*
It seems that the other Rowan has been delivering another sermon:
Children are being forced to grow up too quickly in a culture that refuses to recognise that human beings are naturally dependent on one another, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned yesterday.
Dr Rowan Williams condemned the pressure on children to become “active little consumers and performers” at the earliest opportunity.
Preaching at Canterbury Cathedral, Dr Williams said contemporary life had become characterised by a basic impatience about learning. He said that too many people, including the elderly and children, were expected to stand on their own feet without support from outside.
This is a fairly fatal flaw in any public address: there are two completely independent themes to your sermon, sir. The first is the idea that children are being forced to grow up too quickly, the second is that people are expected to stand on their own two feet. Let us review each of these in turn, shall we?
There may well have been a brief halcyon period when children were not expected to learn quickly and grow up quickly, but historically this was definitely not the case. Indeed, in less-developed countries, people still have large numbers of children to ensure that a sufficient number of them survive to help with the back-breaking life of toil that they can expect to endure for the remainder of their short span on Earth. As recently as Victorian times, huge numbers of children worked in factories, up chimneys, down mines and on street corners, all simply to help the family survive. The relatively gentle chivvying of “often highly sexualised advertising” is no match for the somewhat more direct chivvying of a cudgel or horsewhip from an unsympathetic parent or poorhouse owner who expects you to pull your weight, or of a passing noble who treats you to a bath and perfume before forcing himself upon you.
Indeed, if we regard the “halcyon times” as the period from 1900 to around 1970 or even 1980, even those years were frequently punctuated by war and desperate economic times, which meant that children still had to “grow up” and learn to face the realities of the time much sooner than anyone would like to. The history of humanity has not been one of happy prosperity and indeed, I would argue that the relatively mild pressures on British children today are trivial compared to those faced by children in the third world and trivial compared to those faced by British children in the past. I could also argue that the leader of the Anglican Church might be able to thunder on about issues of morality with more conviction if that leader and his Church had not indulged in display after display of moral equivocation and appeasement of non-Christian ideals.
When we regard the second issue, I am afraid that my libertarian weltsanschauung comes to the fore. Over generations, the government has taken over the responsibility for taking care of people. Regardless of the motive for the change, what has happened is that instead of families taking care of their own, or the neighbourhood taking care of someone on their uppers, or charities feeding the poor, or people forming friendly societies or mutuals to provide for rainy days, the government has stepped in. Providing everyone with a basic pension sounds wonderful, but because it’s relatively expensive (because of all the other things that tax and national insurance is spent on) people no longer have additional money to salt away for those rainy days. Providing everyone with health care sounds wonderful too, but where does health care end? If people can buy subsidised cars because they have health issues, are we not helping them out enough? If we pay the accommodation costs of a teenage single mother along with enough money for her to feed herself and her children without having to do anything for it, are we not helping them out enough?
Because we already pay the government for health care, people can’t or don’t want to spend extra money on that. And the same applies to education: if I didn’t have to spend the money I spend on feeding the government machine, I would certainly be able to send my own children to a private school.
You may well regard me as selfish for saying these things, but given how we all work for half the year to feed the government machine, am I unreasonable to say this? If you had twice as much money in your pocket every month, would you not feel more kindly disposed to the man selling the Big Issue? Would you not feel you had the wherewithal to help someone in genuine need?
The government spent £110 billion on pensions for the elderly this year. Another £110 billion on health care. £80 billion on education. £97 billion on welfare. Out of £638 billion spent by the government, £397 billion (or more than half) was ostensibly spent on giving people a leg up. That money all came from us, Archbishop, how can you possibly have the temerity to say something like, “We send out the message that if you’re not standing on your own two feet and if you need regular support, you’re an anomaly. We’ll look after you (with a bit of a sigh), but frankly it’s not ideal”?
