Reasons to be cheerful – one, two, three
We are told our society is ‘broken’, we know our economy is in recession and it feels like our democracy is falling apart at the seams. So, now is the time for me to point out some things that have got better. Not the kind of big ticket public service targets the Government will want to boast about, nor simply the consequence of increasing affluence, but more subtle changes that are worth celebrating partly because they make us feel better but also because they help us to understand how progress happens.
I spotted the first when running in the Great Manchester Run on Sunday. This year there were 33,000 runners, up from 31,000 last year and a high proportion were running for charity. There must have been at least twice that number out lining the course cheering on their relatives and friends.
I don’t know the exact history or statistics (although I’d love to hear from anyone who does) but my recollection is that these kinds of mass events only really started when the London Marathon kicked off popular distance running in 1981. Now, taking into account the Marathon, the Great North Run and all the other events like Manchester, there must be upwards of half a million people a year setting out to meet their own personal target bolstered by the efforts of fellow runners and spectators. And you can add to that the growing popularity of distance cycling, swimathons and, for the super fit, triathlons.
But it isn’t just running that we are doing more of together. We are just about to embark on the summer festival season. Hundreds of thousands of people of all ages will be getting out their wellington boots, tents and sun block. And for the more sedate and cerebral there is the explosion in public lectures and debates (a phenomenon of which the RSA can proudly feel part).
Finally, different but equally positive – go to almost any large town or city in the UK and they will be able to point you to young people involved in local decision making. There are local youth Parliaments, youth Mayors and the Youth Opportunity Fund, through which young people themselves decide how to spend grants for young people’s activities. Given what they are seeing in Westminster these young people may not decide to get involved in formal politics, but from very little happening a decade ago, there are now tens of thousands of young people up and down the UK involved in debate and real decision making.
Give people the opportunity to do stuff together, make it challenging, fun and purposeful and look what can happen. We spend so much time breast beating about the state of society, and having learned debates about civic capacity and social capital (yes, I know I can talk!) but meanwhile a new collective spirit is emerging in fun runs, country fields and youth councils.
Marathon time
So I’ve done the marathon. Three hours 28 minutes and 52 seconds. Just inside my 3:30 target and just outside the top 10 per cent of runners overall. I started writing this on Monday morning and was still as stiff as a board, sunburned and sore all over.
The first fifteen miles were fine with my second 10 km my fastest. Between 15 and 20 it started getting rough and then…
Everyone tells you how tough it gets at the end but nothing can really prepare you.
When I got to 22 miles I was still three minutes ahead of my target pace but every few seconds I was being overwhelmed by the need to stop running. Between 22 and 23 I did walk for a minute and then between 23 and 24 for another 30 seconds until someone in the crowd caught my eye and urged me on.
I think the final mile must have taken getting on for 10 minutes and even at 400 metres I would have happily paid £10,000 to have been transported to the finish.
As the pain subsides I can remember the high points. Tower Bridge at the halfway point and running between the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf as you get past 20 miles are particularly memorable.
I found catching up with novelty runners a good motivation. I was determined not to end behind Scooby Doo (nine miles), Spider Man (15 miles), Elvis (20 miles) or Superman (21 miles and again at 24).
One the things that kept me going was all the kind people who have sponsored Oxfam through me so thanks to them for helping me over those last awful miles. With the additional cash and cheques I was given over the last couple of days I made the £2200 target.
It was the fundraising that won me a compliment from Conservative Leader David Cameron when he spoke at the RSA on Monday morning. As a lifetime Labour Party member this was a bit strange, but being chief executive of a fiercely independent organisation like the RSA it can only be good that a leading politician chooses to join our debate about ‘pro-social behaviour‘. The Cameron speech was a useful contribution to the debate.
Sometimes the discussion about how we encourage people to give more back can seem rather woolly and it certainly tends to get treated that way by the political media.
I think it can provide the basis for a more relevant type of politics, with right, left and centre variants of the analysis depending on your views of social justice and the state.
But anyone who has a tendency to under-estimate the contribution to social change that can be made through voluntary collective action should have been in Greenwich Park or anywhere between there and the Mall on Sunday.
The charitable efforts of the runners of all different ages and backgrounds – many of whom ended up running and walking in all kinds of costumes for five or six hours in a baking hot day – and the incredible support of the hundreds of thousands thronging the route reminds us what sacrifices and celebrations we are capable of when we turn our minds to it.
RSA Animate
RSA Mobile
RSA Comment- RSA Projects Blogs
- Twitter @RSAMatthew
RSA Bookshop
The RSA Bookshop, in partnership with Blackwell's the UK's leading academic bookseller, offers Fellows and friends an opportunity to purchase books and to explore our speakers’ ideas in greater detail. Visit the RSA Bookshop.