So think about it.. is society failing?

Having followed (and taken part in) the debate over cycling, I do feel the issue has raised other concerns about how we function as a society.

Hours spent in the saddle give a person plenty of time to think. One of the questions that crosses my mind frequently is 'where is everyone going to in such a hurry?' and 'what are they going to do when they get there?'.

The motor car has proved to be both liberating and egalitarian. Many of us own one, most have access to one. But therein lurks a problem.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

With the car everyone can get from A to B. Unfortunately, a lot of people try to achieve this at the same time.

Couple this with roads and towns never designed to cope with the volume of traffic and you have gridlock.

All that rushing just gets you to the back of the next queue more quickly.

Perhaps that is why the cyclist comes in for abuse as we sail past. We are quicker, fitter, will live longer and have better sex lives (the last one is not strictly a fact, but I live in hope).

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The car, like many things that are meant to make life easier, ends up achieving the opposite.

It is the same with mobile phones and computers. Much of our day is taken up with checking, responding and texting. Information is fired at us from all points.

We can program our televisions to record numerous features. But then of course they have to be watched. Remember when we missed stuff because we had something else to do?

In the end, instead of moving forward as an individual, we just tread water.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The struggle is to keep a lid on things and not sink into a sea of dysfunction. And if individuals do not move forward, society stagnates, or at worst regresses.

Outside influences do not help. The media are quick to pounce on any failing in those structures which underpin our lives. Politicians then spend all their time trying to appease a misinformed and therefore largely ignorant populace with gestures and dogma.

This as well as pandering to single-interest ideologies that frankly only exist to perpetuate themselves is destructive and helps no one.

Local politicians use these pages to continually snipe at each other over increasingly obscure and therefore surreal issues. But where is the progress?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

I read today there is a huge row in the cabinet over how families are structured. What has it got to do with them? Isn't that for us to decide?

Much of the blame for this breakdown is traditionally laid at the door of administrations that were in power in the 1980s and 1990s. But this is too easy. And anyway, they were put there by the people, and the people largely agreed with what was done at the time. Society itself was the major culprit in its own sickness.

Every time we read of some mother's son dying in a gutter somewhere we must all take some responsibility. There is a collective guilt.

We have managed to couple political apathy with self-interest and end up morally bankrupt.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

We demand a lot, but offer little in return. We demand rights but refuse to earn them. We demand choice and are told it is good, but it makes most of us unhappy, deceitful and manipulative.

There is access to huge shops full of cheap food and goods, but I do not see them dancing in the aisles.

You are more likely to see a nervous breakdown in the dry goods section than this celebration of choice which comes at a huge cost to farming, health, the environment and our sanity.

If we are going to overcome the issues which face us today, it has to be a team effort.

Jasper Richmond,

Highland Avenue, Bognor Regis

Related topics: