Neighbour Jones

In 1913 a comic strip named Keeping up with the Joneses made its first appearance in newspapers in the USA. The strip depicted the McGinis family who were constantly trying to keep pace with the wealth, possessions, and status of their neighbours, the Joneses. Significantly, the Joneses were never shown in the strip, remaining inconspicuous.

The phrase – keeping up with the Joneses – became a catchy idiom throughout much of the westernised world. The Joneses became the standard that everyone should aspire to. If the Joneses bought a new television, then the McGinis family bought the same model.

The comic strip ended in 1940, but following the end of WW2 the phrase signified the rampant explosion of consumerism that characterised the 1950s.

This was deliberate. The economist, Victor Lebow, in 1955, wrote:

‘The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives today expressed in consumptive terms. …We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing pace. We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live, with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption.’¹

As the century moved on, consumerism became conspicuous consumption. As consumption rose the probability of increased dissatisfaction also rose if the Joneses were unable to be kept up with.

It wasn’t simply a case of consuming more though. In order to consume more, individuals and families had to gain more purchasing power; they had to work more, invest more, gain more education, and be seen more. For all that to happen they had to move.

They moved to cities. Between 1950 and 2020 the number of people living in urban areas rose from 20% to 55% of the world's population. That is an absolute increase from 500 million people in 1950 to 4.3 billion in 2020. A staggering increase.

The size of cities has grown ominously also. The largest city in the world in 1950 was New York with a population of approximately 12 million. In 2020 the largest city was Tokyo with a population of more than three times that – around 37 million.

The pressure to keep up with the Joneses in conjunction with increased urbanisation has had a devastating effect on the mental health and wellbeing of many people. Stress levels in particular have risen dramatically since WW2. So much so that stress is being labelled as the “health epidemic of the 21^st century.”

Our nervous system is actually composed of two systems that work conversely to each other. What is known as our sympathetic nervous system triggers our “fight or flight” response, and we experience a higher heart rate, dilated pupils, and focussed attention. Fight or flight is a stressful time. All through our evolutionary journey this stress was needed at times, but usually short lived. It could be labelled as acute stress.

Once the fight or flight event had passed and the acute stress was over, our parasympathetic nervous system took over and slowed heart rates, constricted pupils, and allowed our bodies to return to homeostasis (a state of equilibrium throughout the body.) These two systems worked well together for well over 95% of our species time on Earth.

Sadly though, the last few decades have seen stress levels become chronic, meaning that stress remains for a long period of time without abating. Our sympathetic nervous system remains on high alert, we become constantly, and continuously, subject to high levels of stress. Our parasympathetic nervous system has no opportunity to return us to that equilibrium point of rest and recuperation.

The main contributor, worldwide, to chronic stress is work. No longer are we human beings, we have become human doings. We have become constantly busy.

Chronic stress is implicated in a number of diseases and illnesses, amongst them: hypertension, cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, depression, anxiety, autoimmune diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, cognitive decline, and Alzheimer’s disease. Makes you wonder why, as a culture, we put up with it, doesn’t it?

Keeping up with the Joneses, urban living and its associated stressors (light, air, water, and noise pollution) have combined to outstrip our capacity to adapt.

There appears to be no lessening of these trends either. If anything, they are worsening. No longer is keeping up with the Joneses sufficient, nowadays the mantra seems to be get ahead of the Joneses. There is no end in sight to urbanisation. Noise and light pollution are becoming unhealthier as each year passes.

To make matters even graver, those factors that are impacting our human stress in harmful ways are also stressing the natural world severely. The oceans, the forests, wild animals and plants, waterways, and the air are all showing signs of being unable to cope with the stress we are placing upon them. The Earth herself is showing signs of chronic stress.

Sadly, the loss of natural ecosystems steadily undermines and deprives us of the very features that we require for our health and function. For the past 200,000 – 300,000 years humans co-emerged and co-existed with all other life forms and non-life forms upon this planet. Our health and our ability to survive are one and the same as the health of the planet as a whole.

The simple message to us from nature would seem to be: slow down, rest, recuperate, get rid of stuff, forget about the Joneses.

In fact, remember that in the original cartoon strip, the McGinis family were shown, but the Jones family were never seen.

The Joneses are a phantom. Stop trying to keep up with a phantom.

