Now I will admit to, what a friend of mine calls, naivety in some areas of my life; something that manifests itself in trust in people as a starting point. I take that as a given. After all you can’t live your life day to day on mistrusting everyone. I am, therefore, still an optimist, albeit a slightly more cynical one these days. I do, however, still believe that the overwhelming majority of the people on the planet are decent and honest and, usually, trying to do their best for their families and friends. Unfortunately what I also see is a government that, despite all its public utterances, seems to regard the general populace as unworthy of all those things, that its own individual members and those of the people that they all meet, regard as necessary to live their wellbeing.
This is reinforced these days by an international business model that is not as considerate of its customers as you would hope that it might be. And, whereas some years ago, the mantra was “the customer is always right”, the reality these days is that there are now millions of them globally and, if they have a problem, it is easier to get new customers than deal with existing ones. This itself is fed by a conveyor belt of consumer goods that seems never to stop. The argument is, of course, that this is what people want. After, of course, you have spent millions of pounds on advertising just to nudge them in the right direction. Which is, you’ve guessed it, the company’s product(s). This is also aided and abetted by newspapers that are anything but. In fact, some of them contain little in the way of facts and a great deal in the form of misinformation, bigotry and prejudice.
I, for example, am always amazed at the fact that nuclear power is promoted as being cheaper that the alternatives when no allowance is made for the cost of disposing of the waste; a problem that we have yet to find a long term solution to. Then they wonder why we are cynical. So, is there an alternative?
Well, yes, there is. It’s to question everything (especially yourself) and keep those working for those ideals that you still hold to be true. It may not be much but, in these, less hopeful times, we have to pass onto the next generation some thoughts about a world that could be. Without that, there will be even less chance of getting it. If you should want to see examples of this world, google “Goodland” and an article by John Studzinkski