“At this festive season of
the year, Mr Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more
than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the
poor
and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present
time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of
thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no prisons?”
asked Scrooge. “Plenty of prisons” said the gentleman, … but under the
impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to
the unoffending multitude, a few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund
to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this
time, because it is
a time,
of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and when Abundance rejoices.
What shall I put you down for?”
“Nothing!” Scrooge replied. “You wish to be anonymous?” “I wish to be
left alone” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that
is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford
to make idle people merry. I help to support the prisons and the
workhouses — they cost enough — and those who are badly off must go
there.”
“Many
can’t go there; and many would rather die.” “If they would rather die”
said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus
population.”
* * *
* *
From
the foldings of its robe, (the Spirit) brought two children; wretched,
abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and
clung upon the outside of its garment. “Oh, Man ! Look here. Look,
look, down here !” exclaimed the Ghost.
They
were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but
prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have
filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a
stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted
them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat
enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no
degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the
mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and
dread.
Scrooge
started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried
to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather
than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. “Spirit ! are they
yours?” Scrooge could say no more. “They are Man's,” said the Spirit,
looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their
fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and
all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I
see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased”.
“Have they no refuge or
resource?” cried Scrooge. “Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit,
turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no
workhouses?” The bell struck twelve.
From A
Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
![](images/reflec334.jpg)
Memories of childhood years that are still vivid in my mind, include
some glimpses of the impact of poverty, unemployment and homelessness on
men and women made in God’s image. We saw little destitution in
Morayshire, unlike what existed in Glasgow and the cities in England in
the immediate post-war years. But I will never forget men singing in
the street as they sought a few pence to supplement their meagre diet.
One semi-invalid old man in our town played a gramophone on the
sidewalk. There was no begging, but these victims of misfortune sought
to entertain passers by with a little music. Those among them who had
seen active service in the first world war would display their few
medals to attract sympathy.
One hot
summer’s day 50 years ago, I went into an Elgin café for a lemonade. A
poor elderly woman came in with two shabbily dressed men, presumably
relatives who were visiting her. I guess she lived in one of the ‘doss
houses’ for homeless persons. They sat down at a table and when the
waitress came the woman asked for two glasses of water. The waitress
kindly brought them without question. The woman then laid two pennies
(two old pence) on the table as payment. Despite the heat, she did not
ask for a glass for herself. That simple incident has remained impressed
on my memory. I still feel the embarrassment that a young teenager
could be well-dressed and enjoy a sweet cold refreshment, while three
aged citizens could barely afford a glass of water. Yet it was nothing
in comparison with the horrors of life then in slum parts of some of our
major cities.
In
later years I was to observe want and deprivation in its various sad
forms in many parts of the world. I recall an old fellow in a village
to the west of our station in the Zambesi valley in Africa. I guess he
had no living relatives as he was destitute and depended on the
generosity of the village which itself had little to offer. The guy was
a bit simple, perhaps slightly senile, and came up to the District
Officer who was conducting a brief meeting with local leaders. Despite
the attempts of the Boma guards to usher him away, the old man kept
asking for some provision. I was later to send him some clothing, and
modest supplies of food we could easily spare, whenever our truck went
that way, until the poor fellow passed away.
In
Turkmenistan, it used to pain me to see old people sitting on the
pavement with a few simple possessions laid out on a cloth for sale, or
to see a group of ‘babushka’s’ with hungry faces, examine some
frozen kilka sprat and calculate whether between them they could
purchase enough to form the basis of a single meal. The tattered clothes
and hungry expressions of unemployed or under-employed people in African
states like Mozambique and Sierra Leone during their difficult years,
are also imprinted on my memory.
But
even now, in the 21st century, the social problems persist.
Very recently I met a woman who was selling the Big Issue outside large
stores in Scotland. She had been a victim of domestic abuse, and I
understand had an addiction problem for a period. But during bitterly
cold winter weather, she was sleeping in a tiny tent on waste land by a
river. Some friends worked tirelessly to get her accommodation and some
income support, but it was not easily obtained or approved. If anyone
thinks that our welfare system is over-generous, or panders to the idle
and spongers, - let them find a genuine case of need and try to guide
them past the bureaucratic hurdles, and the gatekeepers who can deny
assistance for any of a multitude of reasons.
![](images/reflec843.jpg)
Unemployed man selling the Big Issue
It is
the human cost of society’s failure to provide for the sick or aged, or
those deprived of work, that impacts most powerfully on our hearts and
consciences. As one of the earlier sincere socialist MPs said when
showing a friend around homes in Glasgow’s slums, - “It has to hit
you here”, striking his breast. “You have to feel it in your
gut”.
I
comment elsewhere on the imperfections of our modern safety nets and
welfare systems, on the importance of seeing these issues as society’s
responsibility rather than just the government’s job, and on the need to
provide motivation and opportunity for people to undertake remunerative
work. But I believe it is absolutely vital that we understand the need
for those measures, and the dreadful results of inaction, before we
begin to criticise current welfare systems.
