Joseph Rowntree, like other Victorian Giants, campaigned against social evils in the footsteps of William Wilberforce, the abolitionist. The list of evils are clear, universal, puritanically nonconformist and relevant to the twenty-first century.
When Joseph Rowntree, the chocolate baron, established his charitable trust in 1904, he charged it with seeking out and curing the great scourges of humanity
It should pay particular attention to war, slavery, intemperance, the opium traffic, impurity, and gambling, he said.
Now, the Rowntree Trust has become dissatisfied with traditional social evils. They are probably too fuddy-duddy and fail to move the charitably inclined. But Julia Unwin, the Trust Director, who also deputises at the Food Standards Agency, has a list…
The ambitious 18-month project will be launched with a lecture at the Royal Society of Arts tonight by Julia Unwin, the trust director.
She said: From the very start our founder had amazing far-sightedness in predicting that both the causes and manifestations of social evils would change over time. We are asking people: ‘What is it that really appals you?’
Miss Unwin, deputy chairman of the Food Standards Agency, was reluctant to sway public opinion but said many new social problems arose from our growing affluence, including over-consumption; an ageing population; obesity; integration; alienation and political apathy.
You can add your vote here.
So, disgust with politics and choosing not to vote is now a social evil. How we can see the voluntary charity worker is now transformed into the professional disciplinarian, the whip of the public sector professional class, with all three mainstream parties as their political wing.
Thanks for the link. I have answered, though I doubt they will agree with me that the “worst social evil” is the acquiescence of the general public to political control.
I encountered this survey comparing one’s fear of climate change with how much one thinks the state should muck around with “wealth redistribution” at home and abroad. It may be of interest to some readers here to answer that one, too.
However, this Mozilla user is superior to the machine and Lo! the buttons work.
STB
From the very start our founder had amazing far-sightedness in predicting that both the causes and manifestations of social evils would change over time.
Uh-huh. You know, given that “intemperance… impurity, and gambling” are still around (and in the case of “impurity,” much, much worse by 1904 standards), I really have to doubt that it’s the “causes and manifestations” of social evils that have changed.
“Over-consumption”: perhaps the foundation might like to give us a definition of what that is. Sounds like boilerplate lefty whining about capitalism to me.
Growing affluence is a social evil?
Try taking that message to the shoeless, starving hordes of Africa.
I suppose an ageing population could be a social evil (ever been to Eastbourne?) but what do you propose doing about it Julia, culling ’em.
“Integration” & “alienation” – means what exactly? – muslims not acting the goat? Fair enough.
Political apathy? Now, that’s priceless. A choice every 4 years between two dull Scots solicitors (one of whom I wouldn’t trust with the conveyancing of a dog-house and the other one makes methusalah look like a member of a boy-band) and a clueless Tory suit full of bugger-all. Fuck me Julia, love, it’s a wonder I’m not permanently priapic at the prospect.
“I encountered this survey comparing one’s fear of climate change with how much one thinks the state should muck around with “wealth redistribution” at home and abroad. It may be of interest to some readers here to answer that one, too.”
A deeply depressing experience. All the more alarming (though perhaps unsurprising) to see that Oxford University is involved.
I am tempted to email the person responsible and let her know what I think of her survey:
jennifer.helgeson@green.ox.ac.uk
But then again, why waste energy? ;-(
All the more alarming (though perhaps unsurprising) to see that Oxford University is involved.
It is unfortunate that Oxford University is getting involved in a few dubious areas.
I note that that survey is hosted by Red Redemption, who not only have a dodgy name but are responsible for some awful propaganda in the form of games where one gets to play the statist and save us all from global warming.
social evils of today?
i wrote
“Labour Party socialist collectivism”
“the undemocratic European Union”
and
“Sayeed Qutb inspired Islamic Jihadism
not that i’m expecting them to take a blind bit of notice.
The educational computer game.
They’ve been going for decades and they have always been bloody awful. Oh, there have been Christian games and allsorts and now Gaia gets a punt.
The truth these idiots fail to grasp is that computer games are educational anyway. Stuff like Civilisation and SimCity teach real strategy, tactics and forward planning. You just can’t play Civ at the higher levels without sticking a hell of a lot of thought and effort into it. Then there’s flight sims and stuff like Hardwar (highly recommended – get it free from the Underdogs) and there’s stuff to learn there. Computer games are great…
Unless they are meant as education. Then they are unmitigatedly terrible. My wife had to play a game at school (on the old BBC micro) which cast her in the role of a British General at the Somme. Everything you tried, your entire division got wiped out. What is the point of that?
