Scotland. Ah Bonny Scotland. With it's haggis throwing competitions, it's incomprehensible dialects, it's warm and welcoming people. Idyllic. That's the word for it. Idyllic. We all toddle around, working in tweed factories, looking forward to the weekend when we can gather in the local tavern to sing songs about people called Aggie and compare kilts.
Actually, it's not like that. It's just another branch of the British isles, really. Like everywhere, tradition and custom don't have much impact on daily life, and were you to walk around Glasgow, Dundee or Edinburgh with ear muffs on to hide the accents, it would be indistinguishable from London, Manchester, Dublin or Cardiff. Just a lot of people from all walks of life, getting on with it.
But up here in Scotland, there's a plague. A dark undercurrent that spreads it's tendrils throughout the land into the brains of those people, from the very affluent to the lowest jakey scum. A disease so malevolent that while it's spoken of on telly and radio almost daily, it has to be hidden from in general life and only spoken of in the quietest of tones.
Sectarianism.
What is sectarianism, you may ask. Well, you could always google it, but it won't give you any concrete idea of what it means in Scottish society, because it doesn't really make much sense. Is it about religion? Is it about nationality? Is it about football? Well, if you were to cock an ear towards and pub on an "old firm" day, you'd come away with the idea that it's a mish-mash of all these things. Half understood ideologies, a smattering of historical inaccuracy, lifelong football allegiance and a good deal of racism thrown into the pot for good measure. Ancient, outmoded rivalries that have no bearing on today's world, which are clung on to and revered as though they are somehow important. And if you don't think the same way as the majority do in whatever backwater you happen to find yourself growing up in, you better keep quiet about it.
Where I live, it's the "protestant" (or "proddissent") side of the coin that's prevalent, rather than the "catholic" (or "kafflick") side, but regardless of what "side" of the "argument" (whatever it is) you come down on, the diatribe seems to be the same. Us good, them bad. The differences between the two sides are completely intangible, stemming from ancient arguments brought about by Jacobite rebellions and famines that happened hundreds of years ago and have absolutely no bearing at all on any part of life at all. And, if I'm going to be completely honest with you dear, imaginary reader, I'm absolutely sick to the stomach of it.
You see, I might have mentioned this before, if there's one thing in the world I cannot stand, it's stupidity. I don't mean the "unable to do sums" kind, I mean the jeering, belligerent kind, the kind that imposes itself on other people. Like a teenager throwing popcorn at a cinema screen, that kind of stupidity. And sectarianism smacks of stupidity in it's highest form..... taking a lot of half understood ideas and inconsequential arguments, mixed with a religious belief that is neither understood or followed to any extent, and mixing them all up into a method for banding into a group and hating other people, who in this case tend to be supporters of a different football team. People like to factionise themselves, it comes from when we were cavemen. But so did shitting down our own legs and clonking women on the head with clubs, and those things have fallen, largely, by the wayside.
The problem is, though, that the very nature of sectarianism means that it isn't open to any sort of debate. It's largely based on intolerance, but will not stand for any intolerance of itself. In other words, it relies on freedom of speech and rights given to it by a democratic society to allow it to intimidate and oppress people in an entirely undemocratic way, but as soon as their right to do so is questioned, they cry "no fair" (and generally batter whoever questioned them). Yes. The behaviour of indignant children. Or "cunts" as they are known in the adult world.
I was brought up in one of the most sectarian regions of Scotland. I grew up in the same school as the locals, I supported the same football team, I followed the orange walks around and whistled the tunes. But it was at around the age of ten that I started to question what was going on..... who were these "fenians" and why did we hate them so much? It didn't take much thought from a ten year old's brain to pull the whole thing to pieces. I stopped watching football, as it was tainted with the stupidity. And I couldn't for the life of me, understand why others couldn't see how wrong they all were.
