This book was written by the Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, in 1997 and is, in his own words: "A unique book for a Chief Rabbi to have written. It is not about Judaism. It is written, not for Jews especially, but for all of us as members of a liberal democratic society. It is not about religion, except in the most general sense that its central concern is about how we can learn to live peacefully, responsibly and graciously together - a concern which morality, politics, religion and secular humanism all share."
Dr Sacks believes that there is a disconnection between the two faces of Britain. He contrasts: "The society we read about in the Press, witness on Television, and share anxieties about, the Britain of violence and crime, the loss of civility and the breakdown of authority, of fragile self-confidence and crumbling institutions."
With "The Britain you and I encounter every day, of politeness and friendliness as great as almost anywhere on earth, of quotidian kindness and occasional acts of courage, the Britain in which three quarters of the population give regularly to charity and at least a million engage in some form of voluntary work".
He believes that the cause of this disconnection is "A linguistic dysfunction that causes us to fail to connect our still strong moral sense with the story we tell ourselves about society".
And his aim is to:
"Rehabilitate moral discourse to acceptability within the public domain". With the result that: "We will discover that we are in better health than we think we are, and we will recover our capacity to handle social problems that we currently suspect are sliding out of control".
KEY POINTS
· Society needs to find a language that will enable it to talk in depth about morality to engage with contemporary language that is dominated by autonomy and rights.
· Families and communities play an indispensable part in the development and fulfilment of individuals.
· Good people should not hesitate to promote and defend tried and tested virtues when these are attacked by a hostile media that asserts that there is a consensus that there is no consensus on moral issues.
· Civil society needs strengthening through the recovery of covenant relationships, sustained by identity, kinship, loyalty, obligation, responsibility and reciprocity.
· Libertarianism does not give birth to the virtues needed to sustain a liberal society.
· History demonstrates that societies in decline can reconstruct themselves. Education, the family, concern for the common good and agreement over a shared morality are at the heart of reconstruction but the key is to be found in the individuals desire for and will to change.
The Book is divided into three parts:
(1) Starting a Conversation;
(2) Social Covenant; and
(3) The Good Society.
(1) STARTING A CONVERSATION
'Starting a conversation' explains how moral language has broken down and the danger that this poses to our ability to reflect together on the kind of society we seek to make.
In the first Chapter called 'The blood dimmed tide' Dr Sacks describes the breakdown of traditional society against a background of fear and insecurity: To-day we are fearful of vast forces - technology, the erosion of the biosphere, the globalisation of industry, the internationalisation of terror [a prophetic word in the light of September 11th 2001] - but we have no narrative structure through which to personalise them, rendering them intelligible and capable of being influenced by what we do. Our hopes are invested in Governments, from which we demand more and in our more sombre moments anticipate less".
He goes on to demonstrate that the Judeo-Christian concept of life values human beings not for what they have but for what they are. Individuals can create families, communities, even societies around the ideals of love and fellowship and trust. When the hard times come the individual is not alone. A network of support including extended families, friends and neighbours surrounds them.
In the second chapter, 'Losing Confidence' Dr Sacks gently but firmly shows how good people are vulnerable and uncertain when it comes to promoting and defending virtues particularly when confronted by a media determined to knock people down. This results in a paralysis of public debate on moral issues.
The third chapter focuses on 'Language and Violence' and explains how moral language has become dominated by autonomy (our right to make our own choices without having to give reasons) and rights (the claims we make against others without having to give reasons).
The last chapter in the first part of the book is called 'Public spaces' and makes use of the example of Regent's Park, which is full of people relaxing, talking, drinking coffee, reading the papers, jogging, walking, exercising the dog and meeting friends. The park is common ground to be enjoyed and protected by all on equal terms and Dr Sacks likens this to society, which, if it is to flourish, must be sustained by law-abidingness and social virtues. When these habits break down we need not just law but collective resolve - many people deciding together to save something they love.
Sacks concludes the first part of the book by describing a new political language, from politicians from left and right, which is emerging at the end of the millennium in response to the needs of society: "If there is a common strand to their thought it is the conviction that the health of a society depends not only on its political and economic structures but also on its moral resources and the institutions that give them vitality".
