Aspects of society

One of the only things left and right wing can agree on is that our society is dysfunctional. But they both have radically different opinions on how it’s dysfunctional. there are people who think Brexit is dysfunctional because we haven’t become a capitalist utopia. And then there are others who think that Brexit is dysfunctional because we haven’t suddenly become an economically interventionist socialist regime.

There are  people who  think that society is dysfunctional because lots of people are saying things they don’t like, things they consider hateful. and then there are those who think society is dysfunctional because more and more people are being told that they can or cannot say this or that thing.

modernity is forcing us to make uncomfortable choices about what we value more. Freedom or security. Sensitivity or sincerity. Personal Wealth or personal choice.

i’ll give you an excellent example. To get on a plane I had to stand in a little box where a woman I never met got to see a picture of my naked body with a unflatteringly small Bar placed over my genitals. Society collectively decided that security, or the appearance of security, was more important to them than dignity.

Although  there are still quite a few of us who disagree.

Society cannot agree on the direction it wants to go forward in, it cannot agree on the values that matter most to it. If society is dysfunctional this is surely the cause.

Reminds me of something I saw the other day and I have always said it, though I never thought I was the first since some form of it has been in The Neverending Story  and Gmork says it near the end of the film (book published nearing  100 years ago) but anyway it resurfaced quoted in F T magazine, turns out  journalist H L Menken (b.1880 d.1956) already caught on to the idea too, as he put it:   

        "the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the population alarmed and thus clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with a whole series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."


So once again the public is having their fears whipped up about those who are different rather in order to provide political scapegoats, distractions, and make the public easier to manipulate with manufactured fear and outrage, because if we ever stopped long enough to realise what makes us the same on mass for long enough the cronies would be turfed out by their ears.
As Talking Heads said. "Same as it ever was."

Yeah when They are confronted with actual real monsters they do everything possible to try and persuade the public they don’t exist. Like the prospect of a full blown conventional war with Russia or China.

Or the possibility of a coronal mass ejection event

Unfortunately yes I have to agree with you TriS. I have often thought about how if I won the lottery I'd finally have the power to create - well actually something a little bit like your proposed Autistic Union Peter, except I'd make a buisness that focusses on supplying good and services to autistic people, and employs autistic people so they can close the gaps in our CVs and get references if they want to go work in other areas after a while. Then the services part can be able to be transfered to a charity once it became well established.
But without the money, I do not have that power.

Maybe if you sort Rishi out with a massive loan he'll make you chair of the BBC and you can make your dreams come true!

I suppose I better get rich then and lobby for a world where all TV channels are compulsory required to show Anime and there’s a government subsidised maid café on every corner.

When someone donates millions of pounds to a political party or pays a politician to lobby for them, they're not doing it for kicks. Even knighthoods and seats in the house of Lords can be obtained with enough money in the right hands.

You can absolutely buy power.

Actually mostly no. Money buys you comparatively little power. Maybe if you’re the kind of megamillionaire who can use it to buy newspapers or Twitter it buys you some sort of influence over the public discourse. But it doesn’t permit you to I don’t know invade peoples bedrooms and tell them what sex acts they can and can’t do or what kind of pictures They can Or can’t take. No amount of money can allow you to arrest people for praying. That particular form of privacy and liberty invading megalomania is reserved for politicians.

Actually mostly no. Money buys you comparatively little power. Maybe if you’re the kind of megamillionaire who can use it to buy newspapers or Twitter it buys you some sort of influence over the public discourse. But it doesn’t permit you to I don’t know invade peoples bedrooms and tell them what sex acts they can and can’t do or what kind of pictures They can Or can’t take. No amount of money can allow you to arrest people for praying. That particular form of privacy and liberty invading megalomania is reserved for politicians.

Unfortunately yes I have to agree with you TriS. I have often thought about how if I won the lottery I'd finally have the power to create - well actually something a little bit like your proposed Autistic Union Peter, except I'd make a buisness that focusses on supplying good and services to autistic people, and employs autistic people so they can close the gaps in our CVs and get references if they want to go work in other areas after a while. Then the services part can be able to be transfered to a charity once it became well established.
But without the money, I do not have that power.

Maybe if you sort Rishi out with a massive loan he'll make you chair of the BBC and you can make your dreams come true!

I suppose I better get rich then and lobby for a world where all TV channels are compulsory required to show Anime and there’s a government subsidised maid café on every corner.

When someone donates millions of pounds to a political party or pays a politician to lobby for them, they're not doing it for kicks. Even knighthoods and seats in the house of Lords can be obtained with enough money in the right hands.

You can absolutely buy power.