Forks in the road
Sometimes in life, we come to forks in the road and we have decisions to make. Whether to take the easy path and hope we’ll be alright, or to take the steep, winding route which will certainly be harder. The UK has such a decision; to accept the status quo of Conservatism and hope everything will be OK, or to look to a new radicalism of social justice and equality. Conservatism has its own appeal to a generation harking back to life before the Europeans started meddling. The glib anti-immigrant/anti-EU soundbites are comforting and in spite of the lies and falsehoods, many UK voters will lend their votes to Theresa May and her cohort. For a younger generation, the polished gloss of Conservatism is an anathema and Corbyn’s vision of a classless socialist meritocracy will capture their pencilled crosses. But the easy fork to take is the one the majority have always taken, because to follow the difficult path might mean they have to be a little less selfish…
Here too, we are faced with a similar fork. Whether we should continue to support the parties of power and opposition, or to choose a lesser known path. We read of 7,680 people homeless in Ireland, and hear of yet more overcrowding in Donegal’s only acute hospital and then we have to listen to the fawning over the choice of a new leader for Fine Gael, knowing all the while that those two individuals are responsible for health and housing. But we’ll continue to support the Fianna Fáils and the Fine Gaels, because isn’t that what we’ve always done and look how well they’ve led us. And so we take the easy fork because we couldn’t bear to do anything else…
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And beyond these islands, our humanity is at another fork in the road. Extremists slaughter their own people in Afghanistan, because of an ancient argument over the interpretation of religion, racist extremists murder people defending children in America, extremists in Saudi Arabia are sold weapons by extremists in the White House, so that the extremists in Saudi can murder their own versions of extremists in Yemen, while extremists in Israel, drop bombs from F-16s on extremists in the Gaza strip, and extremists in Syria drop barrel bombs onto villages… and then our media and political leaders wonder why extremists are so upset and want to come to our own towns and cities to do us harm. And so we take the easy fork and arm the F-16s and the vote for the extremists who sell the F-16s, and support the extremists as long as they are our extremists…
And as for Climate Change, maybe Trump and Danny Healy-Rae have a point and maybe it is all made up, and sure isn’t it great to get this great weather and long may it last. And in spite of 200 nations supporting the Paris Climate accord, the world’s biggest economy is now pulling out of the treaty because climate change is a Chinese hoax or it’s caused by chemtrails or aliens. And despite the fact that 97% of the world’s scientists think that the rise in global temperature is man-made, what the hell do they know they’re scientists. And at home we shovel the coal on to our fires and switch on the oil fired central heating and fill up our cars with diesel and petrol, and we take the easy fork and hope we’ll be alright…
Sometimes in life, we come to forks in the road and we have decisions to make, and as appealing as the easy road is, we know we should choose the difficult path. For whatever reason, we take the easy road, and I’m more convinced than ever, that the easy road is the wrong choice, that the hard road is the best road, for all our sakes.
