Recently I took part in a debate at the Royal Society for Arts about what are the greatest social evils of our time. I was welcomed by Matthew Taylor as I went in and he called me a 'token right-winger' which gives an idea of the views of most of the other participants. The main speech was by Julia Unwin. There was, perhaps surprisingly, some agreement about the worst social evils such as cultural impoverishment. However, even here I am sure we had wholly different views about the causes of that impoverishment.
The RSA website has an audio recording of the debate. The actual recording is here: http://www.thersa.org/audio/lecture190707.mp3
My main contribution starts just after a third of the way through. I also commented on the notion that the market economy has increased avarice in modern society at the beginning of the last eighth of the recording.
In my comments I mistakenly referred to a market in Rome having been created by Tiberius. I think the one I was thinking of was actually created by Trajan. I should also have mentioned that in late Victorian times, when charitable giving was vastly higher than it is now and behaviour was better, there was lower tax and Britain had much more of a market economy.
The page leading to the recording is here: http://www.rsa.org.uk/index.asp
Incidentally, the idea of the Julia Unwin that climate change should be regarded as a major social evil seemed to me quite extraodinary. It may or may not be an evil, but it is surely not a social evil. I am dismayed by the way that she - and perhaps the Royal Society of Arts, too - have turned old charities to address their own interests instead of the views and intentions of those who founded them.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Behaviour & Crime • General
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Sounds like the RSA has suffered a severe case of O'Sullivan's law
Posted by: Elaib at July 31, 2007 11:51 AM
What they are doing is probably bad, but they can't be expect to do _only_ what the charities' founders intended. That would be letting the dead rule the living.
Posted by: fjfjfj at August 6, 2007 12:37 PM
Oh, dear, the old chestnut about late Victorian Britain having 'better behaviour'. Please learn some actual history. Crime, alcohol and drug abuse,domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, underage prostitution - all RIFE in Victorian England - you only have to read reports from Rowntree, the COS, Jack London etc, etc, etc.
Posted by: rb at November 13, 2007 10:50 PM
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Apropos of your point about charities being diverted from their original purposes, I assume you have seen that the National Trust intends to develop a focus on advising people what to do about climate change?
Posted by: Bishop Hill at July 29, 2007 08:58 PM