So, hands up everyone who remembers The Big Society. It was Dave’s 2009 blue skies thinking idea for the brave new world of his post-election Britain. Underpinned by its philosophy of autonomy and sense of social purpose, he rode the crest of a wave. Has he shaped a socially creative society?
Well, judge for yourselves from the Prime Minister’s new year message for 2015. He says nothing about the morality or humanity of a burgeoning social capital. At the start of a year when he has to go to the polls, the message is almost exclusively about money in people’s pockets, complete with behaviourist overtones of reward (although, notice, no mention of punishment, the flipside of the reward coin). It’s a simple equation. Work hard. We will reward you. Money not morality.
But embedded in the message is one brief phrase, breath taking in its arrogance and its damning assumption about our current culture: ‘we are changing the values of our country’. From Big Society to Big Brother. From autonomy to control. Because any administration which thinks that it can change the values of the society which it governs is one which fails to understand freedom, individuality, diversity and its moral responsibility.
Now, I know that the word ‘values’ had to be in there somewhere because that’s the current mantra. But here’s what Mahatma Ghandi had to say about values:
‘Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values.’