Entertainment For Lively Minds
Do we get more reactionary and conservative as we get older?
Posted by stevedickychap on 17 July 2011 - 1:40am.
The debate about Charlie Gilmour seems to have attracted lots of reactionary comments and this made me wonder about the average age of the typical Word reader. I guess most of us are probably in the 40-55 age bracket? Could it be true that Word readers are a bunch of grumpy old farts or Victor Meldrew-types who think the civilised world as we know it, is going to pot?
- More from stevedickychap.
- Login or register to post comments
-
That's a good question. And
That's a good question. And I think I agree and disagree at the same time.
I'm not quite 40, white male with a reasonably well paying job.I don't think I'm getting more reactionary and conservative. What I do find is that I get a little more entrenched in some of my view, and polarized.
The conservative beliefs tend to be, well, conservative - Gilmour deserved what he got. The fact that others don't get what they should doesn't excuse him.
The liberal ones are getting fairly liberal.
I don't know what to make of it - except that it appears Churchill may wrong with his "liberal at 60" statement.
Yes, because as the saying goes..
As you get older, you have more to conserve. Assets, family, career, neighborhoods, etc. But this needs to be defined carefully, as in conservative vs. Conservative. I no longer think governments should print as much money as possible to cover social spending, which I thought completely made sense 30 years ago. As I got older, I learned more about hyper-inflation and the self-defeating approach of making everyone in the country a paper millionaire.
This does not preclude a social conscience, but it is balanced against one's life experience - which usually has to confront the fact that there are people who will bleed the system for every penny they can get without desiring to contribute a single day of labour. I sincerely do not believe that this is what any truly communist, socialist or social democratic theorist ever conceived of as a coherent or workable economic system. When Marx said 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' I don't think he was imagining Frank Gallagher.
err sorry
have another read of that..well you can only see this through "balanced against one's life experience"... but the thing is:none of those 'experiences" are anywhere near the same....
It's depressing...
...to see the countercultural figures of the '60s who have moved toward the right and become more reactionary and conservative and, arguably, risible in the process - Jerry Rubin, Felix Dennis, Branson - although perhaps the last two always exhibited that tendency anyway. Perhaps, as Sourdust claims, it is related to having more to conserve and materialism but as Lester in American Beauty notes, "it's all just stuff," and how much stuff does any one person really need?
But it's not really about material stuff for it's own sake
As you get older you need to provide for and protect kids and loved ones, then grandkids, then look after ageing parents. This all takes a level of effort and accumulation of resources.
Branson
Branson was never a counter-cultural figure. He may have adopted some of the accoutrements but the only thing he's ever been interested in has been increasing his own wealth.
Have a look at Tom Bower's biography for a view behind the facade.
Not really a 'facade' though, is it?
I don't think many people would be shocked to discover that Richard Branson quite likes being a venture capitalist. All I'll say is, from a branding point of view, he's a kind of genius. A masterclass in the 'one man brand'.
Virgin cinemas
That was a stroke of genius, wasn't it? Ah, and Virgin Cola...
What is depressing
is that in my twenties and thirties I thought it was possible for majority public opinion to make a difference. Obviously we dont know the final outcome of the phone hacking scandal but my guess is that there will be a massive cover up to protect a lot of establishment figures. Also in the spring revolution in the middle East it is patently obvious that there are a number of regimes who are quelling the majority voice for change. So to answer the question of the original post I feel I am less reactionary because there is a large dollop of 'what is the point?' on my plate when it comes to National/international politics. On the other hand I am much more vociferous in the workplace and with home issues where my opinion can have a bearing.
I'm 31
I'm broadly left-wing. I vote Labour, I supported the student protests and I supported the recent public sector strikes. However, I lean more to the right on the issue of law & order. I think we should build more prisons, for instance.
Any thinking person will find their views on various issues put them on different points of the left-right spectrum. There's nothing I distrust more than the 'I support Left-Wing / Right-Wing FC' attitude, where people can't think for themselves and so adopt whatever position they feel they should according to whether they think themselves right or left wing.
