Apathy Can be Dangerous
by The British are a funny lot of people. I happily count myself among them without any particular issues, but I do have one problem with the way things do or don’t get done here.
Whenever something happens that we don’t like, say a new Government policy or a law which will infringe upon many people’s privacy or such like, we sit and moan and go to the pub to talk about it. But that’s usually it. There are very few of us who actually take an active stand.
I don’t necessarily mean by going out to protest in the streets or the countryside, though that has its uses. I mean by the use of boycotts, avoiding going to the places we don’t like, writing to MPs and MEPs, lobbying our local councillors to say what a hundred other people, if they could be bothered, would say as well.
The spread of supermarkets across the UK has been frightening, these last few years. A few books have been written on the subject, but the issue here is whether enough people read them and whether the right people read them. What one person thinks is essential reading, another might think is the most boring thing on earth and not even give it a second glance, apart from moving it to another part of the bookshop’s two-for-one offer to get at the latest pulp paperback.
This is sad and frustrating and worrying, all at the same time. Sad, because the British people are a good bunch, in the main, caring about what matters. Frustrating, because you know they could do something about issues they care about if they wanted to, but mostly either use the excuse that they don’t have the time, or rest in the belief that someone else will do it. Worrying, because all the time this is happening, nothing is being done to prevent the spread of supermarkets, the destruction of ancient ways of life, things happening in homes we’d rather not think about (because it’s ‘none of our business’) and generally just heading out in life with the blinkers on and trying to ignore the things that matter.
Why are we like this? Why do we not write that letter? Why do we continue to shop in places even though we know their ethics may be, at best, questionable? Why do we complain to the TV screen but then proceed to do absolutely nothing about what’s bothering us?
Thankfully, we’re not all like this. I avoid going in certain shops for various reasons, all of them ethical by my own standards. There are many others like me and I’m sure they all get frustrated in the same way at least some of the time. The milk of human kindness is there to be – well – milked. But too often, we Brits just don’t see the point. What can we do? What’s it got to do with me? What will I get out of it if I go somewhere else, if I write this letter? What’s in it for me?
What’s in it for us? A better society, that takes care of itself, lives happily and with balance, real choice and freedom. Until British people wake up and smell the proverbial coffee, we’re not as free as we’d like to think.
Liked it
