Challenges of the modern world
The RSA has been assisting the Joseph Rowntree Foundation with its fascinating project to identify ‘new social evils’. We held a launch event here in July and our Fellows were invited to contribute to JRF’s online consultation.
This week, I attended a day long discussion exploring the outcomes of that consultation and implications for the next stage of the project. A stage which we hope will involve further JRF/RSA events at John Adam Street.
I won’t steal JRF’s thunder by revealing the list of social evils that emerged from the over 3,000 online submissions and more in-depth focus groups.
Maybe it’s the wisdom of crowds, or maybe a failure of popular insight, but the list reveals a pretty strong consensus around the kinds of ‘evils’ discussed at the lecture here, with materialism, poverty, and the breakdown of family and community featuring highly.
The extended seminar this week was an opportunity to look behind the list and explore connections and deeper underlying trends. There was much of interest here, but, for me, three related points stood out:
- It is not useful to try to explain the widespread pessimism about the state and direction of society by saying lives are getting worse. Indeed many things, for example social tolerance, affluence, educational attainment are getting better. Our unease may instead reflect the sense that we are not equipped to deal with the kinds of new challenges presented to us by the modern world.
- In physiological terms human evolution is a slow process (although rising life spans and evidence of substantial increases in average IQs suggest it is possible to get much better use out of the equipment we inherit). Thus far, human history comprises a very long period of very limited change, followed by a much shorter period of much more profound change. Is the tragic paradox of modernity that we are able to unleash powerful, unstoppable, processes – most obviously scientific and technological change, and modern globalisation – but we do not have the tools (as individuals, communities or nations) to direct those processes to the achievement of a better human condition.
- Returning to the RSA theme of the social aspiration gap (between the future we say we want and the future we are likely to create with current modes of thought and behaviour), should we understand this gap less as a failure of will or leadership, but instead as a sign that we need to develop a new collective consciousness? It is only this new consciousness (what our trustee Sean Blair refers to as ‘post-enlightenment thinking’) that will enable us to thrive in the world we have created, or, as it increasingly feels, the world that is creating us.
In case this all feels a bit abstract let me offer one observation which connects a major social phenomena with the ways our minds work.
We know from the research of Richard Layard and others that economic progress and rising affluence have not been associated with higher levels of life satisfaction. This insight has given rise to the development of new policy priorities designed to increase happiness levels.
The impact of Layard’s work was seen most recently when the Government announced substantial extra funding for cognitive and behavioural therapy. Studies of individual behaviour and brain processes suggests one reason for the social phenomenon of progress without happiness may lie in our individual mental processes (for a brilliant exposition of this and other research I can strongly recommend ‘Stumbling on Happiness‘ by Dan Gilbert).
It seems that we are all very bad at predicting the impact of events on our levels of contentment (systematically exaggerating the bad impact of what we fear and the good impact of what we desire). So, how are we to create a more contented society when we are so bad at predicting what make us contented individuals?
As is the style of my blogs, I am skimming the surface of a deep and complex set of subjects. The idea of a new collective consciousness requires us to bring together insights from areas as diverse as anthropology, philosophy, social psychology and brain science. Unless debate is grounded in robust research and engages with concrete issues there is a danger of falling into a kind of new age mysticism.
But this feels to me like it could be a central project for the RSA, shaping both our thought and organisation for years to come.
Any other views?
P.S.
This week the Trustees approved a set of interesting new research projects on: learning in prisons; attitudes and behaviours among small investors; social care innovation; and pro-social behaviour.
I’ll ask Jonathan Carr-West to summarise these on the programme pages of the RSA site.
Thanks to Christine Richard and Liz Sewell for interesting responses to last week’s blog.
Can we overcome our inner Sid James?
The news that the Government is to mandate sex education lessons for primary school children prompts a fond recollection of my time in Government. Policy wonks from inside and outside Whitehall were gathered in Admiralty Arch to discuss strategies to tackle the UK’s stubbornly high levels of teenage pregnancy.
I recall a very detailed and authoritative presentation from leading social policy analyst Leon Feinstein. But what really sticks in my memory is the contribution of a young German researcher from the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit (don’t worry, Axel, I will protect your identity). His contribution to the debate was evidence both of the poor levels of basic sexual knowledge among the young and of the greater levels of resistance among British parents to talking to their young about sex. In precise language reinforced by his clipped German accent, he asked why it was that the British seemed to be so embarrassed. Was it, he asked, to do with the British tradition of smutty comedy exemplified by the Carry On films?
I sensed that some in the room were becoming rather irritated by being lectured by this foreign upstart. But before anyone could rebut his impugning of our national character the young man offered a specific example of the kind of thing parents should teach their children. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it may have involved the words penis and condom. As he said these words he looked around at this room of senior civil servants and academic researchers and, yes, several of us were suppressing giggles. I will never forget his look of total mystification as he realised that even in this august body the mere mention of naughty bits exposed our inner Sid James.
