The Big Society

[rabbitstew]

(I think I've found my forum, now - posted this just now in Education...). Does anyone else think that David Cameron's idea of "The Big Society" is just his utterly cack-handed was of trying to say that the emotionally resilient should do a bit more to help the emotionally poor and needy (ie understanding the concept that all people in society are occasionally extremely needy and deserving of support, not just the generally inadequate)? I agree with this idea, I just disagree with the method of trying to carry it out - it takes too much responsibility away from the State. And, of course, the attitude of the City, whose workers are supposed to be among the more emotionally resilient, doesn't help foster the right attitude. Apparently, different rules should apply to them - they don't have the time to volunteer in this way, because City workers are just so self-importantly busy making money, nor do they want to donate money to the State to help it in a worthwhile project. They would rather keep all the money to themselves, or pick and choose their own pet charities, rather than getting involved in any sort of common cause. (Behaving like a group of capitalist cats...).

Which leads me to think that the political parties are not poles apart at all - they just disagree on the numbers in society who genuinely need support and how many of them can actually cope with being told to "pull their socks up." ie at least the "Big Society" rubbish is an attempt to show that the conservatives are not totally autistic (unlike the City).

Boffinmum - your point "My problem is that a lot of the things I think need putting in place look superficially like the ones the Coalition are doing, but I think the motivation and implementation would be different. I am finding it really hard to conceptualise and articulate exactly how this would manifest itself, though."

is exactly where I find myself. As an anarchist at heart (though often a social democrat in practice) I am very much in favour of localisation, mutual aid, people working together to support themselves. On the surface, it feels like I ought to be in favour of all these 'big society' proposals. But as you say, this is just not quite starting from the right place.

Need to go & do stuff now, but would love to talk more about all this.

Boffinmum and Takver, I felt the same - who wouldn't? But when I realised that it would mean volunteers doing the jobs of paid workers and big business taking over services that should be provided by the state, I went off the idea! Now it sounds more like micro-managing, and it feels like the government is actually sabotaging the local good-neighbourliness that already exists in most places.

Rabbit,I've read this thread and your other "bankers bonus" thread,I get what you're debating,I don't have any problems with your stream of consciousness type of posting, that makes for a truthful debate I reckon.

      Going back a couple years,2008ish, when the credit crunch & recession first began to impinge on the mass culture,I almost felt invigorated,I thought a new way of thought would emerge, cutting back on over consumption; making do and doing without,respect for frugality, and most of all, a realization of the fragility of the planet and the need for a more sustainable economy.I think we could could all have much better lives; and it needn,t be all sacrifice,it could be exciting,challenging and rewarding.

Now, though, just 6 months into the new coalition govt,all I really feel is fear,and I am speaking as a person living at poverty level already,I'm in my 50's, have no career,no prospects, no pension, no savings.I've never earned very much but I've had (so far) an interesting and creative life,and have raised my chidren to be considerate and kind people.

    What happened? how did this opportunity for radical reform turn into such a blaming,vindictive un-generous scenario?

      When people are frightened, they get selfish, they want to look after their own interests,and sod other people.--I feel it in myself, I'm so anxious about my own family's future that I feel as if I have no resources or energy left to care about helping other people.

And I HATE that feeling,I've spent my life being helpful,a good citizen,trying to be a kind and "good" member of society.It sits very badly with me to be obsessed with me and mine. I used to be so brave -like you takver,I'm an anarchist at heart,but my bravery has been replaced by fearfulness.

If you are right,whoever it was that said that we get the society we deserve,then maybe we do need a total breakdown before reassembling into another form. Is there an example in history we could look at and learn from?

 Please keep debating this,it is very thought provoking.

I think there is a kind of moral authorianism creeping in linked with some aspects of a laissez faire approach, whereby women get the worst of both worlds - the underpinning argument is work if you want to, we won't stop you, but by the way you ought to be at home doing your bit so don't complain if you are finding it tough.

