Feb 13

2025

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Helen Whitten

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Finding Reason and Perspective in a Soundbite World – a message for Gen Z and our future leaders

Reading the recent Times survey suggesting that Generation Z and our younger generations are disillusioned with democracy, the UK, and life, I have been questioning what they have been reading and who has been influencing their perspectives.  There are a lot of malign forces out there doing their best to divide the West, break up NATO, and undermine the values and culture that we have enjoyed since the end of World War II.

All this reminded me of an essay I wrote a few years ago that was long-listed for the Notting Hill Essay prize, on the subject of how best to analyse news and information in the 21st century.  It is, in many ways, a letter to today’s young, as very little has changed in these intervening years, other than that there is even more mental illness, social media has become even more influential, and there are ever more topics that filter into our conversations to divide us – gender, Gaza, Ukraine, immigration, AI, Musk, Trump, etc.

It is concerning that the young are so out of love with our country, but which country are they comparing us with, because, to be honest, life here certainly seems better than it is in many other countries, most of which have similar problems?  They want a strong leader – really? Putin? Xi? Assad? Hitler? Stalin?  Who are they thinking of, I wonder?  There are extraordinarily few good examples of strong leaders or dictatorships, so I really can’t imagine where they have been getting their facts from.  If, indeed, they have found the time to think slow in this fast-paced world, to read deeply, to analyse the facts rather than form their opinions by thinking fast, picking up the soundbites so easily available on social media.

This type of dependency on a strong leader, and on what a government can realistically achieve, is significant, as it suggests that they themselves feel powerless.  In earlier generations there was far less expectation of a government sorting out all our personal problems, such as debt or high interest rates or fuel price rises.  People just got on with it and adjusted their budgets even when life became very harsh.  But now there is an expectation that a government will take that pressure or responsibility off the individual.  This has emotional, practical and financial consequences.

It is understandable that Gen Z are against war but less understandable that they would not fight should the need arise.  I remember wearing CND badges and the marches that took place in the 60s and 70s but, if there had been war, I think the majority would have understood that we would need to fight and defend ourselves.  For it is not just our country we fight for but for those we love, for our homes and livelihoods, for our lifestyle and culture.  If Putin and his forces were to invade and cut off the electricity to homes and hospitals, shutting down smart phones and social media would they fight then?  They have chilling real-time evidence of what this is like if they read what is happening in Ukraine.  And so where does their loyalty lie, exactly?

So I publish this longer essay as a reminder of the need for reason within the soundbites and headlines, with the hope that you will share it with any teenagers and young adults you know, so that they may think further and deeper about the context of their views, what voices are shaping them, and whether those voices are to be admired or questioned:

“I was standing next to an elderly lady at the newspaper counter yesterday and she commented “we probably can’t believe a word of what we read but I still buy a paper every day”.   How do we make sense of what we read in a newspaper, hear or watch on the media or search on the internet in this post-truth era?  Information is expressed in 140 characters.  Continuous global news, with sensationalist headlines, is repeated every half-hour with little detail provided.  The manner in which information is shared in the twenty-first century leads to people making snap judgements on events and situations.   Views are shaped by a fast emotional response to information, not an analytical one.  It is difficult to judge fact from fiction and this can be stressful as there is a sense that there is no firm ground on which to build truth or opinion.

My intention in this essay is to demonstrate that the generations living in today’s world of the global internet, and especially young people who have known little else, need to learn more about the inner workings of their brain so as to apply both intellect and reason, as well as intuitive emotion, when making judgements and decisions on what they are reading or seeing.  This would include developing self-knowledge, identifying bias and prejudices, becoming aware of the impact of peer pressure and learning how to distinguish false news from fact.  In essence, to learn the skills of rational thinking.  This will not necessarily help them make a perfect decision but it may enable them to make a more informed one.

Thinking is difficult, so most people judge” Voltaire

We have learnt a great deal about the mind through psychology and neuroscience in the past thirty years.  This knowledge can enable us to be discerning when analysing information.  Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, fast and slow  [1] describes how the brain works on two systems.  System 1 is fast intuitive thinking where people often jump to conclusions emotionally before they know the facts.  This can lead to erroneous solutions or premises.  System 2 is slow deliberate thinking where we take time to summon evidence and analyse the information before coming to a conclusion.

The pace of life has accelerated in many ways.  In my own business of professional training we used to run five-day residential leadership courses for executives.  Nowadays one is expected to transmit the same information in a morning.  On the internet people tend to be in fast-thinking mode as they submit or respond to data online.    The brain is programmed to latch on to new information as it may alert us either to opportunity of sustenance for survival, which excites the brain, or alternatively to a threat.  The brain becomes aroused and the autonomic system provides the physiology required in order to respond appropriately either to potential or to risk.  This survival process works well in times of physical challenge but is unhelpful when reflective thinking is required, such as to analyse information and reach the detail beneath what one is reading.  It can be helpful to understand this process as it is being activated every time a new email or tweet pings into our inbox.

The brain adapts to the situations it experiences frequently.  Young people are being exposed at an early age to video games so their brains become shaped to expect fast interaction.  Computer interface could be influencing the worldwide increase in cases of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as the brain becomes acclimatized to speed of information and finds it difficult to concentrate when information needs to be processed more slowly.    The neuroscientist Susan Greenfield [2] argues that video games and the speed of data retrieval on the internet can lead to addictive behaviours similar to gambling, by activating the reward system of dopamine which is stimulated by results, and inhibiting the frontal cortex that is considered to be responsible for planning complex cognitive behaviour, moderating social behaviour, and decision-making.  The top ten video games are violent ones.  There is evidence that this creates the danger that the brain is likely to respond more aggressively after watching or playing such games.  Screen-based interaction only applies two senses, sound and vision.  Our brains become less adapted to the holistic chemistry of human communication through eye contact, conversation, body language, pheromones.  We see characters on screen as icons rather than emotional beings.  This may be a factor in a measured decrease in empathy in college students over the decade from 2000-2010. [3]  The icon on screen does not have an emotional history, we don’t know about their relationships or feelings: they are just a moving image, so we are less likely to care about them.

We are witnessing the malevolent result of this lack of empathy through the experience of students in school, where two-thirds of teenage girls report that they have been sexually harassed at school by boys. [4] This is affecting their self-esteem, wellbeing and academic performance.   The viewing of online porn, which large numbers of young boys now watch regularly, can have an intimidating effect on both boys and girls. [5]  Cyber-bullying, sexting and revenge porn add to these problems and both genders are viewing material that suggests that relationships mean little but body-image and sexual gratification mean much.  How do the young make sense of this world of image and illusion?

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd” Voltaire

There is a trend to revert to previous idealised times.  Opinion polls suggest that people imagine there was a time when the world was more certain.  Change seems to be both unpopular and also unexpected.  We see this mirrored in the Brexit and Trump votes where people could be heard to say “we want our country back” .  The implication is that things should not change, despite the fact that both the UK and US have always been in a state of flux.  That is the nature of life.    We cannot roll back the tide of history but we can challenge expectations to check that they are realistic.   We need also to ensure that people have the skills to manage the life they are facing.

Expectations shape our experience and how we respond to events and information.  They impact both emotion and behaviour.  For example if we think our boss will give us a £200 bonus and we receive a £250 bonus we shall be happy and probably act more loyally to him or her.  If, on the other hand, we are expecting a £200 bonus but only receive £150 then we shall be disappointed and may consider looking for a new job.

