In the modern world, with the breakdown of community and the eclipse of religion as a large part of life, all we have left is the society we make. If the society is unfair, then resentments have no outlets.
I have said before – people will put up with a lot if they know that we are all in the same boat. But when some people have it all and are riding rough-shod over the rest, then there is no society. There is just a fractured mass of people.
What can unite us? What is that ‘something in the air’ that we sense but cannot identify?
Part Two
In light of the Assisted Dying Bill before Parliament, when the topic comes up and I think of saying something, and I stop because – who knows – I may feel differently if I were in the shoes of a terminally ill person in pain or suffering other bad symptoms. But a couple of general points – it seems to me that the reason this Bill was approved is because of the death of religion.
The ultimate arbiters are now the people themselves – they are the pinnacle of all decision making and there is therefore no humility. Elon Musk’s citizen journalism on X is in the same mould – built on the principle that we are all adults now and can guide the ship of society into the next millennium. Maybe, but the evidence is that left to his own direction without a rudder, man will sink to the lowest common denominator.
That said, this is the arc of history – we are all so hemmed in by each other that big desires have nowhere to go without bumping into other people. And it will all go the right way or the wrong way – but it is going the way it was ordained according to the Sages.
On the subject of the Bill – it seems odd that someone might be in pain for years and then when he/she gets to the home straight with only six months to go – they get the green light. A person might say that having got this far, this last bit is the least of their worries.