Notes:

1. Journal of Retailing, Spring 1955

Totalitarianism Is Totalitarianism Is Totalitarianism

Recently I watched the film/doco Orwell: 2+2=5 which doesn’t stop at simply documenting Orwell’s life or his novels (the two most famous being 1984 and Animal Farm.) The film illustrates that the recent rise of totalitarianism in a number of countries are instances of exactly what Orwell was warning about in the writing of his novels. In discussing this film one person commented that there are a degrees of totalitarianism.

That comment reminded me of the 1913 poem by Gertrude Stein, Sacred Emily.

One of the lines in that poem is widely known and frequently cited. It reads,

‘A rose is a rose is a rose.

So too, I thought, is totalitarianism.

Totalitarianism is totalitarianism is totalitarianism.

There are no degrees. Just as murder is murder, totalitarianism is totalitarianism.

Okay, okay, I hear the retort. What about murder in the first degree, and murder in the second degree? What distinguishes one from the other? First-degree murder is pre-meditated, intentional and deliberate. Second-degree murder is unplanned, but still intentional. Second-degree murders are often those committed in the “heat of passion.” Both are murder.

Does such distinction apply to totalitarianism?

It would be hard to argue that totalitarianism is unplanned or that it occurs in a moment of heated passion.

But, what is totalitarianism? The term itself was coined in the early 1920s to describe Italian fascism under Mussolini. The word totalitarian derives from the Italian totalità meaning totally with the suffix arian being a reference to the word authoritarian. So, in essence, totalitarianism is total authoritarianism. It is a word of dominance, oppression, and tyranny. As a political ideology it has been studied many times by philosophers, political theorists, historians, and others. The most common features that these studies attribute to totalitarianism include:

• Centralised government and control of the State.
• A dictatorial approach.
• Requirement of subservience to the State.
• Use of State terrorism.
• State control of mass communication and monopoly of the media.
• Display of an overbearing arrogance to others, especially those deemed to be enemies of the State.
• A one-party State.
• A charismatic dictator who holds power for powers sake.

Not all these characteristics need be present to qualify a system as totalitarian. Absence of one or two of these does not make a system a second-degree or third-degree totalitarian one.

There are no degrees of totalitarianism.

One of those who undertook a lot of research into totalitarianism was Hannah Arendt. She noted that totalitarianism, and its charismatic leader, provided people with a simplistic and comforting worldview about complex social issues.

Another writer was Wilhelm Reich who wrote The Mass Psychology of Fascism in 1932 just as Hitler was coming to power and then updated it in 1944. Reich suggested that fascism arose out of patriarchal systems already existing in society. Patriarchy, Reich theorised, prepared children to obey and revere a harsh and dominant leader.

By fusing these two theories (Arendt’s comforting worldview, and Reich’s patriarchal roots) George Orwell composed his two classic novels: Animal Farm in 1945 and 1984 in 1949.

It would seem that Orwell’s warnings went unheeded, for totalitarianism seems to have been given a kick-start again in many parts of the world.

We cannot and must not allow totalitarianism to take root. If it does, it must be uprooted.

I began this blogpiece with a reference to a poem about roses. I will finish with another well-known quotation related to roses. This time from William Shakespeare and his play Romeo and Juliet:

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Applying this to totalitarianism:

Totalitarianism by any other name would smell as repugnant.

Reflecting On Refraction

A couple of days ago I was sitting at my favourite café early in the morning with a freshly brewed hot coffee in front of me. A light shower of rain began to fall. Within a minute or so a rainbow formed its arch across the sky. When I looked downwards at the creek that flows beside the café, I could see the rainbow reflected in the waters. (see photo)

The rainbow and its reflection in the water was a beautiful sight.

I was moved to reflect.

I recalled from my school days learning about the physics of how a rainbow is formed. Light is refracted, reflected, and dispersed into its constituent colours by the drops of rain. Most people know the colours of the rainbow from the initials: ROYGBIV. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. These are the classic seven colours of the rainbow. Most of us know that the section of the electro-magnetic spectrum that we see as light is made up of many more colours than these seven. It is though, these seven that we classically associate with a rainbow.

I reflected further.

The rainbow is a pleasing metaphor for life and its myriad forms. Individual lives do not exist in isolation. No matter what animal or plant you can think of in nature, it does not exist without interacting with other animals and plants around it. Together, all the various plants and animals combine in almost unimaginable complexity to co-create whole eco-systems.

Each eco-system supports and sustains all the plants and animals within it. Each plant and animal supports and sustains the eco-system.

We humans are part of these complex eco-systems. We are not isolated beings. Without the eco-systems we are part of we could not exist. We are like one of the colours of the rainbow.

