Saturday 25 June 2011

Happy Smurf Day




Do you like the smurfs?
Are you celebrating Smurf Day today?

I love the smurfs – they don’t do politics and live in a happy communal village where everyone is kind and helps everyone else. The smurfs don’t use money and are not troubled by greedy bankers or exploited by their employers. Everything they do is for the good of the community.

Professor Ellis Cashmore, a sociologist from Staffordshire University thinks that the smurfs embody the ethos of the Big Society. He said: ‘Cameron is asking people to get organized with their local community, have organic collectivity and work for each other, like we used to before industrialization came along and fragmented society.’

Other people believe that their creator, Peyo, used them as a metaphor for socialism.

For those of you who have been scarred for life by psycho exes the idea of peaceful communal harmony could be very tempting as the smurfs don’t seem to go in for one to one relationships.

Perhaps we could learn a lot about how to organize a fair and tolerant society from the smurfs – what do you think?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13878108


2 comments:

Connie said...

The lifestyle certainly appeals, the smurf hat and leggings combo are a bit of a sticking point for me, but I'm sure the dress code could be negotiable.

Unfortunately a fair and tolerant society needs fair and tolerant people in order to work and that's probably the biggest problem- if society had an abundance of fair, giving, tolerant people wouldn't we naturally have such a society? I think maybe society falls short of these ideals, because as much as we would like to be treated that way, the majority of us probably don't want to put the effort in to treat others so well.

The irony is, of course, that selfishness always leaves us wanting more and feeling that we have little. A giving, tolerant society would be a far more productive, happy and satisfying one.

Sue's blog said...

Hi Blossom,
Sadly, there are a lot of psychopaths in the world who seem hell bent on making other people’s lives a misery and don’t want people to have peaceful, productive and creative lives.
I like your comment about the dress code – at least it saves wasting time thinking what to wear each day – but I agree the leggings and hat are not the most flattering combination.