Me Is Under Attack

By Dana Paul Robinson

Readers at first will think this short book, Me Is Under Attack, is the lament of a disgruntled curmudgeon convinced that the declining standards in our society portend an irreversible descent into widespread boredom and barbarism. However, as they complete their journey through the always persuasive and sometimes entertaining pages, they will come to discover the author’s great hope for a better future and his suggestions for how to bring it about.

His recommendation entails strengthening relationships, the sinews of society, by reengaging those same personal standards we seem to be abandoning. And, he recommends we start with that paramount standard, the standard of beauty. It is an easy read and highly recommended for anyone discouraged by the creeping dullness that seems more and more to pervade what once was regarded as western civilization.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035832934

Dana Paul Robinson

Retired from a 45-year banking career, Dana has witnessed a general decline in those personal standards which in the past have marked civilised society. This book is his appeal for their recovery, so that his grandchildren’s generation will experience more pleasant and engaging lives.

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About the Author

Retired from a 45-year banking career, Dana has witnessed a general decline in those personal standards which in the past have marked civilised society. This book is his appeal for their recovery, so that his grandchildren’s generation will experience more pleasant and engaging lives.

Dedication

TO: THE CELESTIAL TRIUMVIRATE

Copyright Information ©

Dana Paul Robinson 2024

The right of Dana Paul Robinson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035832927 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035832934 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.co.uk

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Prologue

Reader, as you go through this little book, you will develop an opinion about me, its author, and it will be understandably critical. Were I on your side of the page, I would find the man who penned these paragraphs to be an elitist and an obnoxious snob.

I submit but one request. Please withhold your opinion of me until you complete the text. If you do, its exaggerated tenor notwithstanding, I believe you will find that rather than being the complaint of an irascible Miniver Cheevy, this book is an appeal from a concerned, but hopeful, human being, someone just like you, who is in search of a better world.

When All Else Fails

‘When all else fails, lower your standards.’

This advice appeared on a bumper sticker I saw years ago, on the back of a Mercedes-Benz.

It is one of my favourites because it suggests standards are so important that one should compromise them only as a last resort.

Today, however, I think the Mercedes-Benz owner would offer us more helpful advice, were his bumper sticker to read: ‘Raise your standards lest all else fail.’

When was the last time you heard the phrase: It’s just common decency!? Some of you younger readers may never have come across it. Common decency was a term that encompassed many standards which were believed to be generally shared by everybody. That the expression is less familiar to our ears today than it once was, is significant.

This book addresses what I perceive to be a general and continuous decline in our personal standards, a development which bodes ill for the future of our society. Indeed, even now the concept of society may itself be obsolescent.

No formal training backs me in this endeavour. I am not a sociologist and can boast of no academic credential to support the observations presented on the pages that follow. However, as a parent and grandparent who started his journey on this earth when Harry Truman was president and have since lived in this country and abroad, I feel compelled to offer some observations.

I invite you to spend a few hours with me pondering the role of personal standards in our lives. What are they? Where do they come from, and why are they important? What happens when we allow them to slide or, more provocatively, what causes them to disappear as we permit their decline? What are the consequences when these standards are no longer observed? What are examples of some standards that have diminished over recent years?

You may find the comments in these pages to be obvious. Obvious or not, they are points that need to be expressed, or – put more dramatically – alarms that need to be raised because while they may be evident to you they are ignored by many, and widespread ignorance places all of us at risk.

What will not be obvious to you is the proposition I make at the end of the book. It is a suggestion on how we can rescue ourselves from the fate that will surely ensue when, without the steady uplifting power of personal standards, we are no longer able to forestall our downward spiral into relentless boredom and probable barbarism.

What Is a Personal Standard?

My fifty-year-old copy of Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary offers several definitions for the word ‘standard’. Here is an apt one: ‘something established by authority,