Allowing bums on cushions

There is a dilemma for modern society and one that I can't seeing being resolved anytime soon. It's the one about allowing people to do things.

How much allowance do we make for people, how much are they allowed to do before it becomes offensive or counter-productive or even, in a few cases, downright dangerous to the welfare of the society so generous in the first place?

Tough questions, and we don't know the answer. We could of course pick a position somewhere between the tyrannical "Everything not proscribed is forbidden" or "Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!" The problem is no position within the limits of everything and nothing will suit us all, all the time. It certainly doesn't suit governments, who take various and changing views on a wide range of allowances, adjusting them either by weight of popular opinion, what they think will win the next election or simply what they have been told or choose to believe.

It is easy to think that our great and good leaders and the elite who scurries along behind them begging for more scraps from the table of public finance have their fingers on the pulse of society. Easy to think they look and listen and understand it all when in fact most of them live in very restricted environments. If they don't know, and can't know, they need information and input; they need someone to tell them. I am here reminded of the old saying about a prominent British politician of many years ago, who was so influenced by others he "bore the impression of the last person who sat upon him." The quote may not be 100 per cent accurate, but the principle is there.

Sadly, it's a principle enshrined in our leaders these days.

Stepping away from the ridiculous posturings and pronouncements of those paid generously by the public purse, many people have a similar dilemma in their life over all sorts of issues, allowing one thing for themselves while demanding another limit for others. The old "do as I say, not as I do" springs to mind here. We may be hypocritical, perhaps because we inevitably see no harm in a little of what we enjoy but a lot of harm in what other people desire, but we allow ourselves that luxury.

The difference between, say, a bottle of wine over a meal for sociable reasons at a weekend seen against the practice of all out binge drinking where someone lies vomiting in the gutter having smashed shop windows in their drunken state. We did it because we were in control and they are not may be easy to determine from your point of view but maybe not someone else's. So, if you allow one event how far do you go to stop the other event?

All or nothing? All or nothing for some but not for all?

Of course balance and common sense, it will be argued, play a vital role in everything. Except as we know balances can be tipped and arranged or even fixed, and common sense is often shown to be not very common at all.

But here's the broader problem: the one where groups of people emerge who want either freedom (or restriction, or both in some convoluted way) but who may within their ranks have different and varied views. It is a pretty obvious statement that the problem with any group is that gradually one position or another rises to the top, that control and direction of the group devolves to those aggressive, insistent people who have definite views about what should be and how it should be. In other words, the ones who say "Oh, I don't care, it's nothing to do with me," are gradually eased aside by those who shout "This is terrible and must be stopped at once!" or equally "Let us have more of this now, or else!"

This then becomes the problem for society: if you allow people to do something is there a danger they will go to one extreme or the other and want more of what they want, and with it less of what you want? Their demands may seem supposedly reasonable at first but having achieved them, why should the group stop there?

Let's says a religious group wants a limit of alcohol consumption. While a few of their number may individually drink secretly themselves the collective idea emerges that globally drinking booze ought to be limited to one beer can per person in certain places. Later the group, having secured an agreement to the basic idea from those cushions in government (because the weight of their collective bums has grown considerable) begins to say that actually the ban should be everywhere in public. More cushion-sitting follows. Then the group demands no alcohol anywhere, private or public.

The cushions at the top may have been plumped back up but the heavy sitting resumes, the ban enforced.

The extreme end of the group, the ones who have come to set the agenda, have got what they wanted. The rest of their gathering goes along with it all, having already established they really don't mind because they didn't drink and anyway the government has shown it can be sat upon effectively. Our leaders are receptive to threats of voting, or withdrawal of support and the ban is enshrined in law, which now has to be maintained. No point in having a law if no one takes any notice.

Let's say there are enormous repercussions with the closure of breweries, public houses, off-licences and even farms growing hops and vineyards are duly closed. There are benefits too with more shelves in supermarkets available for other products, far fewer binge-drinking and alcohol-related problems (remember some goes on in secret, still) but the public turns to something else which is potentially more harmful to their health and welfare. Perhaps a soft drug, or home brewing with dodgy ingredients. Criminal interest will grow (think the story of prohibition here and the gangland violence) and there is a whole bunch more problems with enforcement, allied with extensive covering up of the fact the original ban was a wretched thing.

But, all this was because allowances were made. A group, or certain individuals within that group were allowed to have a say -- perhaps outwardly a logical, sensible and well-researched say by their standards, but a say nonetheless -- in the shape of society. The result is you are not allowed to do something. The group, emboldened by their success, goes on the demand more things not even related now to booze. They have shown they are organised, powerful and single-minded in their insistence of what they want. Votes can be withdrawn, though there is some evidence by now they never really wanted votes anyway and the establishment of their authority figures is so much better than choice or democracy.

It emerges (or was known all along but no one liked to say anything) that this particular group haven't sought a ban on alcohol because of health issues; they are religious and they have it on good authority that their god doesn't like people drinking. Quite why their god, who is omnipotent, allowed alcohol to be created and the skills to produce it in handy cans and bottles in the first place remains a mystery but not one people likes to examine. Omnipotence, apparently, doesn't like questions being asked.

It is now obvious to the population at large that allowances, having been made in the first place, have resulted in far fewer freedoms being allowed. "We allowed these people to have their say and look what's happened! Now they want us to more of what they want and less of what we wanted."

Oh well, that's allowances for you. Unfortunately you can't have it both ways. Not unless you go down the road of a tyrannical authority in the first place who makes it clear they allow no one to sit on them. They aren't cushions then but concrete slabs.

However that, we can say, is the great question for society: are no cushions allowed or do you allow bums to descend with a self-satisfied grunt and then not get off the cushions?