By Aaron the Humanist
In this piece we find Aaron at his gloomiest. Some days he feels that, were he passing by in a spaceship, he wouldn’t set down on planet earth to live amongst humans.
I really should stop scrolling through X, formerly known as Twitter. It’s a sure step to suicidal depression as I look at the people of Britain today. Islamic fundamentalists advocating Sharia law, Palestinian protesters shouting and screaming, and a UK general election which delivered a landslide victory to Labour with a vote share of just 33.7 per cent, making this the least proportional general election in British history. It’s all very depressing. In addition, the illegal migrant crisis continues and young people openly discuss their drug habits on public transport. Are we doomed? I’m not feeling optimistic.
It seems to me that mankind (I know, it should be humankind!) has too many competing opinions for us to work together as an orderly and cohesive society, and this drives us towards failure on multiple fronts. Every side hates the other side, and there are many sides. On any given issue there has to be for and against, and I’m increasingly convinced that the against side is often there purely to be against. A suggestion is made and the people who disagree with everything voice their opposition, vehemently. If that doesn’t work they take to the streets and cause a public nuisance.
Am I permitted, momentarily, to dream about how nice an ordered a society like North Korea must be? Is Kim Jong-Un's socialist republic the ultimate goal? For humanists, obviously not on many grounds, but just imagine our potential if we worked together as one for the betterment of all. Do our political parties, which generally agree on British values and our direction of travel, have to be so vitriolically divisive? Isn't there a way we can agree on good ideas and make suggestions to improve others? Can't we work together to make our country better? Perhaps we can, but does this not imply that we all need to agree on those fundamental British values as a first step? And what of those who appear not to? Is it racist for me to even think that Mr ‘Allahu Akbar’ here (Green Party councillor Mothin Ali) should take his Sharia law to a country which already embraces it, rather than trying to convert the majority of our population to a minority way of thinking?
The ‘man’ in mankind appears to be the driving force in political and societal disagreement. Warring and invading nations are typically led by men, chauvinistic religious voices are usually men’s voices, and according to data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics and the Ministry of Justice, men are responsible for about 85-90% of violent crimes, including assault, robbery, and homicide. But women are not entirely peaceable. Eco-warriors spraying red paint, vandalising artworks, and causing street mayhem are often women. I feel a sense of despair when self-identified ‘progressives’ behave like their testosterone-driven warrior ancestors. And some vandalism is just senseless. On my run today, I passed fibre optic cable boxes that were covered in graffiti, and a lovely plain white wall on my walk to lunch had been similarly vandalised. Some people have no sense of care for where they live, and they deface and destroy it at every opportunity. It seems to me that people are increasingly nasty.
UK citizens are tired. Many of us are poor and struggling. The effort of paying the bills can feel all-consuming. We’re more worried about the affordability of electricity than whether or not it comes from a green source. Everybody says they want environmentally-sustainable energy, but when you tell people it will cost more, support goes down.
For those struggling to make ends meet, there’s little time and energy left to make responsible changes to lifestyle and consumer patterns, let alone engage in community volunteering. This may be one reason why campaign groups go to extreme lengths to grab public attention, only to then turn public opinion very much against them.
Humanists support democracy and free speech, but our freedoms can be abused by extremists and by disruptive protests. Democracy itself can allow illiberal political ideas to gain ground. How can liberal societies ensure that their very freedoms are not used against them?
There are some days when I think there are worse things than nuclear war, such as humanity’s continued existence. There are days when I think we’re just a fucked-up species and with each successive decade we don’t seem to be getting any better. Would you bring new life into this world? Let me put that another way. If you were in a passing spaceship, would you want to set down here and live amongst us? I think I’d just keep passing by.
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