To say that Owen Jones's 'Agenda for Hope' is a bloody brilliant idea..?

[Scarletohello]

www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/owen-joness-agenda-for-hope-we-want-a-fairer-society--and-heres-how-we-can-achieve-it-9086440.html

The link will be active in the following post but essentially it is the proposals devised by many groups to create a fairer society for all...

Please read!

So maybe non parents are the fairest minded of all, since they don't have their own children to privilege above everyone else? They (we) genuinely want society to be fairer and more equal for everyone

I think everyone is likely to want society to be fairer, the problem is that people can have very different definitions of what's fair. So different that perfectly valid opinions of what's fair can completely contradict each other.

I didn't say not having children means you have few loving connections lotta. I said people who hold strong right or left wing views tend to be men with few loving connections - this includes partners. If you are upset by reading about how being a parent changes your life then being on a parenting site might not be the best idea for you lotta. Being a parent does change your life, and you believing it not to be true won't change that. I won't edit what I think about politics in case you read personal insult into it.

Janine, I deliberately said strong right or left wing views, not extreme views. Dictators are a breed unto themselves.

I would say Lotta, that a person without children is likely to take more people's interests into account when making big decisions. Having children tends to narrow your focus in a way that's good for the children, but not necessarily for society as a whole.

Ok, Cailin, any examples of these 'men with few loving connections'? What counts as strong left or right wing views?

No I definitely didn't grow up in a privileged household. I was born and raised in a council estate and none of the people I went to school with were too stupid to pursue education, be it academic or practical post 16. Many of them did not have the encouragement at home and / or the motivation to pursue a life more than the dole after school. But it wasn't because they weren't bright enough.

I agree that being a parent does narrow a persons focus because they naturally want what's best for their children. That doesn't necessarily mean they want their children to have an advantage over others, just they they want their children to have the best chance of success possible.

There are plenty of people that don't have the motivation further education because of their upbringing but there is only so much that society/the state can do to even things out. Parents have to take responsibility for the attitudes they pass down to their children.

It was Eysenck (a psychologist who studied personality) who originally claimed that people who were strongly right wing (as in, had conservative views/views bordering on fascism) and left wing (believed in a completely socialist/communist state) were similar in that they have a tendency toward "tough-mindedness," which correlates with a tendency not to form loving connections, often due to black and white authoritarian thinking that doesn't accommodate the nuances of relationships well. For some people this sort of thinking is personality-driven and persists throughout their lifetime, meaning they struggle with relationships and tend not to have children, or if they do have children, have a difficult relationship with them. For others this sort of thinking is adopted in youth and then wanes as they get older, towards a type of thinking that allows for more grey areas, and with that their commitment to strong views wanes too.

That's really interesting! Off to google Eysenck. Thanks.

You're being terribly high handed Cailin. Your 'wait til he has children' comment was arrogant and unnecessary. The parenthood angle on the debate is an interesting one but the smugness is unnecessary IMO

Thanks for your directions on my personality lotta. I won't be taking them into consideration for now.

I'm with CailinDana on everything.

It is different once you have kids. Sorry but it is. It's just a fact of life, and we can tiptoe around it, but you view things differently.

Now, I'm sure lots of people shall be along to say otherwise, but on a general level, a lot of things change. As a woman, for example, you wake up to feminism in a new way - the economics of childcare, the breastfeeding debate etc., etc. that simply aren't as pressing when they aren't directly affecting your every day living standard, career prospects and such. You can empathise, you can imagine - but, you can never directly experience it. And the two are very, very different.

And I think what Cailin is also alluding to is exactly the problem I have with the likes of Owen, well meaning though he may be. His agenda is one formed in a theoretical test tube - he hasn't lived half - or any - of the things he's so desperate to ameliorate.

From Wikipedia 'Jones was born in Sheffield and grew up in Stockport, Greater Manchester. He is the son of a local authority worker and an IT lecturer'. He attended Bramhall High School and Ridge Danyers Sixth Form college (now Cheadle and Marple Sixth Form College) before reading history at University College, Oxford, graduating with a BA in 2005 and a Master of Arts in US history in 2007.

Wow if that's what we're calling privileged elites these days check me with my local authority worker Mum, production line worker Dad and state school education - I am well up the ladder!!

I think there is a danger of discounting the possibility of imaginative empathy, though. You don't have to live through something in order to see that it's wrong, or unfair, or unjust.

Agree Janine - people can have imagination and empathy with other people whatever their own personal background.

Owen Jones is hardly a member of the privileged elite. He seems to genuinely care about other people and fights against injustice. His 'Chavs' book is excellent.

