idees recues

I recently read Julian Barnes's "Flaubert's Parrot", an ultimately disappointing book, but one which did contain a lot of interesting info concerning the great man himself. What I did not find in it, however, was that he compiled a famous dictionary of "idees recues" or "fixed ideas", or perhaps today we might call them "received wisdom"; those pieces of "knowledge" which are accepted without further debate. Today I offer some of my own which Flaubert might be considering if if were alive today.

1. Mental illness, especially in children, is always the fault of the parents.
2. Anti-social behaviour in young people: see no.1
3. Miscarriage is no big deal: just go away and try again.
4. The Jews have always had a hard time. Now the Palestinians are trying to throw them into the sea.
5. If we Brits adopt the euro we'll lose our national identity and become just another sub-division of the "European super-state"
6. Western religions are a force for good in the world. Beware Islam, however, which is a threat to our western way of life.
7. Allowing continuing immigration into Britain of people from other cultures will weaken and disintegrate our own culture.
8. Celebrities are better and more fascinating than ourselves, so it is legitimate to garner as much information about them as possible from every sort of media outlet available. Conversely we are also jealous of them and long to bring them down if we can.
9. All "street" drugs are bad and the use and distribution of them should be criminalised and stamped out- and that this is possible if enough resources are deployed.
10. Britain needs its monarchy, as without it we would degenerate into a mere "republic" like the US, thereby losing our souls.