Its often been said that Irish people don't complain enough and on the face of it, it is a little difficult to find fault in that view. We are well known for not complaining about bad food or service when we get it, that we continue to vote as our fathers and grandfathers did despite what we actually think we should do and so on, and I have often wondered why this is. Is it a hang up from our days as a serf of the crown, or the church with the default tendency to tip our respective hats to our betters or is it something else.
In a way I could sort of understand the crown/church thing because it could be argued that it was so historically ground into us as a people that this is what we know best. What I find more troubling is the idea that it could be something a lot worse, a lot more insidious. Could we possibly be whingers? Plain and simple as that, willing to blame and excoriate others rather than take responsibility for what happens around us. This option I find more worrying if it were true.
I don't think I need to rehash the state we find ourselves in financially and whose fault it is that we are here. Suffice to say that we are here so what should we do about it. If you watch TV, listen to the radio, read newspapers and trawl the internet you will find many different voices describing the problems, identifying the guilty parties and defining the "only" way out of the mess on behalf of the rest of us. On the face of it these voices seem to be a fairly disparate bunch of experts but when you look closer you will notice a number of very clear similarities that may go some way to explaining their ability to come up with the "only" solution.
These politicians, business groups, trade unionists and news hounds all appear in the main to be pursuing a policy of keeping "ordinary" people off balance, insecure and worried, about their jobs, homes and futures. This is a very clever approach because it breeds a sense of hopelessness and dependence in people who have convinced themselves that they have too much on their plate worrying to have time to look at the reasons why they are so worried in the first place. People feel that they must vent their frustration about the health service, public offices, "non nationals" (I'm afraid I still don't understand that term), bankers and others so they contact organs such as Joe Duffy, Vincent Brown, George Hook et al. in order to blow off some steam. Fair enough if thats what you feel is appropriate, but let me ask you what is it that most people do when they contact these outlets? Do they constructively complain or do they whinge?
Unfortunately too often I think its the latter and it is this lack of constructive criticism and complaint that keeps allowing these disparate voices to continue to keep Joseph and Josephine Public fighting amonst themselves thereby deflecting attention and criticism from the Politicos and their corporate bosses. Complaining has a chance of changing something but whining never will. The truth is that within ourselves as a people and a society we have the tools to deal with most of the problems that life in general throws up these days. Those things we can't change (guess what) we can't change so no real point in worrying about them. By complaining in a constructive manner we put the onus to sort out the problems back on those who have said they can do it and are paying themselves for doing just that. By whining we just blame each other and nothing changes at the top.
Take some time this week to look at how you approach difficulties that life presents you with. When something bad happens to you or a loved one or indeed your community, how do you react. What do you do. You can say how unfair it is and I might just agree with you although that won't help in finding a solution. The other alternative is to accept that it happened and then find a way to deal with it. Not always easy but always worth the effort. This approach also changes the dynamic between the public and the state,commercial interests and media interests, strengthening the reality in everyones mind as to what society really means. Society is the people not the trappings of state.
