Why Are They Telling Me This?
Another own goal for capitalism
We are bombarded on every day with messages. Some are responses to our questions. Others, less invited, urge us to buy, to believe, to be amused, to be scared, to desire, to read, to vote, to diet, to care, to share, to explain. Confronted by this tsunami of daily deliveries how often do we pause to ask, “Why are they telling me this?”
This basic question signals a magical moment — that first brief flash of puzzlement and doubt that will later develop into mature reasoning as children gradually learn to explore their wider worlds.
For some it may happen earlier, for others much later, but the question was aired in our family in their teenage years. It was not some challenge to parental authority but prompted by a fascination with TV advertising. 1980’s TV ad-breaks may have seemed more creative than the programmes they surrounded. Now we know. Creative Accounting = Destructive Dishonesty. All New = Same Old. Amazing = Underwhelming. Added Value = Added Profit. Superfast Fibre = not super, not fast, not even fibre. You Need This = We Need You To Need This. Taking Back Control = Losing It.
Four decades later and the question is still essential — applied now far more, and by more, to utterances by politicians who have passed beyond credibility into caricatures of their own fairy tales. This is not the people’s ‘lack of respect’ but more the politicos’ naked abuse of trust and power and addiction to corrupt self-serving misdirection. It is the direct consequence of commodification and monetisation of nest-feathering and wholesale loophole licensing.
‘We take our responsibilities very seriously’ means that failings have been exposed. ‘There will be an inquiry’ (at the right time) is a shot aimed to miss the goal and lose the ball in the long grass. Our language is, of necessity, rife with dismissive washings — whitewash, greenwash, any colour gloss to cover the stark realities — and quick flips, U-turns and somersaults. Agility is prized. Some darned report exposes poverty, so right-ho chaps, we’ll applaud the magnificent community effort of foodbanks . . . that wouldn’t have been needed if we’d not had a war on welfare.
Yet still the question is rarely asked. Still the inequality, racism and planet abuse that is so deeply embedded in capitalism survives. It takes heart-stopping disasters to nudge people from their everyday preoccupations. We invaded. We cut. Grenfell Tower’s residents died. George was murdered. Forests burned. Floods washed over walls. Brexit bombed. Covid caught them out. But still their capitalist lust for growth survives — leastways until it floors the footie, and the ‘beautiful game’ is momentarily paused.
Post-Covid, there is no going back to old normalities — and that’s probably a good thing — but those who pretend to lead, carry on demanding respect, flying flags and invoking ever greater penalties for non-conformance. So why am I telling you this, right now?
On May 6th there is a message to be delivered. This is not another top-down edict. Quite the reverse. This will be your message to Downing Street. It must, at least, be loud enough for recipients to ask, ‘Are they trying to tell me something?’
