Britain’s Moral Crisis

It’s time for Britain to take a long hard look at herself. The country is embroiled in a public debate on standards in public life, ethics in business, values in education, violence in media and media and breakdown in the family. Moral philosophers, social analysts and, of course, political leaders save all leapt into the fray.

At first glance this appears to be an argument about whether shared values are ever possible in a pluralistic society. But the debate carries within it a more profound quest: for a sense of meaning and purpose amid the confusion of today's fragmented post-modern' culture. And beneath that lurks a deeper question still: istheresome fundamental authority to which all can appeal and which all will recognize? Or is a popular – and shifting – consensus the best we can hope for?

This is no mere intellectual argument. It is driven by a widely shared gut feeling, which varies from deep unease to sheer horror at the sort of society we have created: a society which can produce the torture and murder of a toddler by two children; the massacre of infant-school children in Scotland, so nearly repeated in the West Midlands a few weeks later; the fatal stabbing of a London headmaster by a teenager outside the gates of his own school.

Each of these events in isolation would have produced its own short-lived outcry. Taken together and added to the sickening chronicles ofbattery, rape, muggings, child-abuse and drug-related deaths they form a swelling tide of anger, bewilderment and despair. Mix in stories of sleaze and scandal in government circles, adultery and divorce among junior Royals, the lies and greed that almost brought down the whole British banking system, “fat cats” in the boardroom, social security fraud, unteachable classrooms, overcrowded prisons, the alienation felt by those who have no home, no job, no prospects, no hope – and no wonder people across the country are crying enough. What is more, they want to understand what has brought us to this mess. And then theyask – what can be done?

It would be easy to say it all began with the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Easy but wrong. It was the sweeping reforms of the politicians, notably Roy Jenkins and David Steel, which set the seal on the permissive or, as Jenkins would have it, civilized society. Its catchwords were do your own things. Morality was privatized. You could do what you wanted as long as you did not harm anyone else.

The removal of economic restraints brought greater prosperity but also encouraged rampant acquisitiveness. By the end of the decade individualism had won the battle over collectivism worldwide. But it had also seriously damaged social cohesion. Margaret Thatcher could even famously declare: “There is no such thing as society”.

The recession, which followed came like a cold shower to dampen the euphoria. With the onset of Aids and the alarming increase in violent crime, rape and child abuse, it seemed that all the chickens of the last 50 years had come home to roost.

This time, people not only cried out. but took action – enlisting the endorsement of politicians, educationists and church leaders and catching the mood of public opinion.

It was one thing to warn in the sixties and seventies that the ride of permissiveness would lead to family break down, increasing violence and civic disorders. Now the evidence was there for all to see.

Underlying all this is the me first philosophy which justifies all actions in terms of self-interest, rather than the common good. At the heart of these concerns lies the great issue of our time, the dilemma posed for a liberal society by the tension between freedom and constraints, rights and duties.

Our fragmented post-modern culture ensures that lucre is now a pick and mix' attitude to morality. The old authorities – parents, school, church, Royal family, government – have declined in influence. No one else, it is held, has the right to decide by which values I run my life. The danger with that approach, of course, is that I tend to judge myself by my ideals and others by their behaviour. The recurrent nightmare of secular society: that it has thrown away the moral baby with the religious bathwater. “Why be good if there is no God?”.

We seem to be locked into a culture of blame for the parlous state of the nation. “Why don’t they do something about it?” is the most commonly heard question. The churches blame the schools; the schools blame the parents and the media, the parents blame the media and the schools; the politicians blame the churches, the schools, the media, the parents and each other; everybody blames the politicians.

Most pundits seem clear what is needed. What few seem to articulate is the how. A simple proposition might be for each of us to start with ourselves. If each person began with what they could do, where they are, to put things right and to set new standards, then we might soon see a difference.

Heather Hanwell.. Magazine For a Change. 2001. No. 2.

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