There are plenty of people who find grievance wherever they look... and ordinary people are discouraged from treating them with anything less than respect.
But, of course, the availability of fresh grievances is reducing all the time and the promoters within the grievance industry are struggling more and more to find something 'worthwhile' to find offence with.
In Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) the Big-Endians are a group of people in Lilliput who believe that boiled eggs should be broken at the big end rather than at the little end, as commanded by the Emperor of Lilliput. As a result of this disagreement Lilliput and the neighbouring land of Blefuscu have ‘been engaged in a most obstinate war for six and thirty moons past’....
It seems to me that Jonathan Swift's satire is remarkably sharp even today.
I'm not sure what sort of catastrophic event he has in mind. But it's also possible that increasing numbers of people will come to realise that grievances are simply a low-level drag on efficiency and are a pointless waste of time. In effect, they allow us to be ruled by a coalition of weaklings and sly opportunists.
dearieme - I don't know. I've thought about it in a vague way, but we're too old to think about it seriously. Younger people should consider it though.
DJ - yes, Swift's satire is remarkably sharp. The mistake as we all know is to create grievance industries which just perpetuate and expand the grievance whatever is done to mitigate it. I'm sure Starmer sees himself as a radical Middle-Endian.
Sam - he isn't predicting a specific catastrophic event and maybe it's not that plausible anyway. More likely is a series of serious but not fatal events and disruptions plus a more widespread recognition that we are indeed ruled by a coalition of weaklings and sly opportunists.
4 comments:
Or run away: but where to?
There are plenty of people who find grievance wherever they look... and ordinary people are discouraged from treating them with anything less than respect.
But, of course, the availability of fresh grievances is reducing all the time and the promoters within the grievance industry are struggling more and more to find something 'worthwhile' to find offence with.
In Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) the Big-Endians are a group of people in Lilliput who believe that boiled eggs should be broken at the big end rather than at the little end, as commanded by the Emperor of Lilliput. As a result of this disagreement Lilliput and the neighbouring land of Blefuscu have ‘been engaged in a most obstinate war for six and thirty moons past’....
It seems to me that Jonathan Swift's satire is remarkably sharp even today.
I'm not sure what sort of catastrophic event he has in mind. But it's also possible that increasing numbers of people will come to realise that grievances are simply a low-level drag on efficiency and are a pointless waste of time. In effect, they allow us to be ruled by a coalition of weaklings and sly opportunists.
dearieme - I don't know. I've thought about it in a vague way, but we're too old to think about it seriously. Younger people should consider it though.
DJ - yes, Swift's satire is remarkably sharp. The mistake as we all know is to create grievance industries which just perpetuate and expand the grievance whatever is done to mitigate it. I'm sure Starmer sees himself as a radical Middle-Endian.
Sam - he isn't predicting a specific catastrophic event and maybe it's not that plausible anyway. More likely is a series of serious but not fatal events and disruptions plus a more widespread recognition that we are indeed ruled by a coalition of weaklings and sly opportunists.
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