On Monday on the Today programme, we heard from Dr Lynne Friedl, author of the World Health Organisation's report "Mental Health, Resilience, and Inequalities". Now, Dr Friedl's report covers some interesting territory. And there are probably some lessons worth listening to - perhaps even learning from. For example, she argues that "current economic and fiscal strategies for growth may also be undermining family and community relationships: economic growth at the cost of social recession. This means that at the heart of questions concerning ‘mental health impact’ is the need to protect or recreate opportunities for communities to remain or become connected."
But I didn't want to discuss the strengths of her report. I wanted to discuss a certain concept within it, which I feel well-illustrates a serious weakness in the way many aspects of policy-making in our society are considered (and although her specific "error" - as I shall regard it - comes from the left, I believe there are similar errors for those approaching matters from the right).
Here is a key passage from the Summary, which illustrates the main point she tried to press in her interview on the Today programme: "An extensive body of research confirms the relationship between inequality and poorer [mental health] outcomes, a relationship which is evident at every position on the social hierarchy and is not confined to developed nations. The emotional and cognitive effects of high levels of social status differentiation are profound and far reaching: greater inequality heightens status competition and status insecurity across all income groups and among both adults and children. It is the distribution of economic and social resources that explains health and other outcomes in the vast majority of studies."
What is the difference between these formulations? The difference is: who is responsible. If the problem is that you envy, then it is your fault. It may be difficult to avoid envying. It may be inevitable, statistically and as a feature of fallen human nature, that any large body of people with things to envy will indeed envy and some be unhealthy as a result. But, when you really come down to it, they, the enviers, are the guilty ones. Their unhealthiness issues from their sinfulness.
In contrast, if the key point is that having things to envy is unhealthy, then it is the inequality, the difference, that is the origin of the unhealthiness. And if there is fault, it is the fault of us, those who allow the inequality.
Now, it is of course true that we should not unnecessarily place temptation in the way of those that are not well-equipped to bear and resist it. So we should not gratuitously put people in situations where they might be tempted towards envy. But, on the other hand, we should not endorse envy either, pretending it to be justified. The envy of the poorer towards the richer (when it happens) is not a righteous sentiment - like the healthy jealousy a husband might feel and express concerning his wife, or the healthy indignation someone might feel and express concerning a miscarriage of justice. Observing those wealthier than us might drive us to ambition or to hard work or to creativity - each of which might be healthy. But when we are driven to envy, that is unhealthy and destructive.
We have known this for millenia - we did not really need brilliant researchers to tell us it was true, though it is of course nice to see moral teaching vindicated (especially since occasionally we update our moral teaching - sometimes it is not vindicated and we must change our minds). But what I fear Dr Friedl wants to tell us is that sin is not sinful - envy is not wicked - and that all blame must reside with those that make this sin possible, as if, somehow, it might be possible to create a world without temptation. That is a forlorn hope.
