Are we trying too hard to think? Well, no, must be the simple answer to that question. Are you saying there is a problem? Are you pussy-footing around (in your decent English fashion) implying a question/problem that you don’t actually define. There is something you call NHS Intelligence as though it might a branch of MI5 or MI6 and there is something about speed . . . you are probably not talking about waiting time for operations but then again maybe you are.
In your plea for less thinking, are you referring to the constant interference by every government to reorganise the NHS; to attempt to move towards greater efficiency – a much beloved trope of authority talking about others. It must be why authorities, those with a smidgeon of power, move reflexively towards tyranny. And why the rest of us have to busy ourselves with keeping an eye on things and discovering new and exciting ways to resist their forays into dictatorship. And it’s why there is no such thing as a free market – because those with a smidgeon of power always want to distort the market in their favour and there are those who have accumulated great wodges of power and have developed cosy relationships with those we have (with faint hopes) elected as a government.
It does seem certain that there is a whole strand of thought in England which is infected and dominated by US hysteria about anything remotely socialistic (like the NHS) and this strand of (non)thought is also dominated by neo-con free market madness, despite the recent evidence that it doesn’t work – except of course for the few. And no doubt the Tory Party is about to morph any time soon into a Tea Party look-alike, a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-European Rottweiler.
What am I supposed to be not thinking about?
Should I adopt a mitteleuropean shrug of the shoulders? Inscrutability in the face of dictatorship?
Yes, no doubt we need a smile, a shrug and a bit of cunning in order to survive. A subtle (or not so subtle) resistance to the government of the day which these days seems to be infected with the Blairite hypermanic managerialism. So far the secret police have not infiltrated every aspect . . . though who knows how far off that day is . . . the privileged obviously have to protect their privileges, the pirates their treasure, the bankers their bonuses. And the rest of us . . .
What comes to mind is 60 million ways of resisting and 60 million ways of working and laughing . . . actually that’s what we are:
Working, resisting, loving, laughing
Creatures
Persons
Women and men
Children
Babies
And the still to be conceived
All that force waiting to be formed human
And of course doubting, thinking, believing, making the wrong decision (again), not overly efficient and, yes, complex.