Thursday 22 November 2012

To be fair...

Let me state first of all (and for the umpteenth time) that humans are simply not made equal. Bloody hell, if you can't feel superior to somebody else, what's the point of it all? We come in large or small, short or tall, attractive or pug-ugly and in all manner of shapes and colours. We have adapted to live in savannas, jungles, up trees, in caves and even in space. We have histories involving conquest, discovery, opulence, poverty, great endeavour, enormous industry or just sitting about on our arses.

Art, science, architecture, literature, agriculture... manufacturing, organising, debating... building dynasties, waging wars, forging alliances. Getting it wrong, then starting over and getting it right; these are the things that produce mature, rounded, wide-horizoned civilisations and they all take time. Lots of time.

Look what instant wealth did to the Arab nations. See how African despots plunder and pillage and murder their own people. Witness what a violent disaster Islam's access to the modern world is. Why do you think everybody is shitting themselves over Iran and Syria and nuclear weapons? Holy lands? Who knows what further ungodly hells those nations that cleave to superstition have yet to wreak?

But even then, within a single supposedly advanced culture, equality is impossible and attempts to impose it have brought nothing but misery and death to millions via the disastrous failed social experiments of the Soviet Union, China, Laos, North Korea. Cuba... and Tooting. There are no fast fixes, no instant righting of wrongs.

Which is of course why ruling power in one of the most civilised countries on earth is not in the hands of first generation neophtyes, but vested mainly in a small number of privileged families who breed to lead, balanced by the background chatter of an envious proletariat. It's how it is and in the main it works very well indeed; the appearance of a democracy but with a firm-ish continuous hand on the tiller.

All of which makes yesterdays student protest amusing in the extreme. Bleating about making the rich pay so that they in turn can become rich (they imagine) through a superior education. Bunking off from their studies to stand around in the rain and growl trite slogans at the very police they will expect to protect them when the nasty uneducated people ransack their grubby bedsits while they're out at play.

Offered the option, who do you want running the country?

Yeah! Fuck off, rich boy!

If history teaches us anything, gradual change is always better and more permanent than violent swings. Put a toddler in charge of the ship and who knows where we'll end up. And when it comes down to it, few people want to lead in any case; it's far too much like hard work. So, let the children have their day, let them feel like they made a difference and then let them see the ferocious struggle to become more than equal that they will invest in their own children.

There are only so many silver spoons to go around and soon enough they'll be stabbing each other in the back trying to get their hands on one. Sounds fair to me.

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