Could we, maybe, just be a bit nicer to each other?

Inspired by our irrepressibly noisome Parliament’s status of being anti everything the other lot says and Zac Goldsmith’s pathetic smear tactics in the Mayoral Election playground. WARNING, I wrote this so expect utopian ideals and generalisations.

How can we teach our children not to bully or be judgemental or hurtful, spiteful, rude, greedy, negligent, selfish, angry, suspicious or mean, when so much of our media, from magazine to broadcast and tabloid to social media, is given to reporting exactly that so often it has become normal? The leaders and politicians we should be able to look to for guidance and direction no longer see good, just what they can attack. (e.g. Labour agreeing with the Government on staying in the EU, but refusing to say they actually think the government is right about that, rather they just attack the methods and procedures. Just say you agree with the premise but not the detail. Start from a positive then debate the rest!)

In the face of all that, how do we teach our children tolerance and understanding, inclusion and openness and give them a chance for empathy, friendship and awareness of others and their surroundings? This is not some liberalist battle cry (God forbid, it would be more of a meek murmur!) but instead a reason for globalisation; true globalisation – not the bastardised, purely capitalist “let’s just create a market and shit on anyone who disagrees while fleecing them for every penny and destroying cultures and people because they aren’t financially valuable enough to keep” movement that it has been. It should be an opportunity for people all over the world to see each other as people, not as an ideology to be feared and bombed or a policy to be bitterly fought just because it came from someone wearing a red tie not a blue one.

Why has it even got that far? For true globalisation everyone needs to behave in a decent manner, not like a greed-driven robot.  But then, I’m one of those wishy washy, meritocratic, liberal-champagne-socialists who likes trees and wine and people and the environment.

Is it too much, then, to ask that we stop trying to fight everything?

Wouldn't it be interesting if, for just one day, the whole world just stopped fighting, had a cup of tea and got to know each other? Yeah, the utopian ideal. Nah, fuck it, let’s just bomb the shit out of everything. 

Because that’s worked so well up to now.

We have so much to be proud of and there is so much good being done all over the world. Let’s promote that for a change. And not simply because a celebrity is running a million miles on a hamster wheel, smearing themselves in palm oil and drinking carbonated Amazon water - laudable and applaudable, though that is - but because people do good stuff all the time!

I’m off to walk in the grass and hug trees. Or drink a lot of wine. Maybe both. But I’m not going to rip someone’s heart out through their eyes because they don’t agree with the way I wear my hat. My shoes, on the other hand, well now, that's a different story!

Scum and cream both rise to the top. You just need to work out how to skim. Even scum can fertilise.