Happy New Years

Community

My New Years Resolution for our society is to no longer worship at the twin altars of individualism and technology but rather to embrace the saviour of community.

From the industrial revolution to the high tech revolution we have deluded ourselves that technology would solve all our problems. While technology may indeed have made the lives of the wealthy better, those at the bottom see much fewer of it's benefits and I have no doubt that it has contributed to the growing inequality in our society.

Individualism has been just as disappointing a solution to our problems benefiting only a select few individuals at the top with very little benefit “trickling down” to the bottom.

The fact is our problems are not technological but social and require sociological solutions. We are at our best when we work together as communities to improve the lives of everyone. If we want to build a better society we have to build better communities that serve everyone not just the privileged few.

We could even call this “communityism” but that's a bit awkward sounding so instead let's just go with social democracy.

Postscript

Philosophically thinking about the meaning of life and how our lives are just a tiny speck in the space-time continuum and how if you are someone who believes in community you will realize the only rational reason for living is to make other peoples lives better, while if you are an individualist you had better just hurry up and acquire as much stuff as you can before your time runs out.

The Pensioner and the Pandemic

This is the post I was going to write before I was rudely interrupted and told to lock myself in my room.

I may indeed be the least affected person on the planet by this pandemic, and the only one that it seems to be not such a big deal, simply because it simply has not had a huge impact on my daily life.

Health-wise, although technically in a higher risk group by age, I am in the lowest risk group by perhaps the most important metric, economic status. I am not living in a long term care facility or living with a pre-existing condition that puts me at greater risk and I am relatively healthy with a strong immune system. As long as I follow the recommended precautions regarding mask wearing, physical distancing and avoiding crowded indoor gatherings I feel completely safe.

As a retired pensioner I do not have to worry about either being out of work and out of income or conversely having to work in an environment that may expose me to the virus. This is a huge issue for many people, especially those in lower income occupations, many of whom are in the highly praised but underpaid “front line” occupations we hear so much about now and who will no doubt go back to being ignored when this is all over.

Most importantly my daily lifestyle has been impacted very little. The biggest inconvenience has been having to wear a mask when grocery shopping. My daily routine of outdoor exercise, primarily cycling with some hiking, has had little impact other than having to be somewhat more aware of keeping as much distance as possible when passing people.

Yes, we have not been able to eat out at restaurants but we only did that once every two or three months anyway, and that is a luxury many live their wholes lives without being able to afford.

We have not been able to travel outside the country for the past year, but then most people are not in a position to undertake foreign travel on an annual basis, and we have not done any recreational travel within the province for the last year, again something that many do not have the economic means to do regularly.

We saw investments in equities fall significantly (but they have now recovered) but our concerns about economic effects should be saved for those living from paycheck to pay check rather than for those that can afford to invest in the stock market.

I really have no reason to feel hard done by due to the pandemic.

Money Cannot Buy Happiness But ...

They say money cannot buy happiness but it certainly can buy food and shelter and education that can make the difference between misery and happiness, not to mention that health is directly related to economic status.

Yet people still claim people are poor because they are lazy and all we need to do to get rid of poverty is to create more wealth. Can anybody look at these numbers and seriously claim the problem is one of wealth creation rather than a critical need for wealth and income redistribution.

Keeping this in mind what reason, besides absolute immoral greed, could the excessively wealthy not want to redistribute the excessive wealth they cannot even comprehend, never mind spend, to those living in poverty and misery.