For goodness sake, just be selfish !
Among the many great maxims of the 17th century French writer Francois de La Rochefoucauld is this: ‘Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue’. I lack Francois’ turn of phrase but here is my thought for the day:
‘Shame provokes vice as much as it protects virtue’.
Here are three ways being ashamed makes us behave badly:
The ‘What the hell effect’:
As Dan Ariely describes in his latest book and Animate, when faced with temptation most people most of the time weigh up the benefits of sinning with the bad feeling that results. But there comes a point, when people have erred several times, that the possibility of feeling good about oneself diminishes. This tilts the balance (vice is still attractive but virtue feels unattainable). As Ariely explains, the reason Catholic confession has a measurable and benign impact is that it enables people to wipe the slate making the maintenance of virtue (and its loss) salient again.
It’s the cover up that kills you:
From Richard Nixon to Chris Huhne it is not the shameful act but the attempt to avoid being shamed that leads to the greater vice. Over and over again it is what we do to avoid admitting self-interested misbehavior that leads us completely to abandon our moral compass.
Defending the vice by damning the world
Last night’s Moral Maze was on private education and it’s worth a listen. Quite late on an important philosophical division emerges between the champions of independent schools.
When I asked former St Pauls’ School high master Martin Stephen whether there would be private schools in a perfect world he said words to the effect of; ‘no, private schools are necessary because of the weakness of the state system’. As a free market libertarian Michael Portillo’s disagreed, for him the perfect world is the one with the greatest freedom including the freedom of parents to spend their money on buying the best education for their children (in fact, in Michael’s perfect world there are no state schools).
But, back to Martin Stephen’s rationale: Last night all those who defended the morality of private education (including Michael P) did so by, in one way or another, denigrating the state system.
I think private schools damage society in a number of ways (increasing inter-generational inequality, denying state schools access to pupils and parents who could be great assets), but arguably the worst effect comes from the apparent need for the defenders of the independent sector – in order to justify their decision to try to give their own children an advantage – constantly to run down the state sector thus contributing to the well-attested and abiding myth of decline which afflicts educational discourse.
A very high proportion of national journalists and columnists were privately educated and/or privately educate their own children, so the views of the fewer than 8% of parents who make the choice to go private are massively disproportionately represented in the media. .
Today at the RSA we have Stewart Lansley speaking to his book ‘The cost of inequality’ which persuasively argues that extreme inequality is not only problematic for society (the thesis of The Spirit Level) but also for the economy itself. The policies which saw inequality grow so starkly (particularly in the US and UK) were based on an economic ideology which is now largely discredited. Arguably, this ideology proved to be so attractive to those in power precisely because it enabled the rich not only to get rich but to argue that in doing so they were benefitting the whole of society. The damage was done less by individuals being greedy, which on its own may benefit the individuals a bit and harm the poor a little, than by the need to legitimate greed by propagating a set of ideas and policies which subsequently proved disastrous for everyone but the very rich.
As a tolerant kind of guy and also one who has himself virtually no moral foundation for self-righteousness, I would find it unattractive, but not in any way intolerable, for fellow citizens to say they were choosing private education simply because they wanted to give their children a social advantage over other children or that they were opposed to higher taxes and restrictions on bonuses for entirely self-interested reasons.
That people make choices we don’t approve of is a price of freedom that is well worth paying, even if those choices have small adverse effects on everyone else. Indeed to accept that people will often act in their own interests regardless of the impact on wider society and to tolerate this while at the same time promoting social values which encourage wider social responsibility is a pretty good balance of the virtues of freedom and justice. The message is ‘if you choose to put self-interest first, it is better to admit it than to peddle false ideas and destructive myths to hide your motives’.
As David Runciman argued brilliantly a few years ago, personal hypocrisy (doing things which don’t accord with your view of how the world is and should be) is in its impact a much lesser vice than political hypocrisy (altering your view of how the world is and should be to serve your self-interest).
Comments
10 Comments on For goodness sake, just be selfish !
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Kath Davies on
Thu, 21st Feb 2013 1:20 pm
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Richard Veryard on
Thu, 21st Feb 2013 1:28 pm
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Richard on
Thu, 21st Feb 2013 3:36 pm
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Louis Coiffait on
Thu, 21st Feb 2013 11:33 pm
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Will Davies on
Fri, 22nd Feb 2013 9:48 am
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Nick Dennis on
Fri, 22nd Feb 2013 9:55 pm
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Catharine Eve on
Sat, 23rd Feb 2013 11:41 pm
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Benjamin D on
Sun, 24th Feb 2013 4:22 pm
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Alex Fox on
Mon, 25th Feb 2013 11:13 am
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Blog: Inequality is suffocating our economy « Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations on
Tue, 26th Feb 2013 2:03 pm
This is a very interesting debate and I certainly listened closely to last nights debate on the Moral Maze. I am still internally struggling with which school my child, having taken the 11+ with no tuition (if the place is awarded it is on natural ability and not training) and a good local school. We do not know if we will have been awarded a place, but nevertheless it has caused me to have a great internal debate. I am not keen on the idea of a grammar school as the fairness for local pupils who are unable to pay for additional tutoring are put off by this, plus the test is in a format that is not taught in schools. We got 2 books from a shop costing around £10 and it was driven by the competitiveness of my child who had a friend who had been trained for several years to get in the ‘right’ school, it was a “if she can do it, so can I” attitude – fair enough! Although it is quite clear by the nature of the other mum’s waiting in the playground post the test and how far they had traveled to see this is no ‘normal’ school. However, I also am challenged by my own ideology, the grammar school here is free to attend and if she gets in on her own ability, why not? Is it selfish to me to stop my child going to a school that she wants to go to after potentially getting in off her own back and ability just so I keep sleep easy?
