate me, along with all the other huge number of daily potential targets? No matter how sophisticated their data mining is in identifying hotspot, fluxes of interest there is no algorithm to convert an averaged potential into an actual tipping point of action. Knowing with statistical certainty what the median of that personality profile may do, does not translate to the actual behaviour of any one individual in that sample. Whilst we may all conform to some stereotype or other we are each unique individuals with our own unique set of reactions and triggers. We are not interchangeable, I may be similar to you in shared interests but my responses will produce a different outcome to yours. 

Now my ill-defined intentions may spark off a search for information to firm up my intentions into plausible courses of action. Still no commitment, still on the fence, open minded just looking around to see what options are out there. My wish to donate to charity might take me from the usual frontline providers to looking into the politics of poverty, how it arises and how others think Society needs to change to minimise poverty. My intention to become a millionaire may take me quickly from evaluating all the free-ride tickets games of chance, to assessing the distribution of wealth and who controls access to it, to spending a lot of time in my local Banks getting to know all the front office staff on familiar terms. As only a tepid monarchist I will easily find all the other dissent groups who oppose the monarchy and very easily become familiar with all the alternate society models together with all various routes, tacit to active dissent, as ways of changing the status quo. With such an array of potentially highly suspect contacts and potential alliances with groups out to thwart government authority I must surely pose a security risk? With all those alarm bells ringing how is any risk analyst going to know with any credence whether I have become radicalised or remain aloof to counter cultures? A presumption of guilt unless proven otherwise can only have one outcome, a ballooning of potential targets followed by a ever burgeoning security monitoring service increasingly hyper-active and hyper-sensitive. 

The only reliable safety valve we have, is the community we live within. That community has a past knowledge, a current expectation and a fairly robust future prediction of where I am and what I might be capable of at any period of time. No amount of data trawling can get anywhere near close to that level of community introspection. There is a catch, of course, as being one of us, part of their community, the community will cut me slack and make allowances for me, if challenged by Them (the Them of an outside of the community authority), for some transgression. A level of latitude that would not have been offered had I transgressed against the Us of the Community. An insider Us is protective of the outsider Them, (think again about a Locally Based Policemen being one of us as versus a visiting Policemen coming in from Them of the outside).

Intentions are ephemeral, to chase the ephemera of electronic chatter is as mindless as the Inquisitors chasing down Witches. Instead of yesterdays Witches we have the now current bogey of the Terrorist. Prove to me you a not a Terrorist is just as inane as proving I not a Witch! Only tangible discrete actions can be examined, challenging intentions leads to only to the morass. Anything that distracts or diffuses from that key transition point when an intention morphs into an action is to be deplored. When my charity intention is translated into actual action, dropping a 50p coin into a tin; hoisting a republican flag in my garden or strapping on a pretend body bomb to hold a Bank hostage, then you need to stay alert, to be on your marks. Not wasting resources chasing fantasy ghosts of your own creation. What we do all have to fear and remain ever vigilant to is the maverick loner. The loner living beyond reach of the community he lives within. Rather than expend wasted resources monitoring all electronic chatter, far, far better by miles is to trust in the local community. For the community to know and police their members. Do everything conceivable to reinforce, encourage and dissipating culture barriers so the connections within any community between its members, can flourish. 

In the end, this is the only reliable safety net we have. Meanwhile I must have the freedom to think the unthinkable, so I can arrive independently at my own moral judgements, yet safe, with the knowledge that the community I live amongst will keep me rooted in what is acceptable. No amount of electronic eavesdropping while ever provide a better secure safety net.

Battle Lines

The rich elite, and their aspirant hoping to join them politicians, continue to enjoy the products of the financial squeeze on all the rest of us. A squeeze that is due to tighten even further, as our government, elected to promote and protect our interests, draws up plans to combat the anticipate civil unrest! Officials are actively looking into the purchase, the deployment and how best to utilise water cannon  to be used against their own citizens. This would seem to be a perfectly okay, matter-of-fact and reasonable step to consider. Obviously if your citizens are rioting, you need to be able to control them, perfectly logical and commendable, maintaining law and order is surely a prime purpose of government.

Pause for one moment and ask why the government anticipate their own citizens might rise up and riot? The government policy of squeezing ever harder the lower income groups, slashing essential benefit, castigating all those that fail to endure their imposed restrictions as cheats, fraudster, idle and lazy, is central to this growing unrest. The government with head in the sand pursues the 'proven' past practices of avoiding recession by encouraging consumer spending, by taking out more loans which inflate house prices even further. Their only other action is to frenetically cut their own spending on the easy targets, why of course, all  those wilful people who refuse to get jobs and look to the State for support. Cut back on all those wasteful and unnecessary social support measures. If only those people got off their backsides and worked they would get along just fine. Mean while the government must encourage consumer spending, what better way then ensuring those successful people with money to spend are shielded from the economic savings being made else where, so they can get on and spend even more.

People will put up with hardship and endure intolerable conditions providing it is fair and equitable, we are all in it together, each taking their own share of the burden. Clearly this is not happening. You only have to lift you head a fraction to see all the evidence that we are in an ever growing unequal society. Never has the gap between those that have and those who cannot survive been so large. The government, instead of rushing to halt this growing gap, is intent on ensuring its increase, because, in their view, that is the only route to economic recovery. Hence a growing ground swell of intense dissatisfaction with an unequal society on one hand and the government taking steps to contain civil disorder on the other. Use Water Cannon on your own citizens to prove you are right. So Vote to support or Revolt to find a better solution.

Baffling silence

Just had our three major political parties annual conferences where they address the prevailing issues of the day. Not a mention of social inequality and the desperate need to reduce the gap. I confess I did not pay close attention, certainly did not read cover to cover all the various speeches. Yes I did pick up on one or two minor concessions that could be interpreted as paying a token lip-service to giving the underprivileged just a tad more. However the extremes between those that have and are getting more and those who do not have and are getting less, are so wide with the gap increasing at such a worrying rate.Nothing but a seismic shift in policy from any of three parties is going to even begin to change the present courses. That would have hit the headlines. Even I would have notice that. No, our political leaders attuned to the cares and worries of our Nation, are indifferent to the loss of self-respect, lack of hope and disassociation for the growing army that are having to give up more so that the few can enjoy. Those that have seek to isolate themselves from those that have not, ring fencing their privileged access to the key essentials of life, education, health and homes. A polarised society with a ghettoed rich isolated from the morass is a dangerous society, everyone is degraded by it, rich and poor alike.

The only word I hear is we must stay on course to ensure this slow recovery continues. All parties seem well content and satisfied in continuing to follow this Alice-In-Wonderland economic policy. A pyramid selling type of policy that is founded on creating money so we can spend more. That spending pays off the interest on past loans, so we must take out new loans to create the more money we need to spend to keep the wheels turning. If only we can increase our spending we can, we might, keep ahead of the spiralling debt interests that have to be paid. Just another pyramid selling scam but this one brokered by government.

Spending disproportionately of course, those with get even more while those with a little have to give up that little and those without have to do with even less. Never mind the rich spendings will trickle down as swill to feed the masses. Except that is not how it works. The rich are in a catch up race with the unseemly rich. The unseemly rich are grabbing ever more to show a gap and distance to those on their heels. Their spending is in the realm of the stratosphere, buying up banks that create money or controlling lead industries to set the prices that others must pay. You get the drift, the poor that have to give up are giving up even more to the outlets that the rich control and directly benefit from. Trickle down just does not trickle, another aspect of this crazed Alice-in-Wonderland economics. Economics based on principles where the real life consequences that fail to conform to theory are then assumed not to apply to the theory and can therefore be safely excluded. Told you Alice-in-Wonderland rules.

Entitlement

We all live with the presumption we are entitled to certain basics in life, be it shelter, food, education, employment, care, security, privacy or dignity. Should you live in a deprived part of our globe none of these can be taken for granted. That you are alive at this moment and might reasonably assume you will be alive for the next hour or perhaps the rest of the day is as far as you can presume anything. We however take our entitlements to the life we have for granted and are so casual to the point of indifference in seeking out and protecting what we have. After all it is our birthright.

We are entitled to nothing. Everything we do get comes only from the goodwill of society and that it is prepared to fund. It may well be in societies long term best interests to arrange everyone to have dry warm shelter, to have access to good nutritious food, to ensure children are educated. Without these basic steps the scale of consequential problems soar and scupper any societies attempts to hold the line. Does not turn it into a right, just a self-interest to do what is seen to be possible.

What is possible is all in the eye of the beholder, not the supplicants, not the egalitarian evangelist, not the pressure groups, just the one beholder who has the gift of deciding for that moment. Okay not entirely free choice as they too have to bow to media reactions, funding limitations,  public opinion, world expectations and their own sense of destiny. How our basic needs are catered for come down to whim and fancy. A far cry from any right and not even an entitlement.

Of course our one core entitlement is our privacy, that is sacrosanct. To have your privacy invaded is equal to being raped. Yet the State takes on itself to enter you anally, take you without notice and lock you up without any contact with the outside world, read all electronic communications, now and in the past, irrespective of subject or address, store your gene record to be read for whatever purpose its see fit and all in the name of some ill-defined Security of the State. Not just the State of course but any number of other bodies, even private commercial firms, are too granted the right to enter your property, with or without your consent, to take information or property it deems necessary. Your right to privacy is pretty shallow based. Just dont show your head above the parapet! Remember these things do happen to just ordinary people, just like you and me, not those evil twisted people, just ordinary guys caught up in some maelstrom they little know about or understand.

Never mind an englishmans home is his castle, so pull up the drawbridge. Not quite.  For example, the software you buy does not give you ownership, in many cases it just a licence to use with even restrictions on how you sell it on. Of course your music, video, DVD have restrictions on where or how you use it or make copies of it. Without touching on leases and ground rent, your house, the house that you own, may well have a charge on it. That charge might permit some other body to seize it and evict you from your own home. Extreme maybe but do not blithely assume just because you have bought something it is yours for ever and a day. It all depends on the sinuous threads of attachment other bodies have wrapped around your purchases.

