Society, behavour, responsibility

We are lead to believe that getting through life is all about behaviour, personal responsibility, and endeavour. I happen to think that is also about what you choose not to do as, with the freedom to choose, comes the responsibility to not do those things that harm others or otherwise compromise the promise of the endeavours of others. But this is in a world where ambition, profit, even survival often fight against those other socially responsible ideals and so often show them up to be aspirations but frequently nothing more. For example the call for the Big Society was meant to fire us up to uphold those higher ideals and especially get people going the extra mile in terms of voluntary work or aspiration. Sadly there are examples where that desire is met with contempt by those in charge, who select weasel words of supposed support to mask the very opposite intention. 

One museum I know of got the money they had long campaigned for to improve the place and provide better exhibits and facilities, and all agreed the proposals were necessary and right, so no problem there. As well as the main part of the museum there were private collections which were quirky and not necessarily related to the main theme of the museum, it had long been so. These collections were the property of some of the volunteers and had helped keep the place afloat and attractive to visitors as the main theme struggled financially and logistically as it grew through the years. But the crucial point in terms of the visitor experience was that they enjoyed them and would get angry if they happened to be closed on the day of their visit. But with the new improvements management decided that the private collections had to go as they they were off message and detracted from the modernization of the place and its aspirations to be a 'world class' museum. Space was not an issue as there are plenty of vacant buildings in the grounds, many in decent condition, so the collections could have been kept on and not been in the way of the new works, so the reasons for getting them removed or drastically altered seem too narrow minded, unnecessary, and particularly thoughtless when you think how they had helped keep the place afloat during all the preceding years. As well as the private collection owners affected by the new regime were volunteers who acted as stewards and guides. They were/are the public interface of the place, management is rarely seen. Over the years the volunteers had developed their own styles, around the core story of the place, of communicating a complex story in digestible ways. But the same ruthless and disciplinarian straight jacket was forced on them. The guides were not allowed to use their own style in responding to the audiences. Parts of the history were cut as they were deemed irrelevant to the 'core story.' Consultations were promoted but all they did was not what it said on the label, but act as an opportunity for management to hammer home their expectations and demand adherence or else. So the private collections are leaving and volunteer stewards and guides walking out. Even if the changes were deemed necessary to the collections and volunteers they were forced home with the military style message of "shape up or get out." This to those many of whom had not only kept the place going but rescued and created it in the first place. 

There are a series of points being made here, the duplicity of intent in the name of progress and improvement, how do you complain effectively and moderate/change the situation without doing damage to what you are trying to protect, how do, and should you, respect the commitment and endeavours of others when your plan means they have to go and, even if you handle that well, are you not still sacrificing the past and its proven value on the dubious alter of the uncertain future.

This may seem a bit of a obscure swipe at the hazards of progress and personal responsibility but I have seen it up close and experienced the pain, anger and helplessness that those of good heart face when in such situations.  

Europe

I should start by stating my politics, except that it is likely to be more confusing than illuminating. I can best describe my position as Confused Liberal. I am not a Conservative and very uncomfortable if my views are described as coming from that side of the political divide but, on the other hand, I view with some scepticism some of the Labour or New Labour attitudes and political ambitions. Sometimes I am to the left of the Labour Party but never to the right or right wing of the Conservatives. In some parts of the world I would be seen as a capitalist, in others a socialist. I am not sure if that helps but it is how I see myself. I believe in democracy and the democratic process its just that sometimes the popular desire worries me.

So why am I getting on my soapbox today, well it is Europe. I am a European, I have some Welsh ancestry but mostly English, I probably am mainly Angle in terms of my genetic coding but I am from the great big melting pot that is Europe and all its peoples. Now I know that this is hardly what the Euro sceptics are on about or want to hear about, but it is the basis for the existence of the cultures and peoples of these islands. Short of someone finding a way of cutting these islands off from the continental shelf and towing them to some remote as yet unclaimed location, we are part of Europe, so get used to it. We have, after all, been a part of Europe for rather a long time, and certainly from before politicians started on about it or knew that was what this part of the world would be called.

I watched horrified at the way the little Englanders of the Tory right tore the party apart in the 90's and am appalled at the prospect of them doing again, not because I am worried for the Tories, they deserve all they get, but because it damages the interests of the rest of us and seems to turn normally straight thinking people into new little Englanders. As for UKIP, contempt is the feeling that most sums up my reaction.

Sure there are some aspects of the European experiment that I do not like and wish they/we would not do or expect us to do, but so what. You hardly end a relationship, friendship or even a conversation with a passing acquaintance merely on the basis that they don't see things the same way you do. You would end up a very sad and lonely person if you did. We are not talking big dramatic stuff here, just the day to day ways of enabling us all to live in a better world and have a better life.

I feel that yet again I am witnessing an attack on rational thought where dogma is used as a hammer to bang on about whatever prejudices are irritating those with an ideology they wish to foist on the rest of us whether it is acceptable to the rest of us or fitting with our needs. This morning there was a noted right wing Tory politician blaming the European parliament for green energy, immigration problems, the financial crisis and anything else he could ram into the sound bite. Green energy? How is green energy the fault, if that is what it is, of Europe, or is it that his 'heartland' Tories do not like wind turbines in their country vistas. Maybe I am not so keen either but it is better then sending men down the mines and polluting the air that we breath. Does he not want to stop the polluting effects of coal, the dangers from the extraction and use of all fossil fuels. The financial crisis could be said to be the result of the financial free for all encouraged when he was a member of the cabinet, and yet that financial initiative sparked and allowed the banks to come up with all sorts of doggy and disastrous ideas and bring about the downfall of not just our banks but those spread around the world. That was home grown stupidity, Europe's mistake was following it. Immigration, this island has been built on the benefits of immigration goes back centuries and millennia. Again get used to it.

So please, please, please, engage your brain before listening to all these siren calls to leave Europe, to be our own independent selves, to ignore the realities of the real social, economic, and political benefits we have enjoyed since joining the EU.