By Lynne Truss. London: Profile Books, 2005.
Introduction
The phrase “talk to the hand” actually comes from the 1996
film “Jerry Maguire” and not “The Jerry Springer Show.”
Why am I the one
Doing This?
Personally, I don’t mind voice mail as long as there aren’t
too many layers. In fact, I find it more convenient than in the old days when
you had to explain your problem to a receptionist. Now, the automated menu
helps you better choose with which person you should be dealing.
I also like the convenience of being able to look something
up on a company’s website rather than to phone them.
I do agree with the author about the effect the internet has
on us whereby we think we can delete or ignore the real world the same way we
do with things on the internet we don’t like. That’s where a lot of this social
justice warrior garbage comes from, including safe spaces and the like. Hey
sjws, in the real world, you can’t just block, ignore, unfriend, or delete
everyone with whom you disagree. In the real world, there is still such a thing
as free speech, part of which includes the words of the person speaking being
heard by people who would vehemently disagree with the speaker, even to the
point of thinking the speaker is the scum of the earth.
I do, however, disagree with what Truss says about the
internet and choice. While I understand what she is saying about only being
able to choose from what is offered to us which is, philosophically, not
ultimate choice, greater choice is still part of greater freedom, if a smaller,
less-important part than, say, freedom of speech as mentioned above. The fact I
can now find out tons of information on any subject, have thousands of books at
my fingertips, easily interact with people all over the world, and choose from
millions of videos (everything from cell phone video of a woman talking about
life in Pakistan to the latest “Kids React” videos to re-runs of “All in the
Family” or “NYPD Blue”) is a form of freedom.
This carries over to real life as well. The fact I can mix any
number of flavours of coffee, burger or pizza toppings, or choose from thirty
different brands and types of milk, shampoo or deodorant in the store is part
of free enterprise, freedom of the market and freedom of commerce.
Besides, our free society also allows someone to start a
coffee chain serving only plain coffee for those who want the freedom not to go
into a place where they’ll be confronted with all those different choices.
When it comes to freedom, I would also argue quite
strenuously the internet has done wonders for allowing the free expression of
alternative viewpoints and facilitated the interaction of disperate groups with
one another.
As far as Truss’s theory of social alienation in the early
twenty-first century, what it really comes down to is we’ve eliminated God from
the equation of things, or turned Him into a means of acquiring things. That’s
why people nowadays are the way she describes.
A good relationship with Christ is also the solution to the
alienation a plethora of choice can cause.
As far as “children being on the shopping list” and
“pick-and-mix religion” that comes down more to the above-mentioned elimination
of the God of the Bible from our lives than from having too much choice.
Voter apathy is better explained by decades of lying,
self-serving, do-nothing politicians than from an overabundance of choice, too.
My Bubble, My Rules
Regarding the first story about the fifteen year old English
girl spearheading a campaign to allow students to kiss, touch and perform sexual
activity in public, those of Truss’s generation can be blamed for this story
taking place.
Firstly, with their talk of “free love” which sought to
destroy all social mores around sexual activity.
Second, with their tactic of protesting every time they
didn’t like what the establishment was doing. Screw the fact it’s an
institution which has the right to make its own rules; what’s more important is
we get to have things our way. If you don’t like what’s happening, just sit en
mass in the dean’s office.
It reminds me of an incident in Canada that occurred a few
years before the Swindon school story. A young man named Mark Hall, then
attending a Catholic high school, wanted to take his boyfriend to the prom,
which was against the rules. Now, I am no defender of the antichrist Catholic
church, but those were the rules of the school Hall was attending and he should
have abode by them. But of course, instead he started a protest, it went to
court and the court ruled that, as the school received public funding, they had
to let Hall and his boyfriend attend the prom or they would be violating Canada’s
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or at least that’s the way I recall it going
down anyway.
I would have had Hall and all those who took part expelled. You
can take whomever you want to the prom at the school you’ll be attending next
year now that you have to repeat senior year.
Incidentally, sixteen being the age of marriage dates back
to a time when the notion of the teenager hardly existed and the modern thinking
of staying a kid till you’re 35 had never even been thought of. You left school
in your early teens, apprenticed to your father or someone else for a trade and
by sixteen you had enough life experience and maturity to settle down. Times
have changed.
Regarding the Virginia State House’s outlawing the wearing
of low-slung jeans, we have Truss’s generation to thank for this, too. They
didn’t feel society had any right to tell people how to dress, so now we’ve
gone from having to wear dress clothes to school or being expected to dress up
a little when going to breakfast or grocery shopping to our women dressing like
sluts and whores and our men dressing like slobs.
Regarding the story about TV on the tube, that’s more of a
social engineering plot to eliminate independent thought than anything else.
Regarding the guy in Melrose, New York inserting heavy paper
and strips of sheet metal into junk mail reply envelopes, where is the right of
the companies advertising this way to try to make a buck?
Same goes for the advice about how to deal with cold
callers.
Besides, if the junk
mailers and/or cold callers are scammers, then none of these tactics will work
seeing as how criminals don’t respect people or obey the law.
Booing the Judges
Although I do not put much stock in modern society’s
approach to treating disease, I would advise referring to a doctor as “Doctor.”
They’ve gone to medical school for 47 years, so they at least know a little
something. This does not, however, give people who have been to school the
right to think people with less schooling know nothing whatsoever.
I am generally not a fan of referring to clergymen by their
titles. The early church was not a hierarchical system of clergy and laiety. If
I call a man “pastor” that is because he has been gifted by God with that
office, not because he’s earned a piece of paper from a seminary which
indicates I should address him in such a manner.
I would refer to politicians by their titles, at least to
their faces, because that is basic respect.
These days it seems, we like our famous people to be totally
messed up, which is why I think there’s a lot of hatred for Anne Hathaway.
Someone Else Will
Clean it Up
As Christians, we should have compassion for people, but we
should also balance that out with a recognition that every person is ultimately
responsible and accountable before God for their sin.