It was around then that I discovered that my family, on my mother's side, had a catholic background. My dad told me (at the same time making me swear not to tell anyone else, such is the fear of being different in this place) that my mum had come from a catholic family. Once, before I was born, an orange walk comprised of locals, "friends" of my dad, had stopped outside our door and stared in the window in an attempt to intimidate my mum. All 5 feet of her. These boozed up, half-brained thugs were attempting to make a 5 foot, respectable young woman feel unsafe in her own home. If any one of my friends ever read this, I hope you will understand how hard it is for me to keep quiet when you bang on about the fenians with the knowledge of that incident in my mind. I keep quiet because I respect your right to your own opinions where I know you would not respect mine.
As a side not on that incident, here are some facts which make those ignorant scumbags seem even more pathetic. My mother was better than every one of those uneducated cunts outside our house and anyone who follows the same ideals, simply because what mattered to her was not some stupid notion of religious belief, but what people were like. She never harmed a fly and was decent to anyone who was decent to her. What's more, my mother was not a "catholic". My mum never believed in God or an afterlife, let alone followed the doctrines of any religious organisation. And she would absolutely batter me for using the "c" word, because she was able to bring a child up well and with a decent, open mind. And just in case, for the tiny remnant of animosity that could be aimed at her for coming over here in the potato famine and stealing decent rangers supporters jobs, my Papa came from Newfoundland to fight for this country during the war. He was wounded fighting in france to defend this country from a REAL threat, the nazis, not going over on his ankle while blowing into a flute to scare away an imaginary one like the big, bad pope is made out to be, and afterwards settled here to become a well respected member of the community.
So there you are. I'm half catholic. Except I'm not. Only round these parts could anyone be described as being half a religion. A religious belief is just that..... a belief. It's something you choose for yourself, not something you are born into. Were I to choose to become muslim, jewish, hindu or worship the flying spaghetti monster, it would be my choice, but around these parts in the dimly lit corners of the mush people use for brains, I will forever be half catholic, tainted with that gene that makes people support celtic.
So I'm not a catholic. Neither am I a protestant. But then, neither are most of the people who subscribe to these daft beliefs. Every weekend they shout and sing but never once set foot in a church. They stand proud in defence of beliefs they neither understand nor follow. And every so often, some poor kid gets stabbed on their way home by one of these imbeciles simply because they wear the uniform of the opposing side..... a rangers or celtic top.
So I'll sit with my mouth closed and never let on what I really think. Half because some of you people are my friends, and despite what I think to be a horrible lack of sense on your part I regard you as good people despite it all and don't wish to offend you like you offend me. But also out of fear, because I know what happens when someone is "different" around these parts, even if that difference is only an ability to question the norm. But would you do me a favour? Next time you shout "fuck the pope!" or "up the ra!", just think about why you're saying it. Is it because that's really what you think? Or is it because you want everyone else to think that it is?
Saturday 28 May 2011
Wednesday 16 February 2011
The world, the universe and Lady sodding Gaga.
There's this theory in astrophysics about how the universe will end called "the big crunch". Basically, it states that gravity will eventually (in about 30 billion years, so best start getting organized) pull all the galaxies. stars and planets into one super-super dense point in space. The thought that my atoms might one day be smushed up aganst those of Alex Reid makes my blood run cold, I can tell you. Now, they think these days that this probably won't happen (dark matter and all that stuff, I go down a storm with the kids, me) but I have discovered an alarming trend which proves that it IS happening, and not in 30 bazillion years either! Right now! In your own living room! I know this because if you look at "new" stuff these days with anything more than the usual amount of notice your average ugg-wearer is capable of, you'll see that everything in the known universe is slowly merging into the same bland thing.
