Unacceptable unacceptables

If an alien were to study our world, what would they conclude based on what they saw? Would they consider rape and murder as something that humans ultimately tolerate, because of the frequency with which it occurs? What about oppression and discrimination? War and conflict? What about homelessness? What about child poverty? Is this un/acceptable? If it’s acceptable, then fair enough. If it isn’t, then how come it has existed for an eternity – not for one child, not for a hundred children, not for a thousand children, not for a million children, but for millions and millions of children?

Who decides what’s acceptable? How might you measure un/acceptability to a point where the scales are tipped one way or the other? And besides, do you even care? Do you have time to care? Or are you doing just fine, thank you very much? Is there a social contract? Or has it been broken a long time ago? Do you have any say in how your world turns? Do you have a voice? Do you use your voice? Or do you willingly give it away to others? To those that you think know better than you do?

If there was a tipping point, an ‘enough is enough’ moment, a collective outrage, could the unacceptable become so unacceptable that it would cease to be? If so,
where is this outrage? Without the outrage, surely we must be accepting of the unacceptable, if indeed it is unacceptable? We are as complicit as the next person.
We are the cancer, not the cure. We are one big blob of intergenerational dysfunctionality!

So can we just call a spade a spade and admit that we live deep in the heart of a very sick and troubled millennia and stop all this pretence that a little bit of reform here and there is going to make a blind bit of difference? When what’s needed is open-heart surgery? Or starting again from scratch? Can we acknowledge that every institution that currently exists is part of the problem (if there is a problem) rather than the solution, by virtue of their existence and their inability to stop what’s unacceptable?

More importantly, what do you think? Nothing in this calendar claims to be right (or wrong). It’s merely here to get your brain cells warmed up about your own ideas and your own ideology and your own notion of citizenship and universal wellness.