Checking whether expectations are rational and realistic enables us to stop and question whether we are making ourselves unhappy by imagining that life should be other than it is.  There is a sense today, reinforced by media comment, that the world is a far worse place than it ever was, that any suffering must be wrong and that when anything does go wrong someone must be blamed – often the government.  There is an uproar when accidents happen, when people lose their jobs or when there is an apparent injustice, followed by a demand that someone pays – again, often the government.  But these expectations may well be unrealistic.  There is no law of the universe stating that life will be fair nor to say that we should not suffer.  Life can be unfair and it is doubtful that whatever a government tries to put in place to address a problem, their policies will be perfect or infallible.  We live in an imperfect world and the people who govern us are human and therefore of necessity fallible.  The expectation that all should go smoothly is unrealistic and upsets us.  We need to be able to react to endeavour to improve situations when they arise and yet have the resilience to recognise that life has always provided challenges, and always will.

A blame culture leads people to look outward for answers rather than look inward to ask “what can I do about this?”  Such an attitude disempowers so it is not surprising that there is an overall consensus among young people of a sense of powerlessness.  A student from Sheffield University, reported that news leaves her feeling uninspired about the prospects of not only the country but also her own personal future.  But are students accurate in feeling so helpless to shape their own future?  The Millennials have been described as the “snowflake” generation and some would argue that life has never been better or more full of potential.

News and information has to be investigated carefully to balance up the narrative and check whether it is true or false.  We have to check whether false hopes and entitlements have been dangled before us.  Also whether things truly are as bad as the media suggests, when in fact millions of people have been taken out of poverty in the last decade, world hunger reached its lowest point in 25 years, global malaria deaths have declined by 60%, life expectancy in Africa has increased by 9.4 years since 2000, the proportion of older US adults with dementia, including Alzheimer’s, declined by 11.6% in 2000 to 8.8% in 2012, 93% of children around the world learned to read and write, which is the highest proportion in human history, and despite IS we are safer on a daily basis than at any other time in history. [6]

“Prejudices are what fools use for reason” Voltaire

The internet gathers people into homogenous antagonistic groups of prejudice where one presents itself as pure right-minded thinkers while dismissing another group as corrupt, power-hungry or evil.  This can apply in many areas of life but examples are bankers, Brexiteers, Trump followers, the so-called wealthy elite.  It becomes tribal, resulting in a form of group hysteria against certain parties as we have seen mustered against Caroline Criado-Perez in her project to have Jane Austen depicted on bank notes, and Gina Miller in her court fight regarding Brexit [7].  Both have been threatened online with rape and murder.

Abuse is played out every day on the internet as people take positions on subjects about which they often know very little.  It is the equivalent of hurling stones; not dissimilar to the market square of previous centuries where people gathered to throw rotten tomatoes at some unfortunate person in the stocks.  However, as we saw with the Arab Spring and Brexit, the group has not necessarily given sufficient thought to the detail, nor identified an outcome.  There is a focus on the negatives of what they don’t want rather than a planned vision of what they do want.  This can lead them on the road to nowhere.

The network groups that form online can provide a place where people feel included.  Belonging is a basic human need and networks bring together individuals who support one another.  The danger here is that the group simply reinforces confirmation bias.  It is a cosy feeling to read views that support your own and often people choose to expose themselves only to information with which they agree.    Network groups can also normalise anti-social behaviours such as paedophile groups, porn or jihadis because it is so easy to find like-minded others online.  This enables them to collaborate below the radar, in ways that jeopardise our safety.

“I might disagree with your opinion but I am willing to give my life for your right to express it” Voltaire

Headlines shout about judges being “the enemies” of the country, tweets trend on issues from greedy bankers to Brexit, Trump and the elite.  We are reading and listening to opinions about situations and yet seldom know the source of that comment.  Who are the journalists, tweeters and bloggers?  What do we know about them?  Are they people to respect or not?  What is their political bias or prejudice?  Through whose lens are we being judged?  What are their values?  Are they speaking with ethical intention?  Just because someone is a celebrity does not necessarily mean that they are informed on a particular topic.

It is easy to pontificate about a subject without researching the detail but it can also be ignorant.  To judge others spontaneously without knowing the full story is unprincipled.  The skills of critical thinking enable us to question more deeply what we are reading or hearing.  Fast thinking easily leads to what I would describe as group un-thinking or group hysteria.  Slow thinking leads to individual opinion but requires time and reflection.

Emotive words are used to divide.  Instead of discussing and exchanging facts and opinions people are reverting to personal abuse such as “racist, bigot, Little Englander, Remoaner”.   Negative news is used by the media to sell papers and also by governments and charities in order to emphasize a problem and gain funds or support.  It can give the impression of a brutal world where jobs are scarce, despite the fact that unemployment figures are low.  There are headlines about “greedy bankers” despite the fact that the 2008 crisis was a result of mistaken policies of politicians, lax regulation, individuals borrowing more than they could manage, sub-prime debt, as well as the bankers.   There is complexity beneath the headline. [8]

Teaching and applying the principles of simple logic is particularly relevant in the internet-age.  For example the logic behind “some bankers are greedy therefore all bankers are greedy” is erroneous and makes no more sense than saying “X is wealthy and behaves badly towards his employees so all those who are wealthy must therefore behave badly “.  This is faulty thinking.  There is some truth but we must distinguish between a fuzzy generalisation versus the specifics of a situation.

Currently there is anti-elitist rhetoric but the narrative seldom defines what is meant by an elite other than an apparent hatred of experts.  This could sabotage the success of the next generation in that all countries require an elite to drive forward economic stability and knowledge.  It requires rigour and research to differentiate those who have become elite due to corruption or ‘celebrity status’ in comparison to those who have achieved a position through knowledge.  ‘Elite’ is defined as “a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.” [9] An example is an elite of Britain’s armed forces.

One wouldn’t question the concept of elitism when wishing to see an expert consultant in the NHS, nor a lawyer, chemist or engineer.  Those who study and work hard within an area inevitably become elite, as experts within their own field.  We need these minds and have been addressing for many decades now the difference between inherited versus meritocratic elitism.  There is more to be done but we cannot afford to turn the young against the concept of an elite by connecting, with emotionally-charged headlines, wealth with greed rather than effort.  People need to be encouraged to stop and think more carefully what is meant by a term before making a judgement as to whether something is good or bad, or maybe a mixture of both.

No country can afford to turn people off the concept of wealth-generation.  Wealth in itself isn’t an evil.  It can lead to employment and philanthropy.  Bill Gates has spent much effort in reducing malaria deaths, Warren Buffet made a Philanthropy Pledge in 2006 in which he pledged to give away his Berkshire Hathaway stock to philanthropic projects and he has brought together many wealthy individuals who are pledging to give away some fifty percent of their wealth to good causes.  Many organisations give large sums to the arts and many of the major financial industries and entrepreneurs sponsor cultural exhibitions.  Starting a business and building it up takes guts and risk and can benefit many, both those employed and those who supply or purchase goods or services.  The tendency in the media and online to repudiate those who are wealthy is ignorant.   The key is surely ethics – encouraging people to build their life and work on wise values and good intention.

What is needed is perspective.  Rabble-rousing tweets and headlines skew the facts that some wealthy people are greedy and others generous, that some bankers are unethical and others honest, that some politicians can be trusted and others can’t, that some economists can predict the future and others can’t.  We can’t necessarily reach a wise judgement unless we explore the complex detail that exists within these contexts.

