The west the world freedom is us

So where is all this happening? Where is the battle of freedom being played out? The world - to a greater or lesser extent. Greater the more Westerly you look and lesser to the East. So for the sake of my argument the world is us here in the portly commercialised Western hemisphere, henceforth known as “We”.
“We” have individual and communal history’s, memories, biases, loves, needs, desires and all the disparate facets that make up man physically and emotionally.
“We” are travelling from one point to another in every facet of life. For “We” life itself is a process of change and adaptation. Adaption as it turns out in our need for, belief in and subservience to the aforementioned “church”.
Yes as we evolve and increasingly demand our freedom to choose we are dragging along a mobile base line for what we should be in charge of and what someone else should be able to mandate for us. It’s a moving feast.
We used to have beach inspectors in the 1920’s. One of our “Churches”, the local City Council decreed that the moral standard of the day should be upheld on the beaches and no woman should been seen in a start of too vigorous undress. The general population seemed to outwardly agree and thus the Council felt mandated to send silly little men in hats with clip boards to sandy strips and measure skirts and the what not.
Now we don’t have beach inspectors and we can do pretty much anything on the beach. Why? Because slowly but surely the boundary has moved. Were they dragged along behind society struggling to keep up with the requirements of this year’s version of modern society. Or where they pulled away from our feet. Pulled like a step from our foot, almost at rest so that we lurch forward in halting stuttering steps?
Interesting question.
Did we slowly, inexorable make a grab more and more self determination or somehow were our expectations of what was reasonable levels of freedom expanded for us?
Chicken or egg?

Accursed freedom

There is a swing afoot in western consumerist society.

In counter point to the failing of the institutions that once orchestrated our actions like the innards of a Swiss watch, regulating our collective moral compass and setting in stone the bench marks for acceptable behaviour, accursed freedom is on the rise!

On the side of the balance we have churches and institutions of moral absolutism and the other the individual. Now his own personal jesus – with a small ‘j’ or insert here your own local deity. And either because of, or as a result of, this shift in social tectonics we have creeping, insidious unwanted side effects.

The geological analogy is not totally without intention. I see both tectonic plates and social moral communal norm as slow moving grinding phenomenon. Neither move quickly. Neither moves without some huge unusurpable macro force. The process of interaction between the two, no matter which is cause or reaction leaves behind it great swathes of detritus from the necessary grinding that is a consequence of its existence.

I have no intension of trying to unravel which came first or which is responsible for which. That’s a job for social anthropologists and is largely irrelevant.

So what are the protagonists?

Broadly let’s call the institutions that have dictated and enforce our collective minimum moral standards, ‘the church’. That’s not to say that organised religion is the sole arbiter of acceptable social boundaries.  

Railed against the church is us. More correctly ‘Me’. Me as an island without concern for anyone or anything as succinctly described in that annoyingly catchy 1980’s Depeche Mode  song, “my own personal jesus”

So before I unleash the apples of my military grade intellect, let’s talk about which came first the chicken (church) or the egg (me) - let’s take a gander (no fowl pun intended) at the farm – the fertile environment in which this dervish whirl is being played out.....................

let the sanity begin

So why should I have a blog? Why should the opinion of one BSWS rate the burning of a sack of coal to send this into cyberspace?

And yes in case you didn't know it will actually be about a hand full of coal - what it takes to keep a 50Watt incandescent light bulb burning for an hour, that gets is consumed to compile launch and disseminate this.

The answer is -" frankly I dont' know"

Of course I have the necessary hubris and numerous poorly informed opinions but how does that qualify one/ well it doesn't but it doesn't seem to stop anyone else so here goes.