As you get older there are occasions - too many actually - when you meet up with old friends and the inevitable questions start, usually around the phrase "whatever happened to ...".
Well, recent events have persuaded me that this is not an "oldie" phenomenon but one that should be worrying absolutely everyone today. And it should run along the lines of "whatever happened to decency, integrity and compassion?"
Within that topic I am going, for once, to put the phenomenon of "banker bashing" partly to one side despite the comments the other day by the leader of the Labour Party in Britain, Jeremy Corbyn, who said that he was going to target "... tax cheats, rip off bosses and greedy bankers". Great. let's tar everyone with the same brush shall we? No one these days in Britain, it seems, wants to admit they work in a bank. Hard to avoid when there are something approaching 150,000 people employed in the industry in the UK but by his comments - and because people are not discriminatory in their assessment of news, they are all greedy bankers. For those who thought the era of banker bashing was coming to an end, welcome to a brave new world. There are greedy bankers, I agree, but they are in the minority Mr. Corbyn and the majority does not need your gratuitous comments on an industry where I suspect there are more greedy politicians per capita than there are bankers. A little decency would not go amiss.
No, actually my "whatever happened to ..." is much more relevant with today's news where we are faced with huge ransom demands being made on a public sector and ultimately private sector, I presume, where hackers have successfully created a global problem by hacking amongst other things into medical records, including details of people needing life-saving operations. Just how cynical can you get? This from a generation of people who advocate self-driving cars and other technological wonders? Look, I am as interested in technology as the next person and try to ensure that I embrace the positive opportunities that are being created every day. But this massive global hack? Just where has common decency gone? There is absolutely no thought - no compassion - for the many people who will suffer as a result. Greed, Mr Corbyn?
In my Blogs over the years I have commented on the lack of common sense that prevailed in the world, but this hack surely descends into the depths of a depravity of behaviour that disgusts? Of course we have been hearing a lot recently about the use of hacking in elections, be they US or French, and I saw a presentation recently about the number cyber attacks that are made on financial institutions on a daily, second by second basis. It is frightening.
No one, and nothing, is safe or sacrosanct in this world in which we live. Forget the terrorism that inflicts our world - be it the creation of concerns globally by groups such as ISIS, or the demagogue like antics of some of our global leaders today, we are at risk on a minute to minute basis by cyber threats and bullying from people who have no ethics, no morals and certainly no thought of compassion. Do you wonder, therefore, that the older generation are less enthusiastic about technological "progress" than the creators of the same? Get into a car that drives itself when some smart 10 year old can drive you off the road, for fun? - Hmm, no thanks!
But today's world does not just have problems related to new technology. What sort of world have we become where we need to protect our children (or in my case grandchildren), by not allowing parents to take pictures or videos of school performances in which the children are performing, in case such pictures fall into the hands of the wrong people. The same goes for the inability of adults to accompany children on sporting events, for example that are not your own unless you have police clearance to do so. Look, I get the need to this in today's world, but I am saddened by the requirement and sickened by what we have become.
Integrity, loyalty, and good behaviour were all characteristics instilled in our generation as children. Today, it seems, if you tell a child off for misbehaving you are going to destroy their individuality forever. If you enter a child in a race and he or she comes last, the participation is recognised rather than the result - so when they hit the real world and discover that if you come last you don't get a certificate but a dismissal notice, they are unprepared. You give a child an iPhone and similar at an early age and they become addicted and insular. They have no idea how to communicate real time in a face to face situation, discover they have few face to face friends (other than Face time to Face time), and so they withdraw. And these days where does that lead? In too many cases, to a situation they find too hard to handle and where the question "whatever happened to ..." has a pretty sad ending.
Wake up people, we are going to destroy each other and ourselves unless we do something positive.
Your expressed pessimism conveys a depressingly accurate worldview ... and all we can really do is our best with what we have in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Posted by: John D | 15 May 2017 at 18:28