“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking” Voltaire

Surveys suggest [10] that young people are feeling gloomier about the future than at any point in the past eight years.  One in four youngsters between the ages of 16 and 25 report that they do not feel in control of their lives.  Low levels of self-confidence are leading to 45% feeling stressed about body image and 37% stressed about how to cope at work and school.  The numbers of students seeking counselling for exam stress [11] is rising and more than a third of teenage girls in England suffer depression [12].  Are their anxieties realistic or have they been shaped by the negative headlines that bombard them on the media and lead to disappointment?  If the population is so stressed how come Euro 2016 and Pokemon Go were the most Googled questions in the UK in 2016?  This doesn’t suggest deep concern about the political or economic realities people are facing.

But are the young receiving sufficient balanced information for them to appreciate how life has improved in the last fifty years?  Are they being prepared to manage the world they will face?  They are growing up in an era of idealistic and relentlessly positive news on the one hand where there is celebrity and where, on Facebook or Instagram, people only post their good news.  On the other hand there is doom and gloom spread by the press and politicians.  There is little middle way.  They are besieged by images of stars and models.  Social media results in the young comparing themselves to these figures but they are generally trying to measure up to a false or unachievable photograph, where the model’s image has been edited to unrealistic proportions.

All is certainly not what it appears.  Young people, when asked, state that they want to be famous.  But famous for what?  In previous generations when students were asked what they wanted to be they would reply “a lawyer, teacher, doctor”.  Fame in itself may not be a rational goal.  Many celebrities end up in The Priory or in addiction.  Yet the young don’t seem to make the association that fame and wealth are not necessarily going to bring them happiness.  Celebrities suffer anxiety as much if not more than anyone else.  They grieve when they lose a child or parent, and struggle over very public divorces.  Many people are famous but possibly not for the skills one really admires or wishes to emulate – for example Hitler or Jack-the-Ripper.

To be meaningful, fame needs to be based on values, so we need to support children to ground themselves on the personal values that help them live life well and make good decisions.  These don’t have to hinge on some religious premise or book.  Simple principles such as treating others as you would wish to be treated yourself, seeking to do good rather than evil, not to hurt others, can all guide more collaborative rather than divisive behaviour online.

Are we giving this generation of “network young”, as they have been termed, the moral leadership that underpins constructive behaviour?   Are we helping them analyse and make wise decisions?  They aren’t seeing it from their political leaders who seem to be able to tell lies or knife a colleague in the back then shrug it off when found out.  The term “post-truth” can give children the impression that it is ok to tell lies in today’s world.  But of course it isn’t.  Moral leadership comes from all those involved in raising children – parents, extended family, friends, teachers, community, government and beyond.

Parents and teachers alike seem nervous of offending or upsetting children but is this providing them with the resilience skills that young people need to manage the world of soundbites?  If our universities are anything to go by, we appear to be producing students who demand ‘safe space’ rather than debate, and who appear unwilling to tolerate contradictory opinions.  [13]This doesn’t bode well for our future as this type of thinking can lead to fundamentalism, fascism and even dictatorship. [

It is important that we provide a realistic picture of what it takes to manage life and work.  We need to help students identify what success means to them.  Employers report that young people are unemployable as they don’t have the work ethic or social teamworking skills to succeed.  We read of young boys believing it is not ‘cool’ to succeed at school.  If they watch The Apprentice [14] they could gain the impression that being ruthless will get them to the top of business with little effort.

But overnight success is extremely rare.  Most CEOs, entrepreneurs, writers, painters, pop-stars or actors have put in many hours of practice and grit to gain success.  It takes determination, failures and hard work.  If students feel it will come easily they will be disappointed.  We need to enable the next generations to develop the emotional and practical ability to manage the complexity of a flexible global workforce.  Specific examples of hard-won success can inspire them as they set out on their careers in an uncertain and challenging world.  It is particularly useful to provide case studies of those who have come from poor or difficult backgrounds, have worked hard and made a good life for themselves.  It is also important to enable young people to see that the greatest success of all is happiness on a daily basis, which often starts with self-acceptance and loving relationships in the home.

“It is said that the present is pregnant with the future” Voltaire

If young people are indeed so anxious as surveys demonstrate then we need to act swiftly to empower them to feel that they can influence their own lives and manage the challenges they are likely to face in this competitive global environment.  This includes managing their own emotional as well as mental state online and in the real world.

Accessing the ability to think calmly and rationally about what they are hearing or reading requires that they have the tools to move themselves out of a stressful state.  The mind cannot think rationally when hyper-aroused, as the emotional brain hijacks reason.  The practice of mindfulness can be beneficial  as a first step.  This is the practice of training the brain to pay attention on purpose in the present moment so as to be able to focus the mind.  It can direct the mind and body to relax so as to enable the person to think coolly and objectively about a situation.

Once the mind is calm the individual is in a position to question their anxiety or disturbance:

  • Am I taking things too personally?
  • How does failing this (exam or project) make me a complete failure?
  • How important will this problem be in six months?
  • What’s the worst that could happen?
  • Is my belief helping me achieve my goals?
  • How else might I think about this situation?
  • How could thinking differently about the situation or information impact the outcome?
  • If someone has written something unkind or nasty about me does it make it a fact? Do I respect the person?  Does it matter?  Are there others who say kind things?
  • What skills do I have to manage myself and my future?

This process leads the mind inward.  Instead of being influenced by what is on the outside, whether it be on the net, radio, television or gossip, we are encouraged to draw on our own resources, connect with our own values and make judgements and decisions based on what we choose rather than being led by the voices of the media or the mob.

To  manage life in today’s world we can support young people in developing self-acceptance, giving them the understanding that they have rights and needs that are equal – not greater nor lesser – than those with whom they interact.  Self-knowledge and self-reflection are key to this learning and self-development.  Basic principles include:

  • Accepting that you are human and that humans are fallible
  • Recognising that making one mistake does not mean that you are stupid
  • Recognising that everyone needs to be sensitive to their impact on others
  • Taking responsibility for yourself and understanding that you won’t be loved or approved of by everyone. Nor will others
  • Focus on strengths, learn and adapt to put your weaknesses in context and build on achievements
  • Taking time to look around and notice what one can be grateful for
  • Seeking excellence and not perfection

Providing models to analyse personal responses to situations gives individuals the understanding that they may not have a choice regarding the situations they face but do have a choice as to how they respond to the situation.  They can learn the interaction between thoughts, expectations and how they shape their emotions.  That if they think a situation “must” go a particular way they will inevitably be disappointed if it doesn’t.  That if they blame another person in thinking “they ought” to have understood how their behaviour hurt me and “should” have treated me with more consideration, then it is important to question themselves as to whether they informed the other person of their preferences.  Also to question whether they themselves have behaved similarly, resulting in them hurting others in the way they have been hurt.  The underlying thought, belief or expectation of self, others and life situations shapes the emotional response.  The emotional response shapes the behaviour that follows – for example if a boy feels they have not been treated with the respect they were expecting they may hit the person whom they perceive treated them badly.

The role of hormones in shaping behaviour is also useful information for young people.  Testosterone has been associated with violence, autistic-spectrum, and risk-taking.  It rises when listening to loud music, watching one’s team win or watching porn.  When elevated there is more likelihood of an outcome of behaviour that the person may well regret after the event, whether it be a sexual assault, car crash or gang violence.  The understanding of the mind-emotion-behavioural process is essential information for any human being and the earlier we can teach it the better.

“Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so, too” Voltaire

To make sense of complex information requires good questioning techniques.  Socratic models of challenging beliefs and situations can influence a student to question what they are reading and look beneath the headlines.  They can become familiar with how their mind works when operating on System 1 fast-thinking and choose to switch to System 2 slow-thinking methods to analyse the facts so as to make evaluative judgements as to what they personally believe about a situation.  For example they can be trained to question the phrase “all the evidence shows” which is often used by those in the scientific, academic, medical or economic world but ignores contradictory evidence.  This was witnessed during the 2008 financial crash where neither Treasury officials nor economists all foresaw the crisis and where several economists held directly opposing views as to its provenance and impact.

The divisive black-and-white statements frequently used by politicians, trolls and the media disguise the complex grey areas underneath.  Students can learn to notice generalisations such as always, never, no-one, everyone and investigate the specifics, to discover whether statements are accurate.  They may discover that phrases such as “everyone says this is a great movie” actually relates to one person who happened to comment on the movie to a friend.

Good questions enable us to check whether our brain is working on fast processing.  For example:

  • What is the evidence behind what I am reading?
  • Who is writing and what might their agenda be?
  • What are their sources? Do I respect them?
  • Is my belief about this information logical?
  • Might I be exaggerating the importance of this problem?
  • Who says so?
  • Am I concentrating on the negatives and ignoring the positives?

But thinking is time-consuming and requires effort so many numb out instead.  This includes watching video-games, surfing the net or spending hours on Instagram talking to friends.  We feel we have no time but the key is to notice where we are focusing our attention when there is so much attractive diversion available.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” Voltaire

The start of 2017 has seen many examples where people are responding quickly and spontaneously to sensational headlines rather than stopping to question whether the information is accurate.  President-Elect Trump has been tweeting that the FBI were wrong in their assessment that Putin and the Russians have been manipulating the American election results before he had even met with FBI representatives to hear the details of their report.

In Germany there have been warnings from politicians about the increase in fake news after the ultra-conservative Breitbart party website spread false information that a church had been set on fire on New Year’s Eve by a group of 1000 men shouting Allahu Akbar.  In fact a firework set a small area of netting on fire but Breitbart had used exaggerations and factual errors to create an image of Islamist aggression.

There have been reports of hackers in Eastern Europe, Russia and India being paid to spread false news, including hackers being paid to ‘like’ tweets or share stories that support the sponsor’s agenda.

We all need to make sense of this as the alternative is that there is a mob hysteria on an issue that could lead to civil war or vigilantism.  The need is always to question the sources and intentions of what we are reading.

 “Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes” Voltaire

No-one could have predicted how the internet and continuous global news would shape our lives and our minds.  We all need to feel empowered to manage the challenges of a fast-changing method of receiving information.  We need to understand our own minds and its biases in order to be alert to the mistakes it might lead us into.  The ability to connect with the rest of the world is both exciting and overwhelming.  It encourages us to make quick judgements on issues rather than research and investigate the complex facts of a case.  There has never been a more important time to learn how our brain processes information and creates reality.  We can train ourselves to think more rationally and critically in an era that Charles Handy once described as The Age of Unreason.  [15]  We can also harness the internet to build collaborative groups that benefit the world.

Fast and slow thinking responses can be related to Aristotle’s theory of acting through voluntary and involuntary action, whereby a young child might act involuntarily whereas a wise and rational adult will make a decision through deliberation, as a result of significant reason and thought.  Aristotle continues by differentiating an “incontinent” person, who acts spontaneously and emotionally, with the “continent” person, who acts through objective decision, not appetite.

In an era of false news and misinformation we would all benefit from seeking to become the continent individual who observes, reflects, analyses and bases their judgement on evidence, self-knowledge and personal values.  These skills can be taught.

 Longlisted for the Notting Hill Essay Prize

 References:

  1. 1.Daniel Kahneman:  Thinking, Fast and Slow (Allen Lane)
  2. 2.www.susangreenfield.com
  3. 3.https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/born-love/201005/shocker-empathy-dropped-40-in-college-students-2000
  4. 4.Girl Guide Survey: https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/social-action-advocacy-and-campaigns/research/girls-attitudes-survey/
  5. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-lies-trauma/201107/effects-porn-adolescent-boys
  6. https://medium.com/future-crunch/99-reasons-why-2016-has-been-a-great-year-for-humanity-8420debc2823#.94r75drkw; Stephen Pinker: The Better Angels of Our Nature (Allen Lane); Johan Norberg: Progress (One World); Never Forget that we Live in the Best of Times (Philip Collins, The Times, 23.12.16)
  7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Criado-Perez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Miller
  8. http://businesslibrary.uflib.ufl.edu/financialcrisesbooks
  9. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/elite
  10. Survey, Princes Trust Youth Index 2016
  11. BBC News, 30.9.15
  12. The Guardian, 22.8.16
  13. What’s Happened to The University: Frank Furedi (Routledge)
  14. BBC series The Apprentice
  15. 15.Charles Handy: The Age of Unreason (Random House)
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Jan 28

2025

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Helen Whitten

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Prevent and Protect: Taking these responsibilities seriously shouldn’t be too much to ask

The key duty of a government is to take action to prevent harm and thereby to protect their population and keep them safe.  I am not alone in questioning whether our government and its institutions have been taking this responsibility seriously enough.  In the matter of prevention and protection, the little girls murdered in Southport have obviously been failed, as was Sir David Amess, the MP murdered in his surgery by Ali Harbi Ali, as was Lee Rigby, and also the girls raped by grooming gangs.  At the same time, we, the public, have been treated as if we cannot be trusted with information, so the facts about the Southport murderer, Axel Rudakubana, have been kept from us.  Apparently, this was so as not to influence the court case, although many argue this was not strictly legally necessary and information in other cases was shared without these restrictions. Within seconds of the attack police were telling us he was not a terrorist but in the next minute telling us they did not yet know his motive.  How could they make this announcement that he was not a terrorist without evidence of the motive, which even now they don’t seem to fully understand? 

Such withholding of facts reminds me of a passage in Alexei Navalny’s book Patriot where he talks of the Russian state not trusting the population with the truth.  A Communist or authoritarian state can get away with ruling despite a lack of trust but in a democracy trust is crucial.  If the government obfuscates because it doesn’t trust its voters, then the voters lose trust in their government, and this latest incident is just one of many over recent decades of untruths. But, I believe, pivotal. In fact, perhaps so pivotal that it has struck such fear at the heart of this Labour Government that Yvette Cooper’s Home Office has written a report recommending that there be even more “non-crime hate incidents” recorded by a police force that is already overstretched and unable to arrest shoplifters, rapists, burglars. At the same time the report recommends that anyone challenging, however legitimately, “two-tier” policing or expressing horror or heartbreak at the terrible crimes of the rape gangs or Southport, will now be labelled “extremist”.  This chills my heart.

There was always something that didn’t add up about the news that came out after those tragic Southport murders. The public aren’t stupid.  People smelt a rat.  They intuited that what they were being told was not the whole story and made their own, often logical, conclusions that this fellow was not a sweet harmless Welsh choir boy but was most probably radicalised.  This certainly does not mean that those who caused violence or set fire to asylum hostels should not be in prison. Of course they should. But the general gaslighting of many others who were genuinely horrified by this tragic event was unforgiveable and remains so. As a mother and grandmother, I was heartbroken at the thought of those little girls being slaughtered in this way, as were many others.  I didn’t go on any demonstration, but I did, and still do, feel let down by successive Governments who have not taken right action to protect us from such incidents.  If to feel empathy, shock and sadness in such moments is to be ‘far right’ then call me so, although it used to be the Labour party who branded themselves the compassionate ones. Either way, how dare they politicise this by labelling everyone who cares far right and thereby silencing us.  As far as I am concerned this had nothing to do with party politics and everything to do with being appalled that the government had not acted to prevent this horrific attack.