Welfare systems are
under increasing pressure as we enter the 21st century. They
are beginning to be seen in some quarters as a well-meaning but naive
experiment that has had its day. National health provisions, free
education, old age pensions, unemployment benefit, council housing,
disability allowances, and other provisions for the disadvantaged or
deprived, are now being eroded if not wholly abandoned. To discuss the
issue in a knowledgeable way we need to go back to the beginning of the
welfare state – to the Beveridge Report, - and even beyond that, - to
the social evils of the previous 200 years.
The industrial
revolution brought with it much social upheaval. Previously the bulk of
employment was to be found on the land, or if in towns and cities, in
businesses of relatively small size. People mostly lived where they
worked, and worked in direct contact with their employer. Though cash
wages were very small, accommodation and food were usually provided, and
workers ate from or at the employer’s table. Most companies were family
firms producing life’s necessities like crops, fish, meat, flour,
cheese, wool, thread, clothing, shoes, leather, pottery, kitchen ware,
tools, charcoal, candles, and furniture. Most people lived and worked
in the same locality all their lives. This was the norm in Europe
before industrialization, and remains to some degree in parts of the
poor countries of Africa and Asia. Mechanisation of farming, and growth
of heavy industry and large scale manufacturing, changed the lives and
conditions of workers and their families. People now worked for wages
out of which they had to pay for housing, food, and other necessities.
The result was often urban squalor and poverty. Employers paid little
heed to the low quality of life of their workers. It took the early
reformers like Lord Shaftesbury, activists like William Booth, and
writers like Charles Dickens, to expose the shame of industrial
exploitation in wealthy Britain.
![](images/reflec222.gif)
Ashley Cooper, Lord
Shaftesbury William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army
In 1815 John Pounds of
Portsmouth, a crippled shoemaker, was one of the first to provide free
education for poor children. His were the first of the “ragged
schools”. He was followed by Thomas Guthrie in Scotland, and by Ashley
Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury in England who did much
to promote the education and welfare, and relieve the suffering, of the
poor.
![](images/reflec844.jpg)
John Pounds, the cripple
shoemaker Thomas Guthrie who
pioneered
who started shools for poor children
schooling for poor children
![](images/reflec223.gif)
Drawing of a “ragged school”
![](images/reflec225.gif)
A Guthrie school
An amazing education
initiative in Cambodia
In 2008 our project office in Siem Reap, Cambodia, was asked
to accept three pupils for work experience which we gladly did. The
pupils, all girls, were orphans who were being educated at a large
school in Phnom Penh, established exclusively for children who were
orphaned or destitute from family break-up, abuse, or social
deprivation. The three delightful pupils were a pleasure to have assist
us in the office, and on their departure they invited me to attend their
graduation ceremony in the capital, due to be held a few weeks later. I
gladly did so, and was overwhelmed by what I saw.
The school, beautifully named “Pour un Sourire d’Enfant”
(“for a smile on the face of a child”), had been founded by a
remarkable French couple, Christian and Marie-France des Pallieres, in
1996, after they saw the appalling conditions of homeless or orphaned
children on the rubbish dumps of Cambodia’s capital city. Together in
1993 they set up the association the school took its name from, and
began with six children rescued from the dumps and the streets. The
children were filthy, under-nourished, and suffered from a range of
health problems. Their hair was matted and greasy. Over the next ten to
eighteen years, “Papa” as he came to be known as by the pupils, assisted
by his wife and a small staff and band of volunteers, established and
developed the marvellous PSE school.
From the beginning there was strict adherence to basic
principles. All children enrolled had to be genuinely destitute or
orphans. They were housed with relatives or foster families. Those who
could not return to their homes due to the dangers of abuse or drugs or
criminality, were housed in a school dormitory. All children were fed
and provided with uniforms. The education, meals, uniforms, and medical
attention were provided absolutely free. Discipline was strict. Absence
without just cause meant the pupil had to clean toilets and yards next
day. More than 3 days absence without cause meant dismissal. Another
principle was that the school accepted no financial help from national
authorities, but was careful to sign agreement protocols with the
government. The Royal Government of Cambodia later recognised the
valuable service of Monsieur and Madame Pallieres by granting them
honorary Cambodian citizenship.
By
the time I visited the school, there were 3,000 pupils. Graduates
already numbered 2,000 all of whom had obtained jobs. The school gained
such a reputation, employers were keen to take on ex-pupils who were
disciplined and eager to work. The PSE set up a small trade school wing
to equip graduates with skills for the vehicle, mechanical, food,
tourism, and hotel industries.
