Think

I have consciously not written anything about the current worldwide state of affairs, there was already way too much noise out there! But this morning I had an experience that gave me the avenue and voice from a slightly different perspective.

I was walking through the supermarket when a public service announcement came over the speaker and it immediately took me back. The tone, the rhythm, the words and the message were frighteningly similar to a movie I watched many years ago with my young children.

My children are all grown now, definitely past the stage of watching and listening to their favourite show, movie and music over and over ad nauseam. That period of time in parenting where you find yourself reciting whole slabs of movies, humming a children’s song and often talking in the voice of the favourite character of your 3/4 year old. Some movies and songs for that matter, you recite with joy as the lines are funny and can be adopted to any given situation, others are more like that irritating and annoying ear worm.

This morning I was transported back to a movie that I remember fondly for the characters, a simple story told well and a pertinent and significant message that young minds need to know. As I am writing and thinking about this movie, another movie pops into my head with a line that speaks volumes.

It has been happening for many years now and many have been unaware because it was subtle and hidden, but the current worldwide madness, and yes I call it madness based on the notion of madness being described as ‘wildly excited’, has given rise to brash and blatant acts ill thought out and delivered in a manner that played to peoples fears. No this is not a piece about a conspiracy nor am I wishing to make light of the significance of a pandemic.

I believe that our attention has been diverted in a way that does not help us move forward but rather keeps people in a state of fear and possible ignorance due to the fact that as a society we have for the most part, adopted a specialist mentality. Whilst specialisation is beneficial in so many ways there is a natural fall out that is less helpful. This natural fallout is that we generally choose to reduce our knowledge and skill across a broad range of topics, after all why learn that skill or obtain that knowledge when one can simply ask or employ the services of a specialist or expert?

On the surface, it may seem like no big deal, however each little skill or piece of knowledge we no longer ‘need’ is a little piece of personal power that we give away, a reduction in our ability to have a say so to speak. Quickly we adopt the attitude of, I am not an expert therefore my opinion or thoughts are not as valid or important or even correct. This my friends is a slippery slope to helplessness.

I hear the cries of “we can’t all be experts on all things” and that is absolutely true, but we can have some knowledge and a clear and competent ability to research and use that acquired knowledge to reason. And it is the loss of ability to reason that is disempowering so many.

So what has been bothering me about the current madness and why was a simple public service announcement so concerning?

The age of experts has given rise to two situations; the one above where a portion of our population have willingly given away the power to make informed rational choices relying only on the advice from the experts, and the second a culture pervading our political representatives and people in positions of authority that they alone have the answers and ‘the people’ should simply do as they are advised (or perhaps more accurately ‘told), no questions asked.

The ramifications of this are wide and varied and significantly too vast to tackle in one short piece of writing. I will focus only on the concern I had with the public announcement.

The announcement was to remind the shoppers about the importance of ‘social distancing’ with directions of ‘how to’ and then closing with a statement along the lines, we do this because we care for each other. At this point I imagine some of you reading this will be shouting that I am making small of something so big and significant and that we are lucky to not have the catastrophic problems other countries have had, and I will say this, I am not here to argue the science or discredit the policies put in place by governments. I am humbly suggesting that we have been warned many times over by some of histories greatest minds to stay vigilant and in possession of our agency; the ability to have pre reflective and introspective consciousness of ones own actions.

The movie that I was drawn back to was Wall E. If you haven’t watched it I suggest you do, it is definitely a bit of fun but hopefully on watching it you will perhaps see what I am writing about. In a nutshell, humans had devastated Mother Earth with their incessant wastefulness and inability to see the impact they were having, primarily because they were constantly being fed information that they need not worry as ‘BNL’ had it all in hand. And when it became evident they didn’t have it all in hand, there was still no need to worry because ‘BNL’ had a solution; they had massive spaceships at the ready to transport the whole population to outer space and everything you could ever want would be at your fingertips. Slowly and surely the people became totally reliant on all that was on offer. Bit by bit their individuality and ability to think, see and reason was lost; messages like “Why walk when you can move around on this hover chair, why eat when all you need is in this drink”. Rather than review the whole movie allow me to draw some comparisons. The messages were all passed on in a manner that one would associate with a situation where you were trying to talk a person ‘down off the ledge’, calm, kind, understanding and suggestive, a manner that made people feel safe and secure. And it was exactly that kind of message that I heard in the supermarket.

So here we are in this current madness, the tv screens, social media, radio, places of work, supermarkets, parks, playgrounds and places of worship (for so many a place of safety and respite) were all displaying messages to invoke fear and suspicion of our neighbours. The result of course was that people became very afraid and yes suspicious of their neighbours. Even our youngest children were being given messages of fear. I am sad to say I have had several conversations with my four year old grandson about fear of the virus, fear of dirty hands and fear of people coughing or sneezing. This is a mantra being drummed into him at pre-school.

Then came the messages of never fear the experts are here and if you do exactly as we tell you, all will be well. Closely followed by, don’t become complacent as that will lead to further trouble and of course if you had just followed our instructions we wouldn’t have the current “second wave” And now we have messages of the new normal bought to you by your friendly powers that be because we care for you and we know you care for each other.

The similarity to the situation and themes in Wall E, Robots 1984, THX1138 or a Handmaidens Tale is a little too close to home.

I could go on, well in fact I did but then decided this was not ever meant to be a 5000 word essay.

My message is simple: Think! And in thinking remain open to all sides of the argument, all possibilities, then with one hundred percent confidence use your agency as it was always intended to be used.