Page 30 w The Top
A View From
Welcome to my monthly column “A view from the top”. Hopefully you will find my rambling readable (maybe even enjoyable). You may agree or you may disagree with my views, I care not. These are my views long held and forged over a life time of work, travel and experience. Now that’s over let’s have a look at what is really winding me up.
It got me thinking. A couple of weeks ago I read a report on the Internet that stated “Scientists have kept human embryos in a laboratory setting for 13 days”. These embryos are used for research with hopefully any benefits being passed on to the wider human race. Remarkable was my first reaction …however now some 10 days later I cannot get the story out of my mind. I keep thinking about the ethical matters surrounding such research. The Warnock report in 1984 concluded that it was ethical to conduct research on human embryos until day 14 of their development. Formally the 14 day watershed had been the difficulty as embryos did not reach that stage in laboratory conditions. This latest research however has moved the timescale goalposts and led me to my ethical dilemma.
Now my knowledge of the subject matter as you would expect is weak to say the least …however my ethical compass for some reason demands that I turn the matter over in my tiny mind and explore the thoughts of one Josephine Quintavalle a scientist in reproductive ethics. She says “The normal place for a human being is not in a petri dish and is not in a laboratory”. This comment fits my view and helps with my personal feeling that although science cannot and should not be stopped in a real sense, surely the question that science must ask itself is one of scientific ethics namely: Science does not always have to be about “Can we?” …science could also be about “Should we?”. Apologies for the heavy dialogue …the subject matter just got me thinking.
Where am I in all this? You would have to be locked up in a dark room to not know that Britain has held a Referendum on the question of “Should the UK remain in the European Union?” Now I do not intend to make any comment at this juncture about the result as I am writing this missive for the July 2016 Focus and by the time you, my Dear Reader, get your mitts on the precious copy the whole debate and result will be done and dusted.
No my ire has been raised in relation to the subject matter and tone of the campaigns and how this subject matter namely … intolerance of other people’s views has become a tool to beat people into submission via name calling and aggressive intent. Simply put in today’s Britain, if a person disagrees with almost anything that is not the accepted view then that person is subjected to trial by television and newspapers, along with the now high tech abuse a person can be singled out for via the Twitter-sphere.
The words bigot, xenophobe and racist have now become regular daily use words rather than the descriptive words that used to be used by students of Sociology and the Social Sciences. A bigot is a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions. A xenophobe is a person who has a dislike or a prejudice against people from other countries and a racist is a person who believes that one’s own racial group is superior or that a particular racial group is inferior to others. This is what we are told we are if we hold any view that is contrary to the current flow of thinking.
QF Focus Magazine
An individual can be lambasted and ridiculed just for holding a view that may fit into one of the mentioned strains of intolerance. Please do not get me wrong Dear Reader…I hope I do not have any of the above mentioned.
Dislikes or prejudices built into my thinking. Brought up in a working class household with honest hard working parents in a period just after the end of World War II, the general thinking of the time was forgiveness to others and let’s move forward together. What I do have however is a very free use of my vocabulary …Whilst writing this I have been thinking about my use of language…yes I am guilty of saying “let’s go for a chinky” when what I mean is shall we go to a Chinese restaurant for some Chinese food …yes I am guilty also of getting the hump when my particular sporting favorites somehow manage to lose to someone else’s sporting favorites and yes from time to time I am guilty of thinking ill of others and of others opinions. Does that make me any of the above or is it simply that I am a child of my time and, although with a very good education and with a history of stable home life, and yes with a good career now behind me I, like all of us on occasion do get my thoughts and ideas in a twist - for some it’s their knickers for me it’s my thought processes.
I have now set myself a penance…I must write out one hundred times…I must try not to be a plonker. There I feel better already.
What am I doing wrong? I have been a pensioner now for a couple
of
months …joints are creaking … fine manly figure is on the wane and the wallet always seems to be short of a few bob. How is it then that with the world
economy
in mortal peril myself and my gang of world wise pensioners seem to be missing out on the high life whilst the young whippersnapper generation seem to have re-invented the term “living a hedonistic lifestyle”. If they’re not out buying enormous dogs and giving them exotic names …then it’s a brand new car or two …or a holiday on an island, or perhaps the joy of take away dinners, rather than like me, slugging away in the kitchen. Throw in a cruise, alongside being so posh you even get a restaurant dish named after you - Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you “Pasta Gary” …only to be eaten with a spoon.
Enough said, I am off to meet my mates for a swift half or two… as long as the wallet can manage.
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