The whole 'retired colonel Daily Mail reader' thing is as irritating and childish as the 'sandal-wearing Guardian reader' jibes you hear from right-wingers and renders any internet discussion as little more than a pissing contest.
You really must stop this, Spartacus.
I've agreed with nearly everything you've posted in the last few days. ;-)
A pissing contest you say?
must get into training. Where's that gallon of Gatorade?
Good to hear!
We were due an agreement or two.
I reckon so too.
:-)
I'm at the very top of the age range you quote,
and consider myself an instinctive left-winger.
I thought Charlie Gilmour was very harshly punished, and was shocked at some of the bile his case revealed.
The world is going to hell in a handcart, and it's nothing to do with my personal ageing process; it's been going that way for a very long time. The Club of Rome described the writing on the wall with great clarity about 40 years ago.
I've watched the world ever since with a growing degree of bemused detachment. As an individual it's difficult to imagine how one can make any difference to the general decline, as Homo Sapiens circles the drain in increasingly rapid spirals.
Which is also probably why it's the littler things, those events we feel we might be able to influence, or at least to voice an equal opinion upon, that exercise peoples' minds, are discussed well beyond their import, fill the news reporting and sell newspapers.
You have articulated
my own feelings far better than I ever could. The society we live in is doomed as far as I can see. Don't get me wrong consumerism has consumed as much as the next man but with it we have lost sight of reality. When Marks and Spencers were reported as being in financial difficulty a couple of years ago because they ONLY made half billion pound profit in one year then you know something is wrong. When the only stories that interest the public are whose knickers the football star got into then you know something is wrong. When the Worlds biggest media corporation can pretty well do what the hell it likes with impunity then you know something is wrong. When the government of the day is in its pay and can do very little but administer hollow threats then you know something is wrong. When we are at the mercy of oil producing dictatorships who control our very way of life then you know something is wrong. When we spend more on our armed forces than we do on education then you know something is wrong. Too late to do anything about it as all of this is now set in stone. Revolution itself has become meaningless. Lets go out and get pissed instead.
Defeatist cynicism?
Is that knowledge and experience talking, or I have to say this, merely cowardice?
"The society we live in is doomed" hmm
I don't disagree with any of your "you know something is wrong" points. There's no doubt that things are very wrong. Anyone who doesn't see that is self-deceptive.
But does this mean that things can't get better? eventually? And things could be a lot worse. Ever payed a trip to Calcutta?
The opinions of most people shift as they get older. Knowledge, practical observation and experience does this. But its those who slip into their older age having effectively given up, that are so sour. Those who have given up on themselves and on human nature. They switch political viewpoints. Paying nothing more than lip service to their 'left wing" roots, or intuitive feelings when they were younger.
It happens to so many people, and you can understand it, but its always so depressing to see. Like a set of flowers in a vase with no water.
I am certainly not defeatist
Nor have I changed my instinctive left wing views. I assume the cowardice tag you have included in your post wasn't directed specifically at me. If it were then my response would have me taken off the site by Fraser. I honestly am not sure that things can get better in this country in my lifetime although I am hopeful they will get a whole lot better in a host of third world countries which is very good news indeed for the citizens of those countries. I haven't been to Calcutta yet but India is certainly on the list of countries I intend to visit. I have however been to Bolivia, Peru and Namibia amongst other third world countries so I am acutely aware of how good we have it in comparison. In Peru we gave pencils and crayons to kids and it was like we had given them gold. In Namibia the mortality rate for women in the last years has declined due to the ravages of aids whereas most other countries in the world have seen an increased mortality rate. There is a clear reason why I don't think things will improve in this country anytime soon and it doesn't really have anything to do with politics. As a nation was have lost any spirituality we once had, kindness has also disappeared. These days you almost regarded with suspicion if you hold the door open for a stranger or tell a work colleague they look nice.Yes, with luck, we can change the politics of the country. I am not sure we can change this mindset though.