I have a real beef here. I love games. I have always loved games (I was born in ’73) and I have never understood people regarding them as an evil or as “passive”. Of course they’re frequently violent but how likely was I hepped-up on Mig-Alley to go on a rampage in an F-86 Sabre? But give me the violence over the education (indoctrination) anyday. Basically, I think games are “improving” as long as they’re not “improving” if you see what I mean.
I think games are “improving” as long as they’re not “improving” if you see what I mean.
I learnt the laws of motion in physics, I internalised them by reading (good) science fiction.
Good entertainment is informative.
An aging population? Just have the NHS kill people a bit sooner. Sorted.
Political apathy? I’d actually like to see a great deal more of that, please. In fact I would like to see becoming a professional political recognised as little different than joining a street gang with the intent of robbing people.
In the past we had terms like “evil” or “justice”.
These are out of fashion now.
Now we have “social evil”, “social justice”, etc. which turns the original meaning upside-down.
It’s not Political apathy, it’s mass social protest.
I remember an article a few years back about how several long-standing foundations were straying from the original mission the founder intended, usually into leftward leaning causes. It’s a prime example of the severing of values between the time the wealth is created and the time that it is consumed. Like taxes, the values involved in creating the wealth is redirected by those given control and is now funding their values.
“Overconsumption” is a social evil?
Big Government is the largest consumer, and they’re certainly overconsuming. Yet I don’t think that’s what these do-badders have in mind when they talk about overconsumption….
I put forward
1. Lack of integrity
2. Abdication of responsibility
3. Envy and laziness
All grist to the Statist mill…
The socialists of Britain owe much to Rowntree and his fellow worldsavers.
Such folk, whether they are banging on about domestic or foreign evils, do more harm than the evils they claim to oppose.
I chose
1. An Instrusive State (No 1 evil)
2. The European Union
3. Antisemitism
It is not apathy that I feel for politics and politicians, it is contempt. There is a difference
the link to the survey didn’t work for me… perhaps they’re being overwhelmed by samizdatistas?
NickM: “what do you propose doing about it Julia, culling ’em?”
As a member of that ageing population, I still have a few thoughts left:
1. Just as the members of the “Eve of Destruction” generation of the 60’s should have remembered, everyone gets old. It isn’t that much fun at times but it’s better than the alternative and it is universal. And there are some good movie plots in there…Oh, wait.
2. Speaking of fun, attempting to “cull” some members of my age group could be just that – for the cullees. We’re not helpless, you know, and are much more likely to have, errr, anti-cull training than any so-called young people today. As for a government body like NHS (this also applies to similar institutions in other countries) doing it – well, do you mean in the same dynamic, competent way they do their job now?
Video Games:
My wife complains about me and the kids playing them but my answer to her is that it’s better than staring dully at “reality” TV. At least the mind has to work, as stated by others above. Try “Morrowind” some time. My young teens like it. Besides, I once helped build naval vessels where the gun, missile and torpedo boards all had screen and track ball controls a lot like, oh say, the “Missile Command” arcade game. Good training for “da youts’. Just in case, that is.
All that aside (I am getting to a point), I think the worst social evil is political apathy. Didn’t Mr. Burke say “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”? Many of those other problems will be solved when apathy is cured. Well, except ageing but then, hasn’t the population always been ageing?
I was struck by something that hasn’t been commented on as yet—the make-up of the original list.
Note that the last four “evils” listed are very specifically individual human vices, as diagnosed by the popular religiously based morality of the time. Indeed, their counterparts remain the foci of major legal prohibitions and/or social activist’ concerns in our current society.
This post highlights very nicely the dovetailed convergence of the statist leanings of the social conservative and the social progressive.
The former is convinced by religious teachings and tradition that it is imperative that people be “saved” from the evils of alcohol, drugs, gambling, and sex.
While piously claiming title to small government sentiments and individual liberties, these principles, alleged to be the “bedrock” of conservative philosophy, suddenly fade to the background when it is time to regulate personal behaviors that they find sinful and distasteful.
Of course, they can find any number of wretched victims of these weaknesses to parade before the horrified public in order to justify passing various restrictive laws; and, of course, the politicos are thereby required by “public outrage”, whether real or manufactured, to make all the appropriate noises, and pass some type of punitive/remedial ordinances, even though most of them probably indulge in one or more of the behaviors themselves.