Cailin I haven't said a damn thing about your personality. I've commented on what you said on this thread and that's it

He's not actually a kid though is he, despite his baby face. He is 29. I am actually finding his brand of old school leftiness quite nostalgic, (and I mean that in a good way). It's been missing in British politics for a good few years.

Well I'm a mother of two and I want a fairer society. I would happily lose some equity in my house if it means my own and other people's children had the realistic possibility of affordable housing rather than a choice between extortionate rents, mortgages that require huge deposits or huge salaries, or the reintroduced stigma of social housing.

I would happily pay more tax to see more money put into childcare, education and the NHS - things that benefit all of us, even those without children.

In fact, I would say that my sense of fairness has become more acute since having children and seeing how inequal our society is and how many children are denied the opportunity to ever achieve equality or success.

Your idea of fair might be very different to another parents definition of fair though Dahlen.

I'd happily pay more tax to see better education and healthcare as well, but if I felt significantly worse off because of paying the extra tax and then still had to sit on a waiting list for months for medical treatment, I wouldn't feel like I was being treated very fairly.

And while I'd think society would be fairer if everyone had better access to affordable housing, I'd think it was incredibly unfair for equity to be taken out of my paid for property to allow that to happen, especially if I lost out to people who had the same opportunities in life that I did but who made different choices that didn't work for them.

The biggest inequality is that some people have good parents and some people don't. Raising tax isn't going to change that, and at some point, people are going to need to take responsibility for themselves.

Completely agree with Dahlen.

But being fair is always going to require some to lose something so that those who have nothing can have something.

I am actually happy to let that be me, because the long-term benefits for me are IMO worth it - a fairer society in which my children can thrive and do well without needing to rely on my funding, without fear of high levels of crime, in a society with greater social cooperation and good health care. I think that's worth more than handing them money, which can be lost much easier than it is acquired and once gone can reduce even the most intelligent, hard-working and capable person to a pit they may find it impossible to dig themselves out of.

I come from a poor background. I have worked damn hard and I have suffered for it. When I look back I'm not quite sure how I survived at times, and all that suffering could have been alleviated with a little political will and a tiny 1p raise in tax.

I don't want to pull up the ladder behind me.

So this is all being paid for with 50% tax rate?????

Utter left wing rubbish, from people living in fairy land

Janine I think imaginative empathy is good if you're writing a novel but if you're hoping to change people's lives hard facts are what's needed.

Dahlen would you be ok with having no choice as to where your children go to school? Even higher food costs to cover higher wages? Higher taxes meaning you can't afford extra curricular activities for your children, can't afford a tutor if one is needed? Initiatives that mean that even if your children work hard and do well they may never earn more than a certain amount?

His principle sound good in theory but in practice they are very hard to implement. Ironically he wants "fairness" but that can only be achieved by restricting some people's access to success which, when they are clever and work hard, won't seem very "fair. The only truly fair way to run society is to design it so the least able (both mentally and physically) have just as much chance at the top levels of power as the most able. That is just not possible. So then you look at watered down versions of that, giving the less able a leg up, supporting them. That is definitely commendable and worthwhile. But how far do you go? Should a person with no qualifications have just as much chance as the first class graduate of being chancellor of the exchequer? Or is there a meritocracy, with incentives for doing well, working hard and meeting a certain standard? How low do you set that standard so everyone can compete?i

Cailin - if parents had no choice about which school they sent their children to, I don't think it would actually make all that much difference.

A child attending a school with a predominantly deprived catchment which all the naice MC families have shunned will not have the same opportunities as a child in a weathier area. This is true. The socio-economic status of the parents affects the extra-curricular activities offered by the school as so much is raised by fundraising these days. Lack of those activities leads to narrowed horizons and poor networking opportunities.

A study of Oxbridge graduates showed that those graduates who came from a state school background consistently under-earned those who came from a private school background. Even though in many cases they had better degree results. The research concluded that the reason for this was the absence of networking made during those state-schooled years.

If you look at educational improvement rather than league table results of A-C grades, a very different picture emerges. State schools actually come out better.

Success (as measured by future earnings, which is possibly a false premise in itself) is not about education as much as it is about opportunity. Money can buy those.

I'm not going to pretend I am some latter day saint and that I would not send my own DC to private school if I could afford, but you know what? I'd happily forego it for them if it meant a fairer society overall because that will benefit them far more.

I have a friend who is so anti private school, thinks they are awful and should be abolished. Of course he doesnt send his child to an inner city school instead thanks to him and his wife good wage they bought a house in a tiny village with a wonderful local school. To me thats buying your child a better education too!

I think preventing social segregation through schooling is actually one of the best ways to make society fairer, for all the reasons you point out Dahlen. However how do you prevent it? You admit you would choose private schooling if you could. If you won the lottery tomorrow would you resent not being allowed to make that choice?