https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/15/spare-existential-angst-ineluctable-decline-west/
There we were, two years ago, fretting about the onset of what was
already described as a pandemic but which had yet to take a grip. By and
large, things were not that bad at all. The racing fraternity had
gathered en masse at Cheltenham for the great National Hunt annual
meeting, mostly oblivious to the public health calamity that was about
to ensue.
Two years ago today we were still a week away from a total lockdown, a
delay for which Boris Johnson continues to be lambasted, even though
all the evidence shows it made no difference.
Britain’s excess fatalities for the period are no worse than most similar countries
and yet at the time we were encouraged to believe this was a uniquely
British disaster. We were “Plague Island” and yet it turns out that UK
the death toll was below average for western Europe.
This propensity for doing ourselves down has grown over time. When I
was young, the narrative of national exceptionalism was strong. Empire,
victory in war and epic tales of great adventurers were celebrated not
condemned. Patriotism was a virtue not a sin.
Men were men and women were women and no one had any difficulty telling which was which.
Over the decades, as prosperity has grown, life spans have been
extended and we have become used to comfort and plenty, another disease
has eaten into the body politic, that of declinism.
In Britain, this led to our joining the Common Market in a belief
that, without pooling sovereignty with our continental neighbours, we
were doomed to perpetual weakness. The establishment was obsessed with
the idea of joining this club, even if it meant cutting our close ties
with countries with which we had more in common, both culturally and
emotionally, such as Australia and Canada.
The point is that there is always something to cause anguish and
collective heartache, but what is important is to react in a
proportionate way. We are currently in an extended bout of dread-filled
angst that began with the financial crash of 2008 when it looked like the entire global banking system would fall over.
events
There we were, two years ago, fretting about the onset of what was
already described as a pandemic but which had yet to take a grip. By and
large, things were not that bad at all. The racing fraternity had
gathered en masse at Cheltenham for the great National Hunt annual
meeting, mostly oblivious to the public health calamity that was about
to ensue.
That event was subsequently seen as a great seeder of Covid,
as was Liverpool’s Champions League match with Atlético Madrid around
the same time. Back then we called them “super-spreader” episodes
because it stood to reason that thousands of people milling together
must pass on easily transmissible illnesses.
But while that is demonstrably true, the pandemic would have happened
even if Cheltenham had been cancelled. The virus was already here,
brought in by visitors and skiers returning from the Alpine slopes.
Two years ago today we were still a week away from a total lockdown, a
delay for which Boris Johnson continues to be lambasted, even though
all the evidence shows it made no difference.
Britain’s excess fatalities for the period are no worse than most similar countries
and yet at the time we were encouraged to believe this was a uniquely
British disaster. We were “Plague Island” and yet it turns out that UK
the death toll was below average for western Europe.
This propensity for doing ourselves down has grown over time. When I
was young, the narrative of national exceptionalism was strong. Empire,
victory in war and epic tales of great adventurers were celebrated not
condemned. Patriotism was a virtue not a sin.
Men were men and women were women and no one had any difficulty telling which was which.
Over the decades, as prosperity has grown, life spans have been
extended and we have become used to comfort and plenty, another disease
has eaten into the body politic, that of declinism.
In Britain, this led to our joining the Common Market in a belief
that, without pooling sovereignty with our continental neighbours, we
were doomed to perpetual weakness. The establishment was obsessed with
the idea of joining this club, even if it meant cutting our close ties
with countries with which we had more in common, both culturally and
emotionally, such as Australia and Canada.
The point is that there is always something to cause anguish and
collective heartache, but what is important is to react in a
proportionate way. We are currently in an extended bout of dread-filled
angst that began with the financial crash of 2008 when it looked like the entire global banking system would fall over.
I thought we would be pushing our belongings around some dystopian
world in a shopping trolley like the father in Cormac McCarthy’s The
Road. It didn’t happen, although we came close.
Then came Brexit, which half the country was convinced would lead to
economic collapse, a run on the pound, the diminution of the UK as an
influential world power and a permanent severing of our links with
Europe. None of these happened either, nor were they ever likely to, but
exaggeration is another character trait we find hard to avoid.
