How do you get people out of a miserable funk? It does seem to be where we are now. Wealthier and healthier than past generations only to be gloomy.
For all their faults, advertisers and marketers are perceptive at times. A Weetabix breakfast cereal advert[1] captures what I’m writing about in these short lines. A tweed jacketed professor stands in front of an audience of the “great and the good” to exclaim that Britain’s performance has been sliding downhill. Citing examples, he then goes on to offer a theory. No prizes for guessing his editable cure all. It’s an understated use of humour. It’s a sideways look at the silliness of mixing-up correlation and coincidence. Which happens all the time on social media.
“We must rebuild Britain”. There’s a fine slogan that could grace a political campaign. At least it’s positive. At least it’s about addressing causes, fixing problems and making stuff.
Time to draw a distinction. A symptom can be an indicator. A sign, or what’s believed to be a sign. A cause is a reason for a problem. The root or source.
My view of the current political landscape is that we are spending lots of time and energy chasing symptoms, many of which are entity false. Symptoms can be an easy hit. A target to blame. Newspaper headlines full of negative stories all add to feelings of sliding downhill. Only in analysis, hidden in the small print, are there stories and theories about causes. Getting to the root of a problem is a hundred times more difficult than scratching the symptoms.
The treacherous right-wing brand of divisive and destructive politics, that is toping the opinion polls, does nothing to solve real problems. That recipe is only a way of creating more problems. More gloom.
The “ungodly” foolish proposal to kick-out hard-working people who contribute to this country is idiotic. A term I borrowed from the fictional character Simon Templar, as The Saint. It’s a term aimed at those whose morals are virtually non-existent. Fighting the ungodly doom mongers is necessary. A higher calling is to propose a better way.
Frankly, I don’t believe that the majority of this country’s people are mean and thoughtless in the way some unscrupulous politicians think. Even so, a lingering danger exists. Just as the advertisers and marketers can turn our heads so persistent negativity has a grinding effect.
Removing the miserable funk of the moment isn’t going to happen by chasing the funk. Flooding the country with more funk. Burying the country in funk.
We must rebuild Britain by accentuating the positive. Confidently fixing problems.
The Weetabix TV advert I referenced above featured a man pointing at a pothole. It may sound trite. It’s been a feature of campaigns over the years. There’s a real everyday problem that we know how to fix. What’s been disappointing is the fact that we know that, and have always known that, but the problem persists. Let me suggest that a route to a more positive outlook would be to remove the cause of people’s annoyances. Stop starving local government. Give them a solid mandate, backed up by resources, to fix what we know can be fixed. Purge at least one problem. If we need more hard-working people to do the job, I think I might know where to find them.
John Vincent 