What wasn’t mentioned on the programme was the inflationary effect of private schools. If state schools offer four A-levels as standard, then private schools will push their pupils to take five A-levels, plus Duke of Edinburgh Award, plus Grade 8 bassoon, creating the illusion that their pupils are (a) better qualified than state school pupils and (b) have received a better education. (Meanwhile some middle class comprehensives have reintroduced Latin GCSE, simply in an effort to keep up with parents’ demands.) The idea is presumably to trick Oxbridge into accepting these kids, and obviously it sometimes works. Marginal differences in educational outcomes are thus converted into significant differentiators.
In other words, the defacto standards of “good education” are being set by the private sector and the middle classes. I’m not saying that any Government would do it any better. One person on the programme mentioned the undervaluing of subjects like dance, and I’ve heard Sir Ken Robinson talking eloquently about this. Next time the Moral Maze discusses education, please get him to articulate an alternative view of what counts as a “good education”.
Private schools will lose their popularity when the Government ensures that every state school is a good school and that every state school has access to excellent facilities.
There are many good state schools but there are some schools that do have issues and these schools need greater support from local authorities.
At the moment schools in the state sector seem to be facing constant rebranding: free schools, academies etc… It all seems to be about ideology at the expense of children’s educations.
I would like to see a focus on making sure every school, whether state or private, provided a decent learning environment where pupils felt respected, where teachers are able to teach without unmanageable disruption and where class sizes are below 20.
What needs to be tackled is what factors give a bad education rather than who runs the school. And once every school gives a good education, then I reckon more will transfer to the state sector.
Of course the cuts to education are helping to destroy state schools, which will have a knock on effect for society.
I agree wholeheartedly about the three negative system-wide outcomes of private schooling, philosopher Adam Swift had it right a few years ago. I’m baffled that it isn’t debated more, though you’ve kind of explained why that might be the case…
Isn’t there something else going on here as well: that, at virtually all levels of society, we have viewed competition as a fair way to organise society, and ‘competitiveness’ as an attractive and praise-worthy characteristic. This includes those on the liberal left who view ‘social mobility’ and ‘meritocracy’ as the best means of responding to deprivation. Quite aside from the quality of state schools or the liberty to educate privately, it is surely an entirely reasonable response to a competitive society, to try to insulate your children (including rich stupid children) from its effects. Competition (be it in the marketplace or in sport) does not function through people saying ‘yes, you deserve to beat me on this occasion’. It functions through efforts to reduce the threat of rivals (Michael Porter’s entire career is built on this simple insight). So either we find a different principle on which to organise our economy, society and education system, or we go on accepting that people will use whatever is available to them in an effort to win (or avoid losing).
True, shame provokes vice as much as it protects virtue.
Talking about equality in a society which rests on an economic system that creates inequality within the state as well as outside it. The job of the RSA is Janus faced in this instance is it not?
However, I do not agree with Martin Stephen’s view that independent schools exist because of the weakness of the state system because I do not believe that there is such a thing as a ‘state system’ because of the variability between schools and geographic locations. The debate about diversity within schools demonstrated some awareness of the issues within a city but what about areas outside London and other cities where the population is relatively homogeneous? There are many excellent (are we talking about exam results here?) schools not funded by fees and they work well because the leadership is great and they have teaching and learning and high expectations at the core. I have the utmost respect for colleagues working in these schools. There is no profit (pun intended) in ‘running down’ such schools as education is a serious thing (as you yourself have admitted when reflecting on your policy making days).
I also wanted to pick up the idea that the ‘middle class’ parents would be great assets? Are the schools (teachers/leadership) unable to do great things without their help? Is the truth here that you (and others) do not trust the teachers/leaders to do an adequate job or they are not committed enough?
I ask these questions because I tire of this binary debate and hope you can move beyond these narrow confines. The mission of the RSA demands it.
I had a miserable time at a comprehensive school. I wanted to learn, the noisy minority did not. They made it impossible for the rest of us, and it appeared that those staff who did give a damn were powerless to do anything about it. Many of the staff treated pupils as of they were a nuisance, the teaching was impersonal and dull due to the staff@pupil ratio and the facilities were unpleasant. I was bullied and I bullied. I moved to a small local private school. What joy! It was cool to do well, the teaching was inspirational, the staff found time to help individuals with topics they found tricky. Pupils who didn’t want to learn either didn’t make it in or they left.
As a result I’ll sacrifice pretty much anything to give my children a private education. I don’t care about class. I don’t particularly care about the academic end result. But I do care that my children aren’t punished by their class mates for trying to do their best. Non-selective, comprehensive education is a wonderful concept in theory, but in reality it’s hopeless.
When I was researching education a few years back, I was surprised at how little difference schools make to educational outcomes.
I believe between the best and worst schools the difference attributable to the school was about 10% while the rest of the difference was essentially due to parental approaches to education and ability.
This had two effects on me, one, to realise that middle class obsessing about post codes and catchment areas was a lot less important that one might think – as by the very act of caring about education parents would expect better outcomes anyway. And two, that private education is essentially a networking rather than an educational outcome tool.
Wish I had a quotable source on this, but not one to hand!
If you have ten or twenty grand a year to spend on your child’s education, one approach would be to get together with a few like minded friends and donate it to your children’s state school. You might thus give them similar staff/ child ratios as the private education sector, but also help others in their classes. I think that Benjamin D’s point about private school being as much a networking opportunity as an educational one is telling though.
[...] potentials. More recently, the Royal Society for the Arts hosted Stewart Lansley, whose book, ‘The cost of inequality’ attempts, perhaps for the first time, to put a figure to the economic damage done by extreme [...]
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