The low haze frequency drone you hear is the sound of a generation, lost without guidance in learning what was once common social skills and now titillated with yet another tale of vampire, zombies and any other “entertainment” project a budding Lolita can be cast into.

The sheer banality of what constitutes entertainment and please I cannot bring myself to call it “the arts” reflects the long-term spiral of education in our society as well as plummeting social skills and lack of appreciation of true art. With near pitchfork and burning torch fervour much of the mainstream turns its collective back on the arts and education, gleefully accepting drivel from the media and entertainment sector like the condemned chimp at the zoo barraged by peanuts from tourists. Yet this lost generation who laps up karaoke, gothic tales and anything else they are convinced to embrace via the endless layers of marketing, requite with paid paparazzi to feed the addiction to celebrity’s, are not products of their environment but victims of the lack of true leaders.

Education is far more than building a career and improves all of society and quality of life. While I do not wish to lower the importance of enhancing your career, when education is allowed to erode, hope for the future is merely a pastel coloured dream and another election-day promise that can never come to fruition.

Yet education is not simply fine libraries and galleries but social graces and of particular concern to note, the art of conversation. While the ability to converse as never been greater with the advent of social media on the contrary it seems to be on the verge of extinction. From every corner of the online world, comments and posts are more of street corner vendors announcing their daily offerings or the ever present insightful quotation, proof positive of the brilliant thinking process associated with “cut and paste”.

The route to prosperity, a far cry from those focused on gasping for air in recovery, comes through all approaches to education. Investing in education is the one investment that will always reap large dividends and the only item you cannot go over budget.

Written by John Davies
©John Davies Worldwide Productions, 2011
All rights reserved

John Davies is available on his personal page on Facebook and Twitter.