Anyway, it looks at though he stuck to his argument and eventually won through; if parents can’t be trusted to overcome their embarrassment schools will have to do the job. Which is all well and good. Indeed, we hear that as well as lessons in sex and relationships youngsters are also to be given advice on money management (certainly something they could usefully take home to their indebted parents), all as part of a curriculum aiming at giving people the practical skills they need to thrive in the world.
Given the RSA’s role in developing and successfully disseminating Opening Minds our own competencies based curriculum, the Society should be fully supportive of these announcements. But I have a caveat. As any parent knows, children forget most of what they are told and are much more likely to retain something if they see its immediate relevance and applicability. So we need to be realistic about how many of these new life skills will be retained if they are taught in abstract (some would say this is the big lesson of the mixed impact of the citizenship curriculum). Instead the best way to teach these skills is to attach them to activities which engage and stimulate young people. So, for example, the best way to develop financial literacy may be to explore how schools can establish their own micro-businesses or token economies in which children apply their knowledge to motivating and fun tasks.
Which is fine for financial literacy but a great deal more problematic when it comes to sex education. I’m just glad I’m not a primary school teacher. I can imagine the child’s hand going up and the question being asked:
‘Sir, if it is important that we know all this and that we don’t get embarrassed, why do you keep blushing and giggling?’
Time to take up knitting
Soon, I hope, the RSA will be guaranteed at least one mention in the national press every week. Currently, Luke Johnson’s entertaining and informative FT column lists him as Chairman of Channel Four. By the end of next year it should say Chairman of the RSA.
Mind you we will need to improve our coordination. Writing today about ambition Luke mentions the downfall of Jonathan Aitken. Sadly, he doesn’t take the opportunity to advertise Mr Aitken speaking at the RSA tomorrow. The former Tory cabinet minister will be responding to a talk by Susan Wise Bauer author of a new book ‘the Art of the Public Grovel’ which traces the history and theology of public confessions in modern America from Ted Kennedy to Bill Clinton.
The lesson Luke draws from the downfall of political and business figures, and there are plenty of the latter crashing back to earth, is that ‘we must each know our limit, and resist the urge to overreach’. Those involved in the tangled Corfu holiday saga, featured on most front pages, may wish they had such wisdom.
The whole sorry episode is best captured by the standfirst of Julian Glover’s column in today’s Guardian.
‘What part of: ‘Oligarch. Big boat. Peter Mandelson. Spells trouble’ did George Osborne fail to understand’.
An aspect of the hubristic culture of the last fifteen years has been fawning over the super rich. To become rich in business (as distinct from simply by inheritance) you must have worked hard, taken risks and if you are over forty you’ve probably had some bad times to go with the good. But none of this means you necessarily have great insight into world affairs or policy making.
But the super rich have come to believe that having the ear of politicians is an expectation that goes with the yacht and the private jet. And for a variety of reasons (few of which are good) most senior politicians are only too happy to look as though they are fascinated by the lives and opinions of multi-millionaires. Just as the super rich often expect to get away with sexual philandering, so they enjoy showing that not only can they carouse with politicians of all stripes but that they can get them to forget their boring Party allegiances in favour of their much more important shared membership of the global party of the rich and powerful.
Who knows who said what to whom on the Greek island? What is in no doubt from the cast list of this drama was that it was an accident waiting to happen. The overlapping of the worlds of celebrity, high finance and politics is another example of the detachment of status and rewards from merit which has been such a characteristic of our hubristic elite culture. Well, we face a different world now. With business leaders and politicians facing major challenges – not least of which is to retain any respect and authority amongst an increasingly disenchanted and volatile public – it’s time to stay off the yachts and stick to the knitting.
The inequality debate …
According to the OECD, arguably the world’s leading think tank, not only have most people in the UK become better off over the last eight years but poverty has dropped and inequality declined. These findings will force a change of script from the Government’s many critics and even from ministers who have pleaded mea culpa in the face of earlier evidence of widening inequality.
The OECD findings further highlight the paradox I am addressing in my concluding essay for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation project on ‘new social evils’. It was already difficult to explain why it is, when we are living longer, healthier lives, enjoying greater opportunities and freedoms and demonstrating more tolerance and even, arguably, compassion towards our fellow citizens, we are also so prone to say society is going to the dogs. Combining an internet survey of 3,500 people and commissioned essays from leading thinkers across the political spectrum, the JRF project shows this social pessimism to be as prevalent amongst the public as it is among public intellectuals. Left leaning thinkers tended to explain our unease in a time of plenty by highlighting social polarisation. If the OECD report is correct this argument may need to be re-examined.
Forgive my unformed thoughts (after all, that’s what blogs are for) but I am beginning to develop a new theory to explain social misery amidst social progress. This came to me when I pondered the impact of the coming recession on the public mood. The obvious assumption would be that our pessimism would be exacerbated by a downturn – a bit like a reworking of the old office witticism “they said ‘smile, things could be worse’ so I smiled and they were”.