A personal observation
: I am sure all of us looking back on our lives would love to have
helped at least one destitute child to get an education and preparation
for a decent life and a job. To have helped ten or twenty would be
superb. Amazingly, Christian and Marie-France des Pallieres have given
such help to 5,000 children !
![](images/reflec845.jpg)
Above Sokuntheary, one of the first six children
rescued off the city dump in 1993, explaining the structure and
programmes of PSE. She is now attending university. Above right,
“Papa” and “Mama”, Christian and Marie-France des Pallieres, the
remarkable founders and directors of “Pour un Sourire d’Enfant”. Behind
them is former pupil Sokuntheary, and myself. (information at
www.pse.asso.fr
)
Flashback below: Little Sokuntheary (right) and her sister Thiery as
they were when found by the des Pallieres, scavenging on the city
rubbish dumps in 1993. On the right, the two sisters when pupils in the
PSE school, “Pour un Sourire d’Enfant”. Sokuntheary is on the left.
![](images/reflec846.jpg)
Sokuntheary and her sister when
scavenging on the city dump, and later in the PSE school.
The UK Welfare State, and the five giants
By degrees, the poor
law provisions, and attempts to introduce health care, free education,
better housing, and relief for the destitute, invalid or unemployed,
made life better for the needy and disadvantaged. None of these
measures were adequate and there was no comprehensive attempt to create
a national system of welfare, until in 1941, a 62-year-old civil servant
with a flair for manpower planning and management, was asked to chair a
committee on co-ordination of social insurance. Sir William Beveridge
was bitterly disappointed by the apparent demotion of a man of his
abilities and service record, but eventually set about the task with his
legendary capacity to grapple with complex and intractable problems, and
to forge a workable framework out of the confusion and chaos. He
recognized five ‘giants’ to be confronted on the road to a just and
equitable society; - Want; Ignorance; Disease; Idleness; and Squalor.
They were to be tackled by a comprehensive raft of measures that were to
include a national health system, unemployment benefit, old age
pensions, free education, and widespread housing provision. His report,
an instant sell-out, was published on the first of December 1942. It was
to out-sell every HMSO publication until the 1960’s. Its radical
proposals were largely implemented within the next ten years. This was
an immense achievement by any measure.
![](images/reflec847.jpg)
William Beveridge, architect of
Cartoon of Beveridge’s “five giants”
Britain’s post-war welfare state
In the Introduction,
Beveridge mentioned three principles. First he wrote that the time was
ripe for a revolutionary movement. Second, that the social security
system was primarily an attack on Want, but that Disease, Ignorance,
Squalor and Idleness, had also to be addressed. His third principle was
that of cooperation between the state and the individual. Beveridge
said that “the State should offer security for service and
contribution, (but) in organizing security it should not stifle
incentive, opportunity, and responsibility … for voluntary action by
each individual to provide more than the minimum for himself and his
family.” He was to broadcast details of his proposals and to
address packed meetings, batting down the critics who said that the
proposals would lead to feather-bedding and moral ruin. To an American
who claimed that if his ideas had been in force during the Elizabethan
era, there would have been no Drake, Hawkins or Raleigh, he responded
“Adventure comes, not from the half-starved, but from those well-fed
enough to feel ambition”.
Being two years old
when the Beveridge Report was published, I guess I was one of the first
generation to benefit from the welfare state from childhood. Apart from
wartime and post-war rationing, we saw little of the hardships or
deprivation that were widespread in the first half of the 20th
century. Pockets of squalor and misery remained in the slums of the
large cities, but we saw little of them in rural Scotland. In the 1950’s
we looked forward with confidence to a lifetime protected by cradle to
the grave welfare provisions. But the utopian scheme began to show
signs of stress by the 1970’s. Its cost escalated, and some sections of
society began to be trapped by the welfare rules, in a situation of
hopelessness, while others exploited the system dishonestly. What was
more disturbing was the spread of depression and related illnesses among
welfare recipients. Communities of unemployed or low-paid workers lived
in ghettos of dreadful multi-storey flats or ugly council flats.
Hostile anti-government and anti-authority attitudes flourished like
weeds on waste ground, together with bitterness towards those fortunate
enough to have decent jobs, houses and automobiles. This of course was
not true of all unemployed or all persons on low wages, but those who
maintained dignity and self-respect in those circumstances were probably
a minority.
Then, with the arrival
in power of Margaret Thatcher, the principle of the welfare state began
to be questioned, its provisions reduced, and its structures
dismantled. What she began, Tony Blair has continued with a missionary
zeal, which is amazing for a supposedly Labour politician. The
Government appeared to wash its hands of responsibility for prescription
costs, dental treatment, old age pensions, and free tertiary education.
Both Prime Ministers had the weight of right wing capitalist thinking
behind their policies. The argument ran along the lines that however
good and well-meaning the original Beveridge plan was, the idea was
naive and ultimately unworkable due to the increasing costs of and
demands for the services. This logic was reinforced by national economic
decline, an aging population, and expensive new technologies available
to the medical and defense sectors. Its proponents could point to the
collapse of communism and socialism throughout the world to confirm that
only monetarist, capitalist policies could work in the long term.
