Sir, - Amid all the cant about freedom of expression, and the cover-up and silence of the past, is there anyone in this sorry little island of ours with the guts to speak about the present and call a spade a spade? Is everyone from public figures to talk-show hosts struck down with this distemper of political correctness? I am waiting for someone to speak about a nation in spiritual and moral decline going fast down the tubes in an orgy of consumerism, greed, alcohol, substance abuse and whatever you're having yourself.
The style of leadership on offer is image over substance. This, I suppose, is to be expected in a world of television trash. The essence of it seems to be: if you look nice and speak nice, then you are nice. The new icons on the block are morons from the world of football or pop music, being paid funny money for having the IQ of a plank of wood. Meanwhile we embrace it all - the false accents, the image over substance, the shallowness of tabloid trash, the banal rubbish of TV shows that pass for entertainment. We accept it all, the alcohol and substance abuse, and all the myriad excesses and addictions that pass for modern culture.
And why do we allow this cess pit? Because we are ashamed of our past - that had faults, yes, but was glorious in culture, and spiritual depth, compared with the wasteland of economic boom and human destruction of spirit that is today.
Just like America, the message is: "Don't get old and don't get sick". The funny farm or a Division Three public hospital face you. In a society where beauty and image hold sway, those with defects are discarded. Perhaps this era of stupidity, shallowness and paddy-whackery will pass. It would be a help if people in high places began to tell it as it is, and not be forever the prisoners of pretence. This charade and deception of a nation in its stride must be challenged; we are going backwards fast into a mire of mediocrity.
Where are all the thinking people gone? The Island of Saints and Scholars is fast becoming the Nation of Stooges and Stereotypes. To all the silent majority out there, too bullied and cowed to speak, I say: stand up and call it as it is. A nation culturally bankrupt. - Yours etc.,
P. Kiely, Old Golf Course, Donegal Town.