The news released in the last few weeks has revealed how inadequate the systems of prevention and protection of our communities really are. The fact that Axel Rudakubana had downloaded the Al-Quaeda terrorist manual and created the highly toxic poison of ricin is apparently even now not evidence enough that he was radicalised by a specific ideology.  Really?  When those who investigated him recorded that he had watched the Westminster and London Bridge attacks, the 7/7 London bombings and videos from the Middle East, etc. The planned terrorist attack on the Taylor Swift concert was exposed only a few days later so you might have thought there would be some joining of dots. But no, the decision was, before and after, that he was just someone interested in news and world events.  Well, many of us are interested in world events but don’t choose to watch those kinds of videos.

It now transpires that Rudakubana had a veritable arsenal of weaponry in his bedroom and 43 devices (what normal person has 43 devices?) only 32 of which the police managed to access.  He had deleted his browsing record just before the attack, so even now the police cannot proclaim him not radicalised, not a terrorist.  According to the police, if the Government had been willing to declare him a terrorist earlier, the FBI would have acted faster to access the deleted data from the search engines to clarify what had influenced him.  Instead, the Government were too busy declaring anyone who dared to suggest that Rudakubana had been radicalised, to be a member of the ‘Far Right’, politicising this tragedy and basically silencing those who were challenging what they were hearing.

We now also discover that those working for Prevent have not necessarily been adequately trained in how to carry out such interviews or work out how to identify someone who may not easily fit into some ideological box.  Dealing with such people is complex.  Of course, those doing so should be adequately trained in what questions to ask, what to watch out for, how to listen out for what is not being said underneath the words, behaviours or silences.

Did the police, social services, mental health professionals not visit his bedroom?  If not, this was surely a dereliction of duty as, if they had, they would have picked up that this young man had dangerous tendencies.  What about his father, his parents?  Although they did request support, were they not also responsible for notifying the police with more urgency about the contents of this room, its knives, machetes, bows and arrows?  In the States the parents of under-age children are now becoming partly responsible for school massacres.  Do parents here not hold some kind of responsibility?

The fact that Prevent did not insist on his taking part in their Channel programme of mentoring seemingly meant no one ended up watching this man.  It was as if no one wanted to touch this problem and ultimately the fear of being accused of racism or of inciting social unrest, ended up putting ‘community relations’ above the need to uphold the law and protect people.  This was seen to happen with the grooming gangs and here we are again, witnessing the same problems getting in the way of protecting young girls in particular.  We can’t let this trend continue.

What I fear is that neither the police, other institutions, Prevent or the Government will really be that keen to get to the truth in this enquiry, or the grooming gangs enquiry, despite what they say.  It could be too embarrassing for all concerned to be exposed, both as giving the public a message that did not reflect the facts they knew, and embarrassing too for those responsible for having missed the clues that could have saved those girls’ lives.  Easier to point fingers at Amazon for selling knives, or to the tech companies for the videos he watched, than to admit that there has been a culture and practice of putting the sensitivities of community relations before the protection and prevention of danger to the population as a whole.

The daughter of Sir David Amess is equally frustrated that her father was not protected from the known terrorist who murdered him, nor that there were any lessons learnt from that and other incidents that could have protected these girls.  We should all seek to hold the Government and its institutions to account.

All we are asking for is that we are safe to walk around the streets, go to pop concerts with our children, without being blown up or lacerated with knives.  Our democracy depends on it and we depend on the Government, Prevent and the police to ensure the safety of the population.  There are too many incidents occurring daily. We need to understand, regardless of background or skin colour, what leads these lone wolves to be radicalised, what leads boys to become gang members and stab one another, or groups of men to rape.  Getting to the bottom of these problems, cultural and behavioural, acts as protection for all those living in this country. We can’t do that without facing facts honestly and courageously. As I see it, this is not a party political issue but a national emergency.

To restore trust, we now need proof that the Government are taking this responsibility seriously and not obfuscating, name-calling or pussy-footing around community relations rather than maintaining our safety.  We need action.

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Jan 15

2025

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Helen Whitten

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“Who’s that little person on the cross, Mum?”

This is the question my mother overheard in a jewellery shop many years ago, when the child’s mother was looking at a necklace with a Crucifix. My mother was shocked that the child didn’t know about Jesus.  I’m talking different times – probably 30-40 years ago, when her generation would have taken for granted that everyone around them would have some understanding of Christianity.  Nowadays children are issued with trigger warnings when mention of Christianity is encountered in books or plays, and young children are unfamiliar even with the words of carols.

What does this mean for our society?  This is a question that was one of the topics of conversation at an interview hosted by Freddie Sayers of the online journal UnHerd between the musician, Nick Cave, and the historian, Tom Holland, author of Dominion, The Making of the Western Mind.

Both men were willing to share their own experience of Christianity.  Nick Cave, whose song Into My Arms, Oh Lord, starts with “I don’t believe in an interventionist God”, but who, nonetheless, found solace in a 12th century church in Sussex where both his sons are buried. And Tom Holland who, when making a documentary about the Yazidis in Iraq, encountered deep fear when under threat of being kidnapped by ISIS. Then, having been an agnostic, perhaps even considering himself atheist, he was surprised to experience an angelic presence when he found a picture of the Annunciation in a ransacked church.  It was the only item intact.  His rational mind told him otherwise, but he felt the presence, nonetheless.  Both men spoke of how their individual experiences of Christianity, one through grief and the other through fear, had opened them up to the consolation of believing in something beyond the physical world.

Tom Holland’s book makes the point that in England and most of Europe we have been steeped in the stories, prayers, Ten Commandments, gospels, birth and Crucifixion, within our education at school, in families and communities.  The music, art, architecture of Christianity and its values are all around us.  They have indeed shaped the Western mind, and this is under some attack now, both from within and without.  Not only are we more aware of Islam, Hinduism and other religions but our own priests are looking almost embarrassed about standing up for Christianity. Yet Holland now feels very much a Christian himself and, having done a huge amount of research in order to write his book, feels that Christian values of love, loving one’s enemy and neighbour alike, and respecting the dignity of every human being are exceptional values worth protecting.

Earlier in the week I had listened to a lecture on Nietzsche and the lecturer talked of a crisis of values occurring through the decline of religious belief – “whither is God, we have killed him” – and how even Nietzsche wondered what would fill this gap.  For a gap is left, without doubt, and even an atheist has to acknowledge the presence of those who believe in God in order to develop their own ideas of not believing in any God.  The lecturer questioned how values are to be shared when evangelical atheists such as Richard Dawkins, together with the vacuum that is the leadership of the Church of England at the moment, promote disbelief.  In this environment where do we find the morality that binds a society or community together?

These words and thoughts struck a chord with me.  I have experienced a strange vision of my own, of my dead son standing next to Christ.  One’s rational mind can’t work in the same paradigm to explain such things.  They just are. Just as for me the cathedrals, churches, candles, incense, rituals, chanting of psalms, hymns, carols, prayers, and silence, are deeply meaningful and comforting but to another mean nothing.  For me the sense of something ‘other’ has been present since I was a small child. I had nightmares about a powerful God but was also fascinated by stories of wizards and witches, fairies and angels, and I always prayed.