What you’re saying, effectively, Archbishop, is that every man jack of us, every man, woman and child contributed the equivalent of more than £6000 towards people who aren’t standing on their own two feet — and that’s not enough for you! Even if you reduce it to specifically the £97 billion spent on “welfare”, that’s still over £1500 per man, woman and child, spent on “charitable” activities. And since fewer than half of the people in Britain actually pay tax, that contribution effectively doubles. Those who are not standing on their own feet outnumber those of us who are. They are not the anomaly, those of us who work for a living are!
There is another dark consequence of our gift of caring for the needy to government: organisations which you or I would remember from our youth as being charities formed to care for the needy have become avaricious and greedy. They have sold their charitable souls and now “lobby” the government for funds in exchange for gratuitous “soundbites” that the government can use to take even more responsibility away from us.
The Anglican Church has stood by meekly and let all these things pass unchallenged, Archbishop. Your moral authority gets weaker every day.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Cracking piece, Thadders.
I think ‘grow up’ is something a lot of westerners (especially blokes) never do….a failure in which – ironically – they have been encouraged by women – their Mums.
Perhaps the Rowan Plank was referring to the seeming desire of ear-ringed parents to turn their kids into Posh & Becks by the age of four – which I too find repulsively muddled behaviour.
And pedantic point of the week: I don’t think anything can be fairly fatal. This is like being slightly pregnant. Or in a shallow recession. Personally I find everything the Arch Bishop says fatal, period.
YM x
“fewer than half of the people in Britain actually pay tax.”
You must mean direct taxes. The pikeys still pay VAT and duty on White Lightning and (sometimes) roll-up tobacco.
Classic post. Excellent.
Unfortunately for Dr Williams he is still living in the era of “The Secret Seven” and “The Famous Five”, but that should not detract from what he is saying. Children are being encouraged to grow up too soon. They are continually being bombarded with things that they are told are acceptable. There are many things wrong with society today, not least what has been deemed to be normal behaviour in the present climate.
I remember the ridicule that was aimed at Mary Whitehouse, yet if you look back, a lot of the things she said made sense, not all of it I hasten to add.
A prime example is the comments sections of many of the “blogs” out there. Why has it become acceptable to pepper every post with, C*** and F***. More to the point why do the people posting them feel that it is OK to do so? I am fairly sure they would not use it in normal conversation, or perhaps they do.
I may be old fashioned, but the only way to get out of our current social mess is for every individual to take a long hard look at themselves. Whether it be the street corner chav or the politicians allegedley running the country, they should all ask themselves, what can I do to make things better? The country is sinking intoa pit of apathy.
Everyone knows the difference between right and wrong, unfortunately you no longer have to differentiate between them, as there is no sense of responsibility anymore. Until we can return to having a sense of responsibility instilled into every individual, then I am afraid we will continue to slide on the slippery slope to decline.
Beautiful Thaddeus.
The clergy have always had a vested interest in children remaining small and innocent enough to hide under their cassocks.
I see another two Bishops have resigned in Ireland over Christmas.
I remember the ridicule that was aimed at Mary Whitehouse, yet if you look back, a lot of the things she said made sense, not all of it I hasten to add.
If Mary Whitehouse had had her way we’d not see a fraction of the anti-social lunacy we see today. It’s disgusting the way that well-meaning old lady was so viciously persecuted by the media just for trying to raise the cultural tone of things above gutter level. Shame!
Wonderful post, you should send Cranmer a link I would be interested in his views on it. I suspect he would agree with you.
Saul – are you Michael Jacson’s ‘man in the mirror’ incarnate??
won’t work.
bleedin’ ovious
Mary Whitehouse did get her way – surveillance society, government spy phone lines – she only wanted everyone to be as christian as her – forgotten already??
Born in 1929 I was one of the lucky ones. Even the war did not disturb my childhood. Compared to the kids of today I was a babe in the wood.
I don’t think you can put the halcyon period as early as 1900. My Father was out working at the age of 11. My Mother was in service as most working class girls were. Like most of their generation they wanted their children to have a better life than they did. My children also had a good childhood, in my opinion. It was the seventies when it all started to go pear shaped. When the retireds moved to the elephants graveyards and it became a struggle for their children to visit regularly. So the habit was lost and families fragmented.