'Difficult Choices'

With the latest onslaught by the government on our society we are repeatedly told that, with regards cuts, there are difficult choices needed to be made with regards where these cuts are going to be made. These 'difficult choices' are usually framed something like this.

Which of these do you value most?

1-The community archaeologists

2-The crossing guards outside the local school

3-Street lighting on dangerous streets

Well, to be honest I want all of them. How about we frame the question slightly differently?

Which of these do you value most?

1-The community archaeologists

2-Billions spent on nuclear weaponry that we must never use

3-Corporate tax avoidance robbing us of billions that could be spent on services

Looked at like that the answer is easy. We are basically being offered something of a Sophie's choice. We are given a limited set of choices, all of which are a direct attack on our societies, our culture, our heritage, the things that make us who we are and which improve our quality of life.


The choice, to me, seems clear. It's not between nurses or teachers, crossing guards or curators, street lighting or social services, art or science. The choice is whether or not we are going to stand up and defend all the things we have built over the centuries, all the benefits we have won through struggle, benefits the ruling class have fought against every inch of the way or whether we are going to roll over and allow them to steal from us that which is ours.

Obviously my special interest here is in archaeology and our heritage but these things don't exist in isolation. They are part of the wider fabric of society, the actual big society not Cameron's cloak of deception for his ideological attacks on society, and as such play a role in education, in community cohesion. Archaeology and heritage are as important as every other aspect of society that makes our society richer and more vibrant. The sciences, the arts, the humanities are all the produce of human ingenuity, creativity and labour that have over the millennia added to the sum total of human happiness.

We need archaeologists, physicists, poets, brain surgeons, electricians, chemists, plumbers, firemen, teachers, nurses. We need to learn new languages, create new works of art, provide food, medical care and good quality housing for the everyone who shares this fragile planet.

We do not need weapons with which we can drive our species to extinction, we do not need a minority of parasites leeching off our collective labour and creativity for their own benefit.

The struggles against the cuts, be they in education, heritage, science funding, health and housing provision, are not struggles to protect one facet of our society at the expense of any other. They are struggles to preserve everything we have won so far and to gain so much more.