People need to think for themselves

THE media report many worries about the possible loss of life in the seas of Cornwall and Devon due to the absence of lifeguards because of Covid-19.

I am minded of the philosopher Herbert Spencer’s relevant comment: “The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools”.

This Darwinian approach means that a country will be lively and successful when its citizens know how to look after themselves, acquire appropriate knowledge, and apply it intelligently to their actions.

When they cease to do this, but instead look to others to save them from their own incompetence, the rot sets in – and in England appears now to have done so.

When I was a boy growing up in Cornwall, and swimming in the turbulent seas of Treyarnon Bay and other similar places on the Cornish coast, there were no lifeguards. We had to look after ourselves, and in so doing learnt lessons valuable in later life.

It is a sad indictment of our political and social life today that the media now seem to blame anyone other than citizens who have been brain-washed into their folly by our nannying approach to personal responsibility.

(By the same token, Boris Johnson’s advice to ‘stay alert’ rather than ‘stay at home’ – guidance rather than a hard and fast rule – has been misunderstood, perhaps wilfully by some. He was trying to get us to think for ourselves rather than to expect others to think for us. The chattering classes of the media seem to have missed this point.)

David Lucas Liskeard, Cornwall