I first hit upon my earth shattering theory the other day, when listening to some generic shit on the radio. It dawned on me after listening to half the song that it wasn't, in fact, the song I thought I had been listening to, but a "new" one. I heard another one today.... that new pink one and that "price tag" shite..... practically identical. Then it hit me! I heard something else which startled me while wandering around in a shopping precinct at the weekend. Cro-magnon shitfest Oasis's droning "stop crying your heart out" was being belted out at a steadily increasing scream by generic warbler Leona Lewis. Now, I'm no Oasis fan (you only have to listen to how shit the lyrics are to "she's electric" to realise how easily they made their money) but there really was no need for them to go that far to make their songs even worse. I was always a blur man myself, but shit as I thought Oasis were, they still reside several miles farther up in my estimations than the pre-packaged shit that does "cover versions" of songs to fill Simon Cowell's pockets. The explanation is this.... there is such a gaping hole in the entertainment market and so many greedy, money grabbing record producers crying about not being able to afford another gold ferrari because of people downloading music, that any real talent or innovation is swamped into insignificance by money-spinning shit like Leona Lewis or Rihanna. I even heard a radio DJ describing Madonna as "the Lady Gaga of her day" as if she was some stoory old painting from the 16th century. But he was right! Lady Gaga is just a copy, and a shit one at that. (Incidentally, how come it's ok for her to strip to practically nothing and waggle her naked bits at kids through a television, but it a beer-stained old guy does it in a public park that's wrong? At least madonna wasn't verging on the obscene in videos that anyone old enough to work a remote control can see. You can't have it both ways, humanity. Yes you did pick up what I was meaning right, I'm saying Lady Gaga is fucking disgusting and kids shouldn't be allowed to see her. And I mean it, too. But back to the fun.) Anything decent that somehow manages to slip through the net and actually make it into the limelight is then mercilessly remade again and again and again to spread it's success to as many people as possible. They're "re-imagining" songs that have barely been out for a year these days. Why? Money. Again. All the songs are getting sucked into a black hole of mediocrity and sameness, and even the singers themselves are losing any sort of uniquness. I can't tell them apart, they're all so similar. Justin Bieber's taken it one further still, being neither fully male nor female. It's madness.
Yep. another thing money has ruined.
But it's not just music. If it was, who gives a shit, right? Let the idiots have their dross. It's everything, though. When was the last time you went to the pictures and saw a genuinely interesting and fresh film? If it isn't a remake these days it's set along the same basic formula of 50 films before it to ensure as many henley wearing retards go to throw popcorn at the screen as possible. More on these dicks in another blog, for now I'll stick to the point. Even take the humble remake to prove my point further. When was the last time you saw a film that didn't have a "love interest" to broaden the audience and make more money? Or a wise-cracking sidekick? Even if the original film was a decent movie, they'll shoe-horn in as much generic shit as possible to ensure there's "something for everyone". Just look at "The hitcher" for an example. The original was a proper tension fest. The remake was generic teenage slasher drivel, like 100 other films released that year. I'm waiting for a re-release of "The Usual Suspects" starring Ashton fucking Kutcher as a sensitive reimagining of Kaiser Soze, and some bint out of hollyoaks as his romantic love interest. That'll draw the crowds!
I mean, just look at a tiny section of film, shall we? Lets say..... ooooh, I dunno, stick to what I know..... horror. Right. Back when things were good, horror was interesting. You had a massive variety of denizens of the dark to scare the shit out of you. Zombies. Ghosts. Werewolves. Vampires. Mutant swamp monsters. Aliens. Each with their own unique traits, dangers, strengths and weaknesses, each of them evil and out to eat your face. Then some boffin behind the scenes thought "Hey.... what if they weren't evil, but were good instead!" Hurrah! An interesting twist! But wait. Now they're ALL just ordinary sexy teenage hunks and sexpots, having relationships and arguments while learning to cope with their unusual lives. Innovative? Interesting? No it fucking isn't, it's fucking well hollyoaks with sharp teeth, and it's another step on the ladder to a generic, corporate blandness where we all look the same, like the same and think the same.
