Everyone’s a Hypocrite

A few weeks ago, Formula One racing driver Lewis Hamilton publicly announced that he was going vegan. The reasons he gave for this were threefold – his personal health concerns as he ages, a love of animals and his desire to prevent cruelty towards them, and to avoid damaging the planet. But it was the latter alone that was widely reported and ridiculed in the days that followed.

While a wish to save the Earth might sound silly coming from a man who has made a career and a fortune out of pumping copious amounts of harmful gases into the atmosphere, it’s no more ludicrous than paying to offset our carbon footprint when booking a flight, which a lot of us will have done without question or fear of derision. It made me wonder how many of the people who mocked him are well informed enough to know that the global meat industry actually causes more pollution than all of our driving and flying emissions combined, and I also wondered what they as individuals are actively doing to remedy the situation.

Personally, I don’t believe that the perceived piousness of Lewis Hamilton cancels out his good intentions, and I think he deserves credit for the fact that at least he’s taking some action towards making positive change and upholding his principles. I’m pretty sure that the smug journalists who delighted in pointing out his double standards have at some point in their lives contradicted themselves, and that the virtuous existing vegans who questioned his worthiness of the title don’t live perfectly moral and ethical lives, yet both camps and a lot of people in between felt it was their place to climb onto their high horses, making them instantly guilty of exactly the same crime they accused him of. Because the sad fact is, everyone is a hypocrite.

I absolutely include myself in this – I’m a vegetarian who consumes copious amounts of milk and cheese, even though I know the dairy industry is every bit as cruel and harmful to the environment as the meat industry is. I’m an environmentalist who drives and flies all over the world, and doesn’t always recycle. I’m against human exploitation, yet I buy products from companies I know support this. I could go on and on, and if you honestly think about and research your own lifestyle choices, you’ll find you’re exactly the same.

We’re all so quick to point out hypocrisy in others, particularly politicians and the rich and famous, but ignore it in ourselves. How dare Westminster praise the firefighters and NHS staff who dealt with the Grenfell Tower disaster and then vote against their fair pay weeks later? Who are multi-millionaire, tax-dodging pop stars to tell us, the relative poor, to give aid to those in extreme poverty? How can the religious, who will go to war and kill millions for their gods, then proclaim to be pro-life when it comes to abortion?

Sadly, they’re all symptoms of the inconsistency of human nature, and of living in a fast-paced, out-of-control modern world of convenience that makes it difficult for anyone to stick to their beliefs or even truly be able to choose how they live. Even more sadly, it breeds and raises people who are all talk and no action, who profess to want change, preach about it a great deal and sit in the comfort of their homes ‘raising awareness’ of things that everybody already knows about but chooses to ignore. Nobody wants to be the one to make the huge efforts it would take to bring it. It’s astounding that people then still have the nerve to criticise those who do their bit to try.

The fact is, the modern world makes it impossible to uphold standards and ideals. Walking or riding a bike everywhere is harder and more time-consuming than driving, and makes it difficult to transport people or things where we need them to be. It’s much easier and nicer to travel long distances by plane than to spend weeks at sea, to pick ready-made food and clothing off a shelf, and be selfish with our hard-earned money, and buy everything in our homes from corporate mass-producers. We don’t want to give those things up and make life difficult for ourselves again, and we couldn’t keep up with the rest of the world if we did. Ironically, it’s also often more expensive to attempt to live an ethical, sustainable life, and those who attempt it can be the biggest hypocrites of all. I know people who make very honourable efforts to produce their own food and cause minimum environmental impact and waste, and yet their choice to live in remote areas requires them to drive gas-guzzling 4x4s to get around. They want to live outside of our broken, unprincipled society, yet still demand healthcare when sick, and help from the emergency services when in danger.

Taken to extremes, and even if it’s only through the governments and companies we fund, we are all, on some level, consumers and supporters of exploitation, destruction, cruelty, even murder. Therefore any efforts that anyone makes to live by their opposing principles in the face of this puts them at risk of hypocrisy, and equally anyone who judges a hypocrite for being one is throwing heavy bricks around the inside of a very fragile glass bubble.

While hypocrisy is judged as abhorrent, it is almost unavoidable. It’s inevitable that our views will change as we advance through life, and it’s often people’s worst mistakes that teach them their greatest lessons. Just as ex-smokers, or doctors who smoke themselves are often the loudest advocates of non-smoking, and those who have suffered and recovered from mental illness or addiction often go into counselling others with the same problems, sometimes it’s those experiences that ultimately justify the person’s beliefs, better them, and benefit those around them, and surely they’re the ones with the most right to talk about the issues involved. Preaching about something you have no real understanding or experience of is like a child insisting they dislike vegetables they’ve never actually tasted. It’s every bit as hypocritical as parents who eat and enjoy sweets but then tell their children not to do the same because they’re bad for them. Betraying principles and changing or challenging beliefs as life progresses doesn’t make people’s arguments for the greater good invalid, but often strengthens them. We’re told not to listen to hypocrites, but if we didn’t, we’d never progress or learn anything. 

The fact that we’re all hypocrites doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do better, or be commended for doing so. We should rather use it as fuel for positive change. I’m a great believer that even if we can’t live purely or in total alignment with our values, that we should still always strive to do what we can. A small difference is still a difference, and if everyone made little, achievable changes to their lives, it would have a huge impact overall. While we are only human, and may never hope to adhere completely to our ideals, I think it’s important to uphold what is possible within the confines of our lives. It’s surely healthier than ignoring them completely. So I would encourage everyone to find their own truth and live by that, just don’t impose it on everyone else or worry about their opinions of yours.