Try to imagine a rainbow without one of its colours. Suppose the colour blue was missing. It would no longer be a rainbow, would it?

Sadly, much of humanity is acting (metaphorically) as if one or more of the colours of the rainbow do not matter. Species (and even genera) of plants and animals are being made extinct as an insane rate.

My reflection continued on.

If light is passed through a prism the entire visible spectrum of colours appears on the other side of the prism. The unity of light (what we call white light) is refracted and dispersed by the prism, and we see the diversity of colour contained in that unity. Unity creates diversity.

Now place another prism after the first prism. But invert it. Now pass the white light through the first prism and then the colour spectrum through the second. What happens?

The colour spectrum is returned to white light. Diversity creates unity.

It is a metaphor worth reflecting upon often, because it can be very easy to forget that everything in the world is co-created by everything else. Nothing arises or exists completely on its own. Nothing is independent of other things, although it may be unique (i.e. it may be the unique colour red in our metaphor).

Next time you see a rainbow think and reflect upon the diversity of life and how that creates the wondrous unity that life is.

Too Damn Close!

Readers who are also cyclists will relate to the parable I am about to write.

Imagine you are riding your bicycle along a road. Suddenly, a car passes by you very close. The car almost hits you. You feel the draft of slipstreaming and almost lose balance. Your heart jumps up a dozen beats. You think to yourself and may even shout it out at the receding driver of the car: ‘Too damn close!’

That’s the response I had a couple of days ago to reading the announcement by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in releasing the setting of the Doomsday Clock.

The Doomsday Clock has been set every year since 1947. Initially focussing upon the threat of nuclear annihilation the clock symbolically indicates how close the world has become over the previous year to existential obliteration, represented as midnight. Over the past 79 years other existential threats have been added to the assessment.

The clock’s first setting (in 1947) was placed at 7 minutes to midnight, in recognition of the threat of nuclear warfare following the dropping of nuclear bombs upon Japan in 1945.

In the time since its first rendition the Doomsday Clock has been placed furthest from midnight in 1991 (17 minutes to midnight) following the end of the Cold War and the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START.) Sadly, with increasing numbers of nuclear-armed nations and other tensions, the clock trended towards midnight so that by 2018 it was set at just 2 minutes to midnight.

Within just two years, with the realisation of the enormity of the threat of climate change and cyber-warfare, the clock was set (in 2020) at 100 seconds (1 minute and 40 seconds) to midnight.

The Doomsday Clock has remained at less than 2 minutes to midnight ever since. In 2023 and 2024 it was set at 90 seconds to midnight. Then last year (2025) the clock moved a further one second towards the fateful hour of midnight.

And this year?

The clock has been set at 85 seconds to midnight.

That is too damn close!

The clock has been set closer to midnight this year because of four threats: 1. Nuclear threats intensified and three regional conflicts (Russia-Ukraine, India-Pakistan, and Israel/US bombing Iranian nuclear facilities), threaten to intensify, 2. Climate change outlook has worsened, 3. Development of “mirror-life” carries with it catastrophic risk, 4. Accelerating evolution of artificial intelligence (AI).¹

Compounding these threats has been the rise of autocratic leadership throughout the world, especially within three of the world's superpowers. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announcement notes that, ‘Leaders of the United States, Russia, and China greatly vary in their autocratic leanings, but they all have approaches to international relations that favour grandiosity and competition over diplomacy and cooperation.’

Returning to the parable of the cyclist and the car.

One car may be a scare. The Doomsday Clock announcement, however, indicates that the cyclist is being closely passed by a procession of cars, anyone of which on their own could cause the cyclist serious harm. That is terrifying. All of them together gravely increases the danger to the cyclist.

The drivers of the cars seem to not notice.

We cyclists must call out:

Too damn close!

Notes:

1. The full announcement can be read here: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/#nav_menu

Winners and Losers: An Unhelpful Dualism

A few weeks ago I watched a clip of a hearing held in the US. There appears to be a fondness for these sorts of hearings in the USA where elected representatives question and grill government employees. During this particular hearing the elected representative was asking about the outcome of previous elections.

In what follows I will briefly summarise the essence of the encounter. However, I will refer only to Candidate A and Candidate B rather than the given names of the candidates for office. Also, the years of the election will only be referred to as yyxx. I have chosen to do this so that this blogpiece does not descend into the very dualism I hope to show as being unhelpful.

What follows is not a verbatim transcript of the encounter, but is very close to it (from memory):

Elected Representative to government employees: ‘Did Candidate A win the yyxx election?’

