Perpetual revolution. Everyone is in a spin. One week we are told we need to exercise a lot more, and that certain foods are healthy while others are not and the next week, to dismay, confusion, and eventually apathy, we are told that in fact the exercise will put us at risk of degenerated joints, and the food has this or that chemical - be it trans-fats or pesticides. Instead of expecting to live to 100 with skin like a baby's rear, we have only been harming our chances.


Adding to this uncertainty, on the next page we can read of further killer ingredients that have bizarrely gone un-policed for the past twenty years. Yes, apparently study is required to prove that manmade ingredients in food aren't good. Guess these people have never read Frankenstein. So much for the benefits of scientific "progress".


Perhaps partially as a result of disillusionment in the ever contradictory health advice, there is a seemingly huge increase in drug use, particularly among "younger people". Teenagers to mid-twenties I suppose is meant by the term 'young people'. Many blame things such as over-exposure on TV or 'gangsta rap' music or heavy metal music or Satan or Osama bin Laden or whatever is convenient to blame at the time. There has to be an explanation for why such drug abuse happens, in the light of the scientific evidence proving the harmful long-term effects of abusing substances, even (or, especially) legal ones.

So, why would people willingly put their health at severe risk for the sake of some sensual pleasure? Well, maybe we ought to ask: why wouldn't they? A desire to survive is usually not for the mere sake of survival itself. People who make sure they stay alive usually state things they know that make life worth living: beliefs, family, curiosity; a sense of duty etc.

The answer as to why people have a disregard for their health is the same as why they have a disregard to anything else: they see no reason to feel otherwise. Vandalism, knife crime, drugs, assault, suicide and on it goes come from a sense of worthlessness and hopelessness. All the horror stories of the increasing crime rate of the "youth of today" that appear on the news cause consternation amongst older generations. When these older, 'learned' members of the public are interviewed, they often say that what these hooligans need is a kick up the arse/ a military haircut/ a spell in the military/ a job/ mandatory enemas and so on. That answer is too simplistic to solve the problem. Whilst young people are portrayed as inarticulate, hopeless morons, even the ones who do fit this bill can sense something amiss in our "progressive" society. When everyone is supposed to be of equal worth, despite the mixture of cultures, ethnicities and religions, it sends a message that no one is of any worth. We can't all be special, especially when we are so clearly far from identical.

Speaking as a 'young person', we've seen how hard work, national service, telling the 'truth' and so on has rewarded people: with a kick in the teeth. War veterans and their widows die in ill-heated, tiny houses smelling of their own urine in this "land fit for heroes". That is the 'freedom' they fought for. That isn't the freedom they thought they fought for. No, they just think they fought to keep away the Savage Hun so we could retain our 'Britishness'. The "Britishness" that our former Prime Minister described in terms of our tolerance towards any amount of non-Britishness. But the post-war utopia isn't what happened, and anyone who would claim otherwise has some issues.

Young people see a past far removed from the lives they live today, and a future they wish was equally removed, if it is something they even allow themselves to think of at all. A future they want no part of. You can't stop time moving forward, so what does any creature that feels trapped do? Fight back, however futile the effort and failing that, escape. Drug abuse and hedonism are a form of escapism. Behind so many of the problems we see today: futile attempts at fighting back or escaping.

That is not to condone going out and being completely reckless with your own life or with anyone else's, however, it is a recognition that the recent past marked a defeat of morale, of identity and pride and cannot be held as any kind of inspirational model for more recent generations. These are the generations that are growing up in the long-term consequences of what has gone wrong before. Whilst many might not be able to articulate it into any kind of political or philosophical statement, most people can look at the future, with the falling intelligence, increasing covert fascism of the state, and enforced pluralism, and instinctively sense that we're pretty screwed. And why would someone who felt like that bother going to work or having a family or doing anything remotely positive?

This is not to say that fatalism is the answer, far from it. But the point is to understand the cause of this fatalism, then when we understand that, maybe those who see this can begin to offer an alternative future for young people, instead of the tired, old phony ramblings of liberals and conservatives that never got anybody anywhere, or the leftist radicalism that pours oil on the flames. Whilst we can learn from the past (as history, like anything, is cyclic) we cannot get answers from an immediate past that never offered any.