Someone has noted that while the communist threat remained, the gap
between the wealthy and the low-paid was within reason. Following the
collapse of the Soviet Union, that gap has tripled in the United States.
![](images/reflec227.gif)
Early days of the welfare state
Correlli Barnett has
been one of the most eloquent and forceful critics of the welfare sytem
which along with loss of empire and trade union power, he blamed for the
steady decline of Britain since World War II. In The Audit of War,
he identified post-war socialist policies and adoption of the
Beveridge Report as responsible elements in deterioration of British
power, wealth and influence. He also attributed blame to our lack of
investment in industry, and to higher education institutes and
universities which undervalued science and technology, and gave primacy
to classical subjects. I am inclined to agree with him on the latter
point, though today we seem to have ditched the classics, but instead of
investing in science, have filled our curriculums with ‘politically
correct’ and socially acceptable subjects. As one who has been involved
in development of technical and science education in developing
countries, I can confirm that they are not cheap options, and that in
every organized society there is a weight of suffocating, bureaucratic
influence that favours sterile theory over practical skill and
scientific knowledge. But was Barnett correct in his critique of the
welfare state, and his analysis of Britain’s problems ? The following
excerpt from Nicholas Timmins’ book gives us much food for thought. [Nicholas Timmins,
The Five Giants, a biography of the welfare state, Harper
Collins, 1995.]
Facts and
Myths about the Welfare State
In examining
social policy in Britain, for all its myriad faults, it seemed
that some form of collective provision was the least bad way of
of organizing education, health care, and social security. The
challenge was how to improve the welfare state, not how to
dismantle it. Virtually every day since 1948, the NHS has been
said to be in crisis. Each time unemployment rises, the
unemployed are blamed as work-shy scroungers. (The ‘scrounger’
accusation is also thrown at immigrants each time their numbers
increase.) We should challenge the myth that there was a Golden
Age when a lavishly funded welfare system operated in a rosy
glow of consensus. But we also need to expose the myth that the
Conservative party never really supported it, and always had
plans to dismantle it. And we should recall that the Labour
party (including Gaitskell) also at times had draconian
proposals to slash benefits. On the extreme right, some saw
satanic socialists bent on controlling the nation by
cradle-to-grave feather-bedding, that would sap its moral fibre
and take the ‘Great’ out of Great Britain. One must look at
what actually happened, not at the thoughts harboured by some in
each side. The welfare state and its boundaries is a being that
moved back and forth under both parties the past fifty years.
It is
impossible now (1995) to travel on the London underground or
walk the streets of our big cities without finding beggars.
That, in my lifetime, did not happen before the late 1980’s.
There were down-and-outs on the Embankment. There were places
that housed alcoholics and others who fell through the safety
net. But there were no young people, their lives blighted,
sleeping in doorways in the Strand. Yet the welfare state still
exists. Its services still take two-thirds of annual government
expenditure totaling £ 250 billion. It can hardly be said to be
dead. However, create a strong enough perception that it is
dying, and you make it easier to lop off further chunks without
anyone asking where they went.
(from The Five
Giants, adapted and abbreviated for space purposes) |
Having spent over half
my life trying to improve the lot of poor farmers, fishermen and
artisans in Africa, Asia, the Far East, and the Pacific, I am inclined
to view our state welfare system as a poor substitute for care by the
family and the community, which is what does the same job in the poorer
parts of the world. The more the welfare system is divorced from the
recipients’ relatives and neighbours, the more he or she is tempted to
take advantage of its provisions, which so many do in a variety of
ways. My sister-in-law in Canada worked as an industrial nurse for a
period, and was regularly depressed and annoyed by the blatant pretence
of healthy employees claiming disability payments from their employers
(most often from ‘backache’ which was difficult to disprove medically).
A more serious and more
widespread misuse of welfare and medicare, is carried out knowingly or
unwittingly by thousands of patients who treat the health service as a
panacea for emotional, psychological or nervous troubles that in many
cases are self-inflicted or self-perpetrated. I have lost count of the
number of doctors who have complained to me about such people who make
up so much of their work. Now I am sure some will hold their hands up
in horror at my prejudice and lack of sympathy, but my argument is that
for many such unfortunate persons, the cure, or rather the healing, lies
elsewhere. And my own view as a total amateur in medicine, is that
pharmaceutical drugs often compound or aggravate the problem, or else
reduce the patient to a state of dependence. Of course, there are
genuine and serious cases of mental and emotional illness that some
medications and professional counseling can help. But too often such
illness is a result or symptom of a society that has ceased to care,
that has eroded human and family values, and that feeds its victims on
trash diets, both mental and physical, that can only add to the
malfunction of body and soul.