It's spreading out now from what we watch and listen to to every aspect of our lives. Yesterday, in a 10 minute period, I counted 25 pairs of ugg boots walking past me. 25! I use ugg wearers to denote what I think of the drones of society, the generic workers that don't think much about stuff and tend to dress alike and like the same things..... the male equivalent are henleys. To everyone else, it seems, they look the business, but to me (and I know I shouldn't think like this but I can't help it) they look thick. They would, I'm sure, argue that what they wear doesn't denote their true personality, and they would be right, were it not for the fact that they are DRESSING UP LIKE THEIR FRIENDS LIKE CHILDREN DO. Thick as the proverbial shit. Uggs and Henleys. I've used those words for years now, but even I didn't realise it was as bad. 25 seperate people in 10 minutes, all wearing the same, slightly stupid looking footwear. Why? Because they've been TOLD to. By adverts and peer pressure, footwear that looks stupid and costs a fortune.
This is what happens when you let teenagers decide things. It started in the 90s, the gradual rise of the importance of teenage angst. Suddenly they weren't confused, gangly idiots learning their way in the world, they were tortured souls with a message to spread, a cruelly ignored voice. In actual fact they were a marketing opportunity and they were thick, as they have always and will always be..... teenagers will buy anything if you can convince them it's cool. And that's what it's all about. Making everything appear cool to as many teenagers as possible. Seen the story 100000 times before? Heard that lyric in 50000 other songs? Fuck it, the teenagers haven't, they'll lap it up.
The second splitting kids into distinct groups becomes less profitable than having them all the same, we'll see the first Marilyn Manson/Olly Murs cross over, believe me.
Money grabbing is ruining everyting. Music, films, even shit like sport. Mark my words. We're headed for a black hole.
I first hit upon my earth shattering theory the other day, when listening to some generic shit on the radio. It dawned on me after listening to half the song that it wasn't, in fact, the song I thought I had been listening to, but a "new" one. I heard another one today.... that new pink one and that "price tag" shite..... practically identical. Then it hit me! I heard something else which startled me while wandering around in a shopping precinct at the weekend. Cro-magnon shitfest Oasis's droning "stop crying your heart out" was being belted out at a steadily increasing scream by generic warbler Leona Lewis. Now, I'm no Oasis fan (you only have to listen to how shit the lyrics are to "she's electric" to realise how easily they made their money) but there really was no need for them to go that far to make their songs even worse. I was always a blur man myself, but shit as I thought Oasis were, they still reside several miles farther up in my estimations than the pre-packaged shit that does "cover versions" of songs to fill Simon Cowell's pockets. The explanation is this.... there is such a gaping hole in the entertainment market and so many greedy, money grabbing record producers crying about not being able to afford another gold ferrari because of people downloading music, that any real talent or innovation is swamped into insignificance by money-spinning shit like Leona Lewis or Rihanna. I even heard a radio DJ describing Madonna as "the Lady Gaga of her day" as if she was some stoory old painting from the 16th century. But he was right! Lady Gaga is just a copy, and a shit one at that. (Incidentally, how come it's ok for her to strip to practically nothing and waggle her naked bits at kids through a television, but it a beer-stained old guy does it in a public park that's wrong? At least madonna wasn't verging on the obscene in videos that anyone old enough to work a remote control can see. You can't have it both ways, humanity. Yes you did pick up what I was meaning right, I'm saying Lady Gaga is fucking disgusting and kids shouldn't be allowed to see her. And I mean it, too. But back to the fun.) Anything decent that somehow manages to slip through the net and actually make it into the limelight is then mercilessly remade again and again and again to spread it's success to as many people as possible. They're "re-imagining" songs that have barely been out for a year these days. Why? Money. Again. All the songs are getting sucked into a black hole of mediocrity and sameness, and even the singers themselves are losing any sort of uniquness. I can't tell them apart, they're all so similar. Justin Bieber's taken it one further still, being neither fully male nor female. It's madness.
