All of humanity is in peril of extinction

It is my driving conviction that all of humanity is in peril of extinction if each one of us does not dare now and henceforth always to tell only the truth and all the truth and do so promptly right now - Buckminster Fuller

This is a quote that is probably fifty years old but has more gravity today with the fake news banner.

There has always been fake news it was called history, which is written by the winners and only by digging into the archaeology and the looking at the losers story do we start to get the picture that may be nearer to the truth if there is such a thing.

For me the absence of features in British History that we never hear about but are very important in the history of other nations and peoples would paint a clearer and more uncomfortable picture of our history. So when I sit in a classroom listening to the latest document to protect the government and institutions from litigation (which is called Child Protection) and the term British values is slipped in I wonder what British values they mean.

The nature of the artist much like the job of the court Jester or fool is to talk truth to power otherwise what is the point of it all just to look pretty and have your voice be processed through a computer so it is pleasing to the ears or should it rattle cages and maybe unlock a few to let the skeletons fall out? Political sexual indiscretions anyone?

But here is the question that we need to ask, what is truth? There have been lots of experiments where people have been questioned directly after witnessing a scene and then the comparisons are made in the descriptions, and they often vary. When asked at a later date to recount the incident those descriptions become more diverse and therefore if all those people are thinking that they are telling the truth there  is something wrong with our understanding of it.

This postmodern aspect of the truth being unreal has led us to Trump and Brexit where the statistics that we used to back the campaigns were obviously open to interpretation as to their truthfulness.

So maybe truth lies within ourselves and what we see as the truth. What we remember of an event may  differ as much as our interpretation of the meanings. Maybe the times were simpler when Buckminster Fuller made his statement or maybe the narrative the governments were using were not being undermined as much. We know that many of these narratives in the 20^th century led to terrible things. Perhaps putting ourselves in the shoes of the people who are suffering may be still be the simplest way to find some sort of truth for ourselves otherwise we could all just end up being like the concentration camp guard who was just following orders.

I sometimes feel like that when I’m sitting listening to the latest pronouncements of the politicians about child protection. Much of child protection is common sense but I’m not sure what we are teaching our children by putting them into schools that resemble prisons in lock down, unconsciously we are telling that the world is a very dangerous place and the only people you can really trust are the ones that have been vetted by the government and that does not include your parents or anyone else’s. Let us wait and see what the next fifty years will bring I will not be here but some of you may be and let’s see how true all this stuff was.

I think it’s time for protest song about school and hospitals that resemble prisons and the creeping necessity for showing some form of ID for whatever you are going to do because they don’t trust you either and that’s the truth.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk  play rock in a band