This is very redolent of the confused policies regarding women and families in the 1980s, was a disaster then, and is starting to look like a disaster now.

I think the problem is that really we do want women to work as it brings economic prosperity to the nation as a whole, as well as a more comfortable post-age-65 existence for the individual women concerned, but we are terrified of getting into a East German type situation where women more or less have to work but end up doing everything domestically as well (which is increasingly the case from the vantage point, only without the free childcare the East Germans had at their disposal).

I think the key to unpicking it all might be addressing the British ambivalence towards children. Some people see children as a biological imperative, some see them as a luxury lifestyle accessory, and until there is a more cohesive (compassionate?) societal view we will get nowhere. We will know when we have got there as people will not be saying things like "Well you shouldn't have children if you can't afford it" and so on. We would also see more compassion towards the elderly at the same time, who are also seen as a societal burden in some ways. We have to get away from this seeing other people as a nusiance.

I've had another moment of awful self-realisation. I hit an awful lot of raw nerves with my Bankers' Bonuses thread, because as a Society we treated bankers in the City as Gods for a very long time, competent and financially savvy. We told them they were indeed the financial powerhouse of this nation and that we couldn't do without them. When things went wrong, we realised they were human after all and lost faith in them. That must be a horrendous position to be in - to be working in a climate of lost faith and yet still with the expectation that they should be able to fix everything for us.

I feel a bit ashamed, now... That's why I started my thread on The Markets, The Euro and Faith - except I don't think, under my name, anyone will be inclined to post on it!!!!!

Is the problem that we've lost faith in everything? The God of the Markets, the God of Science, the God of Socialism, God in general? Perhaps it was a mistake to think we could do without God outside of us (ie the religious God), because when we realise the other Gods are false Gods, we've got nothing else to turn to to make ourselves feel better. Instead, we have to realise that we only have ourselves to blame and that things might not actually be alright after all, because no-one is looking out for us but ourselves.

In other words, how can we re-establish some kind of faith to help keep us going, when what has to keep us going is a bunch of institutions we've all lost faith in?

Of course, if we were to believe that God can operate inside of us as well as outside of us, then we could have more faith in our own abilities to do the right thing and faith that if we stuff it up, we can still go to Heaven! (And no, I've only once in my life ever felt particularly religious, many years ago, so this isn't a preach from the converted! I've always felt a belief in some kind of power outside ourselves, though).

Eeeuuuurrgh. No. I've always believed in God, but didn't know how to worship him, because religions are run by people on Earth and I don't like feeling manipulated by people. So, I relied on a sense of inner morality to try to do the right thing - but funnily enough, that morality is based on Christian morality, because that's the faith I was brought up in. I'm getting confused again and will go away!

Agree with you about children, BoffinMum, and that people's attitudes towards them condition our views as to whether women should work in or outside the home. (But we don't all have to do the same thing, do we, and nor do men, surely).

Maybe it also explains why some people are so extraordinarily hostile towards the brave teenagers who demonstrated against the cuts - although it's also got a lot to do with the way they are usually portrayed in the media, imo.

Do we all just need to be a bit more honest about our motivations, so that we can all become a bit less cynical about our true intentions? Or would that just make the bunfight a whole lot worse?!

Actually rabbit ,I sort of agree with you --

"thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"

seems to cover an awful lot of bases for a loving society - do as you would be done by, really-

     Anyway, goodnight.

Hmm, I'm not sure that religion helps - there's a good reason for 'no Gods, no Masters' - for too much of history the Christian religion has been used to justify and reinforce the hierarchical status quo.

Just think 'The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly, and ordered their estate' . . .

an article with thoughts on the whole happiness thing here

What a brilliant article!

Another thought, from Takver, that I found chilling, from another thread on here (because it gives fuel to my fear that maybe we'll only start talking and thinking sense if we have another world war - provided we survive it at all):

"I suppose the only era in recent history where a fundamental shift in the economy has combined with increased equality of outcome was the second world war, where I believe there genuinely was a sense of 'all in this together'".