The government employees prevaricated and hesitated to answer the question with an affirmative or negative answer. When pressed again with the question ‘Did Candidate A win the yyxx election?’ they admitted that the candidate had obtained more votes than Candidate B.

The elected representative then asked a follow-up question: ‘Did Candidate B lose the yyxx election?’

To this question the government employees stubbornly refused to answer.

The questioner became visibly upset, possibly annoyed, and continued to ask, ‘Did Candidate B lose the yyxx election?’ At times verging on yelling the question out.

The government employees continued to not answer this question. They may have chosen to not answer the question because they were employees of one or other of Candidates A or B. Or, they may have chosen not to answer for ethical reasons. For whichever reason, it is to their credit that they did not choose to enter into such a dualistic question and answer debate.

As I listened to this exchange it occurred to me that the attribution of winners and losers in an election is one of the fundamental problems we have with modern-day politics. Not only is the culture of winners/losers a disturbing trend in politics, but more generally in society as a whole.

Politics should not be about winners and losers. Politics (in its truest sense – the means by which we make collective choices) should be a forum in which ideas are presented without animosity and an honest dialogue takes place with a collective (hopefully consensual) decision arrived at.

(I know that sounds utopian and has little place in modern political debate. But, it can be done within a democratic setting. I have written extensively on the theory and practice of sortition and will not cover it further here. Check out my sortition posts by using the Search box.)

Returning to the theme of winners and losers we can trace much of this back to dualistic thinking that gained widespread prominence in ancient Greece with philosophers such as Plato.

More recently the idea of winners/losers in social settings gained popularity from the late 19^th century onwards with the rise of Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is a now largely discredited set of theories that attempted to apply Darwin’s theories of natural selection to social settings. Thinkers, such as Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, and Francis Galton (the founder of eugenics) misunderstood and misapplied the phrase ‘survival of the fittest,’¹ by suggesting that social arrangements meant that the wealthiest and most powerful should see their wealth and power increase at the expense of the poor and lower classes. Social Darwinism greatly promoted the winner/loser duality.

The mocking sobriquet of “loser” appears to have arisen in US student slang during the 1950s. Being labelled a loser suggested the person so labelled was a perpetual failure and deserving of being mocked, ridiculed, and ultimately, rejected. Such a label can be tremendously damaging to someone’s psyche, especially young people.

During the 1970s the field of sociobiology further encouraged the idea of winners and losers by emphasising a person’s genetic heritage, and largely ignoring social constructs of culture and environment.

The neo-liberalism of the 1980s/90s, promoted and championed in the US by President Ronald Reagan and in the UK by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (the Iron Lady) nearly endorsed the notion of winner as being the greatest worth a person could attain. Losers, on the other hand, could be dismissed and given no assistance in a civilisation where ‘There is no such thing as society’ as Margaret Thatcher so infamously announced.

The exchange referred to above between the elected Representative and the government employees is the outgrowth of these notions of humanity. Humanity is nothing more than a collection of individuals all in competitive struggles for resources, riches, fame, and power.

Sadly, the use of the term loser is increasing in our everyday speech. During the 1940s and 1950s the term was used only 0.4-0.5 times in every one million words spoken. During the 1960s usage began to climb and climbed rapidly from 1990 onwards, so that by 2018 the term loser was being used more than twice in every one million words used. That is a 500% increase in just one generation.  

Winners and losers is an unhelpful, and erroneous concept. It leads to low self-esteem, self-harm, aggression, xenophobia, hatred, and ultimately to war.

We should beware of anyone attempting to classify us or our societies as winners and losers.

Notes:

1. The phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ was not coined by Darwin. Nor did he use the term fittest in the sense of biggest, strongest, most powerful. See these blogpieces, here and here.

Smile – It Scares Them

Not far from where I live there is a sign on the side of the road. On the back of the sign someone has written: Smile – It scares them. When I first saw it, I smiled.

The words have a hint of truth about them, don’t they? Some people do seem to be scared of a smile on the face of others. Or, if not scared, perhaps a little intimidated, or nervous.

