Staying safe

The use of language and imagery can allow us to persuade, and whether inadvertently or knowingly, for either benign or malignant reasons, can pervert meaning.  This possible misrepresentation can happen in many ways, creating false impressions with sometimes damaging results.

Advertising is akin to political propaganda; the lesson to be learnt is in keeping an awareness of meaning and implication.

The phrase ‘Stay safe’ is now popular on social media and elsewhere, but what does it really mean?  Is the phrase used as a show of concern or is there a more sinister background meaning?  A bogus compassionate soundbite with socialist roots.

It could be linked with ‘Stay home’, or ‘Stay alert’ phrases that could be veiled threats aimed at the irresponsible.

One may think these suspicions are tenuous and paranoid, but to ignore them is to ignore the slippery slope of political persuasion.  The war of propaganda will continue until all are equal and obedient.

One is kept safe in the womb, fed, and protected, sharing your mother’s biology, cushioned from the stresses outside.  In your informative years, parents would have kept you protected, safe from the harsh realities of life.  They would have placed you into a utopian ‘summer place’, allowing you to develop without being misled, threatened or perverted before you could defend yourself, or run.

It is nature’s way.

Eventually we leave that cocoon to the excitement of freedom, of choice, of independence, and reality in the wide world.  Those who created that ‘summer place’ for you may be dead now, but we have the warm memories of ‘happy summer days’, moments oblivious to the responsibilities, pressures and problems that were kept from us.

Don’t waste their sacrifice.

To young people leaving home ‘safe’ becomes unhealthy and undesirable.  They have to experience life, learn to live and to find love.  These are not ‘safe’ activities.  Ideas are changed with the pain of life, hard work, disease, hunger, broken dreams, disappointments and loss.  These are not safe experiences and never will be.  They are the cost of living in the real world.

What is wrong with wishing someone to be safe?

When this concern goes beyond normal risky actions such as climbing a ladder, or driving a vehicle, we have to question what ‘safe’ means.  Is there an ideological agenda?

Mankind has experienced over 120 years of socialism and communism but the fundamental harmonic of human evolution is the human condition.  The need to express our needs and aspirations, including risk, freedom, and liberty, prevails.  Although, diluted with failure, the socialist virus still exists.

If ‘staying safe’ means anything it should always mean to question the meaning of language.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better…… This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.

George Orwell Politics and the English Language

Many people may blindly ‘mean what they say’ but, it is not the same as ‘to say what you mean’.  It is a fair assumption to suspect that the many do not understand fully the implications of what they say and are then at risk of being led.

In reality the world is not a safe place; if it was we would not like it.

Life is not safe, knowledge is not safe and love is not safe.  Time itself may not be safe.  Therefore ‘staying safe’ was never an option in the real world.  Is it paranoia to say this, or a healthy defence mechanism?

Human evolution is slow and tortuous, dead ends have to be explored.  Socialism is such a dead end.  In this analogy it may be fair to say that we have reached a dead end, have fumbled around the wall and paid the price.  Why aren’t the young told of the ultimate dangers of socialism?

Have you ever seen an animal lifted from the ground by a winged predator?  Then looked to the sky, only to see white fluffy clouds passing in a sedate constant flow.  Far beyond them are the strained streaks of cirrus backed by the unfathomable and indifferent blue sky.  Look away, even for a moment, and the picture changes as though you have lost time.  Nature is not safe.

Humans cannot create artificial safeness in the real world.

War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.

George Orwell   1984

Maybe we could add another: “Safety is danger”.

That is the promise of socialism, safety for the down trodden masses.  But, like hydroponic plants, we would then be fed just the right amount of safety to control us.  The flavour and character would be lost.

Safe spaces in universities do not favour the healthy development of young adults.

They turn them into victims, as easily, and as much as an overdependence on welfare state.  They dilute the victim’s ability to accept the reality of the world, preventing them developing the skills of tolerance and perseverance and undermining their self-esteem and social responsibility.  This is a perverse example of safety.

The concept of Sanctuary Cities have a slightly different take.  They want to create safe places for immigrants and provide a Community Safety Officer for that purpose.  This is quite possibly refuge for criminals, provided by those who want to share more than they own.

There is a conflict of understanding between what constitutes an economic migrant and a genuine refugee.   We must not confuse social responsibility with a responsibility to socialism.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Don’t cocoon yourself and stay safe. Live, love learning, love life and love liberty.

Then you can enjoy that ‘summer place’.