![](images/reflec848.jpg)
Doctor attending a patient
![](images/reflec850.jpg)
Pharmacy shelves of drugs and
medicines
Unemployment benefit
and its related allowances, that were such a life-saver to families
during the depression, have become for many an obstacle to
re-employment. I met numerous persons who dearly wanted to work but
were caught in the welfare trap. Then there are those who have lost all
will to work and turn their energies instead into maximizing the number
and range of benefits they can extract from the system. Although
brought up in a socialist family, I have always felt that no-one really
wanted the ‘dole’ as we termed unemployment benefit. People wanted a
job that gave them dignity and something to take pride in and yield an
adequate income that they had earned by their own efforts. Hand-outs
could never do that. The old Pauline church rule that said “if any will
not work, - neither should they eat”, may seem severe to our modern
ears, but that is pretty well the situation in poor countries where the
invalid and aged are cared for, but not the indolent.
Management systems
So what is wrong with
our systems that we spend such colossal sums on and yet from which we
see such poor or unsatisfactory results ? Two major mistakes in my
view are - too much emphasis on management, and too little attention to
actual impact or desired outcome. Numerous informed students of the
situation have come to similar conclusions. Good management is
something all businesses and societies want, but the management systems
themselves contain the roots of their excessive and perpetual growth.
In the jargon of that science, this is known as “positive feedback”.
Elements that support
the self-perpetuating tendency, are the obsession to document
everything, and the technique of appropriating power through control of
financial and staffing decisions. Despite numerous attempts to reduce
or limit the growth of bureaucracy, few governments or large
organizations have been able to do so. Governments of both the liberal
and conservative persuasion (but mainly the conservative ones), have
been elected on manifesto pledges to cut bureaucracy. Practically all
have failed. The administrative juggernaut rolls on regardless. The
consequences of management proliferation, according to David Ehrenfield,
are – bad decisions, demoralization of producers, and the loss of
skilled practitioners or their replacement with ‘paper pushers’. We
can all recount umpteen examples of the stupidity and pointlessness of
modern management decisions that cause despair and frustration in the
workforce, yet are defended like infallible doctrines by the high
priests of our administrations.
On the subject of
management proliferation, one of our parishioners in Edinburgh once
asked me to accompany her to a social services hearing on why her
children were not attending school. She was a pleasant and decent women
in her own way, but like many in her situation, could paint a picture to
present herself in the best light. She waxed eloquent about the lack of
support from her husband, and even hinted at his drinking (I knew the
man and he drank sparingly if at all, and was often alone caring for the
kids when I visited the home). The real reason I surmised for the
children’s non-attendance was the cost of their bus fares which the
social services would not pay since they could have attended a school
within walking distance but somehow chose not to. However, that is all
just background to my point. The meeting we attended took well over an
hour. There were about 15 professional social officers and school
administrators of one sort or another in attendance. Only the
chairperson spoke, and no-one challenged any of the mother’s statements,
but instead nodded sympathetically at every point made. In the end no
decision was made that I recall, so the children continued to skip
school as often as they pleased. My point is that if this was typical,
- one solitary case demanded the attendance of large numbers of paid
officials, then – a). the system is very poorly managed in terms of
productive use of personnel, and b). since there appeared to be zero
result, much of the system and its operation, is quite ineffective. I
called the chairperson later and offered my own perception of the
problem from my knowledge of the family, but she dismissed my views.
Do we not need to focus
on the ultimate aims and objectives of our organizations ? All our
expenditure of money, energy and labour in health, education and welfare
systems, has to have a clear goal, and these objectives are really quite
simple, if difficult to realize. We want our people to be healthy. We
dearly want our children to be able to read and write and count, and to
acquire skills appropriate to their chosen careers. We want to treat
our aged and infirm with dignity and care, and to provide those going
through a period of no remunerative work, with the necessary temporary
assistance to survive and find fresh economic activity.
Most of the medical
profession will agree that our health services need to focus more on
holistic medicine and livestyles that are preventative towards disease
and illness. We also need to move more and more towards dietary cures
and use of herbal remedies and other natural medicaments. We should be
reducing our reliance on manufactured drugs, and cutting back on
non-essential operations. As long term goals we need to aim to minimize
the number of new tobacco addicts, and binge drinkers. And let us in
the name of sanity, protect our children from the proposed legalization
of marijuana. It would also help if we could cut drastically the
consumption of sweets, soft drinks and sugared cereals, especially in
children. We do not need to be kill-joys. One can make a soft drink or
iced lollipop from fresh fruit juice, just as easily and almost as
cheaply as from sugar, flavouring and colouring.
