I ‘WOKE’ up like this!

A society can best be defined as a group of different people, familial and individuals, with common objectives, or put more simply, a mix of different people who have come together for their common good.

Whether tall, short, fat, skinny, handsome, ugly, fast, slow, intelligent, stupid, and a million other degrees of un-likeness that, family or not, we are only as similar as ‘peas in a pod.’ This alludes only to the fact that we all have two arms and two legs, yet aside from that we come as blondes, brunettes, and gingers, and we may be talented or not, athletic or not, and its all of these differences and contradictions that contribute to our personalities. Those very personality traits are what differentiate us from ‘cardboard cut-outs,’ adding colour, depth and emotion.

Isaac Asimov declared that ‘Society is an organism, an enormously powerful one, but unfortunately not very wise.’ The truth of his deliberation could be that we, the older generations, are desperately trying to hold on tight to the things that we valued, yet our traditions, our examples, our ‘heroes,’ were so very different to what today's are, and given the very different ‘growing-up’ environments, surely that’s understandable, with the reality being that for the new generations, warfare and conflict are far distant, and only bought to us through the media.

Perhaps too, the uncomfortable truth facing us, as societies today, is that young people don’t ‘trust’ their parent’s and predecessors visions of society, whether peaceful or not, and that with culture and tradition not being as impactful upon today’s societies, that their ‘internet’ perspectives offer much more palatable ‘worlds’ to live in. That being the case, they actively engage in making the unrealities, real. Just look at the rubbish TV such as ‘Big Brother,’ ‘Married at First Sight,’ and the surfeit of ‘reality’ and ‘talent’ shows on offer.

Such significant generational differences are fuelling the things that many of us wish would ‘go away,’ issues like the Gaza and Ukrainian conflicts, the gender diaspora, and migration. To be fair, the elder generations probably wonder why they are hearing about this sort of stuff all the time. After all, they elect people to deal with this don’t they? That’s why we have politicians, governments and civil servants. Why does ‘stuff’ get ‘dumped’ on us through never-ending news, protests, when politicians, governments and civil servants, ‘experts’ at finding solutions waver like willows in the wind, and the industrialists who make money from industrialisation, should surely pay to make it right!

It seems the exception cannot be accepted as the norm in terms of our societies. The exception cannot be the rule, or rule. In other words, I firmly believe that societies have always tolerated difference, and those that do not are significantly different culturally, and you are never in a hundred years going to change something that is based on a thousand years of diverse trials and tribulations. Such perspectives are promoted as the norm specifically by groups who feel marginalised, however there is a difference between social tolerance and that tolerance promoted as definitive, and disadvantaged therefore we must change to accommodate them. That, in any sense, is anarchy.

So someone wants to be ‘seen’ and ‘identified’ as different to how they were born. Whoop de doo! I want to be skinnier, taller, and better looking... so maybe if I identify as ‘handsome’ and get my knickers-in-a-twist and complain any time someone says I’m ugly! Noooooooooooo! Even when I was a sulky little, snotty-nosed kid, I couldn’t have made my problem, someone else's problem. The irony of any society, and its contradictions, is evident in its demand that we all ‘be ourselves,’ and then says, ‘No. Not like that!’

Oh, I dunno... ‘I wants – never get,’ it’s been said, but today it seems, all you gotta do is want!