It pains me to say after recent forum activities, but TJ and Elf are among the main bastions of common sense here.
The apparent simplicity of everything as it appears to the “hang the feckless scum” brigade makes me so very wish I could fall on that side of the camp. I truly am envious of anyone’s ability to close their mind and live in blissful ignorance. A world of straightforward black and white must be so much easier to live in than the horrendously complex one I know.
Alain De Botton makes as good a point as any on the situation we’re in.
In so far as advanced societies provide us with historically elevated incomes, they appear to make us richer. But in truth the net effect of these societies may be to impoverish us because, by fostering unlimited expectations they keep open a permanent gap between what we want and what we can afford, who we are and who we might be.
We face epic societal problems. The “wooly liberal apologist” brigade are aware of how deeply flawed our way of life is, which means in the time it takes to compose anything even approaching a sensible, considered contribution to a discussion they know to be massively complex, their detractors who prefer to hold an ignorantly simplistic viewpoint can throw together countless ill conceived causes and solutions.
Unfortunately these hastily typed, over simplified retorts at best only ever seem to offer solutions to symptoms. The more considered people focus on the causes. They also understand that there is no “us and them”. Just an “us”.
It’s much easier to ignore complex issues than it is to accept and face up to them, so the sheer volume of “hanging’s too good for em” idiocy in such debates will always overwhelm the few sensible points that somehow make it through.
As Darwin said:
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