No sooner was Brexit “done”, than news came through from China of a
novel coronavirus with the potential to spread rapidly from person to
person. Not that the Chinese admitted as much at the time, any more than
they were upfront about its provenance, which is increasingly believed
to have been a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan.
Then, as the pandemic abated and restrictions were finally removed –
with February 20 dubbed “Freedom Day” here in England – that ominous
noise we could hear from a far-off land was of Vladimir Putin’s tanks
rumbling towards Ukraine. Just when it seemed like life was getting back
on an even keel, Covid is beginning to look like a walk in the park.
Now the worry that keeps us awake at night is not just the plight of the poor Ukrainians
or the wider economic consequences of the war, but the renewed threat
of Armageddon. The shadow of the nuclear bomb, under which we lived
during the Cold War, has returned to cast a pall over all of our lives.
A friend said to me the other day that he had never felt so depressed
about events, which made me think that, in reality, we had lived
through a golden age. Our parents had been bombed in the war and grown
up when diseases like polio and diphtheria were still rife. Their
fathers had been conscripted to fight in the “war to end all wars’’
which it turned out not to be. If they were shot or otherwise wounded,
they had to endure the risk of infection long before the discovery of
penicillin.
There has hardly been any time in history that has offered as benign
an existence as that enjoyed by those of us born in the late 1950s and
1960s into a stable, democratic country like ours. We were not even
called up to do National Service, let alone required to fight in a war.
This applies not just to Baby Boomers who subsequent generations think
got all the breaks. Those born since have had a few, too.
Most of us who have grown up since the Second World War have come to
expect a steady state of prosperity, stability and contentment beyond
the imagination of previous generations. We have lost a sense of
historical perspective by overreacting to events precisely because life
has, by and large, been good for most people most of the time.
The Hobbesian reality is that, for the greater part of man’s
existence, wars, famines, pestilence and disaster were the norm just as
they still are in some parts of the world. Across Europe and Asia,
people happily minding their own business have for centuries suddenly
had their worlds snuffed out by Romans or Saxons or Vikings or Normans
or Mongols or a succession of Continental armies.
*
events
There we were, two years ago, fretting about the onset of what was
already described as a pandemic but which had yet to take a grip. By and
large, things were not that bad at all. The racing fraternity had
gathered en masse at Cheltenham for the great National Hunt annual
meeting, mostly oblivious to the public health calamity that was about
to ensue.
That event was subsequently seen as a great seeder of Covid,
as was Liverpool’s Champions League match with Atlético Madrid around
the same time. Back then we called them “super-spreader” episodes
because it stood to reason that thousands of people milling together
must pass on easily transmissible illnesses.
But while that is demonstrably true, the pandemic would have happened
even if Cheltenham had been cancelled. The virus was already here,
brought in by visitors and skiers returning from the Alpine slopes.
Two years ago today we were still a week away from a total lockdown, a
delay for which Boris Johnson continues to be lambasted, even though
all the evidence shows it made no difference.
Britain’s excess fatalities for the period are no worse than most similar countries
and yet at the time we were encouraged to believe this was a uniquely
British disaster. We were “Plague Island” and yet it turns out that UK
the death toll was below average for western Europe.
This propensity for doing ourselves down has grown over time. When I
was young, the narrative of national exceptionalism was strong. Empire,
victory in war and epic tales of great adventurers were celebrated not
condemned. Patriotism was a virtue not a sin.
Men were men and women were women and no one had any difficulty telling which was which.
Over the decades, as prosperity has grown, life spans have been
extended and we have become used to comfort and plenty, another disease
has eaten into the body politic, that of declinism.
In Britain, this led to our joining the Common Market in a belief
that, without pooling sovereignty with our continental neighbours, we
were doomed to perpetual weakness. The establishment was obsessed with
the idea of joining this club, even if it meant cutting our close ties
with countries with which we had more in common, both culturally and
emotionally, such as Australia and Canada.