Maybe the best we can do is to acknowledge that we are hypocrites, but at least we’re doing what we can, and that’s what’s important; and maybe hypocrisy only becomes hypocrisy when we start to become self-righteous and judge others, so that’s what should be avoided. When unsolicited judgement comes my way, I remind myself that it would happen whatever I do, and I’d much rather be seen as a hypocrite doing their best than a sanctimonious preacher who ignores their own flaws, or an apathetic shirker with no principles whatsoever. And there I go, judging people for judging people. Everyone’s a hypocrite, after all. 

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False Positives

No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell

Carl Jung

I’m not a psychologist like Mr Jung, but I am a human being who has lived a life containing its fair share of turbulence, and there’s a modern taboo that I would very much like to dispel. Negative emotions are essential, natural parts of being human, have just as much value and will benefit you just as much, maybe even more than positive emotions. There, I said it.

It might be an unpopular opinion, but I’m ultra suspicious of people who always seem happy. To me, it’s not normal, healthy, or conducive to a full, enriching life. I also don’t believe it can possibly be genuine, and I’d much rather people are well-rounded and authentic than hide the less socially acceptable parts of themselves. It might not make those people permanently fun to be around, but it certainly makes them more interesting and real. There’s a lot of truth in the old saying that if you can’t handle someone at their worst, then you don’t deserve them at their best, and nobody should give their time and energy to fair-weather friends.

We live in a media and image obsessed world where we’re taught to share and express positive emotion as widely as possible, but to hide the negative underneath words we don’t mean and smiles that don’t reach our eyes. We tell everyone we’re fine when really, we’re far from it. We try to make out that our lives are better than they really are. When we’re struggling, people advise us to cheer up, get over it, and move on.  Everybody moans about miserable statuses on social media and dismisses them as self indulgent or attention-seeking. If we don’t overcome our issues or move on fast enough, we may be accused of brooding or becoming bitter, or even bringing further misery on ourselves with our bad vibes. While well-intentioned, this kind of judgement can generate further negative emotions, like the guilt of being unable to function at your best, and the shame of letting other people down, which can only be detrimental to wellbeing and recovery from life’s troubles.

For me, ignoring or distracting yourself from the problem doesn’t make it go away. Emotional pain is as valid as physical pain, and shouldn’t be treated any differently. It’s the body’s way of letting you know something needs attention, and trying to cover it up is like putting a band aid over a deep, open wound. Masking our negative emotions instead of fully engaging with them is often what makes us feel worse. I’m not talking about over-honouring these feelings, or crawling under a rock and letting them destroy us, but it is vital to honour, accept and fully experience them, to really learn what they mean and how best to let them go when the time is right. Sometimes the only way to get past something is to go right through it, and completing that process at your own pace and not the one the world dictates is what will actually stop you from hanging onto the negativity and letting it consume you from the inside out in the long term. It’s not wallowing, it’s simply living your truth and healing in your own time. You know deep down that this too shall pass and that life will get better, but at the time, you’re sad and introspective, and that’s absolutely understandable and okay.

Because as usual, your mother was right. Life’s not fair. It’s never going to be all sunshine and rainbows, you won’t necessarily receive all that you deserve, and it would be silly and setting yourself for disappointment to expect to always be happy and fulfilled. At some point, probably more than once, it’s likely that you’ll lose someone or something that you love deeply, and you’ll get your heart broken or your dreams shattered in any number of other ways. Sometimes life will be purely hardship and devastation, despite your best efforts. Sometimes even your best efforts seem pretty weak and may not look like much to other people, but if that’s all you have to give at the time, continuing to give anything at all is admirable and should be respected. Life’s traumas are quite often totally out of our control, the world can be a cruel place, and bad things frequently happen to good people. There are even occurrences in life you can never fully get over, all you can do is learn to live with them, and you deserve the time and space to deal with that in whatever way suits you best. I for one would never wish to be the kind of person who isn’t hurt or upset or even damaged by those experiences. Life is beautiful, and it’s beautiful because of those things, not in spite of them.

Everything in life exists on a sliding scale of opposites, and every action has an equal and opposite reaction. They’re all of equal worth. Just as courage needs fear in order to exist, light needs dark and happiness needs sadness. If you deny one, you discredit the other. It’s impossible to dull down or numb the negative half of your feelings without that affecting the positive half, so if you never allow yourself to feel sad, angry, resentful or envious, then it stands to reason that you’ll also be unable to allow yourself to feel truly joyous, peaceful, contented or grateful.  It’s all about balance, and the scales will inevitably tip one way or the other in between the times when they settle. If we’re taught to be present and fully embrace the good times, then surely we should be present and fully embrace the bad times too. They’re just as much an intrinsic part of the whole, and being whole is infinitely preferable to being predominantly positive or negative, both of which can send a person dangerously off kilter.

I’m not a subscriber to the ‘fake it til you make it’ philosophy. I refuse to wear a smile that doesn’t come from my heart, I wouldn’t want those I love to feel they had to either, and I don’t believe it’s always helpful to do so. It’s essentially dishonest, and very damaging to suppress such an intrinsic part of human nature. It also puts struggling people under more pressure to feel better before they’re emotionally ready to do so, when they’re already fully aware that they’re not as successful or loveable as the happier version of themselves. But sometimes success is just being able to get up in the morning and survive the day, and love should be unconditional and inclusive of every part of who you are, or it isn’t true.  A friend of mine recently committed suicide, and as is often the case, a lot of people close to her never saw it coming because outwardly, she seemed fine. Sadly, she’s not the first person in my life I can say this about, and it’s a story most people can tell about someone they know, even if it’s Robin Williams. It’s an extreme example of how harmful hiding your pain can be, but emphasises the absolute necessity of being free to feel how you really feel instead of how you, or other people, think you should.

