Re: The "Real" World - was E. Nesbit (was: Writing in the first person)


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Posted by Peter Ceresole on October 12, 2009 at 20:24:58 user PeterC.

In Reply to: Re: The posted by John Lambert on October 12, 2009 at 18:50:44:

Wonder what AR would have made of all this going green, spreading carbon dioxide and saving the planet business.

I think he'd have been for it. As David says, he wrote pretty strongly on the damage being done by the tarring of roads...

But you liken greenery to a 'fad'. I think a better word would be 'realization'. You don't have to buy the whole package and all the curlicues, but the basic science and the fundamental point- that humans now have the means to change their environment in ways they didn't previously appreciate, in ways that will do terrible harm to many millions of people- that point is by now, I think, properly established.

It doesn't mean that it's all one way, or all in a straight line, but it looks as though we are tipping things dangerously- for all of us.

the people I have met in my travels around the globe have been uniformly pleasant, kind, helpful and courteous.

Mostly I'd agree. But you may have met a pleasant subset of the population. One of the nicest, warmest people I have shaken hands and talked with, was Saddam Hussein. He explained to us quietly and logically why he tortured and killed people. At the end of the explanation (which would have sounded pretty familiar to Henry VIII) he gravely inclined his head and said 'And that is why they deserve to lose their heads'.

I didn't make a speciality of meeting beastly people like him, but over the years there were others. Just not as wholesale. And I've met liars galore. In places like Rwanda there are people right up there (down there?) with Saddam. My sister in law went there for the Swiss Red Cross to report on the conditions of detention of prisoners who'd been involved in the massacres. It's not worth repeating what she described to me, but years later it still disturbs me.

And in a smaller, meaner way, I've met people in Britain, in local government for example, or in the BNP, two sides of the coin, who were causing genuine suffering and not giving a damn about it.

Now in the balance are precisely people like my sister in law, who used to take her summer holidays (she was an anaesthetist in Geneva) doing that kind of job for the Red Cross in Rwanda or Cambodia. An absolutely splendid woman, salt of the earth. I met others like her, and many scientists who I really enjoyed, people who worked for something they believed in and loved.

So yes, the world is a pretty marvellous place. Mostly. If you're facing in the right direction.

And believe me, I reckon I'm pretty smug too...

Because none of the baddies ever did me any personal harm,


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