We have no rights, we have no entitlements just many expectations, reasonable and wide spread expectations. The fundamental expectation that the you will be treated fairly and not significantly disadvantageously from any other person in your social milieu. Time for you to look around. In this rapidly increasing unequal society where those with take even more whilst those without, the least able to give anything, have to give up so they can have their more. Fairness and equity have gone out of the window. Your protectors of your rights, the MP's, have abandoned principle and sold out to personal betterment, financial clout or the mindless middle ground of dont rock the boat as we too might still climb aboard. Greed and self-interest abound. You are a drift at the mercy of whim and fancy without an entitlement to your name. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Take responsibility

If you are in a sharp suit, carrying a logo emblazoned handbag and are heavily bejewelled when you turn into a dark unlit street, with no passing traffic or other pedestrians, it should come as no surprise when you are mugged. Not that you wanted it, not that it makes it right because you put yourself in a position to be a target, nonetheless society still owes you a duty to track down the perpetrators but you did rather ask for it.

When you tumble from the club late of night out of your tiny skull with drink or drugs, unable to composure your standing or your mind, when you are dressed to display off your fine physique, broad shoulders, narrow waist accentuated lined eyes. That you are picked by a stranger, taken somewhere then raped should come as no surprise. It is not that your asked for it, it is not that it in anyway makes it right just because you exposed a vulnerability, nonetheless society still has a duty to treat the assault as a violation of you and to track down and punish the perpetrators but you did rather put yourself at risk.

When you as a non-parent adult put yourself into a position where you are with a child alone in a non-observed spot for a length of time it is within the realms of foresight that that child could go on to broadcast tales of abuse, whether fantasised, imagined, misconstrued, culture clashed or overreacted, it hardly matters, clearly, as a responsible adult your actions would be constrained, but we all know that children or even young not yet adults have vivid imaginations and can slant events beyond any reasonable interpretation. Nonetheless society has a duty to protect the young and prosecute any potential violator or predator of the young and vulnerable.

When you design your store so that in every direction the eye meets a continuous cascade of inviting and mouthwateringly tempting candy and when you place the only cash desk in some deep remote spot, way out of the way of fast selling lines, manned by one overwhelmed cashier with a six deep queue impatiently waiting their turn, dont be too surprised if customers take to walking out with your candy and not paying for it. Clearly you do want payment for your candy, offering it so temptingly does not confer any rights to take without payment and of course society must seek out and reprimand those who do succumb but you do rather ask for it by making it so easy to take, yet so tortuous to make payment for.

If you do not have a head for heights, dont climb rocks, you will fall. If you cannot swim dont jump into the water at the deep end, you will drown. It really is that simple. We all have to take responsibility for our own actions, we all have to constrain our hopes, desires and enjoyments so as to not put ourselves at undue risk. Just because society has a duty to sweep up and care for those those unfortunates who by mischance, lack of judgement, inexperience befall fates they did not expect does not confer any rights on anyone of us to be reckless. Just because society takes on itself a duty to apprehend and chastise those who set out to deceive, trick, entrap or overpower those who are weak, gullible or naive does not relieve each one of us of the need to exercise caution, a degree of circumspection, when dealing with strangers. Society is there as the backstop to pick up all those weird, wonderful and totally unexpected twists that life throws up, not as a day by day buffer shielding us from our own stupidity..

If your display of wealth is ostentatious, you take care. If your are sexually desirable, make sure you can stay alert to the risks of unwanted attention. If you let yourself be put into a compromised position do not rely on charging the other party of misconduct. If you rank making the sale way above protecting your stock dont claim the public are thieves. We all have to take responsibility for our own actions. It not for society to bail us out each and every time. 

Not Alone

Just one of those chance things in life, came across The Spirit Level and it has revealed an insight into society that I have been struggling with over all these posts.It has introduced a clarity of view as to where the problems lie. Not for me to paraphrase a carefully constructed argument, see for yourselves, but clearly the message it sets out is that the underlying root of all those problem we sense, fume against, feel impotent to do anything about, is, social inequality.

A couple of key thoughts perhaps to get you thinking along the right lines. We have long ago passed the point where any increase in wealth (you decide how you want to determine it) equates to a commensurate increase in security and health. Think, by way of comparison, of a third world person where a tin of clean water or a bowl of rice has immediate and large impact on their state of well-being. Next, our own personal insecurities are directly related to where we feel we are within the social order. Top dog struts proudly, whipping boy nervously peeks here there to see where the next put down is coming from. This social insecurity has been heightened by the breakdown in communities and knowing where and who you belong to. Then, the wider the gap between the haves and the havenots the more extreme are the symptoms that manifest themselves. It is almost counter intuitive, but low self-esteem, as a result of being low down in the pecking order, directly impacts on your personal well-being, likelihood to abuse, commit crime, the list goes on. Not the sole cause, not the only reason, but social deprivation, real or imagined, is a major driver.