Of course there are always positives to be found in any bad situation, and in many ways life is what you make it. But the negatives will always continue to exist and run alongside, and what happens to you is often not your choice, as life is full of arbitrary events. The concept of karma and the philosophy that everything happens for a reason can be comforting, but they can also be condemning. As further extreme examples, consider how they might translate to innocent victims of crime, or war, or famine. The idea that we are responsible for our circumstances can only stretch so far, and can make people feel worse, or blame themselves for things that definitely weren’t their fault. It’s unfair if those people are then made to feel bad for being unable to muster much positive energy, and told that their ‘bad attitude’ will only encourage the cycle to continue. Yes, it is all about choosing how you react to situations, and hardship can be turned into opportunity. But that’s only possible if you first allow the negative to flow through and give yourself the indeterminable time you need to recover and adapt so you can move forward as a stronger, more complete person. If everything does happen for a reason, then negatives are part of those things, and the reasons for them need to be examined. It’s all part of living, and it’s how true resilience is developed.

It can also be argued that being, or pretending to be, permanently happy and content makes people complacent and lazy. They find no reason to strive to improve as they believe nothing needs to change. It can also give people the shock of their lives when something bad does happen, which it inevitably will. Optimism says that things can only get better, but sometimes that’s not true, because they can also get worse. Pessimism prepares people for the times when they do, and protects them from the unpleasant and damaging jolts that this can cause. Being realistic and seeing things as they are opens people up to noticing details, making them more in tune with their surroundings and able to make better judgements and also enhances creativity. Many studies show that there are no better motivators than sadness or anxiety, as they push people to change the things that are wrong, and to do the difficult interior work that strengthens character. It is possible to acknowledge the positives and be grateful for what you have, yet still yearn for what is lacking or mourn for what you’ve lost. Taking the good and bad together can actually help detoxify negative experience and aid our survival. Furthermore, people who have been through such changes often find themselves extending that to more compassion and also striving to improve things for other people, which can only be good for the wider world.

So if someone in your world is having a hard time, perhaps the best thing to do is not automatically try to fix or save them, but simply sit beside them and squeeze their hand, help them regain the power to smile again and save themselves, as they’re the only ones who truly can. Nobody can be at their best all the time, and to fully appreciate your best, you have to have known your worst, so don’t let anybody, least of all yourself, make you feel bad for keeping that company when you need to. Ultimately, it’s what will yield the greatest growth, and as with learning and developing anything in life, the most difficult lessons can take a while to process.

And if it’s you who is suffering, don’t fear or feed your demons, simply face them, introduce them to your friends and make sure they know their place. It’s what will stop them from taking you over and hardening your heart, which can only block out the sunshine as much as it does the dark. Be glad to be sad sometimes, it’s what will ultimately make you happier.

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Power to the People

I know you’re not supposed to talk about religion or politics, but I’ve never understood why, and I’ve never been one to blindly follow rules. I’d rather discuss the big, deep important issues that make people argue than maintain the trivial equilibrium any day, and surely not talking about them only serves to perpetuate the segregation, lack of communication, narrow-mindedness and apathy that cause serious, widespread disruption. There’s a general election looming in the UK, our Prime Minister handed in his notice this week and then took part in a much-hyped televised debate with all of the other major party leaders. So on this most religious of weekends, I’m going to write about politics. But fear not, I won’t impose my beliefs, or tell anyone what to do, mainly because I have no idea what to do myself.

I’m struggling with the same dilemma as it seems a growing sector of the UK population are in the face of this election, and that’s knowing what to do, who to trust, or whether to bother participating at all. I’ve completely lost faith in the party I supported in the 3 elections I’ve previously been eligible to vote in. I never, ever thought I’d say this, and my mother despairs of her parenting skills when I do, but for the first time in my life, I’ve even seriously considered not voting at all. It wouldn’t be an easy choice for me – I believe in democracy in its purest form and as somebody highly insignificant in our society in terms of social standing and wealth, by not exercising my power to vote I am flying in the face of all that it stands for. Abstinence would also be a difficult act to reconcile with my belief in feminism. Had I been around in the early 1900s, I’d have surely been out there among the suffragettes fighting for equal rights, so as a woman, I would never surrender that extremely hard-won entitlement without very good reason.

But although he often talks a lot of the kind of hot air that would usually be followed by an excretion from a male cow’s bum, for once I think Russell Brand has a point. We need something worth voting for, and there’s currently nothing. We know from recent decades, when all three of the major parties have had some level of control, that they’re now almost impossible to separate from their cosy little scrum in the centre ground. Everyone is sick of privileged, career politicians who seem to have no idea or care what real life is like for the majority of people living in this country, and no problem with ignoring their wishes and screwing them over. We know that none of them will really change anything drastically enough for a population who are clearly ready for a big change.

However, I also believe that apathy has no place in politics. Everything in modern life is political, and therefore everyone has, or at least should have, a direct interest in politics. But I think in a lot of cases it’s not apathy or indifference that tempts people to abstain, it’s total, impassioned disillusion. When the only three parties in serious contention all occupy startlingly similar territory and have all been recently proven as liars when it comes to implementing policies from their rosy manifestos and the expenditure of public funds, I question how that’s a choice, and whether we truly live in a democracy at all. And when the fourth party gaining popularity and a sneaky outside chance stands largely for their own idiotic brand of right-wing nationalism, I find myself embarrassed by my countrymen and really don’t know where to turn.