It’s not that my parents were particularly religious.  My mother took us to church but herself considered some of the locals in stockbroker Surrey to be hypocritical, turning up at Matins in their hats and suits but not being particularly friendly or neighbourly when we moved in.  My father was, I think, more of a humanist. He disliked the way humans were supposed to grovel, being “not worthy to gather up the crumbs” under Christ’s table.  But they both enjoyed a good conversation on philosophical topics with our local vicar, who was delighted to be able to talk openly with them and be offered several gin and tonics instead of the usual sickly sweet sherry he was offered elsewhere!

We had Assembly every morning in all the schools I attended and, however boring much of it seemed to us at the time, we were, nonetheless, exposed daily to the morals, values, prayers and hymns of the Christian Church.  Schools seldom do this today, for fear of upsetting those of other religions.  But this leaves a gap.  What will the young understand as they walk around the art galleries, museums and religious buildings of Europe in the future I wonder? They will not recognise the figures depicted, nor the scenes being portrayed. As Latin is to be discontinued in State schools, they won’t understand the words of In Dulci Jubilo, nor the meaning of carpe diem or other Latin phrases frequently used. For myself I feel this is a pity and I hope the teachers find other ways of affirming morals and values, as however boring I found those moments I am sure the messages somehow seeped into my consciousness.

We have more mental illness and stress in young people than ever, yet there is evidence that having a faith of some kind reduces these problems, as does having a strong sense of community. We are letting both fade in ways that other religions are not.  I remember there was a short period of my life when I experimented with deciding not to believe in any metaphysical aspects of life, whether Christianity, Buddhism, spirituality.  It was the unhappiest fortnight of my life.  I couldn’t do it. 

Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, wrote in the 17th century “Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances.  If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He is.”  In a nutshell, as we have little to lose by a belief in a higher power, and plenty to gain if it is true, it is rational that we believe.

As Tom Holland suggested, to acknowledge a sense of divinity in everything and a sense of connection between all things and all beings is valuable.  “All you need is love,” as the Beatles sang.

Even Chat GPT tells me “Belief in God can be rational depending on the framework one adopts: Yes: If one accepts philosophical arguments, values existential meaning, or weighs the practical benefits of faith. No: If one prioritizes empirical evidence and applies strict scepticism.

Neutral: If one acknowledges the limits of human knowledge and remains open to possibilities. Ultimately, the rationality of belief in God depends on one’s epistemological and existential priorities.”

I personally think that acknowledging the limits of human knowledge and remaining open to possibilities is our best way forward.  Noone has yet been able to prove there isn’t a God or a divine energy in this world of ours. I see no reason why a mystical approach cannot live alongside the science and technology of our day, nor, just because we live alongside people of many different faiths, does it mean that we have to lose our own.

Surely, we can retain the core values and morals of our Christian culture without having to believe in all the metaphysical teachings or follow precise dogma. But opening up the possibility for children to imagine a sense of the sacredness of life, and at the very least know the history of Christ, and how so much of Western civilization has been shaped by Christianity, is an essential part of their knowledge bank.

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Jan 01

2025

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Helen Whitten

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Dear England: let’s make 2025 a year to celebrate

When I was young in the 1950s, those post-war days, we used to salute soldiers when they passed us by on the road.  We were grateful for the courage and efforts of our servicemen and women.  We even saluted the AA or RAC service vans when they passed if we had the same badge. A sense of loyalty and pride in our country was endemic in everything around us.  My father had fought in the war, my mother and sister had been at home when a bomb fell on their house. When we went to London my mother would wear a hat and we would be dressed up smart, as if to ward off threats, to mask the sadness and the horror their generation had witnessed. There were bomb sites everywhere.  The fragility of life and the need to bond together was tangible.

So it saddens me when I read how politicians, the media and influencers endlessly drag our country down yet seldom put any historical or factual context on their criticisms. We were, according to them, the worst empire, the worst colonials, the worst abusers of slaves, failing to mention all the other nations and dictators throughout history, and more recently, that were empire-builders, slave-owners and brutal in the process.  Think Egypt, Africa, India, China, Russia, the Romans, Greeks, Turks, and more recently the millions slaughtered in labour camps by Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot. Nor is there any mention of what we did, and continue to do as a country, to remedy these events nor of our commendable role in ending slavery. It’s fashionable to sling arrows at Churchill but I wonder how happy those who do so would be had he not played his part in winning the war and instead we, and our neighbours in Europe, were being ruled by Nazis?

When Gareth Southgate wrote his Dear England letter to the English football team he referred back to our history, to his grandfather’s role in World War II, to his own childhood and what living in England meant to him and why he felt proud to represent the country, and why the team could – in fact needed to – do the same.  We don’t have inspirational leaders at the moment to draw us together in a diverse but cohesive sense of belonging to a country of which we can feel proud.  We shall have to do this for ourselves.

If we are to get ourselves out of this decline, we need to stop this self-flagellation and get reading more history books.  Context is essential if one is to make aspersions, yet in the age of TikTok, evidence or in-depth historical tracts or facts are not required, it seems.  A headline can sway a whole group to take up a position despite not really knowing anything about it.  Look at the student pro-Palestine protests where many of those on the streets and campuses did not understand the history nor the meaning of the words they were chanting.

There was too much of the Tudors and the Stuarts in our history lessons perhaps, yes. The world has changed and a balance has needed to be made, though no country’s history classes can cover the whole world.  But the way people speak of England and its history (and it’s only going to get worse under Bridget Phillipson’s ‘decolonising’ policies) is the equivalent of shoving a whole country into the stocks and pelting it with rotten tomatoes without fully understanding why one is doing so. And that is totally un-English because justice and the creation of the common law and a legal system that all can access has been one of our greatest achievements, together with the development of the institutions of government, both of which have been adopted by other countries around the world. English common law has proved to be the basis of the most successful legal systems in the world, not only because it is the basis of legal systems of so many other jurisdictions, including those in the United States, but it is also voluntarily adopted for multitudinous international business transactions and arbitrations, even in cases where there is no connection with Britain. 

Since 1688 we have enjoyed the relative stability that our constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy provides.  On our doorstep in Europe almost every country has experienced autocracy, a dictatorship that was either fascist or communist, or occupation by a foreign force.  This has not been our history.  We have also geographically been islanders, and all this leaves us with a different sense of ourselves.  Inter-generational memory and trauma leaves a population with triggers – we can see this with how concerned Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Poland are now that Putin has once again shown Russia’s desire to recover land from Ukraine, despite the independence these countries have won. It is essential that we wake up to the fact that Russia and China are intent on weakening and dividing our society by hacking our security systems and infrastructure and undermining our certainties via their social media bots.

Perhaps because of being brought up in the post-war environment I am fully aware that peace cannot be taken for granted, nor can the wonderful changes we have seen in human rights during my lifetime.  We only have to look at Iran and Afghanistan to see how women’s rights can be cruelly overturned within days. The LGBT community may now take their freedoms for granted but it only takes some mad Ayatollah-type for these to be denied. Our way of life, our culture, civilisation and values must be protected, and we can’t do that if we constantly drag it down.

So open your eyes, as we enter into 2025, and remind yourself how lucky you are, despite the challenges, the grey skies and windy weather. We have a free health service (we hope will survive!), and the welfare state (though perhaps this is now so generous this may not survive). In my childhood there was no central heating – we had to get dressed in bed or by the fire in the morning. Several of my friends had outdoor loos. Few people had washing machines, dishwashers or tumble driers until the 1960s or 1970s. Don’t take all the advances of the 21st century for granted. If Putin knocks out our infrastructure, we shall, as they are currently experiencing in Ukraine – have none of it – heat, water, wifi, mobile phones, Google maps. We would need to have the resilience within us to manage such conditions, as the Ukrainians are proving they have.

