Hypocrisy is a funny one. It is usually an accusation that we all guard against with violent objections. Something we may occasionally, and with flushed cheeks and a wry grin, admit to, but only when it does not clash with a belief that we strongly associate ourselves with. It is one thing to be allergic to peanuts this morning when offered a particularly unappetizing bowl of granola, and to be eating a Snickers by lunch-time. It is quite another thing to be radically against the objectification of all women, but to forgive a close male friend a snide sideways look and comment at that girl in the pub dressed like a hooker (yes, that is the word you just thought to yourself). We demand 100% dedication to a cause. Not too many moons ago, many a bleeding heart would have nodded at Nick Clegg in a pub in Sheffield. Now the man would be lucky not to be lynched in his former local without a six foot-high fence. Why? Well, in a word, hypocrisy. Betrayal, in another.
Now, I always quite fancied Judas in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, but I imagine that if I had actually been in the garden of Gethsemane that night I would have felt a little differently. My excuse has always been that he always got the best songs. So, in thinking about which New Year’s resolutions to make (and hopefully keep) this year, I had my answer ready. Diets are just another word for public self-hatred, spending less money is nigh on impossible, working harder should go without saying. No, this resolution should be a slightly more personal undertaking: namely, figuring out what I believe in, and attempting to be proactive in defending it.
For the last few months I have been fairly active vocally, both in the blogosphere and in my daily conversations, about the vast electronic conspiracy that is cutting pixellated swathes through fields once healthy with books. I have soliloquised endlessly about the march of progress stamping over my papery friends with its jack-booted feet. I even began a largely imaginary revolution on WordPress, despite my aversion to allowing my politics out of my head and onto the internet. Then, I had a long, hard look at my politics of everyday life. This started with a friend giving me a CD for Christmas, and my utter confusion upon receiving it. I literally couldn’t remember whether my laptop even had a CD/DVD drive, it had been so long since I had needed it. That prompted a few in-depth questions: when was the last time I had felt the gritty ink of a newspaper other than the Metro under my fingers? The last time I bought a DVD? The last time I used a DVD? The last time I listened to a record, tape, CD? The last time I watched something on TV at the time it was actually broadcast? Hmmm.
Oh dear. It appears that, in focussing in so intently on fighting for the rights of books, I had entirely ignored the ease with which I had slipped into a hard-core Youtube/Grooveshark/iPlayer/iTunes addiction. Not even that, I had overlooked the way in which I virtually reach for iCal, for my Mac thesaurus, for Wikipedia, for BBC weather, for the VUE website, instead of researching whatever burning query I had physically, in the real world.
So, time to get real. My New Year’s resolution is to go outside of my laptop. To ask the people beside me when the bus is coming, instead of texting Metro. To ask if anyone knows who invented KFC before googling it, to keep a paper calendar, to go to a local cinema (starting tonight!), to make a mix-CD for my grandma who doesn’t understand iTunes, to dip into my big, hardback dictionary every now and again. And, more than anything, to read every single book in my house before I complain about e-readers again. It might be a long year, it might even prove impossible; but I hope that this resolution allows me to get a little bit more in touch with the world around me, and, more topically, to get my manifesto straight before I get back on my soapbox again.
Happy New Year’s Resolution Making!
Leah Ellis
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