I have heard a lot of people trying to work with ideas about what it means to turn a blind eye, that John Steiner has written about. There are things we know about but we don’t know about.
As a citizen I know that the things being done on my behalf in the prisons and detention centres and the rest, in our society, are sickening and degrading and – if we survive to have future generations to look back at us, they will say, did they do that? Our Prime Minister apologises for the slave trade but not for what we are doing now to the socially excluded and mentally ill and the new underclass that we seem to need to create with our policies of counter-dependence. I also know that we import the carers that we need in our society – I could think about globalisation as creating a new kind of quasi slavery economy, where we plunder the capacity in other societies to look after their own so that they may look after us.
I know I am turning a blind eye to the prison services, to the fate of asylum seekers, and the rest. Following the Ipswich murders we have a temporary amnesty in our hatred and fear of what we are doing as a society that allows an unregulated market in drug dependent prostitutes working in the sex trade.
But I am still here talking about turning a blind eye and knowing – when I can think about it - that I am doing that.
And what is the turning of the blind eye that I can’t think about at all? I can’t think about the full horror and implications of what I have just written.
I have been talking in the last few days to friends working in the NHS. They are serious thoughtful, senior clinicians, and I have been shocked to by the despair in their faces and voices.
I have heard Margaret Beckett as Secretary of State for Health described as a cross between Mary Poppins and a Dalek, dislocated from the terrifying banality of her political message.
One of these friends talked about the turnaround managers. I had not heard about them, though I know in broad terms what is going on. She thought the public knew. But we don’t. The turnaround manager is not interested in the core business of the NHS, looking after patients, -‘not interested in clinical governance and all that rot’ – they have turned public services into failing businesses, which have to close down – exterminate, exterminate! the daleks have taken over the NHS, but where is Dr Who?
In the Oedipus story, the society of Thebes was devastated by all kinds of troubles and in the end they decided there must be something wrong here. In the end they got their man, for killing his father and sleeping with his mother.
Small beer compared to our current leaders, who have killed off shame and slept with money. And they are powerless to control the emotional famine that threatens our society.
My point is not to castigate our leaders. All kinds of talents are doing that – priests, military leaders, journalists, and it is not making a lot of difference.
My point is to ask about our own capacity for turning a blind eye. In ancient Greek drama the people were the Chorus. What is the role of Chorus now?
As a citizen I know that the things being done on my behalf in the prisons and detention centres and the rest, in our society, are sickening and degrading and – if we survive to have future generations to look back at us, they will say, did they do that? Our Prime Minister apologises for the slave trade but not for what we are doing now to the socially excluded and mentally ill and the new underclass that we seem to need to create with our policies of counter-dependence. I also know that we import the carers that we need in our society – I could think about globalisation as creating a new kind of quasi slavery economy, where we plunder the capacity in other societies to look after their own so that they may look after us.
I know I am turning a blind eye to the prison services, to the fate of asylum seekers, and the rest. Following the Ipswich murders we have a temporary amnesty in our hatred and fear of what we are doing as a society that allows an unregulated market in drug dependent prostitutes working in the sex trade.
But I am still here talking about turning a blind eye and knowing – when I can think about it - that I am doing that.
And what is the turning of the blind eye that I can’t think about at all? I can’t think about the full horror and implications of what I have just written.
I have been talking in the last few days to friends working in the NHS. They are serious thoughtful, senior clinicians, and I have been shocked to by the despair in their faces and voices.
I have heard Margaret Beckett as Secretary of State for Health described as a cross between Mary Poppins and a Dalek, dislocated from the terrifying banality of her political message.
One of these friends talked about the turnaround managers. I had not heard about them, though I know in broad terms what is going on. She thought the public knew. But we don’t. The turnaround manager is not interested in the core business of the NHS, looking after patients, -‘not interested in clinical governance and all that rot’ – they have turned public services into failing businesses, which have to close down – exterminate, exterminate! the daleks have taken over the NHS, but where is Dr Who?
In the Oedipus story, the society of Thebes was devastated by all kinds of troubles and in the end they decided there must be something wrong here. In the end they got their man, for killing his father and sleeping with his mother.
Small beer compared to our current leaders, who have killed off shame and slept with money. And they are powerless to control the emotional famine that threatens our society.
My point is not to castigate our leaders. All kinds of talents are doing that – priests, military leaders, journalists, and it is not making a lot of difference.
My point is to ask about our own capacity for turning a blind eye. In ancient Greek drama the people were the Chorus. What is the role of Chorus now?
posted by Tim at 2:35 AM
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