While these are now mostly “conservative” issues, the movements for social reform around 1900 that espoused them would have been considered “progressive” and “socially active” for their time.
Meanwhile, the current progressive movement, having long moved past such trivial personal matters to embrace the economic doctrines of the collectivist hard left, and the social justice language of their religiously based affiliates, have rephrased their attempts to regulate the wider economic and social behaviors of people from the turn of the century emphases on workers’ rights and opposition to “robber baron” capitalism to the trendier sounding concerns of over-consumption and alienation, among other nebulous goals.
Thus is the stage set for another round of political theater confrontations, in which the conservative demand more serious action against vice, and the progressives demand more serious action against the latest transgressions of capitalism and a free society—the lamentable fact that citizens have too much, eat too much, and live too long.
All that abundance, apparently, leads to alienation from political activism, and apathy towards the life or death struggle to control everyone else’s lives down to their smallest decisions, (which they obviously are incompetent to make anyway).
I certainly look forward to an era of bi-partisan effort and congenial compromise, as the endlessly scheming elites find common ground under which to bury as much of the remaining liberties of the individual citizen as they think they can get away with.
Given the enormous suspense generated by the latest reality shows and celebrity scandels, it is doubtful that too many of the alienated and apathetic populace will even notice.
I certainly don’t worry about it too much, not when there are important things, like when Paris Hilton had a bowel movement today, to keep track of and note down in my daily journal.
After all, one must keep one’s priorities in order.
Mine were/are:
1) Excessive reliance by individuals on national and local government to do those things that they should do for themselves or together.
2) Militant (pseudo-)religious intolerance, especially of the Islamic variety.
3) Litigiousness, combined with the refusal to accept personal responsibility or that things happen for which nobody is to be taken to court.
Hopefully these are the same people who feel that happiness factors should be essential elements of economic and public policy. It’s much more orderly and less inconvenient for the rest of us when all of the blithering idiots are following the same banner.
‘Political apathy’ is the name given to the lack of enthusiasm among people for the ideals of the ruling clique.
Political apathy is being demonised in order to further lacerate the minds of those people and bleed them dry of any possibility of self-realising their own self-loyalty in rejecting these ideals;it is the bathwater with which they will drown the nascent babies of conscience and throw them down the drain; there to be forgotten.
When leaders talk of political apathy, they aren’t and can’t lead.
When these creatures talk of political apathy, it is the precursor to emergencies of tyranny.
Winger,
Am I politically apathetic? Just because I can’t bring myself to vote for the current set of clowns doesn’t mean that. I have written to MPs, signed-up with No2ID, signed petitions and even comment on Samizdata occasionally.
Real political apathy is sitting at home pondering whether you ought to vote for that “nice Mr Brown” or that “nice Mr Cameron” and believing it will change anything.
I would vote for the increasing use of weasel words* as the greatest threat to our way of life.
Example: Evil is bad but adding the weasel word Social makes it so much worse, so all pervading. So much more imperative we “do something now”
As we see more and more weasel words the quality of life, intellectual and material, declines.
*Definition: an easy-to-clutch word or phrase intended to inflame a reaction without encouraging proper thought or analysis, widely used to mask a complete lack of original thinking in the first place. An empty headed, masturbatory use of language often employed to garner approval from people of the same rigid mindset.
They’d have more than enough on their plate if they just worked against slavery. It’s not gone! And “human trafficking” is endemic in the UK and the US, as well as all sorts of prosperous European countries. (The US State Department taskforce head had a very sobering talk on this just last month.)
Why are they bothering to keep the trust going, if they’re not interested in the founder’s causes? They could always go work for another NGO….
Oh, wait. Money.
NickM,
I wasn’t accusing you of that at all. I was just attributing the the quote. I’m interested in that sort of thing because I suspect a lot of “nanny state” types have given euthanasia more than a passing thought. Having lurked here for a long time, I’d say you were one of the least apathetic contributors.
You are absolutely right about those “sitting at home pondering”. These are the kind of people who realize it’s a bad job so they start to use worthless criteria such as appearance to decide.
I agree about the reluctance to vote the ambitious stupid into office. I do vote though, even for bad choices, just so I can say at political meetings etc, “Hey, I’m a voter, you know!” just before they ask me to leave for being excessively out of order.
Have a nice day.
Great evils (the word “social” does not add anything useful) in the context of the United Kingdom.
The Welfare State.
The fiat money credit bubble financial system.
The European Union.
In that order.