Monday 20 July 2009

The arrogance of humans

Once again our attitude is that we are above nature.

This time it's swine 'flu.

We waste masses of energy and disrupt hundreds of thousands of lives, doing phenomenal psychological damage over something we have very little control over if we're really honest.

I regularly wake up with a sneeze which is quickly dealt with and it's over.

If I was riding into work on the Tube in London, as I used to, can you imagine the kerfuffle there would be, with at least some dirty looks from ignorant people and much more likely, worse.

Would you dare go on holiday by air at the moment if you picked up the mood of the panicky public?

Since when did we lose the freedom to think and make decisions for ourselves. I hope people won't lie on their backs and play doggy dead over this one.

Sanity Rules, OK. ?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's the media for you. They do it with everything they can - BSE, SARS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Banking Crisis - the list is endless.

Everything must be blown up into a crisis of armageddon proportions before it is quickly and quietly forgotten about. It's a wonder they don't spark riots with the panic they try to spread.

It's never a balanced appraisal - always a focus on the very worst case scenario with headlines like "Bird Flu could kill 10 million Brits". I think they should be prosecuted personally.

Geoff Dellow said...

The problem is perhaps that we've done it to ourselves.

Presumably the media choose stuff that we will read.

We get lttle "soft news".

How much reporting I wonder was there of the Big Lunch that was held last Sunday.

Some fifteen of us got together to eat , talk and fly kites at Ford Park with people that we hadn't met or hardly knew. We were joining two million others gathering together to celebrate each other and the rewarding nature of these contacts!

People with whom we had connections that we weren't aware of. People that we'll be spending more time with in the future.

Perhaps if we weren't so wrapped up with watching television and following celebrities we'd be less interested in the progress of the 'flu. We do , after all have real people on out doorsteps who are much more fun!