At this point, poised to shout eureka, there are other minds out there all looking in roughly the same direction, I get a reality check. On past performance it takes fifty years from the first wave of enthusiasm for a new political understanding to work through up the layers of conservative rebuttal until it becomes the accepted norm when finally it can enter into the mainstream to become universally accepted and adopted. Fifty years!

What we all have to do is to use our own mastery of this new interconnected world to get the word out there. Spread as widely as possible. Take what you see and like and promulgate, contruct your own vision or borrow another's, it matters not. Just spread the word that we, us as a society, want a better place, a more equal place, a place where we are treated with the same respect we wish to give to others. It is just possible, together, we can foreshorten the fifty wait before something happens.

Man the Stockade

Walking down the High Street that person talking loudly for all to hear into their mobile is speaking eastern european. The people standing in the middle of the pavement deep in some detailed account, oblivious to the inconvenience they cause to all passer bys, are talking in eastern european. The accents of all those people you encounter in public places, behind tills, behind bars, serving food or drinks or cleaning rooms, are all heavy european accents struggling for a minimal command of our language. It might be the 'Ford Factor', buy one and then every other car you see is also a Ford. Or just maybe we are drowning in a flood of immigrants. Alarmed? Resentful? Far from it, it is just yet another invasion of economic or political refugees coming here in the hope of a life and bettering themselves. A long trail going back into the mists of distant times, Turkish, West Indian, Ugandan, Chinese, Pakistani, Jewish, German /Swiss, Huguenots and so on.

We need these workers willing to fill all those lowly menial jobs which are beneath our contempt or so badly paid as to jeopardise the state handouts. We need them to do those jobs, and to do them better, as we will not deign to stoop to undertake them. Giving them a chance to make a new start give us in return those creature comforts we cherish. Their ardour to overcome whatever circumstances forced them to leave the comfort of home, the familiar, friends and family places brings them to us. Where once here they can maximise those opportunities we can offer but are ourselves blasé and blind to. We need them just as much as they need us.

If we choose not to welcome them into our open arms and go out of our way to help them to see and understand this strange new society they have landed in, who can we blame if they congregate for comfort and mutual support? To seek comfort, support and security amongst those that are familiar with your native tongue and background is natural. By congregating in enclaves they become prime targets for cultural resentment at best or abuse at worse. On a level playing-field the following now British born generation would assimilate into their born-in culture, and, driven on by their parents struggles, will seize vigorously the opportunities our society offers to make entrepreneurial leaps. We win win. New blood, stronger gene lines and the excitement of new ideas or slants on old ideas.

We have to rediscover tolerance and keeping our eye on the long game. No matter how irritating their flouting of our traditional reserve and public good manners we must realise they are strangers to our ways and need time to learn. To keep the playing-field level we must push back against over zealous PC correctness that wants to ensure an ethnic and cultural past for children born in this our country. Also resist vehemently all attempts at racial discrimination, stereotyping and racial intolerance. The key word is assimilation.The sooner they meld into our culture, adopt our ways and begin to vehemently defend our corner the stronger and more resilient we are as a nation and the closer we can grow as communities. Absorb not reject.

Checks and Balances

In this vision of a new egalitarian society where we set aside the old first to the post winner takes all and instead work together to ensure everyone gets a fair share there will inevitably be problems. Leaders will emerge that the crowd will follow, most will be mainstream but some will be waywards off the regular tracks. Far rather than new rules and regulations are drawn up to prohibit or restrict them we have to encourage them to flourish. Regulation leads to centralism and totalitarian control. The opposite of the desired route of collective decisions meeting local needs and desires. The mavericks are needed to push the boundaries beyond the norm of conservatism. 



With flourishing contrast and compare examples widely available and highly visible, it is unlikely that communities will be led too far off the proven middle ground before they self correct. But there will always be the exception, and from time to time an exception will emerge that is hell-bent on self destruction along with his followers. What is Society to do? Their community, their choice, at what point can or should the collective wider society step in? What if the maverick leads them deeper and deeper into financial ruin they can never ever hope to recover from? Debts only the wider society can possibly bail them out of. 


So the question is when the wider societal community is put at risk by a community who has the authority to countermand their self-selected choices and who can instigate due redemption and ensure it is extracted? In the end it is the coming together of fellow communities to say this step is a step too far, we hold you to account for your wilful choices. Just as a parent would to a wilful teenager. The teenager has to be given the chance and support to try out a new and different lifechoice but the parent has to be the ultimate safety net to say that is just too far and takes us beyond what we can countenance. Check and balances. Always looking to see what impact your actions have on your neighbours and accepting that they have the right to comment and criticise your actions when they impinge on their freedom to make choices. None places themselves where others becomes disadvantaged. Throw away the centralised rules and regulations and let goodwill and commonsense rule us.

Smoking Mirrors

The Media reflects but also modifies the society it mirrors. The Media can only survive and prosper if it hits the funny bone every time. So it always has concentrated on permutations of the gory, the tragic, the spectacular, the shameful, the lusting and the voyeuristic. It is just that nowadays the media has so refined its targets, honed in on our subconscious trigger, it can hit the G-spot of sensitivity each and every time. This is distorting our perception of what we are, how we respond and is leading us to adopt new attitudes that are not reflective us as people or a society. The media distortion of us and our view of our reflections is channelling our future reactions, the role model we hold and use to navigate life by.

When our favourite soap 'deals' with a difficult issue, what ever it is this time round, child abuse, family rape, racial hatred, partner beating, gang banging, let us just stop and pause for thought. They are not 'dealing with it' they are cashing in on horrendous social issues, using those issues to pull in viewers and push up their ratings. We must learn to rush to our social networks, by twitter or facebook or what ever and challenge all those simplistic, one dimensional characters and situations and scream out loud, this is not true. Life is much more complicated and convoluted. Life is not simple black and white with  a single start and stop point. Protest out load that their representation is selling us and all victims, so so short. The emotional nightmare of love in jeopardy, distrust and hate cannot be conveyed by one line put downs.There is no one person walking off into the sunset or taken off to jail, or some such simple resolution. Everyone that comes into contact with the events is tainted and carry the corruption onwards about their person for years into the future and on into all their furture relationships. Get that across and then you are 'dealing with it' and doing us all a service by sharing the visceral agonies of life when it goes off the rails.


The next time we surrender to a fantasy world, to escape the gritty realities, let us hang on to some semblance of logic, connection, plausibility, some portrayal of life as all of us do experience it. As we lose ourselves in impossible relationships, gut wrenching bodies torn asunder and mechanical Armageddon, just pause and reflect you are a member of the human race that has to negioate, deal and some how live in a kind of harmony with all other humans. This is not the way life is. Again use your networks and protest out loud at all improbable, implausible plots characters and situations. Beyond your experience sure but not beyond any imagaineable reality. Escape yes but keep some semblance of realism. Keep it possible to translate back to a life we actually have to live. Ridicule plots that jump from one imponderable to another and another without any rythme or reason ever offered. Suspense, oh yes but not adondonment of all logic.

Time for us shape the media we use to reflect the society we aspire to be. Do not accept being pandered to, do not accept pap, stand up and demand to be treated as an adult going about in a adult world. Challenge all that offer anything other, use your voice.

Keeping to Rules

Some rules such as we shall not kill one another, we shall not take what does not belong to us, we shall drive on the left and give way to the right are plain simple ways of organising ourselves so we can live together with the minimum of friction. We regard these self-imposed rules as universal, cast in stone, everyone in our society subscribes to them without question. Some where in the layers apon layers of these rules we adopt to guide our path through life we reach rules which are clearly old-fashioned and not to be followed any more, like chew each mouthful thirty times, like never go out unless properly dressed in coat or jacket and hat, like never to jump a queue or always make way for those weaker than you.

Then there are those other rules and regulations imposed on you by authority. You shall pay your TV licence, you will not drop litter, you cannot enter private property, if your tyre treads are less than that specified you will replace or risk a penalty imposed you. All sensible elaborations of our self-imposed rules which help keep the wheels we rely on turning with the minimum of friction. Even though we might chafe at the detail the general principles seems loud and clear.

To live within the protection of our society we all accept we have to surrender to authority. Go along with decisions from others on how or what we may or must do. It is accepted that we abdicate any right to decide the reasonableness, or appropriateness for ourselves. We will do as we are told, without question, without challenge. This is the proper price to be paid for living within a community that shields, protects and nurtures us all on a broadly equitable level.

We expect our leaders, those in authority over us, to be decisive even proactive, to stop wrongs and injustices occurring and to make restitution to those that have been transgressed against. Now that our leaders are chosen and require a minimal mandate from us, from time to time, they need to be seen to be effective. They need to flex their use of the powers granted them to do things, make things happen. What we end up with is a culture of knee jerk responses. Every incident that claims some notoriety must result in a counter reaction. Some new law, some new regulation has to be passed to demonstrate to all that our leaders are effective and in control.

So we live drowned in a plethora of control, rules, restrictions and sanctions, some good but by far away most, with the benefit of time, too hasty and failing to deal decisively with the issue. A deluge of rules often inconsequential, contradictory, irrational and almost all failing to connect with any universal sense of pragmatic fairness and propriety. A deluge precipitated by and drowned out by the media whipped chorus clamouring for our leaders to do some thing about some incident or other.

We humans are complex social animals. We each have our own individual take on the world. No one person sees the colour red the same as another. Enough of us can compare and agree that what we are looking at is red but the red as sensed by each of us might well be different. If we cannot have something as basic as seeing the colour red in common, what chance is there for any of us to agree on a rules which are fair and right for all of us. Society, life and us as a social organism are so complex that no sets of rules, no matter how voluminous, can ever even nearly prescribe our behaviour. Calling on our leaders to fix it is the ultimate cop out and doomed to failure.