(2) SOCIAL COVENANT
In part two, 'Social Covenant', Dr Sacks explains the differences between political and civil associations. He argues that liberal democracies currently face the danger of over-institutionalisation of political society and the de-institutionalisation of civil society.
There are eight chapters in this section...
In the first one 'Political Society, Civil Society' Dr Sacks emphasises the distinction between a contract which is maintained by an external force and a covenant which is maintained by an internalised sense of identity, kinship, loyalty, obligation, responsibility and reciprocity. A social contract gives rise to the instrumentalities of the state - governments, nations, parties, the use of centralised power and mediated resolution of conflict while a covenant gives rise to families, communities, peoples, traditions and voluntary associations and is the basis for civil society. The chapter concludes with this sentence: "A fateful drama has been enacted which can be described in two movements: the domination of political society, and the progressive de-institutionalisation of civil society".
The other chapters in part 2 of the book trace historically the influence of the 'Liberal Revolution, The Birth of the Individual, The language of morals, The assault on the particular and The Libertarian revolution.' The last two Chapters bring us up to date and identify a fatal ambiguity at the heart of liberalism: "The cultural contradiction of libertarianism is simply this. A liberal society depends on the existence of non-liberal institutions. Without them we erode the ecology of civil society without which order can only be sustained by the Leviathan of the state".
(3) THE GOOD SOCIETY
Having analysed the problems facing contemporary Britain, Dr Sacks turns, in part three entitled 'The Good Society', to how civil society can be reconstructed and why this should happen. This reconstruction will call for the recovery of an older vision of politics.
There are ten chapters in this part of the book.
In the first one entitled 'Surviving Catastrophe' Dr Sacks draws on an example from history to show how civilisations have overcome crises. How did the Jewish nation survive between the first century in Israel and the fourth century in Babylon? "The survival of Jewish life depended on two things: the institutions of civil society -families, congregations, communities and voluntary organisation - together with the transmission of an identity based on a distinctive way of life and its associated values".
And he quotes from Lord Devlin:
"Societies disintegrate from within more frequently than they are broken up by external pressures. There is disintegration when no common morality is observed and history shows that the loosening of moral bonds is often the first stage of disintegration."
The second Chapter is entitled 'Communitarians, Old and New'. Sacks traces the development of communitarian thinking on left and right where, instead of doing things directly, Government helps communities and families to help themselves. The focus is on showing that communities, churches, charities, and self-help associations are often better at delivering services than governments. They are closer to people, they understand their needs better, are more participative and are more effective in solving problems by involving and changing the people who were affected: "Governments create clients, communities create citizens. Governments give rise to dependency, communities to competence. Governments encourage people to think in terms of what they lack, communities foster people who think in terms of what, collectively, they can do."
The focus of the third chapter is education. Jonathan Sacks acknowledges the failure of so-called value-free education based on values clarification and argues instead that education is about the transmission of tradition and cultural continuity. He likens civilisation to an ancient but magnificent building, which we inherit and want to pass on in good condition to our children and part of the role of education is to develop individuals articulate in the language of their heritage.
Family Matters provide the next focus. Sacks contrasts the increased affluence and opportunities of today's children with the increase in drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, suicide, and child abuse. He shows the connection between dysfunctional young people and the rise in divorce. Children in single parent family situations underachieve on almost every measurement. He asks where is the contemporary Charles Dickens or the champion of the marriage-based family who is taken seriously. Society is simply ignoring the plight of the child. He identifies lack of political will, as the main reason why there are no policies to strengthen the family and he argues that failure to promote and defend the family will result in all round failure.
In the next chapter 'The Common Good', Sacks cites the example of the deregulation of Sunday as a loss of common good although there were some who gained after deregulation. Sunday was not only a Christian institution it was also public time: "There must be places and times where we exist, and relate to one another, and are valued, not for what we have or the power we wield but simply because we are beings of unconditional value".
Using this as an example he suggests that there are certain goods, which cannot be privatised without loss. They range from parks to days of rest to a public culture, which sustains liberty, equality, fraternity, and the pursuit of happiness. These goods are essentially social. They are enjoyed by each of us as individuals but none of us could create and maintain them as individuals.
