A BBC podcast and TV coverage of a total solar eclipse have helped crystallise my thinking today. Earlier I listened to an episode of In Our Time about George Orwell’s novel 1984. Melvin Bragg at one point expresses his disquiet at how the novel seems to disparage 85% of the population, the “proles”.
Programme contributor Lisa Mullen makes a really good job of putting this in context, and explaining that Winston Smith’s view might not be Orwell’s view. But either way, it’s true!
Then, on the evening news, there was coverage of the total solar eclipse that is visible today in a path from Mexico to Canada. There were various reporters in various locations talking blah blah blah to camera while members of the public in the background were cheering and ‘hollering’ like a quiz-show audience. Why? Wouldn’t people prefer to have a quiet awe-full once-in-a-lifetime experience?
Recently it’s occurred to me a few times that the majority of people in the UK seem to be sleepwalking into a totalitarian future. They/we are numbed by inane or obnoxious TV programmes (Dress to Impress, Married At First Sight), obsessed with fashion (fish lips and tattoos), and wilfully ignorant of what’s really going on.
After all the shocking bare-faced lying by Boris Johnson, the trashing of the economy by Liz Truss, the ennobling and return to government of David Cameron they/we are still not out on the streets demanding a General Election. We just don’t seem to care any more. We’ve given up, haven’t we.
We’ve got Companies House registering obviously bogus companies. We’ve got utility companies owned by foreign countries and/or laden with debt by private equity investors who extract massive dividends. We’ve got local authorities going bankrupt while the number of billionaires increases.
Last week I was gobsmacked at the news that Israel had attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus (Syria), but I’ve not heard it mentioned again even though, surely, it’s a massive act of war. I can’t believe it’s not important, but for some reason it’s being editorially played down. So, I have to realise that the media is filtering and spinning everything I receive, and that it is impossible for me or anyone else to know anything is true, or to know what it is I’m not being allowed to know. And of course, this has now been going on for so long that we’ve all just given up.
We can’t control it. We can’t do anything about it. So either we are paralysed by anxiety or else we go and get our nails done on the way to dropping some donations off at the food bank.
Life as a Sandwich Filling 