The club of Rome
The Club of Rome described the writing on the wall with great clarity about 40 years ago.
Seriously - I havent a clue what you mean - please enlighten this old sailor.
They were a group of arch capitalists and political thinkers
upon whom it dawned that the planet was a limited resource, and that the human race was in danger of careering ever more quickly along a consumerist path that would rapidly reach the point at which there were no more resources to consume.
They published an extraordinary paper in 1972 called "Limits To Growth". In 1974 I started reading for a degree in Ecology, and the political implications of their paper cast a long shadow over all of the more traditional ecological studies in the course.
We are still in its shade, and that of studies that have followed it.
The club of Rome
Many thanks V V. Appreciate the response.
"Club of Rome" exaggerated things shock
The Club of Rome was big on linear extrapolations of trends, as if these trends were not subject to human influences, new knowledge, etc. Thus because of the socialist policies that sabotaged small farmers in developing countries and caused famines it was assumed more of the same would occur, causing food riots - in the west - by the early 1980s. Socialism failed, small farmers were allowed to sell their surplus, and no more famines. Rather than there being food riots in the west, there is an explosion of obesity. So they got food provision wrong.
For a critique of the 'Limits of Growth' hypotheses, see here: http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf
They also said that natural resources were running out. Perhaps, but - and it's a big but - 1970s methods of extraction were more inefficient, couldn't access places we now can, and the underlying model was not aware of what we now know: resources are found around the edges of the tectonic plates which slowly move and upon the surface of the earth is found.
Sure we have to be sensible in how we use our resources and organise the way they are distributed - but this is why the concept of conservation is important. There are plenty of thinking Conservatives out there, and the left and liberals who reject this view deserve every nutting by reality they get.
Future Babble
I've just read Dan Gardner's book Future Babble, which as the sub-title says, looks at "Why expert predictions fail and why we believe them." He examines predictions about wars, population growth, famines, and economics over the last century or so. His main conclusion is that the bigger the prediction, the more likely it is to be believed, and the less likely it is to be accurate. Gardner mentions The Club of Rome as a group that got it wrong, and is amusing about such gurus as Paul Ehrlich, who wrote in 1969 that, “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in 2000”. Ehrlich has the typical ability of the futurologist is to persuade himself that he was right against all the evidence. He will insist that he was basically correct, but accept that he may have got the timing of events wrong.
However, Gardner is no simple sceptic. What he suggests is that instead of listening to the pundits who have one big idea which they extrapolate far into the future, we should pay attention to those who look at a broad base of evidence and are prepared to re-examine their conclusions in the face of criticism. His previous book was called Risk, and it was about how we can sensibly understand and mitigate it. This one really follows on from that, and it's very readable.
40 years of hindsight yields more clarity shock.
The importance of the Club of Rome doesn't lie in their predictions, most of which have eventually proved to be a long way from the actuality, but in the fact that they were who they were and that they felt it important to comment upon the way things were going.
If a bunch of soviet apparatchiks had written Limits to Growth it would no doubt have been howled down as state sponsored propaganda. The fact that a Rockefeller and his chums initiated the thing was extremely significant.
The Ecologist magazine, and the political movement it promoted in the year or two after the Club of Rome report, was started and funded largely with the help of Private Eye's favourite arch capitalist James Goldsmith's older brother Teddy.
Though I consider myself a left leaning individual, I have to say that Teddy's lecture series, which he gave to a small group of first year Ecology students in my year at university, was truly excellent, and far more thought provoking than what it replaced on our timetable. The fact that he delivered these lectures in a borrowed room in the Students Union building, at the invitation of some of us students, at his own expense, and not in the School of Biological Sciences, spoke volumes about his generosity, intelligence and commitment to the subject.
I don't have any doubt that Teddy would observe that, despite our technological advances, and despite our ability to extract resources from ever poorer natural sources, as a species we are still living way beyond our means.
Gardner is talking about what we can learn
from previous styles of prediction. He is very much against the big dramatic theories, which if followed could have led to disaster.