I do hope we can be more sensible than to carry on as usual and simply hope that wars and riots don't break out as a result!

Which I guess means, I personally think we are all still all hoping at the moment that we might have got away with it, so long as we tighten our belts a bit, but that we should NOT be thinking that - we have not got away with it, we've just been given a good chance to have a reality check.

Unfortunately, I think that the final bit of my comment was quite important there. I.e. that the reason that we had the increased equality of outcome was because there was a genuine fear in the governing classes at that moment in history that there was a possibility, if not a likelihood of revolution unless there was some real shift of wealth to the lower classes.

Maybe we need to make them think we are feeling a bit more revolutionary, then! Anyone for storming Parliament?

That article was scarily apt. Expensive housing, expensive childcare, long commutes, short-term employment, the myth of jam tomorrow to keep us all working, I have a reasonably secure job but I really do relate to the other things. How on earth did I get into this position?

Only those with incomes well in excess of their needs, invariably with devoted wifies on hand to keep the home fires burning, appear to be able to influence the way this country is run.

What would a female middle class revolution look like?

Are we going to stop ironing shirts, baking muffins and do a work to rule in our public sector jobs?

Yes sfxmum,excellent article,and so telling - the precariat -thats it! Me too boffin; scared, living from day -to- day,all my bravery and rebellious tendencies squashed into a selfish, gnawing worry about the future.

 Takver,when you were saying about the post ww2 scenario,and that the governing classes only acted when there was genuine fear of poor peoples rebellion,what action were the poor taking to affect change? and can we repeat it? I wish I knnew my history better. 

Could it happen again? are the circumstances similar?

BoffinMum - All female middle class women walk out of their jobs for the week?! And stop doing the school run?! Have fun with the kids at home, instead! They'll probably just blame it on the snow, though...

Can anyone lend me a sledge?

On a more serious note, "they" are clearly worried about riots spreading, as per Greece, and student unrest, etc... so I guess there do literally have to be signs of stirrings in many areas of society, rather than just in isolated pockets.

Of course, the suffragettes provided an excellent example of how women can cause trouble where it's least wanted! I would have thought, though, that it isn't just many women who are unhappy with the status quo at the moment (and who weren't happy with the status quo before the recession, hence being less happy to hope we can "get away with it" than others, despite the severe temptation if we are in a position to literally get away with it, given our personal incomes).

I agree that that is a fantastic article. And when you do try to step outside of the prescribed circle, time and again you run up against various forms of bureaucracy that can't cope with people who don't want to play the game.

I am a big fan of the Land magazine - every issue has articles that really make me want to press it on everyone out there - and their manifesto really speaks volumes to me.

Botticelli - I think it wasn't so much what people were doing, as the whole context of the times - the unemployment and marches of the 30s, the Spanish Republican government, and a sense that if the working people of Britain were going to fight for the country, there had to be a better deal on offer.

George Orwell's essays from the period (particularly the Lion & the Unicorn and My Country Right or Left) give a good feel for the times, I think (although obviously writing from a socialist viewpoint).

Could it happen again? Well, I guess when the ruling classes feel threatened they either react with extreme repression (thinking of the Chartist period, and the revolutions across Europe in the 18th C, though I don't know that much about the era) or a certain degree of liberalisation. I imagine that the international context as well as the British one makes a big difference.

Historically I guess it would be fair to say that the British ruling classes have been very successful at giving just enough to prevent outright rebellion (well, ignoring the Civil War, of course), though I am sure there are a lot of people on here who know far more about the history than me.

Unfortunately back in my student days (a long time ago!) I foolishly thought economic history was boring and pointless, and it is only as I get older that it seems to me that it is actually both fascinating and really important to understand.

Well, of course, they make sure we don't learn about that sort of thing at school!

Maybe we should all study "Garrow's Law"?! (Well, it does make good TV).