Education
Our schools and halls
of learning have become battlegrounds for control by political
correctness brigades, and experimental laboratories for those who would
encourage and teach abominable soul-less secularism, individualism and
weird lifestyles. As Professor John McKnight has put it, ‘the
bereavement counselor has replaced family and friends’ and kids are
conditioned to think they can handle grief without tears. The poor
teachers themselves are, like the policemen and women, made to be
scapegoats for society’s failures. Discipline and correction are dirty
words. Teachers have to spend more and more of their time on mindless,
meaningless form-filling, while our children graduate with less and less
ability in the three ‘R’s. In higher education we are neglecting
science and engineering, literature and history. Let’s have less
modernism and novelty subjects, and more of the bread and butter of the
subjects that are of most value to society.
![](images/reflec852.jpg)
Schoolchildren (in Thailand)
Numerous attempts have
been made to improve education in recent years. The most interesting
are those that focused on the worst performing schools in Britain and
America. The common reaction of politicians and shallow observers could
be summed up as “bashing the teachers; despairing of the pupils; and
moaning about the budgets” ! My own conversations with teachers has
increased my estimation for the dedicated people in that noble
profession. But I have been made deeply aware of the problems a school
faces when pupils are drawn from districts characterized by
unemployment, crime and vandalism. Even in less troubled towns and
districts, our schools can be a battleground where society’s ills are
reflected in loutish behaviour, bullying, and lack of respect. Drug
dealers push their wares through children in the playgrounds and
toilets. Given the unfavourable background, it is a miracle that our
kids still obtain a reasonable schooling.
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School
playgrounds – happy places, or sites of bullying?
Among the successful
programs in dfficult parts of U.S. cities, one worth considering is
described by William Ouchi in his book Making Schools Work. The
approach involved giving maximum independence and flexibility to each
school so they could better cater for the needs of the local district
and its population. Principals became autonomous and not subject to
administrators. The decentralized system had seven key elements, all of
which are deemed needful. They were : 1. principals become
entrepreneurs; 2. schools control their own budgets; 3. everyone is
accountable; 4. authority is delegated throughout; 5. student
achievement is a major focus; 6. the school becomes a community of
learners; and, 7. there is real choice for families. The results were
remarkable, given the pre-program situation. Pupils’ grades rose
dramatically, general behaviour improved, and admission applications
increased. Here there is much food for thought for our central-
government-controlled, bureaucrat-managed, politically-directed, systems
of education.
Sir Ken Robinson, the brilliant author of “Being in Your
Element”, and UK Commissioner of Creativity, has written and lectured
widely on the flaws and failures of much of modern education. He quotes
figures that show how 33 per cent of young people drop out of formal
schooling, or suffer through it without being inspired or equipped by
it. On the other hand, our colleges and universities are churning out
thousands of graduates who cannot find employment. The graduates simply
do not have the skills that employers are looking for today.
He believes our whole system of education is based on a 19th
century model, an inert system of linear planning, based on the needs of
industry and the civil service, and fails completely to encourage
imagination and creativity. Teachers and inspectors trained in the old
model, have a very narrow view of the purpose of schools, and use
extremely limited criteria to assess a pupil or student’s abilities and
competence. When such officials are confronted with the failures of
conventional education, - rather than seeking a radical reformation of
the whole approach, - they simply try to enforce the old system in the
hope it will work more effectively.
Robinson’s brilliant analysis focuses on human development
which is organic, and parallels the ecological principle of diversity.
Yet in most of our institutes of learning and systems of education, we
stifle natural aptitudes and largely ignore the value and potential of
imagination that has the power to excite young people and activate their
latent creativity.
Roger Mullin has commented : “Sir Ken Robinson is not alone
in his analysis of education. His type of critique has led to many
social/educational experiments over the years from pre-school (such as
free play, outdoor learning where it is the young child effectively who
determines the focus of learning) through to experimental home learning,
schools, open universities, and so forth. Unfortunately, almost all
such initiatives are taken by the private sector as most governments
continue to cling to the 19th century model.”
I am not an academic,
but I did teach at a university for two years, and worked on the
establishment of another, as well as undertaking curriculum development
and upgrading of staff, for several more. I found that some professors
had remarkably broad minds, sharp intellects and a great depth of
knowledge. Rather many others appeared sterile, devoid of imagination,
and quite ignorant outside of their narrow field of specialization. It
is said that our universities are know-how institutions, when they
should be know-why institutions. We need to move them away from ‘the
crushing weight of unevaluated facts’ or ‘bare-bones cognition’ towards
an understanding of life and humanity, value and purpose, and the
inter-connectedness of the whole natural world to man’s long-term
survival. Science is important, but not in isolation from the most
serious problems we face. Cleverness is not understanding. An IQ test
may measure intelligence, but it tells us little about our wisdom,
character, loyalty and moral stamina, - which are the qualities that
will determine the kind of contribution we will make to the world
regardless which career we may follow. Universities need to be freed or
protected from pure commercial or political pressures that would direct
them into production of graduates equipped mainly to design expensive
synthetic drugs, ever-more powerful weapons, or more sophisticated ways
of managing, controlling and manipulating the public at large.
