try hard

I'm in a band that rehearses occassionally and performs rarely. I guess you would say that we are somewhere in the pop/folk/rock area with touches of indie sound now and then. But this is besides the point.

We all contribute original songs but there is one I would like to borrow a line or two from for today's sermon. Try Hard is by our violinist, Elizabeth, and in it, she writes,

"...the world is too loose/there's too much choice.."

There is, simply, too much choice in the (Western) world. And the important things that bind societies, families and individuals together are under huge assault from a misinterpretation of human rights and the nature of liberty as well as the cult of the individual. You can throw the ceaselessly corrosive effect of consumer capitalism into that mix if you like, for it also has a fundamental role to play.

'I have rights. Don't you dare obstruct my rights. They are inviolable. I can say what I want. That's freedom of speech, don't you know? My freedoms extend beyond that of thinking and saying, but also doing. I can be obnoxious, disrespectful, inconsiderate, just plain rude, that's part of the deal, isn't it? Why, you can stock up on the Bible, The Communist Manifesto, The Satanic Verses and I wont complain. But don't obstruct the my freedom of speech, my license to be as profane, as wittless, as I like.

Of course I can buy what I like. Who are you to preach? So what if I want 20 choices of washing powder - that's my right, as a consumer, isnt it? Why shouldn't I have the latest gadget? Why this mobile phone can download a full streaming porn movie, and its my right to do so. It's all a matter of taste.'

And on it goes. A reduction of thinking power with every serve of choice. A reduction in social cohesion with every so-called freedom demanded.

Recently a well-known playwight commented on the social mores of the sixties, how they thought that free love and a rejection of antiquated moral structures would liberate a whole generation. He reflected that the group that he belonged to were ultimately completely and disasterously wrong.

More later on this. I could fill a book.