Reflections 16th April

The nature of precarious

Photo by Cindy Tang on Unsplash

There seems to be a lot of “precarious” about at the moment.

From our politics to the NHS, our jobs to our climate, there’s a sense of people being tentative. Worried about being wrong, afraid of the future, and deciding to do nothing instead. It’s as though we believe that if we tread quietly, don’t make a noise, and look away, what is clearly approaching us will pass on by and not bother us.

Precarious, of course, is a great marketing tool. Politicians, from the suave to the scruffy, cite it as a reason why we should turn to them to get things back on track, even as their actions destroy their credibility.

The popular press loves it because it yields all manner of salacious stories that can be leveraged to attract our attention, instils uncertainty and directs it toward their advertisers who will “solve it” for us through compensatory consumption.

In the meantime, the citizenry is left as a cash crop to be harvested every few years for their votes, or e…