Ignorance is bliss?

 Did you know that Matt Smith aka "Dr Who" has split up with his girlfriend?  No??  Well he has!! Really! It was on the front page of the Sun this week.

Oh, but it isn't all disaster and tragedy in the world, so do not fear.  It seems that Lewis Hamilton has got back together with Nicole Scherzinger.  So we can sleep soundly in our beds after all.

We live in worrying economic times.  There are protests on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral about the distribution of wealth, protests about university fees, concerns about the benefits system leaving people on the breadline, reports that elderly people are being neglected and abused, enquiries taking place about newspapers spying on people for their stories, protests and deadly clashes worldwide, but also positive news about the effectiveness of our NHS despite low funding and the increased survival rate of cancer suffers.

There is so much going on in this world of ours, some reported in the media, some doesn't seem to even make it into the papers.  I was shocked after a visit to a local Crown Court recently how many serious sex crime cases were being heard.  The two trials I sat in on both resulted in a guilty verdict, both were serious sexual crimes against children, neither have been reported even in local media.

But we have front pages like this:

There is so much wrong with this that I barely know where to begin.  The headline itself is the usual xenophobic hate-mongering designed to stir up readers against people who might look "of a foreign nature".  This is just one of the groups of people they advocate hatred of.  No wonder there is so much distrust, fear and hate within communities in the UK.

Martine McCutcheon's weight gain also appears to be hot news, but if that's not enough to make you feel self conscious ladies, how about implying that your husband might secretly think you are grotesque?


There are also headlines like this:

I know this sort of "non news" sells papers, people seem to be genuinely more interested in who from X Factor is having illicit sex or taking drugs than the trifling matters of why people in this country are living in poverty when we are one of the richest countries in the world.  Why is this, though?  Are people so narrow minded because of the media, or were they already happier living in ignorance and the media is simply pandering to that?  Can we change things?  Should we?  And how?

Lots of questions, no answers, but worthy of discussion.

What it brings to mind, for me, is a vision of George Orwell's classic novel 1984.  We are living in a world where the proles are kept in blissful ignorance of the realities of life by news headlines like that shown above, and equal tat on the television.  And people often appear happy in their ignorance, not feeling the need or that they have the ability to ask questions about why life is like it is, or challenge anything.  That doesn't mean real contentment, and it doesn't mean it is right.