The sad fact is, I don’t trust or believe in any of the major political parties standing, or approximately 99% of their employees. I’m not even sure I believe in our archaic political system any more. So how can I possibly vote without being a total hypocrite?

We, in our increasingly disunited kingdom, hold ourselves up as an example of the developed, western, wealthy, successful, free world, but it’s mostly built on extreme capitalism, barefaced lies and clever publicity. We have all the same issues of social and economic inequality as everywhere else, we just seem to be better at brushing them under the carpet, spinning them into something justifiable, using other issues as a way to detract from them or just outright covering them up. We pride ourselves in not suffering from the high-level corruption and dictatorial governments seen in other countries, but the continuing MP expenses scandal, the tax-dodging loopholes for million, billion, zillion and squajillionaires, the Hillsborough justice campaign, the propaganda against immigrants and benefit clamants, the so-called ‘war on terrorism’, Operation Yewtree, the Leveson inquiry and other recent events too numerous to mention prove this to be completely untrue. High-level corruption is absolutely a major issue in our country, it’s just hidden away, lied about and only gotten away with by the incredibly powerful and wealthy. These aren’t things I could ever comfortably respect or support.

So on that basis, yes, some kind of protest, or rebellion, or revolution as Brand so flamboyantly puts it, would be the best thing the masses could do to invoke real change – not just in the leadership of the country, but perhaps in the whole system, and even our culture. However, I’m sensible enough to know that this plan will only work if NOBODY votes, and that’s never going to happen. There will always be the party stalwarts and the staunch upholders of our democratic rights who would never dream of abstaining. Russel Brand doesn’t seem to see that this makes his plan become very dangerous indeed. Ultimately, the rest of the populous not voting would only mean we ended up in a worse situation - being governed by the choice of the few, rather than the many. I suspect the non-voters would be among the first to complain.

Which brings me back to the dilemma of where to place my cross on the ballot paper. I briefly considered voting for one of the smaller parties, but I can’t help but see it as a pointless exercise. Perhaps if we had proportional representation it would be worth doing, but in our nonsensical ‘first-past-the-post’ voting system, it won’t achieve or change anything in the grand scheme of things, ultimately making it a wasted vote. Plus, there aren’t any of those I truly believe in either. The closest is probably the Green party, not only because they seem to be the only ones concerned with the environment and climate change, but also they are the only party who aren’t controlled by wealthy corporate sponsors and actively refuse donations from tax-dodgers. They are concerned with tackling problems at their root cause, rather than mopping up the consequences of obvious social problems. They also oppose austerity and stand for full nationalisation of the NHS and transport, as well as calling for a Living Wage for all workers. However, despite their appealing policies, I have no faith in their leader, Natalie Bennett, has continually shown weakness and a lack of knowledge during their election campaign. Plus it seems voting Green is not even an option for some, because they’re not a large enough party to have a candidate standing in every area.

While it would never be a consideration for me, it seems from the polls that a lot of people are leaning the opposite way, towards voting UKIP as a protest, or as the only alternative to the three major parties who can guarantee major change. I can understand why this is happening, but I find it so sad and scary that we’re following France in leaning towards the far right in our desperation, rather than using people power and coming up with a more liberal left alternative, as Greece and Spain seem to be doing. Nigel Farage spent the entire TV debate scapegoating, and I quote: ‘foreigners from 10 former communist countries’ for all the UK’s problems and outlining his plans to pull out of the EU, while conveniently ignoring that highly skilled, tax-paying immigrant workers are what keeps his precious NHS afloat and that his own wife comes from one of those EU countries and is employed by his party. Having said all that, I can’t deny that I actually admired him for keeping out of the schoolyard bickering the other leaders so often succumb to, and for at least having the balls to clearly state his beliefs and proposals despite their controversy, rather than pandering to his perceived voters like the lying, fawning, polished, heavily media-trained TV personality politicians we’ve grown accustomed to. In that sense, it’s easy to see why the voting populous are drawn to him. However, it’s almost amusing that such a traditionalist Briton can’t see the irony in a country that proudly invaded and colonised half of the free world closing its borders and cutting all ties with foreign countries. And I presume that the thousands of British expats (because strangely, it’s not called immigration when we do it) enjoying life in foreign climes will be allowed to continue.

Einstein once said that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We’ve seen what nationalist, right-wing governments have done to Europe and the wider world before, and I can’t believe we’re willing to go down that road again.

But for the overall, tip-top, most important reason to vote, we only need look at the statistics from the last election in 2010, which left us with the ill-fitting and unsatisfactory Con-Dem coalition. Of the population eligible to vote, 10.7 million voted Tory, 8.6 million voted Labour, and 6.8 million voted Lib Dem. However, 15.9 million didn’t vote at all, which only goes to show what a massive difference that huge number of unused votes could have made to any of those figures, and to those of the lesser parties, who could have used that support to become serious contenders. We can also see from the policies implemented by the current government and the targeted manifestos surfacing now that each party works hardest to serve those groups of society who bother to go out and vote for them. At the last election, 76% of pensioners used their vote, compared to 44% of 18-24 year-olds. As a result, we saw university tuition fees reach astronomical levels, housing benefit removed for the under 25’s and plans to force the young unemployed to do voluntary work for their welfare payments. Meanwhile, even the wealthiest pensioners kept all their benefits and perks, were excluded from the bedroom tax and had their private pensions protected against inflation and made easier to access. Incomes for the over 60’s have risen 1.8% since the economic crash of 2008, while incomes for the 22-30 age group have dropped by 7.6% in the same period. Interestingly, the Conservative party had a lead of 12% over Labour among voters over 55 years of age, while Labour received more votes from the 18-24 year-olds. Little wonder then, that Ed Miliband is pledging to cut tuition fees and increase affordable housing available to the young. The point is, if you want the government to meet your needs, or to represent you at all, the only way to do it is to curry their favour and vote for them.

