“The quality of a democracy can be measured by the degree to which governments consult the public on the important issues of the day.” - Democracy Index 2024, What's wrong with representative democracy?
An Apology
Firstly I must apologise for my ill-considered remarks on this substack at the end of last year and thank everyone who offered their support and encouragement both online and offline. I've taken all of this on board and I hope the results will be productive.
I'm afraid I let my frustration with the greater part of the human race get the better of me!
I've also taken a lesson from various on-line channels - especially some musicians on YouTube: especially Kristina Miller, Eldar Djangirov, Dirty Loops, Matteo Mancuso and Sam Robson, who all deserve to be world famous – but who soldier on with a paltry level of engagement given their astonishing skills and efforts.
These people are inspirational.
It should be abundantly clear to everyone that fame and popularity has little to do with being in the right or being especially skilled. Our political and credentialed classes offer ample evidence of this.
Our forebears pressed on with their grand ideas - engineering, railways, electricity, cars, electronics - to name but a few - and made the modern world the best time in human history to be alive. They should inspire us all – and especially me - not to give up easily.
This should have been humanity's moment – when we had the health, the ambition and the skills to go to the stars. Instead we allowed it to be squandered by petty politics, selfishness and personal greed.
Continuing along the same societal path is like trying to cure pneumonia by letting blood.
The Way Forward
So where do we go from here?
Well, the first thing to say is as the great philosopher Tiger Woods put it “Sensationalism sells: Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.” And here we have the fundamental dichotomy of the serious writer: what is well-considered and balanced is almost universally not sensational. The process of scientific publication used to be this way but has in many areas been corrupted by the perceived need to garner funding.
Most writers on substack and elsewhere feel compelled to spend their time and effort raising (usually) rational and credible objections to behaviours they view as ill-advised or irresponsible. Multiculturalism, novel medical responses, climate hysteria, feeding anti-belch medicine to dairy farm animals or placing extracts of bugs into human food.
It seems that nearly each day brings with it some new policy horror that requires us to change our own way of life to accommodate someone else's religious or ideological beliefs. And which demands an outraged response from those of us who can imagine the dangers.
Substack and other 'alternative' media are full of investigative and speculative reports on the potential consequences of this or that diktat from the cultist brigades pushing their own quasi-religious agendas on to the rest of us or from the State itself.
All this time and effort has to go towards opposing things that should never have been things in the first place. No new ideas flow from this – it's a total loss: bunking and debunking.
Imagine if all we had to worry about was creating better ways of doing things.
We can imagine a million ways in which our lives might be better if we didn't have to spend so much time and effort trying to stop them becoming worse.
Jim - No need to apologise, the past six months have been pretty dark and there's no sign of improvement. Sadly populism seems to have given democracy a kicking - a lesson there for any panocracy?
I enjoyed listening to your list of inspirational musicians - great stuff from exceptional talents, but as you observe this does not bring fame and popularity.
Nevertheless there are many people out there making the world a better place, they just don't get the headlines.
Keep on writing - and stay positive!
Cliff