The Heat Is On!

Dear Reader,

We are told that today in the UK - in the south in particular - it's going to be hot. Well, 'hot' by our standards; anything around 30 degrees C. for us is sweltering.

But the word 'heat' is one of those words that can be casually used in another way: to describe conditions that can cause blood pressure to rise due to a sense of something around us that forces us to have to take action under duress.

This has been happening a lot more, I suggest, over the last decade in particular, even if we forget for a moment about pandemics. 

I do not have to write about the economic and health pressures that now exist, about how our 4-pint bottle of Organic Milk has gone up from £1:50 to £1:95 in a matter of months; how petrol was as low as £1:07 a litre a year or so back and is now more like £1.77 at best. And then there's the cost of energy to warm ourselves in winter. But perhaps winters are becoming warmer to offset the rise to some degree! I could go on about hospital emergency services and the refugee crisis, etc. etc.

In short - the heat is on as economic inflation is threatening to go sky high. I suspect that part of the reason why the Prime Minister is so much under scrutiny for his apparent lack of ethics is that he's trying to find solutions to the economic conditions that exist by any means - fair or foul.

But though many on BBC's Question Time last night were saying that we just need to get on with the real problems at hand and not be quite so concerned about the P.M.'s ethics, the topic of ethics - our moral scruples - is a very important issue. If we do not have due regard to this area of human concern then we could soon be a country accused of looking solely after itself at a cost to others. We have - some time ago now - already lowered our contribution to foreign aid under the pretence that it was a 'temporary' move.

Not only that but if the standard of ethics applied by the country's leaders does drop, then it's a message to all the other people in the country to do the same. Surely we need the country's standards to be set by those that lead us? Do we want to become like a South American state?

However, there is another side to this issue. That is that this is a democratic country and who is elected to govern represents our opinion, although in a first-past-the post system it is not often that one political party gets a significant mandate.

But the point here is that it's our view on things that decides the kind of government we want. Now, in my opinion - and one that I will undoubtedly be slammed for - is that there are two requirements to obtain an equitable government: (1) that the voters properly understand what kind of government is needed, and (2) that we have political parties that also understand what kind of government is needed. 

Sadly, I feel that we have proved that we have not succeeded on both counts. And we constantly find ourselves having to go to war on some pretext or other, a policy which has greatly led to the refugee issue here apart from slaughter, maiming and huge infrastructural damage in the zone at war.

Ethics - the right way that we should behave - is the fundamental thing that we need to address, not just for our leaders but for all of us, in order that we can bring about proper action in government that is economically sustainable, not just for this country but as a model for the planet.

All of us dislike change. But change we must.

We have just not cottoned on to the fact that the British government only wants to deal with Climate Change so long as the existing institutions remain intact as much as possible, when - in reality - it is those institutions that need to re-focus on a new system of values.

The new system of values needs to be based on the very fact that it is the whole planet that needs to be properly considered, not just the physical planet itself but all its occupants, human, animal and vegetable. Every living entity relies on the rest of the ecological system for its maintenance.

I do not, however, think that the UK (nor the USA, nor the EU) will be the leader in this moral crusade. There is a country that has within it all the ethical wisdom that's needed, though we don't recognise it as such.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975), research professor of international history at the London School of Economics, stated (in 1959):

It is already clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to lead to the destruction of the human race.

At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way. Here we have the attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together into a single family...

India had a high moral standard while Europe and the Northern Hemisphere basked in the Ice Age up to 12,000 years ago. That wisdom has not been lost and we should learn from it.

Their wisdom hides behind the cloud of those Indians that have temporarily been blinded by Western philosophy and attitudes. If we do not learn and pass on their real and sustainable wisdom to our children, then what future will they have? 

Thank you for reading this.