Is a Backwards Step a Sign of Failure?

I'm prompted to write this by what was probably nothing more than a throw away comment posted on the Wisbech Discussion. 

Although I do not subscribe slavishly to Freud's theories there is something useful to be found in considering our use of language and how it might be signalling a mindset. The comment was nothing important, just bemoaning the loss of a fast food chain restaurant because a multi national chain is closing a number of its unprofitable locations, limiting exposure to non-core business. The manner of it's closing raises a whole other load of interesting thought provoking considerations, but they will wait for another time.

The comment that jarred was;

" I was disappointed to discover today that Giraffe is ceasing to trade on Sunday. It feels like Wisbech is going backwards again."

Does the closure of a chain restaurant mean that Wisbech is "going backwards"?

More importantly is "going backwards" a bad thing for the town?

Yesterday another comment on Wisbech Discussion made it very clear that Evisons, a traditional shop with a long established and well deserved reputation for service received multiple comments of praise. And not one single negative comment. It was clear that many people appreciated what they had in Evisons. Nobody commented that Evisons was always the cheapest, or the most fashionable shop a town could have, but they loved it.

It was fifty years ago this week that John Lennon very publicly announced that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Lennon was proud to have triumphed over religion. And he was right. This was the onset of the ME culture. The complete opposite of Christianity that had taught us to serve others and sacrifice our wants and desires in order that the needs of others should be met.

Fifty years ago we discovered freedom from the cultural ties that bound us together as community. The majority were liberated from the shackles and constraints of Christianity, preferring the cult of celebrity and fame, and of instant everything - and that's just what we got.

Since the 60's we have experienced the cult of popular everything, music, fast food, fashion, lifestyles and, as populist trends triumphed the old fashioned traditions by which we lived were, by and large denigrated and pushed aside. 

We embraced the global cultures that communications and travel brought into focus. We replaced our traditional eating habits, working patterns, and ways of creating and sustaining families with a pick and mix rag bag of ideas with no real plan for the social change, and without knowing what we were doing.

The social change has been so fast that we have had little time to consider whether we actually like what has been happening.  Nor whether it serves the majority of us well.

Today we often hear how awful life is for young people who cannot find housing. Or for those who can only find zero hours contract work on the minimum wage. 

How many people today are homeless, rootless and detached from whatever 'blended' family spawned them. Sure there was poverty in the past but it was poverty for the whole family, the whole community. Today there is a terrible soul destroying isolation because, surrounding the individual who is suffering from no home, no money, no prospects is a whole world of lavish stylish life passing them by but being promoted through television and advertising. 

Whenever we encounter a problem should it be so terrible to consider a backward step? 

To re-think some of the so-called progress?

Maybe young people need to offer their support to the traditional restaurants and cafes we have in Wisbech that are locally owned, and maybe the owners of those non-chain establishments can look to the success of the global chains and adapt a few recipes, and implement some new ideas to satisfy those disappointed Giraffe customers. 

When businesses in Wisbech are locally controlled our local economy is more likely to be resilient and stable. When we have local family businesses there is less risk of a remote decision to scrap non-core business affecting our town.

If we take a step backwards we might learn from the past and go forward more strongly.