I haven't got the book to hand, but, for example, he stresses that he believes that global warming exists. But then says there's a chance he's wrong, and there's also a chance that people who believe the opposite are wrong. So, instead of adopting entrenched positions, work out the risks and the costs of alternative actions. Even if global warming doesn't exist, wind farms might have other benefits which make them worth investing in.
I found the book convincing, maybe because I studies economics at one time, which suffered from too many grand theories and not enough pragmatism.
excellent post
This is an interesting question.
I've had the discussion many times with friends, mainly -I suspect- because, among my peers, I am perceived to have had the most pronounced journey from being a (broadly speaking) rabid leftie in my twenties to becoming a (broadly speaking) right-wing libertarian in my forties.
Here's a question: Do you think you were smarter and wiser at the age of 17, or smarter and wiser at the age of 26? If the answer is 'yes', what is it that made you smarter and wiser? And is it possible that you might just be smarter and wiser again at the age of 33, then even more smart and wise at 40?
I don't understand why some folk think that you should have the same principles and beliefs at 48 that you had at 18. Why shouldn't you be able to use thirty years worth of experience to modify your judgements and perhaps come to different conclusions about certain things?
One of the things that bugs me most is when folk judge my (supposedly reactionary right-wing) views on 'moral' grounds. Like most of us, I want to live in a world that is as fair and as free as possible, with as many people as possible being happy, fulfilled, gainfully employed, educated, loved etc. My experiences have led me to conclude that (BROAD BRUSH STROKES ALERT) 'socialism' won't ever achieve those things. Although my belief in the 'means' to achieve those goals has changed, my focus on the 'ends' is exactly the same.
I think the intellectual arguments as to how best to use our resources and to organise society are overwhelmingly on 'my' side. Lots of folk don't agree with me, but in the battleground of ideas, I'm confident that the 'right' will come out on top most of the time. And, in my experience, the argument is effectively conceded when folk start trotting out those tiresome cliches about 'uncaring' right wingers and the supposed 'moral high ground' of the leftist-liberal default position.
When it gets to that stage, it's usually time to step away from the vehicle ;)
Or as David Lloyd George commented,
“A young man who isn't a socialist hasn't got a heart; an old man who is a socialist hasn't got a head.” I don't entirely hold with the comment (I prefer John Martyn: "Love me with your head AND heart") but it's an odd person who doesn't at least modify his or her views during life's journey.
I've been reading "Small Island" by Andrea Levy and was struck / appalled by the descriptions of racism the original Jamaican immigrants encountered in the late 1940's. But when I thought about it, I realised that my own generation had been pretty much the same with Indians and Pakistanis in the 1970's. And today we vilify Eastern Europeans, which I now find deplorable. In many respects, I hope I've become much less reactionary and "conservative" than I was when I was younger, as well as more compassionate.
A 20 year old me would probably have broadly supported Charlie Gilmour; the 40 year would have thrown the book at him; the 54 year old thinks he was treated too harshly.
Then there's the matter of your parents
Broad brushstrokes from the beginning here, but:
- when you're young, your parents are demonstrating all those conservative (small c) values that you instinctively kick against.
- in your thirties, you've committed to a career, you've accrued responsibilities, and you find yourself agreeing more with the parental position. The parents are in their prime at this point - vigorous, and as wealthy as they'll ever be.
- in your fifties, your parents are now old and infirm. Suddenly, they're needy - consequently, mortality stares you in the face, and you step back from the conservative certainties that propelled you through your earlier middle age. You may be concerned about specifics (the availability of social services for your Alzheimers mother). Or it may be that you've been around long enough to recognise that (a) nothing is absolute and (b) you don't infinitely add to your store of experience and therefore competence, but that after a while it starts to drain away.
Shakespeare of course got it right with the seven ages of man.