Arthur Herman’s
fascinating book on the Scottish Enlightenment traces the influence of
Scots writers, artists, theologians, doctors, engineers, lawyers,
architects, missionaries, businessmen, shipwrights, soldiers, teachers,
reformers, and explorers, who together had an enormously beneficial
impact on the rest of the world, out of all proportion to the size of
their country. Their devotion to learning and to the betterment of
society was based on a strong sense of moral discipline and personal
initiative. This in turn was largely due to the moral and spiritual
focus, and its basis in Biblical theology, of the Scots universities and
their men of learning. Few today realize how much of that kind of
instruction made up the education of Adam Smith, Allan Ramsay, James
Watt, Robert Adam and Walter Scott. One wonders what they would make of
the brazen Philistine attitudes of many in academic life and the media
in Scotland today. A quotation* from Herman’s book is relevant:
“They saw the doctrines
of Christianity as the very heart of what it meant to be modern.
Robertson said, ‘Christianity not only sanctifies our souls, but refines
our manners’. As Hugh Blair put it, religion ‘civilises mankind’. …
‘Industry, knowledge and humanity are linked together by an indissoluble
chain’. It makes men free, and enlarges their power to do good. Virtue
and enlightenment move together step by step.”
[A
Select Society : Adam Smith and his Friends, The Scottish
Enlightenment, Arthur Herman, 4th Estate, 2003]
So, while we think
about education – when oh when are we going to stop our amazingly potent
and powerful media and communication systems becoming dominated by the
vile, the stupid, the sensual, the sordid, and the sensational? The
lowest common denominator prevails on television and in the pages of the
tabloid press. The internet has given the world’s pornographers and
paedophiles direct access to our children for their rotten wares and
foul imaginings. Surely it is not beyond the powers of governments to
place controls and limits on the spawn emitted from depraved minds and
unscrupulous profiteers. One gets the strong impression that no one in
government or the judiciary has the political will or the moral backbone
to do anything about it.
![](images/reflec854.jpg)
Family watching television
Pensions
Old age pensions have
become impossible for governments to sustain. Britain collected
contributions from its working population for the past fifty years, and
instead of investing the money, squandered it in the (false) hope that
there would always be enough new contributors to maintain a cash flow to
cover the pensions. Now all governments realize too well that our
senior citizen population is increasing while the relative number of
wage earners is decreasing. That is a recipe for bankruptcy of
government pension schemes. The problem is going to get worse before
replacement schemes are fully developed. So what can be done?
One suggestion of our
government is for us to delay retirement. While I feel repugnance at
the callous and calculating proposals of our current administrations,
this suggestion is one that I think has value, but for very different
reasons from those of our treasury. Men in particular, need to work.
Work should be and can be therapeutic, fulfilling and satisfying, quite
apart from any earnings it generates. Too many men deteriorate
physically and die much sooner than they should because of lack of
exercise for body and mind, and general lack of interest in life. Even
a modest pastime like gardening, or golf, or model making, can be a
splendid tonic to a senior citizen. But I also believe that those with
a lifetime’s knowledge and skill should continue to use it, whether in
the workplace, or in training others, or in voluntary work at home or
abroad.
Our prosperity as a
nation or people, (and our basic happiness), comes as much from our
consumption patterns as it does from our earnings. It has been said
that the richest person in the world is not the man who has the most,
but the one whose needs are met. If we focused on our real needs rather
than our greeds, we would be much more contented. In energy use, we
could save enormously by the simple measures of insulating our houses
and utilizing low fuel consumption vehicles. So, in the national
economy we could retain and increase wealth by reducing wasteful
expenditures. A good start could be made by cutting back on
sophisticated military hardware.
![](images/reflec856.jpg)
A mega-casino in Nevada, USA
![](images/reflec858.jpg)
A mega-casino in Macao, off China
New Labour’s ministers
would promote the growth of mega-casinos as they encourage and cash in
on, the obscene national lottery. Television programmes, from the ‘Who
Wants to be a Millionaire’, to the ‘prosperity gospel’ evangelists,
operate on the principle of encouraging and inflaming covetousness and
greed. Our grandparents believed that was a bad thing to do. We have
tried to make it a virtue, and a source of entertainment. No one talks
about the old-fashioned values of contentment and self-control. Yet
they are far, far more likely to produce genuine happiness and serenity
than any of the appetite-inflaming productions of today’s hucksters and
charlatans. One day maybe, we will learn wisdom. But perhaps, sadly,
only after we have ruined ourselves and spoiled our children, pursuing
the sham attractions of “Vanity Fair” in its 21st
century forms.
