There is always more that unites us and we are never stronger and more successful than when we work together in our common interest.

So, that’s what I think about that.

desperate to maintain their advantage and distract us from how it is achieved and who it serves.
 
In conclusion, we must reclaim our empathy. Far from being a weakness, it’s the best protection we have. Especially from the predatory and divisive instincts of those who benefit from our suffering.

with their perceived differences being mendaciously weaponised to provoke fear and resentment by a complicit media and unscrupulous political actors. Performative cruelty meted out by the state, on those with even less than you is a very effective misdirection utilised by those who are

in the disingenuous name of choice or freedom, but we are also easily convinced that it’s being taken from us by ‘others’ rather than systematic design and predatory practices by those wielding power and influence that they seek to consolidate. Convenient scapegoats are often minorities

But that doesn’t have to be at odds with wanting to be an intrinsic part of a wider co-operative community, united by a common purpose. By convincing us only to think of ourselves and what we can achieve in some ludicrous zero-sum game, not only have we allowed so much to be taken from us

the group. Far from it, our individuality should be celebrated, the best teams are able to harness a wide variety of aptitudes and become more than the sum of their parts. I also firmly believe that discovering our authentic selves is key. But that doesn’t have to be at odds with wanting to be

needs as social creatures that it should come as no surprise that it’s making so many of us sick.

My conviction that we are suffering from an obsession with self is not based on some misguided affection for blind conformity or the idea that our sense of self should be sacrificed for the needs of

that many of us have succumbed to substance; sex; social media; and shopping addictions, as well as crippling mental health conditions. Society is being overwhelmed by an epidemic of disconnection, largely as a result of our obsession with the individual. This preoccupation is so at odds with our

Returning to my opening premise, this has all largely been ushered in under the cover of a narrative that the individual is King and empathy is weakness. Not only has that seen the material reality of many people’s lives undermined so significantly, it has also left us so devoid of human connection

and the insatiable appetite for growth & profit (usually by privatisation) but inequality is on the rise again. With any economic advances now going to the already asset-rich. In short, the gap between rich and poor is growing again. In many ways it’s actually doing so more than ever before.

along with much of the hard-won social security and workplace advances that had been secured through activism and collective bargaining. As a result, not only has any semblance of a functioning public sector been decimated in the pursuit of short-term gain

Sounds absurd right? It’s as a result of a con-trick that reassured people any success they’ve achieved & any privilege they enjoy is purely down to their choices, abilities & hard work. Meanwhile the predator class has been clawing back any advantage & wealth they had to cede to the working class.

The post-war social contract brought about significant economic & social advances to Western countries. Yet the beneficiaries of those advances  (universal health care; free education; council housing etc) so unappreciative of them that they regularly vote to deny them to their grandchildren.

and so irresistibly has the Overton Window been shifted rightwards, not only do so few people believe that societies can be organised collectively and co-operatively, they also seem to have forgotten how recently they actually were.

So convinced are people that unfettered consumer-capitalism with as small a state as possible are the only way a society can be successfully structured. So successfully has our collective consent been manufactured by successive neoliberal/conservative iterations of the military-industrial-complex