The word that dominated my upbringing was ‘moderation’. During and after WWII the excesses of violence were new to someone of my age, but reminders to older people of the disasters of WW1 – ‘the war to end all wars’. Nuclear bombs then gave a new meaning to war. The extermination of millions of people at one stroke was quickly seen as a possible end to life on the planet. Treaties were put in place to try to prevent such armageddon. So far they have worked. Now new armaments and forms of greater destruction threaten survival.
Chief among them is social media – not the media themselves, they are tools. The content of largely anonymised vitriol poured onto the eyes and ears of people whose education and upbringing has not equipped them to deal with it is threatening the stability of even the most placid societies. When peaceful, ‘muddle-through’ Britain becomes a hotbed of riots something has gone seriously wrong. Attacking the police to show your disapproval of crime would seem to be well beyond the fringe of madness.
Quite apart from the stupidity of destroying what we work hard to create, we need to look at what is taking hold of people for whom common sense would seem to imply a way of life they can no longer imagine. Are they eating too much food and thus generating so much energy that they have to riot to exercise it off? Have they been taught that the world owes them and they owe nothing? Don’t they connect effort with enjoyment or work with wisdom?
Has the ferocious faith so many exhibit misled them into believing that grab is greater than give? Has the word love become disembowelled to mean lechery? Don’t clerics observe how much more successful are societies that involve women in their management and planning? Do these questions appear to be frivolous and provocative?
If the answer to the last question is ‘yes’ that is proof conclusive that humankind has failed to develop its thinking capacity to match its technological genius. A dissociation between the two is more dangerous than a battery of hydrogen bombs. Such an anomaly does exist and we should be devoting at least ten times our present resources to teaching values, personal responsibility and how to enjoy life.
All three have deteriorated in my lifetime.
The greatest lesson of life, which starts to be learned on the first day of our time on earth, is that we can’t have everything. Those who nearly do so lead a miserable existence of insecurity and attempted excess – the one to protect their possessions, the other to prove achievement. I once knew the then richest man in the world. And his eighteen bodyguards on twenty-four hour rotation, and his dozen or so Alsatian dogs trained to kill. Impressive or pathetic? Both, actually – and that was the problem.
Now we have greed as the earthly deity of achievement and poverty as the driver of effort to destroy it. The price of the clash between the two is a restlessness of dissatisfaction that creates a fusion of fear and a despondency of despair. The only escape many can see is self expression personified by violence, noise and hatred. All three of which cause loss, pain and deprivation.
If values were better understood, consequences would be, too.
Far Left and Far Right don’t educate, they incite. They are the new nuclear. Treaties will not restrain or redirect them. Laws will merely exacerbate the problems they exhibit.
Future humanity is in our hands today. Shall we moderate it?
Or what?
Good morning
John Bittleston
Are you far left or far right? If so, do you disagree?
Please do tell us at [email protected]. Thank you.
5 Aug 2024