I am a mass of contradictions
My background is working class and I grew up in a left wing household hating the torries. I was a young radical, all about equality and tolerance. I still read the Guardian (just turned 40) but find bits of it irritating; why do they call 'actresses' 'actors'? I am very conservative about law & order (people should behave, they know what they are doing is wrong) and personal responsibility (get a job, contribute, have kids when you can afford them) etc. As a youngster I was a marxist but although the analysis was right the solutions were bunkum. To my mind capitalism, although not equal or always fair, is the most effective economic system so far devised. I actually like having 'stuff' but I have always worked to earn it. Is it that as we get older we become more pragmatic? We cannot change the world but we can do our best for our family & friends. When I was young the ultimate accolade accorded to anyone was 'he/she has always worked'; society would be better if everyone had that same ethic.
Polarity
When we're younger we are able to see things in terms of back and white.
As we grow older, we realise, perhaps against our preferences, but in line with necessity, that compromises have to be made. We realise there are many shades of grey, that arguments are nuanced and the world is hellishly more complex than we'd like it to be.
I'm late 20s
I don't know what an appropriate sentence would be, but I'm not really upset about what he's been given. He'll probably only serve a small amount of it anyway.
The comparisons made to "more violent crimes" getting shorter sentences don't quite make sense for me; perhaps rather than Gilmour's being too long, it's that the others are too short? Again, I don't know what an appropriate sentence is. How do we decide what is fair in terms of units of time? However, I feel that the point of a sentence is as a deterant, it's not neccesarily an appropriate punishment, it's something harsh enough for someone not to do the thing in the first place. Obviously in the real world this doesn't work, but theoretically if sentences were right no one would actually end up having to serve one.
The Daily Mail
I have observed on this blog a tremendous disdain for The Daily Mail and what/who it is perceived to represent. And yet in many discussions on here (eg education, food, holidays, property, law & order) people reveal themselves to be broadly 'Daily Mail/Middle Englander types' in their actions and opinions of life in Britain 2011, yet would never admit to being reactionary and conservative.
Of all my many strongly leftie friends from the 1980s, I have only two who still think and act like they did back in the day.
Agreed
there do seem to be a lot of 'I consider myself left of centre/ left wing but...' disclaimers around. I tend to think you is what you does.
The reason for those disclaimers...
...is that offering a small-p political opinion which doesn't conform to the prevailing right-on orthodoxy has often resulted in childish "Daily Mail" namecalling from some.
Not sure that I get that
it reads (and I'm aware of how wrong things can be read) like people hold opinions and positions that don't conform to their own professed orthodoxys. That in turn suggests that their political leanings aren't quite where they state they are.
It's pretty simple.
It's perfectly possible to be broadly left-liberal and not necessarily be on board with ALL the views associated with that worldview. I'm left of centre: I believe in a large role for the state in providing free public services like health, education and social care; I'm in principle opposed to the marketisation of those services; I think the unfettered free market is incalculably dangerous, and am generally pro-regulation; I'm an absolute social liberal and am viscerally opposed to discrimination on the basis of age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity or any other demographic; I'm in favour of intervention to arrest anthropogenic climate change; I'm in favour of Britain retaining a large international aid budget.
On the other hand, I tend towards the "lock 'em up, build more prisons" side on questions of law and order. I'm not in principle opposed to military intervention abroad (although I often have been in practice). I don't think half of all eighteen year olds belong at university. I'm in favour of an enlightened and properly-organised education system in which there is an element of selection by ability.
I don't necessarily agree with the Labour party on everything, and try to take each issue on its merits rather than subscribing to the full Standard Issue Ideology Kit. That doesn't mean I'm not fundamentally left of centre.
I'd hope the same is true of any thinking person, whatever their broad political affiliation.
You're right...
it is pretty simple when it's explained like that. Cheers.
I've just had a go on the political compass below, I can't even do italics on here so there's no chance of me attaching it. I was 2 squares from the left & four from the bottom (please Carol) which means, I guess, that I'm a lot more left-leaning than I thought I was.
Some problems with the questions though eg:
'A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system.'
I can see that somebody could agree with that statement without agreeing that a one party state is a good or desirable thing.
good post Bob.
