Talking over the Walk
So much of modern life is an insult to the intelligence.
Puzzling over recent politics, I wondered whether this might explain where we are now.
There’s an unanswerable quality, a kind of not-listening quality, to so much of modern life. Not just politics — I do mean life. Held up for hours by roadworks, for example, I finally get to the end and there’s a sign saying, “Thank you for your patience.” [I’m not patient!]
A water company fails to provide water (another real example). Challenged by the media, the water company releases a statement saying, “We are committed to providing water.” [I’m thirsty!]
Or, better example, the same water company is fined for releasing sewage into rivers (ditto) — and promptly releases a statement saying, “We are committed to keeping our rivers clean.” [Bleugh!] And that’s their whole response.
Does this happen elsewhere? Or is it just the UK? A hospital kills all its patients and releases a statement saying that it’s committed to keeping its patients alive. “Thank you for not smoking,” says the sign, and I fight an urge to light up on the spot. [I don’t smoke. Yet.]
I could go on. Everybody’s media-trained and nobody engages with the difficult questions — let alone answers them or wants to hear from us. And never mind virtue-signalling; everybody talks so much talk about their own virtue — but then fails to convert any of that talk to action.
I’m not talking about the real people. I’m talking about — not sure what the description is now — the ruling class, the chattering classes, management, the wokerati, the liberal elite, the Westminster village, the media-political complex — our self-important but incompetent “leaders”.
I see that bloke at the UN has kicked off the year by calling for action on climate change. As I write this, trees are being cleared to make space for COP30, which is to be held in the Brazilian rainforest.
They’re clearing the rainforest to make space for all their talk about saving the rainforest.
Enough. Why listen to the call for action? They’re cutting down trees.
Maybe the days of “calling for” anything, of making grand-sounding promises (of weapons to Ukraine, for example), of coming out with quotable one-liners, even of making rational arguments — maybe those days are over.
So little of that talk is actually “true” — in the sense that it doesn’t translate into action. The extremist candidates might or might not be telling lies, but they get the tone of voice right — they sound as frustrated and angry as all the rest of us stuck in this dishonest reality.