Yep. another thing money has ruined.
But it's not just music. If it was, who gives a shit, right? Let the idiots have their dross. It's everything, though. When was the last time you went to the pictures and saw a genuinely interesting and fresh film? If it isn't a remake these days it's set along the same basic formula of 50 films before it to ensure as many henley wearing retards go to throw popcorn at the screen as possible. More on these dicks in another blog, for now I'll stick to the point. Even take the humble remake to prove my point further. When was the last time you saw a film that didn't have a "love interest" to broaden the audience and make more money? Or a wise-cracking sidekick? Even if the original film was a decent movie, they'll shoe-horn in as much generic shit as possible to ensure there's "something for everyone". Just look at "The hitcher" for an example. The original was a proper tension fest. The remake was generic teenage slasher drivel, like 100 other films released that year. I'm waiting for a re-release of "The Usual Suspects" starring Ashton fucking Kutcher as a sensitive reimagining of Kaiser Soze, and some bint out of hollyoaks as his romantic love interest. That'll draw the crowds!
I mean, just look at a tiny section of film, shall we? Lets say..... ooooh, I dunno, stick to what I know..... horror. Right. Back when things were good, horror was interesting. You had a massive variety of denizens of the dark to scare the shit out of you. Zombies. Ghosts. Werewolves. Vampires. Mutant swamp monsters. Aliens. Each with their own unique traits, dangers, strengths and weaknesses, each of them evil and out to eat your face. Then some boffin behind the scenes thought "Hey.... what if they weren't evil, but were good instead!" Hurrah! An interesting twist! But wait. Now they're ALL just ordinary sexy teenage hunks and sexpots, having relationships and arguments while learning to cope with their unusual lives. Innovative? Interesting? No it fucking isn't, it's fucking well hollyoaks with sharp teeth, and it's another step on the ladder to a generic, corporate blandness where we all look the same, like the same and think the same.
It's spreading out now from what we watch and listen to to every aspect of our lives. Yesterday, in a 10 minute period, I counted 25 pairs of ugg boots walking past me. 25! I use ugg wearers to denote what I think of the drones of society, the generic workers that don't think much about stuff and tend to dress alike and like the same things..... the male equivalent are henleys. To everyone else, it seems, they look the business, but to me (and I know I shouldn't think like this but I can't help it) they look thick. They would, I'm sure, argue that what they wear doesn't denote their true personality, and they would be right, were it not for the fact that they are DRESSING UP LIKE THEIR FRIENDS LIKE CHILDREN DO. Thick as the proverbial shit. Uggs and Henleys. I've used those words for years now, but even I didn't realise it was as bad. 25 seperate people in 10 minutes, all wearing the same, slightly stupid looking footwear. Why? Because they've been TOLD to. By adverts and peer pressure, footwear that looks stupid and costs a fortune.
This is what happens when you let teenagers decide things. It started in the 90s, the gradual rise of the importance of teenage angst. Suddenly they weren't confused, gangly idiots learning their way in the world, they were tortured souls with a message to spread, a cruelly ignored voice. In actual fact they were a marketing opportunity and they were thick, as they have always and will always be..... teenagers will buy anything if you can convince them it's cool. And that's what it's all about. Making everything appear cool to as many teenagers as possible. Seen the story 100000 times before? Heard that lyric in 50000 other songs? Fuck it, the teenagers haven't, they'll lap it up.
The second splitting kids into distinct groups becomes less profitable than having them all the same, we'll see the first Marilyn Manson/Olly Murs cross over, believe me.
Money grabbing is ruining everyting. Music, films, even shit like sport. Mark my words. We're headed for a black hole.
Friday 21 January 2011
This is what happens when you leave humans in charge.
