The image of a fat sultan, bathed in swathes of rich fabrics while dining on fabulous meals in some exotic desert tent full of belly dancers, is not a hard one to conjure up. The happy go lucky punter at the races holding the winning ticket, face alight in top hat and tails, likewise comes easily to mind. Now cast your mind to a squalid council estate. An obese mother of three, decked in stained tracksuit, struggles with a Tesco bag laden push chair across a litter strewn courtyard. Amoungst the graffiti marked shutters and closed down shops is a lone betting outfit, fag ends and old racing posts tumble listlessly by the door. Contrast this again with a plump farmers wife baking cakes while her husband toils in the field. Through the window you can spy the farm hands sneaking in a cheeky game of cards, recently paid wages the wager of choice . These are all examples of currently vilified sections of British society, namely fat people and gamblers. The only difference is that some of the imagery makes you smile and some makes you twist your face into a scowl. Why? Context.
The sultan is rich beyond compare. He's allowed to be fat. Plus it fits your image of a sultan. The Farmer's wife would be jolly and plump and an amazing baker of cakes. Of course she's a little large, that's how farmers wives are supposed to be silly (interestingly if she were thin, she'd be mean, controlling and bitter, right?)! The grinning winner in top hat at the races? He can afford to gamble his money away... And a game of cards never hurt anyone.
The obese mother, well, she can afford to spend all her money on cake! What about her kids? All fat too, I bet! Those rotten men, gambling their money away on the horses or dogs, what a waste!
Follow these images in your own mind... How do you imagine the positive and negative world of drink and gambling? In nearly all cases I'll bet your own private imaginings meet this simple rule...
If it's a negative image, it because the cause of the distress in underpinned by a failing in society to deal with a problem. The farmers wife will still die of obesity related disease. The rich toff may still ruin himself with gambling. But somehow that was not societies failing. The mother of three has never been shown how to survive on a budget. She only knows to buy fat and sugar laden foods that take the misery of her situation away for the precious few seconds it takes to stuff the doughnut in her mouth. The all to brief sugar high the cheapest fix she can get.
Whatever the affliction, it's a stark reminder of our own failings. Why can't we overcome this? Why can't these people be made better?
And so we move to the issue of, predominantly, young people getting totally and utterly wreaked. I mean out of their fucking tiny minds, in the city centers up and down the country. The government solution is to put up the cost of booze. They really are the best minds the country has to offer, hu?
My solution is to find out how society has fucked them up so that they think that represents a good time. Then deal with it, no matter how unsavory the cause.
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