The next Chapter (perhaps the most important in the book) is entitled 'Beyond the Moral Maze'. Sacks argues that the social domain is in essence a moral domain and to reclaim it means that we must recover a shared moral language. But, he asks, is that possible when most media presentations conclude that there is a consensus that there is no consensus. Sacks quotes approvingly from a speech from the Archbishop of Canterbury:
"Rules do not get in the way of the game, they make the game possible. It is strange that what we take as so obvious for games we deem unnecessary for life."
He analyses morality. Firstly into moral institutions; marriage, the family and friendship that are constituted by rules and which have to be shared for the institution to exist. Then there are virtues, dispositions of character or habits of the heart. Beyond that are the great rules which have been arrived at independently in many different cultures which CS Lewis called 'The Tao' or the 'Way'.
He concludes optimistically:
"We develop languages because we seek communication. We develop moralities because we seek community. The task of restoring community and morality is one and the same, and derives from the same need; to rescue the self from solitude, so that in finding the 'We' we can learn to say 'I'."
There follow two Chapters on 'Politics and the Art of Balance' and 'Why Civilisations Fail'.
He writes: "The third domain of the 'polis' - the families, communities and voluntary networks which make up so much of our lives - has been unduly neglected, philosophically for several centuries, practically for the last fifty years. Now the balance needs to be restored."
And:
"I have been arguing for a new style of politics, one which breaks with the traditions of the past fifty years and thinks in terms wider than the individual and the state. Such a politics would have a new concern for social institutions, the mediating structures of family, neighbourhood and community'. It would engage in new partnerships with the voluntary sector for the delivery of services. It would concern itself less with the freedom of the individual to pursue his or her own interests than with the virtues of self-governance, the habits of the heart which lie at the core of a free society".
He urges action to promote and defend moral responsibility and the need to relativise the relativisers: "If it is wrong to make moral judgments, then that is a moral judgement which it is wrong to make".
He argues that the generation of 'social capital' is the best way of preventing civilisations from failing. Families, communities and neighbourhoods that are the places where we form long-term relationships with other people and interact with them repeatedly over time, generate social capital. Families, communities and neighbourhoods are where we are there for other people and know that they are there for us. They provide the forum for the growth and development of the trust essential for society's well being.
The last two Chapters, 'Can it be done?' and 'Reclaiming the Ground of Hope' are a call to action.
Sacks takes a quote from 'Sybil' written by Benjamin Disraeli in 1845 as his starting point to remind us that we have been here before: "Christianity teaches us to love our neighbour as our self; modern society acknowledges no neighbour".
Victorian society was undergoing vast destabilising changes and was asking the same questions as we do. How do you control crime? How do you heal the family? How you cope with poverty and unemployment? Their conclusion was that if you want to change society you have to change the individuals who constitute it. This is done through education, will power, self-control, support, encouragement and example. The Mid-nineteenth century had access to an insight, which is the source of all hope: we can change the world because we can change ourselves. Change comes through character and duty and the key to the development of character was the strength of the social institution through which the individual learnt the difference between right and wrong.
Sacks concludes the first chapter:
"The model lies in the instrumentality of social change. What the Victorians taught us is that whatever we seek collectively to create, the way to do so is to focus on character and on the institutions that promote a strong sense of independent personhood and social concern. This is done less through Governments than through the spontaneous associations of individuals, which arise whenever there is widespread recognition that things, are not as they should be and that the way to make them different is to join hands".
His final chapter is called 'Reclaiming the Ground of Hope' and he concludes the book: "Civil Society rests on moral relationships. They are covenantal rather than contractual. They belong to a liberal, not libertarian, social order. They are brought about not by governments but by us, as husbands and wives, parents, friends and citizens and by the knowledge that what we do and what we are makes a difference to those around us. We can change the world if we can change ourselves. Indeed that is the only way the world is changed, for politics ultimately works through people and our acceptance of responsibility. That is why morality is prior to politics, and why it remains the only secure base of freedom and dignity. Renewing society's resources of moral energy is the programme, urgent but achievable, of a new politics of hope."
CONCLUSION
This erudite and scholarly book is a must for all those concerned about the way we now live. It combines the personal with the political, the family with the community and the moral with the social. Coming from an Old Testament worldview it is both holistic and realistic. Above all it is hopeful and what it calls for is achievable.
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