But the assumption may well be wrong. Not only is there no simple correlation between objective conditions and subjective mood, it can be at times of greatest threat and danger that communities feel most united in solidarity and hope. Throughout the nineteen seventies and eighties the people of conflict-torn Northern Ireland regularly reported among the highest levels of life satisfaction in the UK.
It does not have to be the case that economic adversity adds to social pessimism. What may be the determining factors? Try fairness and leadership. It is important that the pain of the recession is seen to be felt appropriately. This probably means three things: that those who are most held responsible suffer the most (thus the ‘no bonuses’ strings attached to Government bank bail outs), that as much as possible is done to stop a drama turning into a crisis (thus the emphasis on stopping repossessions and small business failures) and that the most vulnerable in society are protected (thus the Government’s defence of public spending in a downturn).
So far the Government seems to be getting this message broadly right. Indeed, Phil Woolas’s controversial comments about immigration at the weekend can be seen as another sign of ministers’ determination to counter claims of unfairness. From the public’s perspective it is one thing for economic migrants to cash in on a strong UK economy, it is another for those migrants to be competing for scarce jobs and resources in a downturn.
On leadership I still feel that none of the Party leaders have managed to frame what is happening in a way that is realistic, compelling and heartening. We need the kind of message that Churchill was brilliant at delivering: we are in a very bad place but if we stick together and do the right thing we will pull through. Currently the message we are hearing veers between ‘don’t panic it may all still be OK’ and ‘the world is collapsing but Gordon Brown is its saviour’. As for the increasingly disappointing David Cameron, just when he might have been expected to show how he is a new kind of leader he has retreated into an oppositionalist comfort zone.
But the bigger point I am trying to get my head round is the link between social unease, affluence and consumption. Here is my tentative argument. As individuals most of us want to feel useful, that our life has a purpose and that we are giving something back. We like to have fun and say we want to win the lottery but, in fact, the most consistent sources of satisfaction are the feeling we are doing a good job and that we looking after our loved ones. If this is true for individuals why shouldn’t it be true for society? In other words if things feel too easy we become uneasy. If we don’t know how to deal with that sense of unease we channel it into aggression – towards Government, towards outsiders and towards society as a whole. The perception of a social deficit becomes self fulfilling.
To this account one of the most vital roles – indeed possibly the most vital role – of politics is to shape, engender and sustain a sense of social purpose. For a variety of powerful reasons both major parties have largely abandoned this objective. A tough recession may provide an opportunity for politicians to reclaim their role of the articulators and mobilisers of social meaning. So far the signs are not encouraging.
Collective consumption
I wrote last week about the success of RSA Screens, at which film makers discuss their work with an audience prior to it being shown on Channel Four.
On my way into Clapham Picture House last week I saw an advertisement for a series of screenings in which operas at New York’s Metropolitan Opera are broadcast live to cinemas around the globe.
In the summer months BP and others sponsor big screen showings of ballet and opera in town squares across the UK.
By its nature going to the cinema is a collective experience, but there is a difference. Unlike just happening to sit next to a stranger at the Odeon, these events involve people using film as the focus for a group activity, or exchange, recognising that this adds something (beyond the size of the screen) not gained by watching the same material in your front room.
This desire for collective consumption will be vividly displayed tomorrow when millions of us choose to watch the Rugby World Cup final in noisy, crowded pubs and clubs.
A few years ago, in the face of falling cinema and live sport audiences, it was widely assumed we were on the road to the complete privatisation of leisure. As home entertainment options expanded and improved why would people bother with the effort and expense of going to see live performance?
But then things turned round. Film makers rediscovered the blockbuster and cinema developers went multi-screen. Sports clubs (football in particular) starting treating fans like paying customers deserving of comfort and safety; investors and sponsors saw that live sport could be good business.
The growth in collectivism goes further.
Every large town and city (and even some villages) seem to have a growing book, film, theatre or comedy festival. Then there is the expansion of the lecture circuit, the multiplication of rock festivals.
It seems we do like doing stuff together.
And something interesting is happening to our attention span. A TV executive told me the other day that it is getting harder and harder to hold viewers for longer than a few minutes. A fifty minute drama can’t succeed with one pay off at the end. It must be full of sub-plots and mini-climaxes.
Similarly, we are apparently very intolerant of websites that aren’t up to the minute, fully functional and speaking precisely to our interests.
Yet, we will sit in a muddy field and wait for hours to hear a band, watch a boring 0-0 and be delighted with a last minute winner, or listen to an author’s lecture with only a small chance of being picked in the Q and A.
It seems we are willing to put up with things live and together, that we would never accept as individuals consuming bytes of access-anytime information.
Others I’m sure have written more eloquently and authoritatively on this subject, but I find these trends interesting and encouraging.
Is there something here that links to the RSA’s broader ‘pro-social‘ debate? I’d like to know what you think.
Then again you’ve probably stopped reading by now – maybe I’ll have to do this post as a lecture instead.
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