As I have explored before in Saunter to Totalitarianism there is no substitute for each of us taking responsibility for what is going on around us. Not our current leader, not our government, not the local councillors, but us, the me. What am I going to do. If something is going on I do not like, it is for me individually or collectively with my neighbours or my community to sort it out. Not someone else, me. Not defer to some remote agency, but to get stuck in and decide an effective way to resolve the mutually agreed nuisance. Woe betide if you agree to restraints that come back to bite you. This is not a charter for vigilantes, after all a child of yours might be a culprit or victim. No just people using common sense and pragmatism to resolve issues that are pertinent to them. Learn from their mistakes and refine their conclusions next time round. So what if our nation becomes diffuse with different codes of conduct, dependant on where you are. So what if you feel out of place moving around within an new strange community. Perhaps this is right and proper that you pay attention to wishes of the community you now find yourself within. Maybe there really should be several speeds in our nation between city to town to village. Perhaps differentiation is actually the missing ingredient of what makes a community and in the end ties us together as a homogeneous society.

There is Another Way

Just read an article that has given me hope, great hope, 'Evolution of Inequality, New Scientist, 28.07.2012'. I am no longer that nutter aspiring to impossible dreams. There are alternatives, so they are achievable if only we want them enough. Our capitalist based society of the winner grabs the lions share and gets to dictate has only been around for some 5,000 years. Whether or not you accept the premise that prior to that our hunt gatherers ancestors lived an egalitarian lifestyle  matters not. What does count is that there is an alternative to grab first and hoard. He with the biggest hoard gets to take his pick of what is available,  grab more and then use his hoard to buy fealty. The rich just get richer and richer off the backs of the poor, too poor and weak to resist.

The alternative is an egalitarian society where we look out for each other and make sure that what we have is no more than what anyone else has. No one is left in need or want, the group looks after it kin, as the weakest bring them all down, but together they have strength beyond the sum of their parts.

Just the required fresh new way of looking at our world as we have passed beyond the tipping point, where our plunder of its resources exceeds its capacity to replace or regenerate. We have to get back to a more frugal way of life. We have to stop putting our own little clique first and start to ensure all people born on this planet have some hope of a life not too disparate from our own expectations. A way to minimise our use and waste of scarce earth resources. A chance to rein in the incomprehensibly wild extravagances of the few and to look carefully at what the earth is able to offer so that we can all have a comparable share in it. Not equality. Not match for match, but comparable, not so disparate as to give rise to resentment, but a rough and ready fairness dependant on global position, climate and ease of access to resources.

Of course the bully boys and their cohort thugs have ruled the roost for millennia. Each generation is born with them as their only their role model of, take what you want and answer to nobody, as the possible viable route to follow. They are not going to give up their inherited accustomed rights and privileges. Yet their excesses can only be fuelled by the acquiescence of the masses that go without. So it is mutable, but whether peacefully or their rush to force can only be countered by a matching force, is the question to be addressed.

There are prospects, not everything we value in life is based on what can be obtained by force. Appreciation, respect, attention, these give an inkling of an Achilles heel that could bring the capitalist tyrants to book, maybe. Assuming, as a daydream, we overthrow our capitalist society and replace it with a society founded on egalitarianism, the battle is not over. There is always, in every society, it is in our human nature, the small percentage of cheaters, who claim full shares but hold back and conceal their gains. Or even worse steal or take by force when no one is looking. Nothing new here I guess. Like our hunter gatherer ancestors before us, the consequences of becoming a social pariah has to outway any advantage gained by stealing a march. When we all share in the same comparable distribution of resources, when we all know what we are entitled to, it does take the heat out of the need to go one better.

The longer you contemplate an egalitarian society the more it reveals in it a new calmness, the need to work together rather than to complete. How the world could begin to start out afresh in a new dimension. Inspirational but not beyond realisable.

Rip off GB style

I have this very nasty taste in my mouth, been with me for several weeks, try as I can to rinse it out, the bile keeps coming back. Something just is not right. The idea of people at the peak of their physical achievement contesting with others to see who is best is inspirational. So gladiatorial a match needs to be restricted to just once every five years. To host such a contest for the world should be an honour, a celebration of your Nations stature and achievements. So far all so good.

The cost of providing state of the art facilities, accommodating all the athletes with attendant followers, the media and not forgetting all the officials on their jollies is eye-wateringly huge. Just a pared down version let alone a full on lets swank and show the world what we can do version. The returns are proportionate, many immediate in increased traffic, visitors and all those logistics of making a large event happen. Some less tangible and down stream, the shadow of prestige, a heighten world wide awareness of the image put out there and the after effect of gung-ho we can that we can do anything.

Contrary to all the nay sayers, GB Ltd won the rights, has built on time to a budget that retains some allusion of credibility, without the hostage strikes of past decades, a worthy venue. Brilliant. National pride should be soaring. Instead I have this bile in my mouth. Quite rightly the government has chosen not to fund it all out of the public purse and has invited sponsors, large sponsors so inevitably commercial sponsors wanting to make a buck on the back of the biggest circus in town. No problem here either. For all its flaws the commercial world helps keep this world spinning and giving people what they think they need.

