I remember chatting
to an American customer at the Bistrot, who, upon mentioning the former
president, said very emphatically, “There is no such thing as neutrality” on
this topic. I remember this because if you look at every discussion these days,
you’ll find that people expect you to be on one side or another.
While former US
President Donald Trump remains the one character that inspires extreme views, the
person who actually coined this phenomenon was his predecessor, George W Bush,
who told the world that “You are either with us or against us.”
Modern
discussions on science or politics are no longer discussions about science or
politics but the propagation of religious beliefs, where people of a single position
take the belief that theirs is a heavenly message whilst anyone who disagrees
is part of satanic spawn that needs to be eradicated.
Whilst holding
an extremist position of just about every issue may be fun and may be better at
selling newspapers, the truth is that life is more often than not, far away
from being a religious experience. Getting through one’s day-to-day existence
does involve dealing with people who may hold different views from you and
coming to a compromise. The national inability to work with people you disagree
has reached a national level in many parts of the world, where large democracies
have found themselves not being able to do anything because voters won’t let
political parties “compromise” with each other.
In an age of
polarisation, the “middle ground,” ends up being the most attacked because both
sides refuse to believe that people don’t agree with their “divine mission.”
Unfortunately, for extremist, things only get done in the middle ground.
Take the “Me-Too”
movement as an example. Yes, its good that powerful men get taken task for
using their position to get sexual favours. However, we need to ask if it’s
reached an extreme stage where a man needs to get legal indemnity before he compliments
a woman.
Then there is
the issue of trans-rights. Yes, its right that society does not acknowledge
that there are people who have a different psychological gender from their
biological one and where possible, we should allow them to medically bring their
psychological and biological gender inline. It’s also right that they are
protected under law from abuse and discrimination. However, do we really need
the other extreme where “pronouns” need to be “gender neutral,” to make people
feel better or more importantly, to prevent reasons for law suites.
I discovered one
of the most ridiculous case of “extremist” ideology when my nightly web surfing
brought me to the infamous Cosmo UK cover, which featured Tess Holliday, a “plus
sized” model, who is 165cm (5ft6) tall, weighs 127kg (279lbs).
Ms. Holliday is
what you would call the cover girl of the “body positive” movement, which
argues that people, particularly women, should be comfortable with their bodies
instead being forced to conform to what the “patriarchy” expects them to look
like:
I am, an overweight
48-year-old, and I realise that I don’t have the discipline to deny myself some
of the less healthy foods in life or the discipline to hit the gym with a
strict routine to have a beautiful body. As such, I agree with the concept of “body
positivity” in as much as we need to recognise that not every guy wants to look
an Olympic athlete and not every girl wants to look like a Victoria Secret model.
We should be comfortable with who we are and that should not stop us from
feeling attractive and being able to attract people.
However, there
is a difference between being comfortable in your body and being unhealthy.
Britain’s most “infamous” TV show hosts, Piers Morgan, ended up a few spats
because he was quite public in his disagreement with Ms. Holliday’s front
cover, arguing that she was morbidly obese and promoting a lifestyle that had
the ability to endanger people. Mr. Morgan’s letter in the Daily Mail can be
found at:
Whatever one
might feel about Mr. Morgan, the science does back him up. People who are obese
are many times more likely to suffer from a host of nasty diseases and in another
segment of Good Morning Britain, argued that he was against obsess models promoting
obesity and also against anorexic models promoting anorexia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGEJqLEk2c
When it comes
to human biology, it is clear that it is unhealthy when you are obese:
However, there
is also the other extreme, which is also unhealthy:
Human biology shows that extremes are bad for you. The body does not react well when you are either too fat or too skinny.
What is true of
human bodies is also true of human societies. When people take one position to
the extent that it cannot compromise with anyone and end up in power, they end
up doing great damage. Hyper Communist systems ended up collapsing in 1991.
However, hyper capitalistic societies have not been doing that well either. Balance
is not a “trendy” word invented by those who cannot make up their mind but the
essence of survival both on an individual and social level.
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