I'd just like to pick up on one thing though, as I think this is an interesting case in point (if you're sad enough to have followed my posting history you might guess what it is):
You say "I'm in favour of intervention to arrest anthropogenic climate change". As indeed are David Cameron, Ed Milliband and Nick Clegg. Trouble is, said 'intervention' (such as mandating that a certain ludicrously-unrealistic-given-current-technology amount of energy must be produced by wind turbines and that this should be stealth-subsidised through consumers' bills) is certain to prove burdensome to the less well off, while proving highly lucrative for certain well-placed parties like, oooh, off the top of my head, Sir Reginald Sheffield, father in law of the current PM, and owner of some prime real estate on which to site such industrial structures.
It's remarkable that this cause is still seen as one of the left. Perhaps it will take the effects of the next harsh winter for the penny to drop that, in the words of J. Lydon: "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
With you on that Bob
Part of the problem is our tendency to follow trends. My son went to University because it was the done thing. It wasn't for him and he left mid-term. I could have told him before he went but firmly believe at the age of seventeen you make your own decisions right or wrong. In fairness the University course was related to a job he had no interest in but not all teenagers leaving school are cut out for academia. He subsequently got a good job that he enjoys so he was certainly one of the lucky ones.
On the question of law and order I have certainly noticed that this is an area where a considerable number of left leaning people have become more conservative in their views as they have got older. I would put myself in that category - I am not sure it is a change in politics more a learning of respect absent in the impetuousness of youth.
Man pisses on own shoes...
The idea that we all get more right wing as we get older is perhaps just a lazy and slightly inaccurate way of describing what actually happens to us we get older ...
Take a student radical who wants to smash the system, goes on the odd riot, takes part in left wing politics, gets a job with a trade union, moves on to being a Labour candidate, blah, eventually ends up as an MP, even a member of the government ... He or she may have wanted to change politics entirely but by the time they get their hands on the levers of power as they exist, they have a direct responsibility to pull & push those levers rather than flouncing off saying, 'I want entirely new ones...' So they look like complete sell-outs to the next generation of student radicals standing at the gates of Downing Street shouting 'Smash the system, you just got old and right wing...' Actually, it's more accurate to say that the old sell-out just engaged with the "system" as it's instituted...
In domestic terms, the same might apply to youthful dreams of rocknroll, poetry, art, space travel (it's in my blood, there ain't nothin' i can do about it) or whatever. If you navigate through life to the point where you've got a £750pcm mortgage to pay and a council tax bill of nearly £200 a month, then hanging around unfunded waiting for inspiration to strike for the next magnum opus ("E, A, B7, it'll be huuuuge, i just need some lyrics...") simply isn't practical and it's more likely you'll be one of the people on the 0743hrs from East Grinstead in the morning, heading into town to work as a retail sales consultant for Primark or whatever ...
Meanwhile, anything that looks as if it might make your life harder (economic chaos, unemployment, poverty, being on the wrong end of a criminal offence) is something to be guarded against, both in terms of day-to-day personal behaviour and local/national voting patterns.
More right wing? I'd say that instead of standing outside the tent pissing in, as you get older you end up inside the tent trying not to piss on your own shoes.
(An artist of course is someone who can piss on both of their shoes at the same time.)
Very well put.
Compass Reading
I've found it can be helpful to think about where people stand on the authoritarian / libertarian axis, which allows a slightly more nuanced picture to emerge than the traditional left / right position. Unfortunately I've found that if you're me, this also gives you an extra reason to feel dissatisfied with the people in power (e.g. David Blunkett, who wanted to nationalise industry but bring in identity cards; David Cameron, social liberal who wants to let market forces govern public services).
If you have five minutes to spare, you can assess yourself at http://www.politicalcompass.org/index (I appear to find myself in the same sort of area as the Dalai Lama, but I am not claiming I am the new Dalai Lama - that is for others to say).
Thanks for posting that, your Holiness.
I was about to do the same before I saw your post - I think it's really useful, and sums up pretty much what I was saying above. This is me:
I think you might be me, Bob
I have taken this test before with predictably similar results.