*straightens soap box*
The good thing about this blog is that no-one ever reads it. One day, years in the future when my bones are bleached in the sun after my mysterious base-jumping accident, someone surfing the internet (probably from mars or somewhere, the earth will be a radioactive ball of dust by then) will stumble across my humble little blog and the world will realise that I, alone, probably, knew how to sort all that shite out that was wrong with the world before the nukes fell and the survivors ate each other.
Today - Money.
So. Society, as it is, is made up of millions of people. Seriously, there are loads of them. Each of these people has a few basic needs. These don't include PS3's, Ugg Boots, Nandos or broadband (Although broadband is a "human right" in Finland. Jesus. In that case, Sky violates my human rights by being shit.) But, there are bazillions of us, and many of us, myself included, are far too lazy and squeamish to gut a chicken before each meal, so in order to grow, society had to come up with several solutions to basic problems. One of these solutions was money. Payment for services and goods provided by other people, which can then be used by them for other services and goods. A way of quantifying people's skills. Brilliant. So now we have money. What will we do with it?
Banks were a great idea. No, really. They have allowed civilised society to grow and flourish. Before banks, people were clonking each other over the head for corn and shiny beads, while kings had to hoard big massive roomfulls of treasure and employ dragons to sit on it to stop hobbits from making off with it. Then banks came along and said "Hey! Give us all your money. We'll keep it safe, and we'll even add to it. A little." They started using the combined wealth of communities to help those communities grow, and all was well in he land. Sort of. Glossing over a few massive gaps there, as humans are basically grasping, selfish sexual organs on legs, but you get the basic jist.
Fast forward a few hundred years to modern society. While the country groans under increasing petrol prices (that's for another blog) bankers are handing themselves huge bonuses. And why not, you may ask? Look at all that "lifting society from the gutter" shite I was just harping on about, surely they deserve it? Well, no. Just a wee while ago, banks had to be handed a massive payout to stop them from collapsing, because if they collapse, western society collapses. I was overdrawn by about a tenner for a few days a while back and got charged over £200 because a company kept trying to withdraw a direct debit. Have the banks paid back the handout they got from us yet?
That's not the point, though. When you start thinking of greedy bankers, you automatically start thinking about how else that money could be spent. Back to those basic needs. We've got police forces, fire services, ambulance services. Nurses, Doctors. Soldiers. The list goes on and on. Difficult, often dangerous jobs. Jobs that take guts (I wouldn't do them, I didn't say I was any better than the rest of us), and jobs that are definitely necessary to all our well-being, because people are shit and need protecting from each other. Jobs that are constantly being cut because the country can't "afford" them. How many bankers can the country "afford"? Without revenue from banks, though, we couldn't afford any of that, you say? So watching back-slapping potato-brained city boys live the high life is a necessary evil? Surely not.
Surely one of the goals of any society should be to advance. In the beginning, the person with the biggest stick wins. Then, it became the person wih the biggest group of people with the biggest sticks. Then, the people who could pay the people with the biggest sticks. Nowadays, the big stick has become the big wallet. *at this point, I deleted a massive, whiny bit where I went on in very serious tones about how people are starving while bankers quaff champagne. It was all very moody and serious and not very nice at all. So then. On to my solution!*
Money is at the root of all of this stuff. Folk bluster and argue about the cost of sorting out the economy. The cost of ending world hunger. The cost of curing disease. Here's a thought..... years ago, a pound was worth loads more than it is today. What if we said, for a laugh, that we're changing how much a pound is worth. It's now, from this second on, worth the equivalent of a thousand pounds. If you had a thousand pounds, congratulations! You now have the equivalent wealth of a millionaire! You're not a millionaire, of course..... you only have a thousand pounds. Millionaires on the other hand.... wow! You can practically afford to buy the whole world, now!