At a time when voters and their rights are largely ignored, it’s difficult to keep believing that voting is an effective way to instigate change. But when there’s no alternative, when protests and revolutionary acts are also ignored, or worse, met with a violent response and/or punishment from the establishment, voting is the only power we have. Never forget how fortunate we are to live in a state of relative freedom and to have the option of exercising those freedoms in choosing and influencing our government. In the current system, voting is the only way we can realistically instigate change, and therefore it’s more important than ever that we all actively utilise our democratic rights and call out those MPs to make life fairer for their constituents. Left with a choice of feeling like a hypocrite and either voting tactically, to avoid the worst-case scenario as I see it, or just picking the best of a bad bunch, I still don’t know who I’m going to vote for, but I know I have to vote, and I know the only way to create change is to make yourself heard. I hope everyone, especially the young, the poor, the disenchanted, and the under-represented recognise the importance of their input. If you can’t see a way to vote to make things better, then consider voting to prevent making things worse. Even the small impact your voice can make is surely better than having no say at all.

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Evolution Devolution Revolution

There’s been much discussion in the media and on social networks lately about breastfeeding and photos of breastfeeding, and whether they should be allowed in any public domain. Well, of course they should, that’s not worthy of even a sentence of debate in my blogosphere. What makes the argument even more ridiculous is that we had a simultaneous debate in the UK about whether national daily newspapers should finally stop featuring page 3 girls, who have continued exposing themselves in public for money and male titillation for decades, with fewer complaints. But I’m not going to enter into a rant about societal misogyny, the sexualisation of women’s breasts, or the hygiene implications of being forced to feed a vulnerable baby in a public toilet, because the thing that saddens me most about it all is the confirmation that our ‘civilised’ society just keeps on pushing humans further and further away from nature, and I really don’t believe that’s a good thing.

The fact that this most natural of human practices is even questioned seems absolutely ludicrous to me. It’s the very thing that makes us mammals and a part of the natural world. Our species could never have survived without it. The fact that we’ve now largely replaced the most nutritious, immune-boosting, perfectly designed substance in the known world with dried chemical substitutes and deemed the delivery of it somehow indecent or offensive is completely absurd. What other animal ever has to hide away from the rest of its kind for simply rearing its young? It’s the fundamental purpose of every species and surely a thing to be celebrated.

But the (over)reaction to seeing babies get fed is not the only indicator of this sad truth about humanity that’s caught my attention.

Nudity in general is deemed somehow shocking and vulgar in modern society, and also has to be kept away from public forums and the children. Unless, again, it’s for sexual gratification, in which case it’s acceptable, or at least something we can turn a blind eye to. People who enjoy being naked as part of their normal, daily lives are made to do so behind closed doors or in designated areas only, and often labelled as weirdos. Because civilisation has decided that wrapping yourself in irritating fibres, suffocating your skin and weakening it to the effects of the sun and environment is a far more normal, healthy and sensible way to live.

Everyone I know who is looking to buy or rent a house wants it to come with the biggest gardens possible, not so they can enjoy the beauty, wonder and power of nature, but so they can endlessly cut, trim, shape, mow, weed and hack things to death in some endlessly futile effort to order and control it.

I often hear children warned against and scolded for running off, getting dirty and climbing trees or any of their artificial counterparts, when in actual fact, as curious little apes, it’s in all of their natural instincts to do so. Apparently we now think it’s better for them to avoid any risk or adventurous discovery whatsoever, and instead sit sedentary, indoors, in front of light projectors, eating processed, additive filled rubbish.

We can’t even resist interfering with the natural properties of other species. We love to share our lives with animals such as dogs and horses, who at their evolutionary peak have developed windproof, waterproof, warm and protective fur to allow them to deal with whatever the elements and environment can throw at them. But humans, in our infinite wisdom, shave all that off so we can replace them with vastly inferior, man-made coats instead.

I for one am wholly unconvinced that any of these examples prove the superior advancement of our species.

But humans are bizarre creatures. We still depend on nature for everything that keeps us alive, yet we are so arrogant as to think we can abuse or be repulsed by it instead of showing gratitude. We treat the natural as the unnatural. We think we’ve risen above the animals, when in so many ways all we’ve done is become the worst example of them. We’re certainly the worst on earth at just being the species that we are. Instead, we have become animals who constantly fight and deny our natural instincts and urges and try our damndest not to behave like animals. We’re conditioned to not want to be what we are, or behave as we’re innately programmed to. We’re often advised to ‘be ourselves’, when in actual fact, that’s the last thing society wants any of us to do. And then we wonder why there have been such dramatic and alarming increases in depression, anxiety and dysfunction related mental illnesses across the globe.

How much will we allow this twisted lifestyle to affect our health, our development, our planet and our future sustainability before we realise it has to change? I’m not saying we should all revert to caveman mode, but the boiled-down fact is we are just an overpopulated bunch of clever primates, and there has to be a line drawn somewhere. Going ‘backwards’ even a little bit would do far more good than harm. I look at humanity and I look at the rest of the animal kingdom, who are all experts at their own individual lifestyles and appreciative of everything nature has given them and resourceful with it, and I genuinely wonder who really are the intelligent ones?