Strewth, we must be related...
Everyone should unleash their inner Gaunt
every once in a while
Crikey...
I seem to be very similar to you guys too (somewhere in the region of Gandhi/Dalai Lama etc). Not sure if I can print the graph, though, but here's the score;
The Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -5.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.79
I ended up just a little bit down and left of centre.
Which was pretty much where I thought I'd end up. I hold exteme views on all fronts. They sort of balance out.
HAd the same result
Took the test probably about 4 or 5 years ago and plotted the same spot on the graph. I think the problem is that the questions are not really provided with enough context, or balanced by follow-ups to determine false positives. Still, it's pretty funny to discover that you tilt more towards Ghandi than Genghis.
Mine's the same as Bob, Gatz and Vulpes
(so I'm not going to post it)
I'm about the same as Gandhi, me
Ask me what I think of Western Civilization.
I've just grazed
the left side of you.
Some very thought provoking questions there but the absence of a middle ground may have pushed me a bit more over to the left.
You and me, Mojo
I'm one row down towards Libertarian, otherwise we're the same.
Cool
lets you, me and bassclef form a clique ;-)
Yes, but then again no
I only want to form a clique that I can be sure lots of people will want to join, who we can then tell to get lost.
Me Too
I'm Left Libertarian just a bit further down the scale from Nelson Mandela and Gandhi
LIFE'S VALUE SYSTEM
When maturity begins and senility sets in, is nothing more than a hindsight valuation of life.
At a rather can't believe I'm 63. I continually, in my quieter moments, ponder on 'The Meaning of Life'.
I look back on my experiences and realise that every instinctive reaction was based on the 'code of conduct' I perceived from the cradle.
The self same viewpoint that I took into my student days and personal relationships.Unfortunately, those self same rules are not always shared by the other people on the journey.
Society today, especially in the UK, is more about the haves and not the have-nots. The gap has just got wider through the lack of investment in the people of this country, while the nouveau riche profit their way through the supposed working class.
I am still at a loss to work out why the Energy sector privatisation needs to reward their captain's of industry with so much financial reward. If I can exist on a modest annual sum why do they need upwards of £500k to exist. Surely the latest price rises are more to do with sustaining salaries and bonus payments to those at the higher echelons.
Still never mind while I can still afford to support the music industry I will exist in creative contradiction.
I'm 96
and I really need a bed bath. Could somebody please scrub my back?
Worst.
Chat. Up. Line. Ever.
But
could. have. been. much. much. worse.
Not necessarily.
The End (of my participation in this futile thread).
As soon as I start liking 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue'...
...that's the time I've come too reactionary and conservative. Weak puns, unfunny sing-a-longs and tedious Lionel Blair takes-it-up-the-arse jokes over-laughed at by a bunch of would-be Round Table presidents and Daily Telegraph readers who have to buy 'How To Give A Funny Speech' books because they've got no sense of humour.
I quite liked the
"in my pants" game.
My brain needs some downtime from it's usual knife edge of cultural relevance frenzy.
Anyone fancy a game of Mornington Cresent
then?
Yes, just as soon as I've finished
the Telegraph crossword.
Ok, I'll start
Olthwaite Place...
Ok the vectors are wild so
Wrongity Wrong Lane
No
I spent a few years in a Leadership role - having to knuckle down and tow the party line etc. Hated it and resigned. I just kept hearing the line from Working for the Clampdown - "You grow up and you calm down." I would rather be happy than take the money and eat the bullshit.
re. the original question..
no...
the phenomenon to occurs for a variety of reasons for a plethora of people..
personally, i have become angrier and even more hopelessly idealistic, safe in the knowledge i am uselessly marginalised and will never be in a position to even support any patsy with a sliver of responsibility...
party on!!
BUT!!!
yr observations regarding our comrades here in yr intro are probably not entirely false...
I get more reactionary
when people confuse their computers with their mobile phones.
Me...
I'm just getting wiser by the day.