How Much Is The Doggie in The Manger?

national | education | opinion/analysis Friday February 04, 2011 10:15 by Sean Crudden impero at iol dot ie Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth 0879739945

Science is for Our Masters

When I was young I remember my father and mother discussing someone in fairly heated terms. The epithet used to some up the discussion was that this person (I do not remember who it was) was a "dog in the manger." I was all ears and later I got my mother to explain to me what a "dog in the manger" meant. "The dog cannot eat the hay," my mother elaborated, "But he won't let the horse eat it."

We are all baffled and silenced by "research." We only imagine there is a problem because the Health Research Board or the Mental Health Commission said nothing about it. They are the elite and they are responsible for "reaearch." The rest of us are plebs and we cannot believe the evidence of our own eyes.

Naturally one adverts to the fact that we do not need "research" to tell us that most human beings have four fingers and a thumb on each hand and we do not need the MHC to confirm that "The Needle" is situated in O'Connell Street. Even if the HRB and the MHC want us to sleep and keep our eyes shut and wait for them to pontificate we cannot escape a certain restlessness. Especially when the message is never annouced.

Science was much admired and better understood when I was young in the 1950's and 1960's. Every child was taught in school to observe, hypothesise, theorise, conclude; and have faith in their own faculties. Nowadays science is all posturing and political control. And it is not for the common man or common woman.

Look for example at the nonsense of commissions and tribunals set up to listen to the concerns of the most oppressed mental patients. Nurses and doctors are by the side of the patients 24/7. Are they tired listening? Can they see nothing wrong? Where is their professional pride? What have the tribunals and the commission gleaned anyway? Sure they never tell us and they seem to think they have no responsibility to do that.

Without a doubt the dog in the manger is an expensive animal.

I am grateful to Kevin Walsh (alias; KT Hawklett) whose e-mail this morning prompted and informed the few lines I wrote above.