It's a bonkers idea, isn't it. It would never work. Why, though..... have a wee think just a bit farther in. What is this mystical "money" stuff? I know what you just said to yourself. I do! "Bits of paper that relate to gold in the bank". Nope. Quite apart from the gold in the bank being nothing more than shiny metal anyway, that bit of paper isn't based on how much gold there is. Banks have been allowed to print money that isn't actually based on anything for a long, long time. And "The Credit Crunch"..... did the money run out? Did the mystical well where the money is harvested suddenly go dry? Of course not. Money's just paper. Gold's just shiny metal. The numbers in the accounting machines didn't add up. And society trembled at it's core.
Thinking about how much we could have achieved if we weren't bound by paper and shiny metal makes you feel sick. All the things that humanity hasn't got to yet because we can't "afford" it. There are children starving out there. Starving. To death. While mountains of grain sit unused. Because the grain has to be "paid" for by bits of paper and shiny metal. Planting it and harvesting it has to be paid for. And transporting it has to be paid for. And distributing it has to be paid for. With shiny metal. And paper. If we did decide, as a planet, to increase the value of each bit of paper by a thousand fold, surely all of these problems would instantly be solved? And if the value of money could be changed so drastically, then what would be the necessity of having it at all? Just give the starving people the food that they need? Give the cancer patient the drugs they couldn't afford to develop because of costs.
But who will pay for it all? And with what? How much paper and shiny metal is each of us worth, I wonder. And all of those poor bankers and millionaires.... if paper and shiny metal lost it's "value", then how would they be any better than anyone else? Well that won't do at all, will it? And as it's people who have loads of shiny metal and paper who make the rules to this big old game, they aren't gonna change them any time soon. There's the root of it.
Money and banks are partly responsible for lifting human society out of subsistence living and putting us on a path to greater things. But if society now, with all it's great thinkers, can't come up with something better than shiny metal and paper to strive towards, then we're no farther along than battering each other over the heads with sticks.
I know. It's mental. The thought of a society able to better itself without financial gain. Mental. Imagine it, though.
Japanese society had an economy based on rice. Now that makes sense. You can eat rice. Gold? Ptchah.
The good thing about this blog is that no-one ever reads it. One day, years in the future when my bones are bleached in the sun after my mysterious base-jumping accident, someone surfing the internet (probably from mars or somewhere, the earth will be a radioactive ball of dust by then) will stumble across my humble little blog and the world will realise that I, alone, probably, knew how to sort all that shite out that was wrong with the world before the nukes fell and the survivors ate each other.
Today - Money.
So. Society, as it is, is made up of millions of people. Seriously, there are loads of them. Each of these people has a few basic needs. These don't include PS3's, Ugg Boots, Nandos or broadband (Although broadband is a "human right" in Finland. Jesus. In that case, Sky violates my human rights by being shit.) But, there are bazillions of us, and many of us, myself included, are far too lazy and squeamish to gut a chicken before each meal, so in order to grow, society had to come up with several solutions to basic problems. One of these solutions was money. Payment for services and goods provided by other people, which can then be used by them for other services and goods. A way of quantifying people's skills. Brilliant. So now we have money. What will we do with it?
Banks were a great idea. No, really. They have allowed civilised society to grow and flourish. Before banks, people were clonking each other over the head for corn and shiny beads, while kings had to hoard big massive roomfulls of treasure and employ dragons to sit on it to stop hobbits from making off with it. Then banks came along and said "Hey! Give us all your money. We'll keep it safe, and we'll even add to it. A little." They started using the combined wealth of communities to help those communities grow, and all was well in he land. Sort of. Glossing over a few massive gaps there, as humans are basically grasping, selfish sexual organs on legs, but you get the basic jist.
Fast forward a few hundred years to modern society. While the country groans under increasing petrol prices (that's for another blog) bankers are handing themselves huge bonuses. And why not, you may ask? Look at all that "lifting society from the gutter" shite I was just harping on about, surely they deserve it? Well, no. Just a wee while ago, banks had to be handed a massive payout to stop them from collapsing, because if they collapse, western society collapses. I was overdrawn by about a tenner for a few days a while back and got charged over £200 because a company kept trying to withdraw a direct debit. Have the banks paid back the handout they got from us yet?
