Cynical? Me?

The plan is to walk across the Forth Bridge today. This is a wonderful way to pass the time.  There are views of the Forth, of much of the central belt extending to the west highlands and of course the existing Forth Rail Bridge and the currently under construction third crossing.

There is a consultation allowing the public to choose the name of the new bridge.  Everyone of course will call it the Third Forth Bridge.  So why bother asking?

Like so many consultations by bodies of all kinds it is about being seen to be offering a choice or to be listening to what (the people who bother to respond to consultations) actually think and feel.

It is a common saying that local authorities in particular will "consult until they get the answer they want".

I can just hear the scorn being heaped upon me by the brown-nosers and dilletanti who actually run these things.  I am accused of being a cynical, negative old fart.

While admitting to being an old fart, I deny cynicism and negativity.  A cynic denies that humans can act in an altruistic or collective way.  Now I agree this may be a proper estimation of our political class but certainly not of the population as a whole.

What my critics call cynicism, I call scepticism.  That faculty which requires us to question the plans and motivations of those in power over us. Of course any questioning of the hegemonic belief system is seen as subversive.  I certainly hope I am.

Lets take austerity for example.  This is presented in the mainstream media as simply received truth.  A policy with "no alternative".  Anyone who disagrees is simply laughed at.  Except when they express that disagreement in public.  Then they are tear-gassed, baton-charged, water-cannoned, shot, imprisoned and this is happening all over the world.

As Paul Mason puts it, "the Occupy movement didn't just fade away it was repressed".

We live in an age where there is a relentless drive for "positive thinking".  Any kind of critical appraisal or examination of proposals seems to be frowned upon.  Personality traits celebrating "dynamism", "go-getting" and "ruthlessness" seem to be prized above all others, certainly if one reads the business news.

These personality traits may well be helpful in extorting the last bit of surplus value from workers across the globe. They are not in the least helpful when it comes to making and preserving a world fit for humans to live in.

The poor devils who lost their lives in the Dhaka factory collapse last week were the natural consequence of such systems of belief.

When I was a psychiatric nurse we were taught to believe that these personality traits celebrated above were the mark of a disordered personality.  Personality Disorder was not an illness we were taught and couldn't be "cured".  Later on I realised that saying someone had a Personality Disorder really meant that you didn't like them.

To be fair, many of the people we had through our doors with that label were not very likeable people.  None of them were running big companies though.  Clearly they missed their niche.

An academic study of executives on Wall Street, the finance capital of the United States found that large numbers of them were in fact disordered in their personality.  They lacked empathy and emotion.  Sociopath is the term preferred in the Americas for the people we call Psychopaths over here.

Yet these are the people we are encouraged to emulate.  Their kind of success is how we should measure ourselves and others.

So yes, I am sceptical about the plans of our rulers. I encourage scepticism and I abhor cynicism.

So, who are the REAL cynics?  The terminally insincere are one category.  The ones who promote a plan or a view that suits their own interests while pretending that it is in the interests of everyone.  These people are either liars if they are aware of their own duplicity or fools if they are not.

Those who parrot their masters views for pay are certainly up there in the realm of cynicism.  Let us take the editor of the Aberdeen Press & Journal as an example local to me.

This is the person who banned all reporting of views opposed to the Trump Golf Course Development on a site of special scientific interest.

This was on the grounds that the Trump Development was so central to the economic future of the north-east of Scotland that no criticism could be allowed.  And here was me thinking it was a Golf Course?

During his previous job editing the Evening Express this person was responsible for the reporting of issues relating to Travellers in ways which stretched the bounds of race hate legislation. If one replaced the word "traveller" in that reporting with the word "jew" you could have been reading Nazi propaganda from the 1930s.

There is one accusation which this person is immune to.  No-one can accuse him of feeling any shame.  Recently he was married.  I am sure it was a happy occasion.  I was not invited, not even as the hired help to play with a wedding band.

Who did he marry?  The chief press officer for the Trump Corporation.  I am sure it is a match made in heaven.