The latest incarnation of our society's self obsession came in the reaction to Amnesty International UK's recent report into attitudes towards rape in the UK. Apparently about one third of people here believe that if a woman is wearing revealing clothing and is drunk then she bears at least some of the responsibility if she gets raped.

I guess this also applies to when I was growing up and myself and my other long haired mates were getting attacked for how we looked and dressed. If only I'd known that I was asking for it, it all makes sense now. If I'd just cut my hair and dressed like everyone else I would have been safe. Thank fuck I live in a free and liberal society hey?

Apparently this survey partly explains why only 5%, (FIVE PERCENT) of rape cases in this country result in a conviction. So here in merry old England if you're a bloke accused of rape you've got a 95% chance of walking away! There is something very wrong with that.

These are shocking statistics, until you realise that you're only shocked because you've been assuming that most people hold the same 'reasonable' beliefs as you. Before we tackle the ethics of this question however, I'll just recount one idea this story inspired.

Listening to people describe 'the real world', as opposed to, 'an ideal world', I was struck by the rhetoric that was being banded about as it reminded me of something else. It is apparently unrealistic to expect men to control themselves, they and their urges are as they are, and so, if women want to be safe, they must hide their bodies for their own good.

Now it's funny, but one of the most iconic 'differences' cited between secular western culture and the, supposedly weird and alien, culture of Islam in the media is the hijab. Women's rights are so often said to be being curtailed in Muslim countries because their society demands that they cover themselves to be protected from rape. Suddenly it seems like an Islamic state would actually fit in quite nicely with a lot of people over here after all.

Anyway, are the scantily clad female binge drinkers 'asking for it'? Well I don't think so. The analogy that immediately occurred to me was to consider leaving my front door wide open. Does this increase my chances of being robbed? Yes. Does this mean that I deserve to be robbed? Have I forfeited my right to own property? Would the act of theft be less illegal, or less morally wrong? No.

Yes, it would be a stupid thing to do but the law is there to protect everyone, especially the stupid and the vulnerable. Society has a duty to protect and care for all it's members. The flip side of this of course, is that every individual has a duty to look after themselves so that more of society's resources are available to the truly needy.

Now it may be tempting to some to then say, ha! if you fail in this duty to society you deserve what you get. This is a perfect example of a major problem we seem to have, namely that we only seem to be able to think in terms of compulsion. Many people can see only one mechanism for social change, if you do the wrong thing we hit you with a stick, that'll learn ya.

Unfortunately this just does not work, if it did our society would be perfect by now, what with the sheer number of stick beatings we like to hand out. There is another way and I like to think of it like this:

You're in a small lifeboat with a lot of other people. The boat has sprung a leak and is sinking, everyone's panicking and desperately bailing out water. The problem is that no mater how much water they throw over the side there's always more to replace it. Finally someone stands up and says: 'For fucks sake! Will somebody please just plug the hole!'

There are a million parallels to this, arming the police is a good example. People are shooting at our police and it is unreasonable of us to expect them to put up with it, so what do we do? Arm the police? More water floods in as more criminals arm themselves. Keep the police safe? More water floods in as law and order breaks down in what become no-go areas. Do nothing? More water floods in as the police find their jobs more dangerous and recruiting more difficult.

Plug the gap, go to the root. Why are people shooting at each other? Why are people getting blind drunk every week? Why are people raping and robbing one another? These things are, in the vast majority, products of society, they reflect the state of our communities and the form of our economy. Of course tackling these problems is far more difficult than coming up with yet another short sighted initiative but there's a good reason for that: the rewards for success are so much greater.

There is a belief that people can't be changed, that notions such as, encouraging people to have interests other than drinking for example, are unrealistic. This may seem sensible but it is patently and utterly wrong. Why is it that so many people follow such self destructive recreational pursuits, drink, fast food, TV etc? Human nature? No! Human beings did not evolve to do such things, in fact the way our bodies respond so badly to them suggests quite the opposite.

The reason these pastimes have become so popular is because it is in the interests of certain people that they do. Decades of a perpetual barrage of multimedia advertising has shaped our society and defined our spare time. It is in fact entirely possible to sway populations into trends, even things they don't want that'll ultimately kill them, without any punishment or threat tactics, just ask McDonalds.

The fact is that private companies have far more influence over the nation than our elected government. People may dismiss this as conspiracy theory, saying that the companies don't make the laws or govern etc but this misses the point. They don't need to do any of that because the real power, the real driving force of our society is consumer capitalism which defines not only the jobs we work, but what we do when we're not at them.

So it is entirely possible for us to plug the leak, to tackle the social problems instead of their resultant symptoms. The techniques are there, they're just being used to deliver profits instead of happiness. If we consider freedom to be total independence to decide the course of our own behaviour then human beings are not and never can be free. There are forces all around us that shape our attitudes and behaviour, the nearest thing to freedom we can get is to take control of these forces.

That's it for today, I'm off to get dressed, carefully, after all I don't want to accidentally 'ask for' anything do I...