That's not the point, though. When you start thinking of greedy bankers, you automatically start thinking about how else that money could be spent. Back to those basic needs. We've got police forces, fire services, ambulance services. Nurses, Doctors. Soldiers. The list goes on and on. Difficult, often dangerous jobs. Jobs that take guts (I wouldn't do them, I didn't say I was any better than the rest of us), and jobs that are definitely necessary to all our well-being, because people are shit and need protecting from each other. Jobs that are constantly being cut because the country can't "afford" them. How many bankers can the country "afford"? Without revenue from banks, though, we couldn't afford any of that, you say? So watching back-slapping potato-brained city boys live the high life is a necessary evil? Surely not.
Surely one of the goals of any society should be to advance. In the beginning, the person with the biggest stick wins. Then, it became the person wih the biggest group of people with the biggest sticks. Then, the people who could pay the people with the biggest sticks. Nowadays, the big stick has become the big wallet. *at this point, I deleted a massive, whiny bit where I went on in very serious tones about how people are starving while bankers quaff champagne. It was all very moody and serious and not very nice at all. So then. On to my solution!*
Money is at the root of all of this stuff. Folk bluster and argue about the cost of sorting out the economy. The cost of ending world hunger. The cost of curing disease. Here's a thought..... years ago, a pound was worth loads more than it is today. What if we said, for a laugh, that we're changing how much a pound is worth. It's now, from this second on, worth the equivalent of a thousand pounds. If you had a thousand pounds, congratulations! You now have the equivalent wealth of a millionaire! You're not a millionaire, of course..... you only have a thousand pounds. Millionaires on the other hand.... wow! You can practically afford to buy the whole world, now!
It's a bonkers idea, isn't it. It would never work. Why, though..... have a wee think just a bit farther in. What is this mystical "money" stuff? I know what you just said to yourself. I do! "Bits of paper that relate to gold in the bank". Nope. Quite apart from the gold in the bank being nothing more than shiny metal anyway, that bit of paper isn't based on how much gold there is. Banks have been allowed to print money that isn't actually based on anything for a long, long time. And "The Credit Crunch"..... did the money run out? Did the mystical well where the money is harvested suddenly go dry? Of course not. Money's just paper. Gold's just shiny metal. The numbers in the accounting machines didn't add up. And society trembled at it's core.
Thinking about how much we could have achieved if we weren't bound by paper and shiny metal makes you feel sick. All the things that humanity hasn't got to yet because we can't "afford" it. There are children starving out there. Starving. To death. While mountains of grain sit unused. Because the grain has to be "paid" for by bits of paper and shiny metal. Planting it and harvesting it has to be paid for. And transporting it has to be paid for. And distributing it has to be paid for. With shiny metal. And paper. If we did decide, as a planet, to increase the value of each bit of paper by a thousand fold, surely all of these problems would instantly be solved? And if the value of money could be changed so drastically, then what would be the necessity of having it at all? Just give the starving people the food that they need? Give the cancer patient the drugs they couldn't afford to develop because of costs.
But who will pay for it all? And with what? How much paper and shiny metal is each of us worth, I wonder. And all of those poor bankers and millionaires.... if paper and shiny metal lost it's "value", then how would they be any better than anyone else? Well that won't do at all, will it? And as it's people who have loads of shiny metal and paper who make the rules to this big old game, they aren't gonna change them any time soon. There's the root of it.
Money and banks are partly responsible for lifting human society out of subsistence living and putting us on a path to greater things. But if society now, with all it's great thinkers, can't come up with something better than shiny metal and paper to strive towards, then we're no farther along than battering each other over the heads with sticks.
I know. It's mental. The thought of a society able to better itself without financial gain. Mental. Imagine it, though.
Japanese society had an economy based on rice. Now that makes sense. You can eat rice. Gold? Ptchah.
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