Once, giants stalked the earth. Huge creatures with few
objectives other than survival lumbered around, outcompeting the rest by simply
being better. Better at finding food, better at fighting for that food and
better at passing on those genes for success. The formula worked. Then the
climate changed and big became less beautiful; it was the runty animals which
survived the great extinction and began to rule the roost, because the bigger
you are the harder you fall.
Maybe this is what is wrong with society today. In the
clamour for equality, for all to be accorded the same score in life’s ninety
minutes, the notion of supremacy seems to have gone missing. People don’t want
to be led by egalitarians, though; they want to follow a big figure, a leader
with the courage of their convictions and the stubbornness to see through to a
plan of action. Take Brexit... no, really.
Instead of having the balls to weather the storms when
they dither and obfuscate and frustrate progress along the decided road;
instead of fulfilling the promise that was made to the voters that they would implement
what the referendum decided, we get... this; this utter shambles of indecision
in an attempt to avoid losing votes. This has sod-all to do with what is best
for the country, for the world; it has everything to do with the trend since
the great extinction of 1997 of clinging onto power not through strength, but
through appeasement.
The big beasts would have cut through the mewling of the
marginals and forged ahead, crashing through the undergrowth and yes, trampling
on a few who got in the way, but ultimately getting the job done. Cameron threw
away his opportunity to seize that initiative by quitting the second he’d
worked out it might make him unpopular. May’s government, such as it is, seeks
to introduce measures to prevent criticism of politicians on social media; that
same social media formerly lauded as an opportunity for a new, participative,
more direct democracy.
On the day that many are celebrating 100 years since Mandela’s
birth why are we forever looking back? A minute’s silence here, a vigil there,
a prayer for the long gone. Where are today’s political titans? Where is our
Churchill, our Thatcher? And don’t even begin to think of Boris in the same
league; he has bottled it on far too many occasions to have any credibility in
the vanguard; he’s just another poll-gazer.
The real reason dinosaurs became extinct
Brexit may be a big deal, but really it is a more of a
symptom of a far greater sickness. The west has lost its way. It has lost its
will to lead. And it has decided to turn on itself in a pathetic display of first-world
guilt. Instead of forging ahead, continuing mankind’s thrust towards true
greatness it has decided to doubt; to allow itself to be overrun by more
single-minded cultures and to pay for the ‘privilege’ of witnessing its very own
extinction event. But wouldn’t it be great if now, in the modern Meghalayan Age
dinosaurs once more ruled the land?