The point is that there is always something to cause anguish and
collective heartache, but what is important is to react in a
proportionate way. We are currently in an extended bout of dread-filled
angst that began with the financial crash of 2008 when it looked like the entire global banking system would fall over.
I thought we would be pushing our belongings around some dystopian
world in a shopping trolley like the father in Cormac McCarthy’s The
Road. It didn’t happen, although we came close.
Then came Brexit, which half the country was convinced would lead to
economic collapse, a run on the pound, the diminution of the UK as an
influential world power and a permanent severing of our links with
Europe. None of these happened either, nor were they ever likely to, but
exaggeration is another character trait we find hard to avoid.
No sooner was Brexit “done”, than news came through from China of a
novel coronavirus with the potential to spread rapidly from person to
person. Not that the Chinese admitted as much at the time, any more than
they were upfront about its provenance, which is increasingly believed
to have been a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan.
Then, as the pandemic abated and restrictions were finally removed –
with February 20 dubbed “Freedom Day” here in England – that ominous
noise we could hear from a far-off land was of Vladimir Putin’s tanks
rumbling towards Ukraine. Just when it seemed like life was getting back
on an even keel, Covid is beginning to look like a walk in the park.
Now the worry that keeps us awake at night is not just the plight of the poor Ukrainians
or the wider economic consequences of the war, but the renewed threat
of Armageddon. The shadow of the nuclear bomb, under which we lived
during the Cold War, has returned to cast a pall over all of our lives.
A friend said to me the other day that he had never felt so depressed
about events, which made me think that, in reality, we had lived
through a golden age. Our parents had been bombed in the war and grown
up when diseases like polio and diphtheria were still rife. Their
fathers had been conscripted to fight in the “war to end all wars’’
which it turned out not to be. If they were shot or otherwise wounded,
they had to endure the risk of infection long before the discovery of
penicillin.
There has hardly been any time in history that has offered as benign
an existence as that enjoyed by those of us born in the late 1950s and
1960s into a stable, democratic country like ours. We were not even
called up to do National Service, let alone required to fight in a war.
This applies not just to Baby Boomers who subsequent generations think
got all the breaks. Those born since have had a few, too.
Most of us who have grown up since the Second World War have come to
expect a steady state of prosperity, stability and contentment beyond
the imagination of previous generations. We have lost a sense of
historical perspective by overreacting to events precisely because life
has, by and large, been good for most people most of the time.
The Hobbesian reality is that, for the greater part of man’s
existence, wars, famines, pestilence and disaster were the norm just as
they still are in some parts of the world. Across Europe and Asia,
people happily minding their own business have for centuries suddenly
had their worlds snuffed out by Romans or Saxons or Vikings or Normans
or Mongols or a succession of Continental armies.
*
Just look at the 'madness' that's been
gathering pace over the last 20 years or so. A judicial system that no
longer punishes crime, man made climate change nonsense that's being
used as an imaginary excuse to impoverish us and make us vulnerable to
hostile foreign players, mass uncontrolled 3rd world immigration that's
still gathering pace despite our protestations, the bowing of authority
to anarchist organisations intent in destroying our way of life,
critical race theory being taught in schools, the lionising of all
things LGBT and gender dysphoria and for the last 2 years, lies,
cohesion, censorship of the media and trashing of civil liberties and
world economy for a 'virus' which kills no one but the extremely
vulnerable. Anyone who things all this is happening because of
government incompetence needs to give their head a good shake.
*
Then the counter argument is why worry yourself about
something that was only a possibility and not appreciate and enjoy this
'Golden Age' until it came to an inevitable but unpredictable end? In
fact that is precisely what we have been doing and is human nature.
I have always pointed out in discussion with others that
in the 80's CND and other assorted malcontents tried to brow beat us
all into the same manufactured and continuous trauma they assumed for
themselves about nuclear winters. Today their offspring are trying the
same thing only using the climate as the weapon of choice even though
the nuclear threat is still around and only now is something to be
concerned about unlike in the 80s
*
*