My problems stems from that having invited in sponsors it was not then necessary to roll over and grant them cart-blanc, a licience to riff off all and sundry as their prize for being a sponsor. No, their reward is supposed to just come from being intimately associated with a winning event. Instead we have restrictions, no liquid to be brought in, no food to be brought in, no alter logos to be worn, only the sponsors and their products are to be allowed once inside. I have good memories of families with a packed lunch for all going to a national event and having a great family time. Sorry but MacDonalds or coca-cola  are not my idea of healthy wholesome food fit to feed my family on. This is a celebration of commercial greed and a total disdain for freedom, liberties and an empowered citizenry.

It does not stop there. These games were supposed to be for all the people, to enjoy and to have lasting benefit from. The host cities were expected to make sacrifices for the greater good. Putting up with rushed through building sites, giving up transport access and accepting disruption to the norm chaos. Who would be so mean as to put at risk a great celebratory national event just for a few days of inconveniences. Surely everyone would squeeze up a little tighter to ensure the athletes, and the marshals, got to the event in time to perform at their best? Except of course all things are not equal. Who signed up to and agreed that the sponsors clients could also join in on the Olympic Expressway. Who thought it fair and equitable that there very best seats, up close to the favourite finishing lines should be set aside for sponsors clients? These best seats that were never offered to Joe Public. Joe Public never got even a look in. That Joe Public, who in their own small ways, made and are making, bigger contributions to the success of the games than the commercial sponsors who merely sliced off a piece of an already planned advertising budget, which was probably tax deductible in any event. A large cheque for sure, but minuscule and insignificant in corporate operating costs. What puffed up buffoon thought it necessary to seek legal sanctions against anyone with the temerity to refer to or incorporate a reference to the London 2012 Olympic Games, unless of course they were already on the sponsor list. This is not an individuals, a collection of individuals or even an London Games delivery committees, preserve. These games can only happen with the good will, support and acceptance of all the inconveniences of all of the people living in the host cities and of the Nation as a whole. It is a National event. We should all be joining in and sharing to all the tumultitude of excite and references to these, once in our life times, games. Not to be harangued by a jobsworth commissar for daring to make a reference to 'our' event.

Obviously these are not the result of actions of a sole individual or even a small clique, this is a tier apon tier of decision makers and decision ratifiers. What astounds me is that no one has stood back and said hey this is out of hand, this is commercialisation gone crazy. Clearly there was not amongst all those tiers a person with any sense of social propriety, with a sense of fairness and, rough, equity. The blanket assumption seems to be that milking the market for all it is worth and to hell with ethics is perfectly proper, even natural.

Let us hope and even pray that the London Games 2012 will be remembered for superb outstanding athletic achievements and not the crass, rampant, unchecked blatant squalid commercialisation at every single opportunity. A mood so far away from the soaring aspirations driving the Olympic movement (outside of GB Ltd). Not a reflection on GB Ltd I would wish our visitors to take away. I would rather hang on to the old fashioned, fair, generous, inclusive and welcoming GB Ltd that I used to know.

P.S. Just watched the opening ceremony. A complex story told with style, pace, humour, energy and panache. The flame cauldron will take some beating and the river of gold will last as a visual image. So almost embarrassed to be carping on but this grand opening still does not excuse or make acceptable the tacky squalid profit before people approach behind the organisation. Even heightens it, the GB Ltd image of the Opening was so right in so many ways whilst the elevating of sponsors over the people is just so wrong an image of GB Ltd.

Going On One Hundred

There was a charming TV programme, 'How to Live Beyond 100', all about people still able to live active lives when they were 100+. So good to have positive images rather than the usual downbeat doom and disaster ahead. Taken with other strands that are also running, it time to pause for thought, there are a lot of threads running behind this issue.

First off, for everyone that is still 'active' at 100+, there are manyfold others who are trapped, trapped in bodies or minds that do not permit them any active role. They have subsided into a total dependence on others for the daily chore of living, see also my post Waiting to Die.

Secondly as we 'baby-boomers' decline into old age the demographics rockets sky high. From being a rarity to survive until 100, now there are some 12,000 and shortly this will become 90,000 was we get into our stride. By the time our grandchildren grow to old age 100+ will have become the norm of life expectancy.

Thirdly it is incontrovertible that as we age beyond the 60's to 70's our bodies and minds are no longer able to perform as they once did, see also my post Retire at 70+!. All past excesses and poor gene choices come to haunt and rack a frail body or mind. Maybe science, medicine or better life choices might stave off the day, but mechanical or mental failure is the inevitable and inescapable consequence of ageing. We will each need support in some form or other to get by. Logistically large numbers of frail old people will have to benefit from support.

In the meantime our Government considers it appropriate and fitting that the retirement age for all is deferred to the 70's or even later. As a blunt answer to the economics of funding an ageing population it is unchallengeable but the social consequences are horrendous. The physical and mental deterioration that occurs with advancing age means you simply cannot compete with younger work colleagues. The end result is you have to step down, accept to be sidelined, reduced to taking on menial roles, pushed aside whilst watching others more productively undertake what was once your domain. That is a big ask, to carry on pushing a increasing frail body to do work but being surrounded by evidence of your failure to undertake it. Does this reflect a caring society with a compassion for its elderly? Or a society that is only looking at balance it books, to hell with the personal consequences?

