In 1962, Søren Kierkegaard wrote, 'A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of advertisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens but there is immediate publicity everywhere.' Goodness knows what he would make our new 'twittering' and 'facebook' culture. No sooner does a problem present itself when every one connected to the news can have a comment. But to what end? Even this blog, a millstone if ever I conceived one, gets close to the irreverent and the irrelevant. We could say, but that's just how it is these days, except it isn't, is it? Everywhere we look the lessons of our own past seem to be long forgotten, look at Ukraine, Darfur, Syria, man and woman's ability to mess with his or her fellow man or woman is astonishing. Baudrillard says, 'It is no longer a matter here of philosophical morality of the sort that says, 'the world isn't what it ought to be,' or the 'world isn't what it was.' No, the world is as it is.' What a depressing thought that can be when we balance my easy life with that of the people Dan is helping in Tanzania (say). But then what seems to be missing is a sense of balance, the equilibrium, the ability to live and let live but also to help those less fortunate to help themselves. This year is the centenary of the first world war which was meant to solve these problems. On reflection, surely not a time for celebration but for the amazing Dick Gaughan and Why Old Men cry - just as a wee reminder for myself and as the lyrics open up, as folk songs often do, it mentions the community I come from, its one of the few songs in the world ever to mention Newtongrange (Nitten by the bing) - a coal mining community that now has no active pit, but a mining museum - and my Dad, who was a miner, lives in that community, as a living exhibit:
