When Progress isn’t Progress at all

Much of what is happening is described as progress but it isn’t really, of course – it’s just change. And a good deal of it is change contrived to keep us all too busy to notice what is going on in the world, and too wrapped up in our own daily problems to take action against the conspirators, the collaborators and the constant attacks on our freedom and humanity. Even small things become incredibly time consuming and exhausting. The bizarre and indefensible ‘recycling’ programmes which were introduced globally (everything happens in lockstep these days) were designed to make us worry about non-existent climate change, to make us compliant (and to force us to accept that we must do what we are told, even in our own homes and to keep us busy. Most of the carefully washed and sorted recycling material is dumped or burnt, and the environmental cost of collecting recycling material far exceeds any value that might accrue. In the UK, for example, much of the recycling material has been carried to countries far away to be dumped or burnt. There isn’t even any point in recycling paper (the most traditional recycling material). It is better for the environment to grow trees for that purpose and to burn the discarded paper to produce electricity or heat.

If you order a book (or whatever else) online you will be bombarded with emails. There will be a message to say that the purchase has been made, one to say that your order is being dealt with, another to let you know that the book has been passed to the delivery company, one to let you know that the delivery company has received the package, one to inform you that the delivery company has received the book, one to let you know that the book is on its way and one to tell you that the package has been delivered. Then you will receive an email from the seller to let you know that the delivery company has done their job and delivered the book. Later there will be another email from them wanting you to rate their service and one from the delivery company wanting you to let them know how well you think they did. If you don’t reply immediately those emails will be repeated at regular intervals. This barrage of unnecessary emails keeps us occupied with pointless trivia. (Not infrequently, I receive two copies of each of the emails in this tedious chain.)

The word ‘progress’ is used as a synonym for ‘better’; but how do you define ‘better’? Is receiving an email from a friend on holiday better than receiving a postcard? Is the world better when cars all look exactly the same? Is it better when log fires are forbidden by health and safety officials? Are trains better now that there are no restaurant and sleeper cars? Or has life been destroyed by fanatics, cultists and ignorant meddlers, acting, unknowingly, on behalf of conspirators aiming for a Great Reset? Is life better now that there are no junk shops, no rag and bone men and no odd job men who could repair just about anything you couldn’t deal with yourself? Is life better now that family doctors work the same hours as librarians and you have to plan your emergencies a day or two ahead if you hope to ride to hospital in an ambulance? Are hospitals better now that nurses spend more time in meetings than on the ward and are always too busy, and self-important, to find a bedpan, plump up pillows, help a frail patient with their meal or put a bunch of flowers into a vase? Is it progress that children now learn with the aid of iPads instead of being taught with pens and paper and chalk and a board? Is a smart phone real progress over a piece of slate and a slate pencil? Children half a century ago played hopscotch, skipped with ropes and in the winter played football with coats as goalposts while in the summer they played cricket with stumps chalked on lampposts. On their summer holidays they splashed in paddling pools or sailed toy yachts on boating ponds (all now filled in for health and safety reasons) and they rode on donkeys and played one penny games on the pier. Is it simply nostalgia when you know in your heart that things really were better then?

If you object to all progress then the conspirators will label you a ‘Luddite’, even if much of what they label progress isn’t progress at all.

It isn’t difficult to argue that children have little or no future today. The conspirators and the collaborators have taken away their education, their hope, their sense of comfort and even their happiness. Mental health problems among the young are rising at a rate never seen before. Even before the fake pandemic of 2020 the incidence of such problems among the young was frighteningly high. Today, there is an epidemic of mental illness. Millions of children, teenagers and young people are taking tranquillisers and anti-depressants (even though these have been proven to be of no value) and often taking them for years at a time. The lockdowns, the social distancing regulations and the partial or complete closure of hospital departments mean that those requiring specialist help will be on waiting lists for years if not for life.

Is a pub with a log fire and friendly bar staff better than a pub with a good internet connection? Are motorways, with endless queues, better than winding country roads which take you to your destination just as quickly and with far more pleasure? Are self-driving cars better than cars which have to be driven? How will self-driving cars manage to navigate English country roads and all those tiny, blind junctions? Who is going to provide a suitable call out service for all the electric cars which are stranded in country lanes when their batteries run out?

Is a traditional English breakfast better or worse than a bowl of sugar coated cereal? Why does it now take a week or more for a postcard to reach its destination when in Victorian times, in the 19th century, a postcard put in a pillar box in the morning would arrive at its destination in the afternoon? The postcode or zip code was, surely, an early sign of the end of civilisation. I recently bought around 1,000 old Edwardian postcards (no one wants them these days – they cost just a few pounds) and although the addresses consisted of nothing more than (at most) a name, a number, a street and a town, the cards clearly reached their destinations safely. There is less mail today because so many people use email – so why does the mail take so much longer to get where it’s going?

Is reading a book on a smart phone easier and more fun than reading a paperback – with no need to squint and constantly adjust the position of the screen on a sunny day? Was the NHS better when there was a dental service for all? Were charities more or less inclusive when they served merely to serve those in need rather than to enrich executives and advertising agencies? Was life better when we used public phone boxes instead of having to carry a mobile phone with us? Were radio and television programmes worse when traditional events such as the Promenade Concerts celebrated cultural traditions rather than global ones?

Was the Tate Britain art gallery better when it paid more attention to traditional artists than to the demands of the woke? The Tate Britain gallery now has just one room for art from 1545 to 1640 but 14 rooms devoted to art from 1940 onwards. Of the work on view, 200 items were made since the millennium and the work in the publicly funded gallery has been carefully curated to ensure that men and women are equally represented among living artists – regardless of reputation or the value of their work. Modern art on display, representing just a twentieth of the time span of the collection, takes up a quarter of the space. Culture, as well as history, has been changed to fit the requirements of the conspirators and the collaborators. Labels attached to older pictures highlight social injustice, colonial exploitation and prejudice. The gallery seems to illustrate the way in which the feelings of the few now dominate the views of the many in every sphere of activity.

The aims of the WEF and other organisations seem to be to destroy each nation’s heritage, to destroy every country’s culture. In the UK, all major institutions seem to have become very woke. The National Trust, the Marylebone Cricket Club and other former institutions are now unrecognisably woke – to the great confusion of long-standing members. Long established regiments in the army have disappeared or been merged.

The aim of the conspirators is to change the world by erasing nations, families and communities and by destroying everything humans consider to be personal and valuable. Immigration (whether legal or illegal) is encouraged in order to create impoverishment, resentment, racism, terrorism and plenty of excuses for war. (As an aside, it used to be thought that patriotism was good but nationalism was bad. Today, however, both are unacceptable because there can be no countries in the New World Order.)

Naturally, immigration programmes have led to resentment on both sides and, especially in France, the development of racial and cultural ghettoes is leading to civil war.