The value of play and play things is often underestimated and when one looks at what poor children of the past used to make do with (and frankly even the middle class kids weren't that much better off until the mid 19th century) you realize how important it was that they used their imagination to flesh out those rather sad rag dolls and such like.
Terry Pratchett said in more than one of his Discworld books that imagination not intelligence was responsible for the rising ape to meet the falling angel. An eloquent and accurate observation because imagination is often not given the credit it deserves.
Think about it. When early humans wanted to teach or pass on hard won experience vital to survival, they must have used gestures and so forth to demonstrate how to do something important and for all intents and purposes the passing on of this store of vital data was perpetuated by story telling.
Of course this is a double edged sword because quite a lot of bigotry is perpetuated almost unnoticed by those elders such as grandparents that tell youngsters things like what bastards the Catholics are (if the story teller is Protestant) or how the Frogs cannot be trusted because...you can name your own example of outrage at real or imagined Gallic injustices against a loyal ally (us)!
This is an insidious form of propaganda that passes almost unnoticed and yet much the same is continually perpetrated by what we call History (His Story).
I mean it blatantly announces what it is and the He in question is whoever came out on top after a struggle about differences of opinion, belief, skin colour, religion.
'You've been told many times before, Messiah's led you to the door but no one had the guts to leave the temple!' (Tommy - The Who). Until they, we, do then the human condition can only worsen to the point where the next global conflict will probably be our last for real if its finally using nuclear weapons as it inevitably will.
Is this really The End? No and it doesn't have to be but a few positive changes need to be implemented immediately if the occupants of Earth are to rise to those broad, sunlit uplands that Churchill prophesied as the outcome of successfully defeating Nazism.
Teach people how to think for themselves and stop empowering charlatans by subscribing to superstitious beliefs such as religion. They are all nonsensical their liturgies a tissue of lies or to be charitable, stories that do not hold up well to close examination.
Who does what to whom in the privacy of their own close relationship is nobody's business but theirs as long as it doesn't cause physical or mental harm.
Use draconian legislation to enforce a complete ban on arms manufacture especially guns. A state probably should possess its own arsenal in case of invasion but private citizens do not need and shouldn't have access to guns except where they inhabit isolated places that make them easy prey for wild animals.
Select a committee something like the BBC used to use that drew upon a wide range of citizens whose joint decisions selected what should and should not be broadcast.
Do the same for radio and television, setting standards for what they broadcast with immediate suspension of any outlet or spokes person that lied or otherwise distorted the facts. Print outlets ditto.
Remove the world wide web but keep the internet and make it like the English Open University so that people will learn despite themselves. Ban the so called social media if they won't conform to responsible behaviour.
No oligarchs should be allowed to control what the newspapers can write.
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