To maintain our economic place in the world we need to pull together, work hard and help others to do the same.  There are millions out of work. I presume the majority are genuinely unable to work but I believe others could be supported back into the workplace for King and country, so to speak. We all suffer if the economy suffers and losing our entrepreneurs and high earners is going to do nothing for the tax available for our infrastructure.

We are a nation of innovators. We should not forget this.  The Industrial Revolution happened here.  More recently, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. We have heroes and can be proud of them, just like other countries are proud of theirs. We have been self-deprecating for too long. In a global environment this doesn’t work. What message does it give to young people if we delete our scientists out of some weird sense of colonial shame? They changed the world for the better. We need our young to find that same entrepreneurial and creative spirit and put their energy into innovating and building businesses of all kinds. This means sharing our knowledge. A 22-year old I spoke to recently complained that his boss is seldom in the office, so when he needs advice or direction he has to phone or Zoom him but he finds him miles away and distracted, so has to carry on without his guidance.  This problem will be mirrored across organisations public and private. How will people build bridges that stand up or planes that fly if they don’t learn from those with the knowledge?

I know many of us are nervous of the future. We certainly stand at a precarious point in history, with Ukraine, the Middle East, Trump, China and Taiwan, Korea, and many unsettled areas of Africa and the world, plus climate change. Despair gets us nowhere, not in our personal lives and certainly not in the energy we bring to our own communities and country. Without inspiring leaders, we have to become leaders of our own lives. We can each of us look to where we can play our part in being the solution to these issues, problem-solving, taking action to remedy what we can, rather than sitting around feeling despondent. We know only too well ourselves whether we are doing all we can for our workplace, for our families and community. We don’t need to be told by others. As Gareth Southgate wrote to his team “Look. That’s the way to represent your country. That’s what England is about. That is what’s possible.”

I have travelled extensively, lived my early years in Portugal, have lived on and off in France, and love the world and its people but England has a special place in my heart. I love the little country lanes, the churches, carols, cathedrals, public libraries, literature, sense of humour, music and art.  Our theatre draws people from across the world. For a tiny country we have accomplished extraordinary things, and I hope we shall continue to do so.

I wish you a very happy new year and hope that 2025 will bring you personal happiness and fulfilment and that each of us can come together to create a positive future and peace here and in the world.

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Dec 17

2024

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Helen Whitten

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The Trials and Joys of being a Writer

“An insightful and exciting read: Helen Whitten’s new novel set in Moscow is a great read. She skilfully evokes the atmosphere of the times and her story of love and intrigue is a real page turner.” Amazon reader 5*

It’s a year now since No Lemons in Moscow was published (and still not too late to buy it for a Christmas present!) It is so lovely to get 4 and 5* reviews on Amazon and know I have given some people a few pleasurable hours of reading.

Writing a novel is a solitary business.  One has to take time to be in the heads and hearts and intentions of one’s characters, think about who they are, how they came to be that person, what their intentions and responses might be. What an interesting, and somewhat frightening, experience it is, then, to unleash these characters and their story out into the public sphere.  Although I had written several non-fiction books related to my career as a business coach, publishing my novel No Lemons in Moscow was so much more of a personal experience: it contains a part of me, my emotions, perceptions and my understanding of people and life.  Here I’m describing characters who are often a mishmash of people I have actually met, and some fictional ones I am glad I never shall meet! 

On publication one hopes that the reader will understand who each character is, and why they do the things they do.  I didn’t want to make my main protagonist, Kate, into some perfect creature who got everything right.  I wanted her to be vulnerable, to be a woman who is understood for having come out of a bad marriage, whose father died just as she was becoming a woman, whose mother fell to pieces afterwards and became an alcoholic. A woman who also lost a baby son and wants to create a charity in his memory.  All these events shape a person and can chip away at confidence, so when a handsome young Russian pays her a great deal of attention she is inevitably flattered, and then also sold into his dream of exposing corruption in the Russian system, as infrastructure is sold off to the oligarchs.  What a cause. What an adventure. He’s her Navalny.

Some people found her infatuation with Valentin difficult to grasp – “she’s 35 years old, she’s a grown up, she wouldn’t fall for someone in that way” but age doesn’t always blunt these feelings, nor make one as wise as one might wish to be!  Look at Robert Harris’ recent excellent book, Precipice, detailing the extraordinary obsession Prime Minister Asquith had in his sixties with the very young Venetia Stanley. But it is a never-ending challenge for the writer to convince the reader and so one is continuously honing the craft to better express the twists and turns of emotions, relationships and life.

There is also the practical and emotional side of getting the job done, sitting down at one’s desk even when one’s mind does not have a clue what will come next. It’s a combination of motivation, some self-discipline and quite a lot of determination to overcome the self-doubt that can drive one into distractions like checking emails, loading the dishwasher, or, worse, writing block.

No Lemons in Moscow is set partly in the post-Soviet era of Russia, from Gorbachev to Putin, and partly in London during its “Londongrad” period. Alongside the knowledge I gained from my two trips to Russia, I had to spend hours in research, reading as many books and documents as possible to give the nitty-gritty detail of what life might be like in the places I set the novel.  My cupboard is still packed with papers, books, newspaper cuttings, pages of plot plans, mind maps of chapters, timelines, arcs of characters.  Perhaps I shall have a large bonfire of it all one day, but not just yet.

In writing one has to convince oneself, over and over, that it is worth making a start, writing the first few pages. I am not alone – and I am sure many of you who read this are also writers – in working a sentence in a multitude of different ways to try to convey what I mean. Then waking in the middle of the night to think of a better way of expressing this, or realizing one needs to rework the whole of a section in order to make it more dramatic.  Then one has to convince oneself, over and over, that it is worth carrying on. But what surprised me was that I discovered I did have the patience to do this and even enjoyed the endless editing… and editing some more. Unlike non-fiction, where one can more-or-less gauge whether one is writing rubbish or not, writing fiction is something one will only know has met its mark when one gets reader feedback.  So, the Amazon and other reviews are invaluable to me.

The whole episode has also been an eye-opener back into the publishing world I left many years ago. The teaching of creative writing has become quite an industry now. People promise to teach you the perfect formula for writing a bestseller, how to write the perfect synopsis, the perfect pitch letter to an agent that will guarantee your book gets taken up, the perfect template for the ‘cosy murder mystery’ (it does seem a bit strange to me that murder should have ended up being branded ‘cosy’ – but there we are, and people love them!).

Then there are the publishers and booksellers who want you to define your book within an exact genre and woe betide you if your book straddles a few and can’t exactly fit.  My publishers plumped for No Lemons in Moscow being defined as ‘literary fiction’.  Yet when I look at my bookshelves full of books I read through the 1960s-2000, genre was less of an issue and many of the best books definitely could not be pigeon-holed.

Nonetheless, I very much appreciate what I have learnt from my creative writing tutors and editors. I have picked up a great deal and am indebted to them – especially the one who pointed out that someone couldn’t possibly attempt to escape kidnap by bashing open the door in front of him if he had his hands tied behind his back. Quick rewrite! At the same time, I think many of us writers are concerned not to end up with some formulaic result.  The reason we write is because something inside us is pressing to be said. There have been endless thrillers, spy stories, love stories written century after century and yet each one is unique in its way, each one introduces the reader to new characters, new ideas, new events or relationships. Each one expands your mind and imagination just a tad. As the writer George R R Martin said, “a reader lives a thousand lives where someone who doesn’t read only lives one.”