Je ne suis pas sûr si je suis Charlie

Since the atrocities in Paris this week, beginning with the attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, there has been much talk of free speech, and a sudden and impassioned public uprising to defend it. Before I say anything else, of course I wish to retain all of the freedoms we enjoy, and I condemn the actions of the gunmen regardless of their race, religion or cause. However, I have really struggled with two elements of this story bringing up a moral dilemma for me: Firstly, that nobody in Europe truly has freedom of speech while apparently deluding themselves that they do; and secondly, that I’m not always sure we should be trusted with total freedom when we so often abuse the forms of public expression available to us.

Free speech is of course, an essential civil liberty in the west. It’s changed the world several times over, caused revolutions, wars, political and constitutional changes, etc, etc, etc, and allowed art and media to provide powerful reflections of the past and present societies in which they were created. It’s something we almost take for granted, it’s so inbuilt in our values. Indeed, it’s the first amendment on the US bill of rights, only marred by the fact that second on the list is the right to bear arms (presumably to use against those whose opinions differ to your own).

My point is, that while it’s a fine libertarian ideal to uphold and defend, we’ve never had freedom of speech in the west anyway. Freedom is an absolute. We can’t be a little bit free - either we are, or we’re not. This murky middle ground in which we currently exist, where nobody’s quite sure what’s permissible and what might land us in jail or get us killed is definitely not free.

Every country celebrates it, and yet every country modifies it with the stipulation: ‘within the law’. While those laws differ throughout Europe and the US, none are without restriction. In fact, the UK has stricter laws on free speech than anywhere else in Europe, covering everything from threats, abuse, insults, harassment, breach of the peace, racism, terrorism, incitement, gross offence, treason, indecency, obscenity, defamation, trade secrecy, classified material, copyright...the list goes on and on. Countless songs, books and films are still banned and re-edited every year. The TV schedule is subject to watershed rules and the internet routinely regulated and censored. It even came to light during a televised political debate on the subject this week that the BBC operates a ban on all depictions of the prophet Mohammed. Here is a direct quote from their editorial guidelines on political, religious and topical sensitivities:

‘Due care and consideration must be made regarding the use of religious symbols in images which may cause offence. The prophet Mohammed must not be represented in any shape or form.’

So even our nation’s public-funded, impartial, fair and most highly respected broadcaster obediently stays not only inside the law, but also its own, harsher, self-imposed rules. So much for freedom of the press. How can we possibly encourage journalists to dig deeper and push boundaries when it’s so unclear how far those boundaries are allowed to be pushed? The Leveson Inquiry and continued sales of certain related newspapers proved beyond doubt that not only do we not have a free press in the UK, but we don’t actually want one. Meanwhile, those who dare to break the rules to publish things they believe the public have a right to know end up in prison, or being forced to take long-term refuge in a South American embassy.

Just as many in the western world now mock the religious for believing so wholeheartedly in something that they don’t think is real, consider that perhaps the rest of the world are now laughing just as hard at us for believing so staunchly in the myth that is our so-called freedom.

I saw this cartoon shared on social media shortly after the killings at Charlie Hebdo, and it really got me thinking. It highlights one of the many double standards at work in western free speech, particularly where religion is concerned, and probably due to our terrible Holocaust guilt (because let’s not forget that the west has been and continues to be responsible for many of its own despicable atrocities and acts of terrorism). 

In France, the Gayssot Act of 1990 prohibits any racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic activity in speech or print. It’s interesting to note that the term ‘anti-Semitic’ has only been exclusively applied to Jews in recent history. The true definition of Semites actually covers many of the peoples of the ancient Middle East, and the Semitic religions include Islam and Christianity as well as Judaism. So if we’re allowed to criticise and ridicule Islam and Christianity so freely, then surely it has to apply to Judaism and every other denomination too.

Blasphemy concerning any religion is one of the restrictions on free speech in many eastern countries and even several in the west, so it’s bound to be a highly inflammatory area for people living in other cultures under different constitutional laws, especially in the current climate. For me, when it comes to derogatory depictions of Islam at the moment, it’s not about defiantly making a display of exercising free speech or rejecting fear and terrorism, it’s about basic humanitarianism and compassion towards that enormous majority of Muslims who aren’t extremists, and causing obstruction to any hope of mutual respect and peaceful resolution. There’s a huge difference between using satire as a humorous device to shine a light on shortcomings of institutions, and using it as a one-sided and deliberately insulting vehicle to further enforce a divide and fuel such a volatile fire. I don’t know what the answer to all this is, but I know that it won’t be reached while communication between both sides consists of persistent insults, threats and extremely violent acts.

The editors, journalists and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo had been warned many times before about taking their deliberately offensive satire too far. They had already suffered numerous threats, even seen their office firebombed and been ordered to pay many heavy legal fines for taking their use of free speech beyond the law, all the while continuing to skate along the borderlines of provocation. In many ways it’s admirable, of course they had the right to satirise, and nobody could ever begin to suggest that all those innocent people deserved what happened to them. But then I can’t help but think that perhaps just a little more BBC-esque thought on their part to political, religious and topical sensitivities wouldn’t have gone amiss, and may even have saved lives. So I guess my question is not why shouldn’t everyone have the right to be offensive and antagonistic, but why does everyone want to be?

I also noticed that the tragedies in Paris buried the big European news from the day before the first shootings, which reported the Pegida anti-Islam and immigration marches which continued to gain momentum in Germany throughout the week. I myself, and I suspect many others, especially Islamic extremists, are more offended by events such as this than any cartoon that ends up in the next day’s recycling.

