Home Truth

I am one of the lucky ones. I got caught speeding recently. In a Ford Transit minibus no less. I did not get three points on my licence. I got to attend a three hour speed awareness workshop instead. And this was where I was introduced to the idea of the cultural acceptance of speed.

And then I watched “Ugly Betty” and saw, as Wilhemina put it, “my first public inning” (for the uninitiated, it’s the moment where the up and coming male designer is uncovered as being straight when he has been pretending to be gay to get on the business).

And then I heard on the radio that one in six adults in Britain now has an alcohol problem, although talking about that at any social gathering is strictly a ‘no-no’.

See where I am going with this? Who decides which laws are OK to break and which are not? Who decides what is socially acceptable and what is not? Where does our cultural acceptance come from? Religion? Nationality? Age? Gender? Profession?

And what about the cultural acceptance of greed? It is socially acceptable in our nation to want more, waste more, share less, care less. How can we stand against it? Who will stand against it?

The Speed Awareness Workshop Scheme was organised by the local police force under pressure from the government to re-educate the nation about speeding. The government has the power to bring in legislation, to fund advertising campaigns, to bring about change in cultural acceptance. Let’s hope our nation’s greed and the resulting poverty around the world are high on the agenda of our new Prime Minister. Let’s do what we can to make sure it is.

Filed under: culture, simpler lifestyle on June 8th, 2007