![](images/reflec228.gif)
Drawing of Vanity Fair from Bunyan’s
allegorical book, Pilgrim’s Progress
What Adam Smith
really said
In much of
today’s press and media, there is a caricature of Adam Smith and
his writings, - chiefly The Wealth of Nations, that
presents him as the father of modern capitalism in its most
extreme and uncaring aspects. It might be helpful and
educational to take a closer look at what this gifted and
eminent Scottish thinker and writer actually believed and said.
Born in
Kirkcaldy in 1723 , the son of a customs inspector, Adam Smith
first thought of becoming a minister or a lawyer, but once
coming under the influence of Professor Hutcheson in Glasgow
University 1737, set his heart on being a moral philosopher.
Francis Hutcheson was the son of a Presbyterian minister in
Northern Ireland. He lectured on Natural Religion, Morals,
Jurisprudence, and Government, as well as delivering Sunday
sermons on the excellence of the
Christian religion.
Hutcheson
focused much on the freedom and happiness of society. He
believed that freedom’s ends were governed by God through our
moral reasoning and taught that the nature of virtue was as
immutable as the divine Wisdom and Goodness. Smith was to
succeed Hutcheson to the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the
University. That educational background is reflected in the
full title of his earlier and less well-known book : A Theory
of Moral Sentiments, which its author considered a better
work than Wealth of Nations. The Scots university
professors debated long and hard on whether mankind was
basically selfish or basically good. This reflected the
tensions between the dogmas of Presbyterian Scotland, inherited
from John Knox, the view of the Catholic Church, and the growing
rationalism and humanism of modern thinkers. Like a good
Presbyterian, Smith saw mankind as basically selfish, but also
saw how that self-interest helped to build capitalism and drive
industry and commerce. However, the self-interest was balanced
to a degree by the need for cooperation that was brought about
by the division of labour and the inter-connectedness of
industrial society. He had little time for government
interference in the economy, which he viewed largely as
unhelpful, or worse, except however, for the protection of the
weak and vulnerable.
A full century
before Karl Marx, Smith identified the human problems resulting
from monotonous work in miserable factory situations. His pin
factory example illustrated well the mental mutilation of
workers in cramped places in the chain of production, where
there was no room for the enlargement of mind and spirit. This
merited the most serious attention of government and civic
institutions to counteract the deformity of human character
resulting from the division of labour. He did not believe as
some had avered, that society benefited from becoming entirely
‘commercial’ in its mentality and attitudes. Steps had to be
taken to correct and counter the bad effects of commerce in both
capitalist and worker alike. A major step would be public
support for schools to ensure that the benefits of a civilized
culture reached the public at large, (like the parish schools of
Scotland). Adam Smith understood that a modern capitalist
society would be committing suicide, politically and culturally,
if it failed to establish a decent system of education for all
its citizens.
Capitalists were
susceptible in his view to losing sight of the larger picture,
and to viewing life in the narrow terms of their businesses,
profits and losses. Smith believed that a free market would
help to curb the greed and power of some merchants. He had
criticized them for their inconsistency in complaining about
high costs, while saying nothing about the bad effects of their
huge profits. Smith deplored the mean rapacity and monopolizing
spirit of the greedier merchants, opining that the government of
an exclusive company of merchants is perhaps the worst of all
governments of any country. We have seen evidence of this the
past century and at present, in regimes where a handful of
businessmen have obtained either political or monopolistic
control, (or both), be they drug barons, oil barons, sugar
barons, diamond dealers, or loggers - and they have gone on to
act with brutal uncaring greed and selfishness.
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![](images/reflec860.jpg)
Adam Smith, the much-quoted Scots
economist and moral-philosopher
Our view of prosperity
is strongly influenced by the barrage of messages we receive from every
form of media, that equate economic well-being with the value of shares
traded on the stock exchange, the excessive profits made shamelessly by
large corporations, rises in the gross national product, and the amount
of lending facilitated by our banking and financial institutions. By
these measures, countries like the south Pacific states, Cuba, the
Faeroe Isles, or the Maldives, may appear to be poor and insignificant,
but their people on average enjoy a better and more peaceful
environment, with enough to eat, and adequate systems of education and
health. For ordinary people, quality of life may be good when GDP is
low and can be miserable even when the GDP is high.
Our press and media regularly express disapproval of the excessive
profits made by big business, and of the obscene salaries and bonuses
that the captains of industry award to themselves at every opportunity.
Politicans wring their hands and claim to be offended by the behaviour,
- yet none of them do much about it. It has appeared to me that there
is a basic dilemma posed by their blanket acceptance of the capitalist
free-market system, and the opportuniies it gives to human greed,
corruption and weakness. Without a strong fundamental integrity in
society, the entire system encourages and rewards sheer greed. But then
we have long since ceased to teach the cardinal virtues or the seven
deadly sins in our schools. The Bible is rarely read by students unless
in a critical or myth-ridiculing spirit. And our judicial systems are
much more lenient on the white-collar criminal than they are on the
opportunist street thief or rapist. |