Unfortunately, the defence of freedom of speech is a tricky area, in which everyone has to defend things they find abhorrent or offensive so that they may be allowed to continue to express themselves. So while I may disagree with Pegida, I will always stand up for their right to march for whatever cause they see fit. But I also believe that we ought to be very careful about purposely and publicly insulting or ridiculing other cultures, races, religions politics and beliefs, because it ultimately makes us no better than those who judge us for our own. So at the same time as defending free speech, I will continue to stand up for tolerance, because if we are to be granted these freedoms, then we have to allow everyone else those same rights we claim for ourselves. And even though the law says it’s okay to emotionally damage whole nations or groups of society, so long as you don’t physically hurt them, I disagree.

So I guess in my ideal world, we’d have total freedom of speech, combined with total respect and understanding and a desire to peacefully coexist that meant we never felt the need to push our freedoms to their limits. What a shame we’re human.

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A Call to Alms

I almost wrote this blog a few months ago, after the death of the amazing Stephen Sutton, but thought it might come across as insensitive. Then I almost wrote it again after the insane bandwagon-jumping weeks of the ALS Association’s Ice Bucket Challenge, but suspected it would be seen as self-righteous. Following the tragedy at Manchester Dogs’ Home last week, I can’t put it off writing it any longer, whatever effect it may have.

I can’t bring myself to write about the horrendous event itself, how those poor dogs’ lives ended so cruelly after a lifetime of suffering, the local heroes who risked their own safety to save lives, or even the motives and potential punishment of those responsible. As worthy of discussion as all of those things are, they could easily turn this blog into a 300 page social study. Instead, I wanted to focus on a wider issue that all three of these national events had in common, and that’s the stark reflection they gave us of our current culture. Our society has sadly become reactive, not proactive.

Before firefighters had even dampened the flames at the dogs’ home, news broke, and hundreds of people descended on the scene with equipment, vehicles, extra pairs of hands and anything else that might be needed to help. These people left their houses at night, some travelling miles, driven by their compulsion to do something. Those that couldn’t do this set about quickly raising hundreds of thousands of pounds to rebuild the centre. Obviously, these actions are highly commendable, as were the donations to the Teenage Cancer Trust and various ALS/MND charities in the previous weeks. I would never dream of undermining these beautiful outpourings of all the best bits of human nature. But what saddens me is that it takes such a devastating catastrophe, a heart-tugging TV telethon or a social media phenomenon to inspire it.

‘Raising awareness’ seems to have become a buzz-phrase around charitable causes these days, probably because it allows people to believe they’re making a contribution and feel good about themselves by sharing a meme on facebook. I can understand this where rare and lesser known causes are concerned, but what person in the western world hasn’t heard of Heart Disease, or Diabetes, or Alzheimer’s?  Who doesn’t know that developing countries are desperate for adequate healthcare and clean water? We are all only too aware that children and animals are frequently abandoned, neglected or abused and taken to live in specialised homes which can barely cater for their needs while they wait in vain hope for a better future. Some charities even spend some of their precious budgets on TV and newspaper advertising in order to get these messages through to people in their own, comfortable homes.

We all have causes close to our hearts, and in the digital age it’s never been easier to find organisations that support them and ways to assist. Yet none of this is enough to motivate people to get off their sofas and act as passionately and immediately as they do when disaster strikes. If only it were, we may be able to prevent many of the disasters from happening in the first place, and ‘social conscience’ might become a trendy slogan too. But in daily life at the moment, people seem far more concerned with those better off than themselves than those who have always had it worse.

Stephen Sutton was a brave, determined and kind young man who vowed to live life to the full despite his terminal illness and single-handedly made an enormous difference to a lot of lives. But nobody can argue that they’d never heard of Cancer before he told them about it, and he certainly wasn’t the first young person to lose his life to it.

The ALS Association was established almost thirty years ago, in 1985. Most people are familiar with Stephen Hawking’s battle to survive motor neurone disease and continue to function so highly throughout its terribly debilitating effects since the 1960s. Yet its supporting charities had never raised millions in one month until it involved people sharing amusing videos of themselves and playing dares with their friends.

Manchester Dogs Home was founded in 1893, and staff have fought to cope with the ever-growing numbers of abandoned animals in the city ever since. I doubt that at any point within those 120 years, they’ve ever seen crowds queuing up at the gates to help before.

My point is not only that these charities and many others have all needed urgent help for a long time before some despicable events drew attention to them, but also about the people I’ve mentioned. Not one of them waited for the worst case scenario, for lives to be lost, or a media storm to break before they stepped up and did whatever they could to solve a problem they’d identified or been affected by. That’s the kind of positivity that should inspire us to make change, not the death and destruction that comes from allowing a problem to go on for too long.

I am a trustee of Shy Lowen, a small horse and pony rescue charity, and I’m sure the board members of other charities would agree that our main aim is ultimately to put ourselves out of work – i.e. to fix the root cause of whatever problem requires the charity to exist.

I despaired the other day when a teenager enthusiastically enquired about rehoming a horse, which should be a lovely thing to hear from a young person. However, she went on to mention that she ‘can’t wait until we get some more new horses in’. To her, this would mean more to choose from for her own personal gain. To us, it would mean that the problem we set out to eradicate goes on and on; and the limited staff, space, facilities and budget have to be stretched even further. To the horses, it means that though they have already suffered at human hands to end up with us in the first place, they will often continue to be treated as toys or commodities once again when they leave.

I’m not saying everyone should become activists, or volunteers, adopt multiple animals and children or dedicate their lives to charity, but if everyone did just the little bit that they can, we would see a massive improvement. As demonstrated in my anecdote above, changing attitudes and educating the ignorant are just as important in solving a problem as helping physically or financially.

