Ireland: process morons with Blackberries and iPhones
"Ireland is at present immobilised by what Francis Wheen has called 'process morons with Blackberries and iPhones'". So says UCD professor of English Declan Kiberd. The observation was made in the course of a hard-hitting opinion piece in the Irish Times about a broken country titled, well, not titled at all, actually. Rather it was headed with the quote "Returning to the spirit of Tiger Ireland is pointless. Only a completely new political movement can tackle the challenges". Money quote:
"Before the Tiger years, Irish people understood that the real quality of life lies in those things which cannot be quantified. The notion that market forces are vital is plain common sense, but the idea that money should determine everything is a rather recent and barbarous development.
So is the proposition that people can express individuality through designer labels. For most of their history, Irish people have felt connected to traditions of compassion for the young and old, for the poor and infirm, and money has been subordinate. Our grandparents understood Einstein's maxim that 'what counts can't always be counted and what can be counted doesn't always count'."
Read the whole thing. Some of the comments are superb. Tomorrow, in Ireland today the poor pay for the rich in order to legitimise the latter's greed.
