- •1. “It is high time men ceased to regard women as second-class
- •2 ‘World governments should conduct serious campaigns against
- •3 ‘Television is doing irreparable harm’
- •4 ‘Any form of education other than co-education is simply
- •5 ‘Camping is the ideal way of spending a holiday’
- •6 ‘New fashions in clothing are created solely for the commercial exploitation of women’
- •7 ‘We should all grow fat and be happy’
- •8 ‘The younger generation knows best’
- •9 ‘Only stricter traffic laws can prevent accidents’
- •10 ‘Parents are too permissive with their children nowadays’
- •11 ‘Advertisers perform a useful service to the community’
- •12 ‘Pop stars certainly earn their money’
- •13 ‘Vicious and dangerous sports should be banned by law’
- •14 ‘Transistor radios should be prohibited in public places’
- •15 ‘The only thing people are interested in today is earning more money’
- •16 ‘Compulsory military service should be abolished in all
- •17 ’Childhood is certainly not the happiest time of your life’
- •18 ‘Untidy people are not nice to know’
- •19 ‘The only way to travel is on foot’
- •20 ‘Examinations exert a pernicious influence on education’
- •21 ‘Books, plays and films should be censored’
- •22 ‘People should be rewarded according to ability, not according to age and experience’
- •23 ‘The tourist trade contributes absolutely nothing to
- •Increasing understanding between nations’
- •24 ‘Only a madman would choose to live in a large modern city’
- •25 ‘Equality of opportunity in the twentieth century has not
- •26 ‘No one wants to live to be a hundred’
- •27 ‘Capital punishment is the only way to deter criminals’
- •28 ‘The space race is the world’s biggest money waster’
- •29 ‘Violence can do nothing to diminish race prejudice’
- •30 ‘The most important of all human qualities is a sense of humour’
15 ‘The only thing people are interested in today is earning more money’
We live in a materialistic society and are trained from our earliest years to be acquisitive. Our possessions, ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ are clearly labelled from early childhood. When we grow old enough to earn a living, it does not surprise us to discover that success is measured in terms of the money you earn.
This materialistic outlook has seriously influenced education. Fewer and fewer young people these days acquire knowledge only for its own sake. Every course of studies must lead somewhere: i.e. to a bigger wage packet. Big companies compete with each other to recruit students before they have completed their studies.
16 ‘Compulsory military service should be abolished in all
COUNTRIES’
Everybody has a lot to say about the desirability of peace, but no one does anything about it. An obvious thing to do would be to abolish conscription everywhere. This would be the first step towards universal peace.
There are pressing personal reasons to abolish conscription. It is most unpleasant in times of peace for young men to grow up with the threat of military service looming over their heads. They are deprived of two of the best and most formative years of their lives. Their careers and studies are disrupted and sometimes the whole course of their lives is altered. They spend at least two years in the armed forces engaged in activities which do not provide them with any useful experience with regard to their future work. When they leave the services, young men quickly forget all the unnecessary information about warfare which they were made to acquire.
17 ’Childhood is certainly not the happiest time of your life’
Childhood may certainly be fairly happy, but it’s greatest moments can’t compare with the sheer joy of being an adult. Children don’t have opinions, or if they do, nobody notices. Adults choose the clothes their children will wear, the books they will read and the friends they will play with. Mother and father are kindly but absolute dictators. No matter how kind and loving adults may be, children often suffer from terrible, illogical fears. Nothing can equal the abject fear a child may feel in the dark, the absolute horror of childish nightmares.
What a relief it is to grow up. Suddenly you regain your balance; the world opens up before you. You are free to choose; you have your own place to live in and your own money to spend. You do not have to seek constant approval for everything you do.
18 ‘Untidy people are not nice to know’
You don’t have to be a genius to spot them. The men of the species are often uncombed; their ties never knotted squarely beneath their collars. The women of the species always manage to smear lipstick on their faces as well as their lips. With a sort of happy unconcern, both the male and female species litter railway stations, streets, parks, etc. with sweet wrappings, banana-skins, egg-shells and cast-off shoes.
In their homes you are liable to find socks behind the refrigerator, marbles in the jam and egg-encrusted crockery. Newspapers litter the floor; ashtrays overflow. In their cars you are likely to find last year’s lolly sticks, chewing-gum clinging to the carpets and a note saying ‘Running In’ on the rear window of a ten-year-old vehicle.