Even responsibly thinking through the consequences of actions and choices can still make a major change for a lesser effort. For example, in the case of Manchester Dogs’ Home, there might not have been so many dogs trapped in that burning building if more people neutered their pets, or refused to buy them from careless breeders and puppy farms, and spent more time caring for and training them. If everyone gathered outside had consistently shown them the level of support and compassion they displayed the night its premises were destroyed, then they might not need all the help they need now. They might not have needed to be there at all. And we might not all have to live in a world where car and clothing brands, bum size and eyelash length matter more to people than the suffering of our fellow sentient beings. Or at least not until it reaches its most awful extreme and it becomes impossible to look the other way.

If everyone could only harness what they felt for Stephen Sutton and those 53 dogs and pay it forward to the countless others still living in similar situations, just imagine what could be collectively achieved.  

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Live Television

I’ve seen a lot of memes, jokes and videos lately about smartphones hogging attention, causing accidents and absurdly, preventing people from talking to each other. While I agree that they are one of the most double-edged technological inventions so far and often wish I’d never got one and become a dependent, I’m finding myself far more disturbed by the change that the digital age has made to one of our much older electronic distractions.

There was a time when TV was an extravagant luxury. A person would be fortunate indeed if they knew someone that had one, even if it could only display a crackly, fuzzy, intermittent black and white picture. When they eventually became available to a wider audience, they were used to transmit huge events – moon landings, world championships, royal weddings, whatever might be deemed important or newsworthy in the society of the time. Documentaries eventually gave way to entertainment shows for families to spend their quality time on. The soap operas that initially only aired for half an hour each week built up to several instalments competing for airspace every weeknight, followed by impossibly long omnibus editions to see addicts through the weekend. The variety of programmes, foreign imports, number of channels and broadcasting times continued to increase until TV stealthily became an inescapable and integral part of life.

Now, with the advent of wi-fi laptops, tablets, aforementioned smartphones, digiboxes, media players, streaming and a wealth of speedy downloadable content from across the globe, I genuinely fear that the western world is blindly and obediently entering some Orwellian state of totalitarianism.

When I was growing up (which wasn’t that long ago), anyone sad enough to collect VHS copies of favourite shows to watch consecutively and repeatedly were labelled as geeky, socially deficient saddos, and encouraged to get out more and find a real hobby. Any twenty-something who told their friends they’d spent Saturday night sitting in watching telly would be pitied and/or ridiculed. How times change. In the ‘enlightened’ 21^st century, a couple sitting down to 6 consecutive episodes of the same series on their night off would probably be considered a date.

TV has undergone a magical transformation from something people did when they had nothing better to do, to something people choose to do above all other things. It’s deemed freakish to NOT have one in the house. I know a few people who don’t own a TV, and from the reactions they get from others when they tell people this, they might as well be saying they have serious psychiatric disorders and enjoy depriving their children of vital stimulus and education. Oh, the irony.

I’m not an innocent in all this, I do watch TV myself and I do have favourite programmes which I have been known to get very enthusiastic about, but I try to incorporate this into my life in a healthy way by following them one at a time on a weekly basis, and not allowing any of them to take over my life. During many lengthy periods I’ve lived without a TV, I’ve remained happy, felt liberated in many ways and definitely been more productive. Even with a TV in my bedroom, I still find time to write, read, exercise, go outside a lot and interact with real people.

 I find it off-putting that the occasional well-written, acted and produced shows capable of providing great insight, or provoking genuine emotion and thought are milked dry by greedy distribution networks, endlessly imitated and far outweighed by the mindless drivel and cheap cannon fodder. I won’t have the TV on even ‘in the background’ if that’s all its hundreds of channels can offer me. I’ll just find something else to do. There’s a real world out there.

What saddens me the most is the willing acceptance of this as our new culture. It’s actually become a preferred lifestyle choice. People don’t find common ground any more, they find mutually agreeable viewing material. Small talk and social media posts centre around it. I rarely see some of my friends more animated than when they’re extolling the virtues of Netflix or whatever US series they happen to be in a serious long-term relationship with at the time. I despair at the use of Cbeebies as a primary source in child development and behaviour management, and of grown adults sacrificing so much of their own precious lives in exchange for the contrived experiences of fictional characters.

One of my closest friends recently expressed a strong desire to procure himself a media pod – which seemed to me to be some horrific, Matrix-esque virtual reality device in which a human being can voluntarily incarcerate themselves to stare at screens for hours on end and endure a slow, electronic lobotomy. Another showed me a diary she’s started keeping of the numerous shows she is currently following simultaneously, as it’s becoming too difficult for her evolved, intelligent brain to keep track. I confess that I myself have succumbed to the temptation of downloading a show from another country so I can watch it a whole 24 hours before it’s due to air in my own. It’s looking increasingly like manufacturers will continue developing the sound and image quality of their overpriced equipment until their complexity exceeds anything that basic human senses can hope to process. I don’t want to consider where it will all end.

Maybe soon it will be normal for everyone to live in individual pods with only a carefully catalogued digital menu of noisy, colourful, crystal clear distractions for company; oblivious to the fact that it’s keeping them quiet, quelling their energy and lulling them to sleep on a much grander scale than the Disney channel does to unruly toddlers. Maybe by then it will be too late to wake up and reclaim life.

Call me over dramatic, but if Orwell’s nightmare prophecy taught us anything, it’s that if there is hope for the future, it lies in the masses. Only we can change it, but we probably won’t.

Because the Walking Dead starts again soon, and there’s a Breaking Bad spin-off on the way.

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