It has indeed been heart-warming to receive some lovely feedback from people who have enjoyed No Lemons. Even if one person has received pleasure from reading it, that makes it worthwhile as it had to be written. It couldn’t stay inside me. So having many nice comments and 4* and 5* ratings has made me feel the effort was worthwhile.  

As an aside, and as it’s Christmas, I will mention that I’ve also recently published a new collection of poetry, The Safety of Small Things, which is contemporary poetry and could just be an excellent stocking-filler for a loved one! I find I have to get into another mindset to write poetry – more of a dream state, observing what is around me. Anyway, I hope you enjoy them.

All available on Amazon, of course, or No Lemons in Moscow can be ordered from your local bookshop, so do support them if you can.

Happy Christmas and Festive Season to you all and thank you for your support, Helen

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Dec 05

2024

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Helen Whitten

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How has the “Be Kind” brigade become so cruel?

We were told that Woke stood for Awakening, to wake up to where we needed to become more tolerant, open, aware of bias and inequity.  We were told that it was about being “kind”.  How has it happened, then, that we are actually waking up to a world that is less tolerant, more divided and cruel than I have ever known it in my lifetime?

Every day we read of vitriol on social media, of people being threatened with death, rape, harm to family should they express an opinion that is not considered “acceptable”. Such a person or group posting this unpleasantness often hides behind an anonymous or false user-name.  These words would probably not be expressed in a similar way if people were actually to meet face-to-face or be looking one another in the eye, but on social media people seem to think they can say whatever disgusting things they like. Some, no doubt, do this without fully being aware of the impact of the words.  Others will be writing these words deliberately to threaten, to frighten, and to silence.

We have come to a place that is similar to a child’s playground and yet the grown-ups have left the room.  We are left in a world where sending people to Coventry is commonplace, where Chinese Whispers end up getting spread and ruining a person’s career, or life, without due process of the law.  We are in a place where pointing fingers of blame at anyone and everyone happens every day but where a finger very seldom points back at the person who is doing the accusing, so there is little personal responsibility or personal awareness of their own part in a situation.  Telling tales and snitching is the norm in business and politics, where people run to a boss or HR to report feeling offended by something someone said.  Name calling and labelling those who have a different viewpoint is used as a way of shaming the person into silence – “bigot, racist, transphobe, Islamophobe” etc – so there is no real will in hearing another person’s opinion. And cancelling the lecturer who might talk on subjects that are not popular to some majority view removes the threat of anyone actually being able to challenge their own opinions. Or, as happened at the Oxford Union this week, the audience turn like a mob on a speaker who doesn’t conform to their world view. Manners and respect go out of the window, as does curiosity.

This is the most intolerant and judgemental period of my life.  Forgiveness, or an effort to understand the ambiguities and subtleties of life, have been discarded.  It is a black and white world where you are either with me or against me, either good or bad, and if you have a different opinion to me then you are bad, if not actually evil.

How have we got here?  It has been building up over several years now and is silencing people’s ability to joke, to speak out about what they believe in, or even to test out ideas as a group, for fear of saying something someone in the group dislikes because then you’re in trouble. Cancelled.

You aren’t allowed to make mistakes.  Young men have always been rather clumsy in their first attempts at wooing and my generation generally forgave them (sometimes too much) but no young person, whatever their sex, knows exactly what to do when they first get together with the person they are attracted to.  It is a learning curve that can often take several years to discover what works best.  Yet it seems that if you get it wrong these days you can be sent to Coventry, as was apparently the case of Oxford student Alexander Rogers, who tragically committed suicide.

The Sunday Times of 1 December carried some heartbreaking stories of university students nervous of speaking up. They shared experiences of being ostracised, sidestepped by friends and isolated if they said or did something perceived as wrong or offensive, or out of kilter with the current groupthink.  Building a social network of friends at university is so important but how can you know who your friends are in this tribal world, where making one small mistake can have you cruelly shoved out of the group. 

Who have we become that we are so unforgiving, that we don’t realise that we spend the whole of our lives, not just our childhood, learning, adapting and improving ourselves.  Personal development doesn’t stop when we leave school. We are continually learning and reinventing ourselves as we go through different phases of life and in this we have to listen to others, be curious, and take the odd risk to push ourselves into a new career, direction or relationship.

This is very far from any “kind” generation.  It is more a world of “Lord of the Flies” and subtle and not-so-subtle bullying and threatening, so that no one dares to have a different opinion or to bother to really think why people have formed a set of opinions, or whether they are based on facts or context. 

The sad truth is that we can’t always be kind to everyone.  If we are kind to one set of people, we can’t always be as kind to another set.  Such is life, and any government has to make difficult decisions, knowing that giving money in one direction will mean that some other group will go without.

However, this doesn’t mean you don’t have compassion for both sides, or for all needs, even if you can’t actively help everyone.  You don’t have to have a firm preference for one side or another but in this day and age apparently you aren’t allowed to see in shades of grey. The subtleties of situations such as Israel/Gaza, the fallout from mass immigration, the decisions around Brexit, the trans debate, the difference between being a Muslim and an Islamist, the election of Trump, the war in Ukraine, or climate change are lost. You can’t even explore those subtleties in conversation because in doing so you might expose yourself to be on the “wrong” side and that would threaten your position with your friends or work colleagues.

It seems that keeping in with the in-crowd these days involves chucking others out in the most cold and callous way. And it isn’t just in student life, this is true in business too, where the smallest misspeak can get you sent to HR, even if your intention was not to do any harm.  The grownups are just as bad – statements like “I’ll never have a cup of tea with a Tory” or “I won’t talk to a Brexiteer” are common and are intended to close down discussion.

Recently it was reported in The Guardian of 25 November that Professor Dorothy Bishop, Emeritus Professor of developmental neuro-psychology has resigned from the Royal Society because of Elon Musk’s fellowship.  She has been quoted as saying “I am not going to be polite and nice to Elon Musk, so I can’t keep the code of conduct.”  But why can she not be polite to him?  She may disagree with him but surely she could have an interesting conversation with him to discuss their differences?  Similarly, Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley, who recently called for the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, says she has since met a “wall of silence” from her fellow Bishops, effectively sending her to Coventry for her action.  Again, why can’t people have reasoned debate and discussion and learn from one another’s differences instead of just deciding, without deeper investigation, that someone is a bad person for something they have said or done. We may disagree but that doesn’t make them a bad person.

All this adds up to a judgemental and unforgiving period of history that is stifling freedom of speech, creativity and relationships.  It is making people nervous to open their mouths for fear of alienation or being misunderstood.  It is not a good place for a society to end up.  We have too many examples through history of how populations have been silenced to the detriment of the majority.

If being “kind” is really something of an aim, then that takes being rather more curious as to WHY people have that opinion because very often you discover they are not so different in their principles and aims. However, if you can’t be bothered to understand the background or intentions that underlay their views you will never arrive at a meeting point. I have a friend who has a very different view of Assisted Dying to my own, but I fully respect his opinion and remain fond of him as a friend. Why shouldn’t I? The whole point of ‘diversity’ was to listen to others different to ourselves, wasn’t it?

Is it not time to slow down, stop judging and pointing fingers but instead ask questions? Teachers told us not to tell tales, bully or isolate friends.  Let’s remember some of those playground messages. We will never learn anything if we silence opposite opinions.  The adage “I may not agree with your opinion but I respect your right to express it” needs to be lived and acted upon more often if we are to innovate, grow and get along as a society.  Silencing people, dividing or isolating them is anything but kind.

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