Mary Kenny
“It’s no longer about equal rights, the number-crunchers conclude: it’s about the pink dollar. It’s business”, writes Mary Kenny
I have a friend who used to exclaim about many of life’s problems: “it’s all about the flipping money!”, only she used the Irish f-word more associated with TV’s Mrs Brown.
Maybe not everything is about the flipping money, but money seems to be the basis of an awful lot of aspects of life.
Great Britain’s remarkable success in the Rio Olympics – forty medals by the beginning of this week, second only to the US and ahead of China – might once have been put down to grit and sportsmanship. But the consensus of opinion now is that it’s all down to money. Dame Tessa Jowell, who organised the London Olympics, says that the basis for Britain’s success is “funding”. Lottery funding multiplied the money available many times over, and ensured the high performance of the athletes.
Funding is important in any endeavour, but if sporting success is attributable to funding alone, then is it “all about the flipping money?”
Similarly, it emerged this week that Ireland reached an admirable place among a global listing of the “best places in the world to live”: 12th out of 133 nations. Pretty good. And if it weren’t for problems like obesity and suicide, Ireland would be even higher on the list, according to research carried out by Deloitte.
And this is vital, we are assured, because getting a high score on Deloitte’s listing is a key element in foreign monetary investment. If Luxembourg is usually listed as No.1, that must be linked to all the squillions invested in the Duchy (which, by the way, I would consider a rather dull place to live – plenty of money, but little craic).
Investment
Foreign investment is indeed significant when it brings jobs. Man cannot live by bread alone, but he must have bread all the same. But assessing a nation’s likeability according to how investors rate it is, surely, another “all about the flipping money” attitude.
I mean, isn’t it a pity that all those obese folks, and those suicidal individuals, wouldn’t pull themselves together to improve the nation’s profile for the sake of financial advisory companies like Deloitte?
During the same-sex marriage referendum last year, we were told by a range of well-meaning people, from Mary McAleese to Rory O’Neill (aka ‘Panti Bliss’) and Miriam O’Callaghan that gay marriage was simply all about love.
But if they read the Financial Times last weekend, they will have perceived that – yes, it’s all about the flippin’ money! Gay pride, reported the FT, has generated $3.7 trillion – yes, that’s trillion – last year. All the big brands have come on board to support gay rights because of the fantastic financial dividends. New York’s recent Gay Pride march brought in sponsors such as Walmart, Delta, AXA, Netflix, BNP Paribas, Nissan and Disney. Tiffany the jewellers and Budweiser beer are now running gay-couple adverts, and Burger-King have launched a proud-to-be-gay hamburger. Gay marriage has clinched the case.
It’s no longer about equal rights, the number-crunchers conclude: it’s about the pink dollar. It’s business.
Capitalism has always been amazingly adaptable. If the Pope sells tickets for a religious event, capitalism will market it: if Isis goes shopping for guns, bombs and ready-to-wear suicide vests, capitalism will provide.
I don’t disparage any system of trade and commerce: but let’s be clear-eyed about recognising the fact that “it’s all about the flipping money” is indeed behind much of what is presented to us.
Destructive porn
When Christian morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse – along with Lord Longford – tried to halt the spread of pornography, she was repeatedly mocked, disparaged, and her reputation trashed.
But now an expert in cognitive psychology at Nottingham University NHS Trust, Angela Gregory, says that the mental and physical health of young men is being destroyed by Internet pornography.
Young men she has treated for pornography addiction have developed serious depression, as well as impotency problems more usually associated with older males with conditions such as diabetes. A little porn can lead to a habit, and, says Ms Gregory, it can prove very destructive to their lives. Just as Mrs Whitehouse predicted.
In search of sporting honour
My attitude to the Olympics has, perhaps, been a tad sour. Wall-to-wall competitive sport seems so repetitive, and I dislike all the shouting and hype – and that’s just the commentators. And what with the drugs and the cheating, is there really all that much sporting honour left?
Yet seeing the extraordinary good humour and cordiality of Gary and Paul O’Donovan, the Skibbereen silver medallist brothers has rather charmed me and made me think that maybe I’ve been a bit too crabby. There is still much to admire among the spirit of the Olympians, including those who, like Katie Taylor, have had to face defeat.
Accepting it with grace is all part of the game.