I had hoped the programme would open the window of how these centenarians saw and viewed the changing society around them. Not to be. There is no ducking it, this ageing poses two crucial dilemmas. Why live to 100+ and what do we do when 100+. We live to 100+ because our skills have made it possible and there is no other alternative. Medical interventions ensure all the easily curable diseases are cured. There are no knock out illnesses or diseases left, other than the ones beyond the reach of medicine, that used to mean death by the 70's was the norm. All we are left with are causes of death beyond cure, such as the cancers, or parkinson, alziemers or dementia. Not for everyone, but what is left for the large majority who do not succumb to these killers, what is left to bring their long lives to an end?

In the meantime they face the inevitable, inescapable increasing dependency on other to support and provide the means you can no longer cope to provide for yourself. Surrender yourself into the hands of salaried carers. Now our Government has decided that this should not be a charge on the State, if you have independent financial means. You should pay for your own care first off. Apart from weasely caveats, this begs several questions. Where is a line to be drawn between say a terminal bedridden cancer patient or confused wanderer with no conscious recollection putting themselves and society at larger at risk, both clearly in need of constant medical support. As against an impaired person, mentally sound, but physically unable to carry out day to day tasks of feeding cleaning and dressing. Sound like a Solomon's judgement to me. Inherently unfair.

We as a Society, through our Government, have decided that the family home, invested in, harbouring precious memories, a depository for all the family hopes and expectations must be sold to pay off a russian lottery outcome. You are decreed insufficiently incapacitated and it has been decided you have the means, so you shall pay. How outrageously unfair and inequitable. Never mind that with the Governments connivance house values have gone beyond the reach of youth and their only hope to claim a home of their own is a share in their parents inheritance. It tastes exceedingly bad to me. Society is so much more than economic book balancing. It has to be about respect, compassion and a rough but overal even equity.

The final part I want to raise is why would anyone choose to live upto 100, let alone beyond a 100. If life has a meaning, it is about being able to contribute. Plenty of avenues to agree or disagree on the significance of contribute and to what. The ageing are no longer able to physically or mentally compete. They now require support and assistance just to get from day to day. We as a Society have chosen to turn our backs on the one significant contribution the aged can still offer. They have accumulated experience, wisdoms and a longer perspective having seen many iterations of events and peoples reactions to those events. In a youth centric world, these views from a past are brushed aside, marginalised even laughed at for being quaint and so irrelevant. The arrogance of youth. With their one gift trounced our aged are left nothing to contribute but their memories. Instead of being revered for being pillars of wisdom with a canny understanding of how life works, they are dismissed as a costly drain taking up precious and unaffordable human resources better spent elsewhere.

In life we make, or have made for us, choices which set up a flow of consequences. We have chosen to intervene and use our medical skills to take away natures calling card. There is no longer a natural end game for most. We have chosen to marginalise our elderly so they can longer contribute meaningfully into society. We have chosen to regard them as a cost liability to be born by society rather than a debt of honour. We must now face the consequences of those choices and we have to replace natures calling card with a calling card of our devising so that our tired elderly can say, in their own time, enough is enough, and then let them go peacefully, without financial harassment. In peace and in dignity. Tough call. Get it right because in due time you too will incur the consequences.

Hands that do Dishes

Once we led the way to an industrialised society. Utilising the skills of all our craftsmen and artisans honed over the centuries, we fashioned new ways to meeting tomorrows desires. Now we hardly make anything or at best assemble some others production. Too puny to take on the world markets with an exhausted worn out industry that has since been pulverised. Just the memories of a once rich trading nation linger on.


End of the line? Relegated forever to being a service provider, licking the boots of those nations with the wealth? Not my view of our Nation. We do have to reinvent ourselves of course. As a staring point then, an inventory. An inventory of our handworking skills, not our software or accounting, but those skills we have had to make or fashion objects. As a nation we are noted for being creative, skilled in adapting, having a high technical competences and a wealth of generations of passed on craft skills. 

This is the resource pool we need to capitalise on before we lose everything. We promote ourselves to do what we are really good at. The one-off, the proto-type the pre-production modelling, the mould maker, the pre-production test bed, this is our forte. Able to access and modify the electronics and software controls with the craft skills to fashion hightech products out of raw material or re-cycled spare parts. With the ingenuity to see solutions where others see impossible problems and a high design backoffice to call on. This is what we take to the world market and flog. Got an idea, let us flesh it out for you and demonstrate how it can be turned into a marketable product and on to mass production.


We have to seize this vision of a future and invest in the infrastructure to make it happen. Invest in apprenticeships in all the old and current production techniques, encourage the setting up of production plant and develop the skills to operate them. So invest in schools, training, materials sciences, production techniques and electronic and software controls. Certainly not directly by central government who have a proven deadhand in the status quo but making start-up grants and loans readily available with generous extended paybacks for 'successful' businesses. Let our budding entrepreneurs seek out the rich seams, let them use their ingenuity to overcome market obstacles. Government being there, consistent, supportive, encouraging, being helpful when needed and quick to network problems to solution finders. That way we might still have a meaningful future as a Nation.