We live in a world where there is a growing rift between people and that shows up as fear, anxiety, or simply indifference. Occasionally this fear can escalate and erupt as violence and hatred. We saw that this week in Minnesota.¹

The fear that someone may exhibit though, should not dissuade us from continuing to smile. A smile, as Spike Milligan reminded us, can be infectious.²

Why would someone be scared of smiles? A number of possibilities present themselves, including:

• Our westernised culture emphasises success and achievement to a high degree. Seeing a smile can trigger feelings of failure by assuming that the smiling person is successful. The sense of shame inherent in the feeling of failure can be a scary thought.
• Many in our society associate happiness with risk. It can be a risky business to seek happiness. Thus, the smile of another can be scary.
• Happiness can be associated with good fortune and that, in turn, can trigger a judgement of injustice, especially if the good fortune is undeserved. In a world where the rift between rich and poor is growing rapidly, the association between happiness and good fortune can spark resentment and a desire to right the injustice.
• When someone is experiencing depression or other negative emotions witnessing a smile can be difficult. Many of us have heard the phrase, ‘Don’t worry, just get over it. Be happy.’ We also know just how unhelpful that can be. Indeed, such simplistic advice can worsen the feelings of those experiencing negative emotions.
• Within western culture the pursuit of individual happiness is considered to be one of the greatest goals in life. Yet, in many other cultures, other values (e.g. harmony, community, and loyalty) take precedence.

However, smiling may not necessarily indicate this individualised goal of happiness. Tibetans, for example, place higher emphasis on other values. Yet, one will be hard pressed to find a photograph of the Dalai Lama without a smile upon his face.

So, keep smiling, and try to not be scared.

Notes:

1. On 7 January 2026, Renee Good, an American citizen was shot and killed by a federal officer. The incident has been widely condemned as murder. Tellingly, immediately before she was shot, Renee said to the officer ‘I don’t hate you dude.’  The first words uttered by the officer following the shooting were, ‘F***ing bitch.’ This is an example of how smiling can scare someone escalating to violence and murder.

2. Spike Milligan, Smiling is Infectious. The opening lines of this poem are, ‘Smiling is infectious, you catch it like the flu’.

One Small Step – Book Review

One Small Step¹ is a book about running, isn’t it? So, how does it come to be featured on this blogsite? Well, that’s because it is a book about community.

One Small Step, authored by the founder of parkrun, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, is a book about the building of community using running as the building blocks. It is also, and a bonus, the autobiography of a remarkable man.

The book is almost 300 pages long, yet it is not until you get almost to the 200^th page when Paul writes of the first ever parkrun (at the time known as the Bushy Park Time Trial). Paul spends most of the first 200 pages writing of his life and experiences growing up in the apartheid era in South Africa.

In many ways it is possible to read Paul’s childhood and teenage years as difficult, even sad and depressing years. His mother was mostly absent, both physically and emotionally. His father was no better. He and his brother and sister spent much of their educational years in boarding schools or orphanages. During much of this time Paul was bullied. Running allowed Paul to find some relief from these times. He grew to enjoy the activity.

These experiences, as an isolated youth, and growing up in the apartheid system, left Paul with at least two guiding values that he later brought to parkrun – fairness and inclusivity.

That first time trial in Bushy Park (in south-west London) had thirteen participants and five volunteers (including Paul). Twenty-one years later this small beginning has grown to more than 2,000 events in twenty-three countries. A total of almost 400,000 attend these weekly events with 10 million parkrunners being registered worldwide. Each parkrun is attended by volunteers who marshal, give out finishing tokens, record times, and administer the background practicalities. Each week, almost 50,000 people globally take on one or other of these roles.

Paul’s two values alluded to above (fairness and inclusivity) are reflected in the events. Participation in a parkrun (no matter where in the world) is free and no-one is turned away. Many who turn up walk the 5km route, whilst others participate by being wheeled in their pram. Although each participant is provided with a time, the accent is on participation rather than competition. The smiles and laughter before and following events attest to this being a community event, rather than a sporting event.

One Small Step is highly readable and engaging. Paul’s background and life experiences are honestly, and almost painfully, revealed. By giving the reader this insight into his life, Paul allows the reader to appreciate how this worldwide phenomenon came about, and also why it enjoys so many enthusiastic participants each week.

At the end of the book Paul relates an endearing story of being a parkwalker (one who walks as a volunteer toward the rear of the field to accompany others) and his engagement with a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother. It was the girl’s first ever parkrun. At the end of the 5km the grandmother said to Paul, ‘Thank you, from all of us.’

Paul’s reply was, ‘It’s been my pleasure. I enjoyed every step of the way.’

The reader is left in no doubt that Paul wasn’t referring to just that parkrun on that day.

Notes:

1. Paul Sinton-Hewitt, One Small Step: The definitive account of a run that became a global movement, MacMillan, London, 2025