Society

A Cheerful End

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I know that if I say we are at the end not just of a year but of the first decade of the twenty-first century someone will correct me. For bloggers, correction is both a blessing and a bane. It is a blessing when it puts right an error, advances an argument, or throws light on something previously obscure (Digitalnun would add, when it makes us smile as well). It’s a bane when it it is simply the outpouring of rudeness or venom which does nothing constructive. I can’t help feeling we’ve seen an awful lot of negative correction during the past ten years, not just in the blogosphere but also in the world at large.

Here in Britain I think many people have been dismayed to find how much corruption simmers beneath the surface of our public life and in the shock of that discovery have exaggerated the effects. Some MPs fiddled their expenses so now we are cynical about all politicians; some bankers behaved greedily and irresponsibly so now bank-bashing is a legitimate blood sport. Religion is not exempt.  Some clergy abused children and young people so now all Catholics are the spawn of Satan; some Islamist extremists murdered so now all Muslims are terrorists. Even the weather attracts our ire. We’ve had two harsh winters in succession and it’s highlighted the inadequacy of some of our preparations, so we castigate our local authorities for not doing more. Now ‘flu is spreading and our misery knows no bounds. At the year’s end, with budget cuts and job cuts and VAT rises to look forward to, we are not at our most cheery.

Cheeriness, however, is not a virtue; cheerfulness is, though I fear you will not find it listed in any textbook of moral theology, more’s the pity. Cheeriness is merely the state of being happy and optimistic and is limited to self; cheerfulness is causing happiness and optimism in others and knows no bounds. If iBenedictines has a wish for its readers at the end of 2010 it is simply this: be cheerful. There’s more true religion in that than you might think, but correct me if I’m wrong.

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Rioting in London

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Those who benefited from the student grants of old have probably had mixed feelings about the proposed changes in university funding and, in particular, the financial burdens being placed on students of the future. When we were young, universities were fewer, student numbers were fewer (can you believe, when I was at Cambridge only one undergraduate in ten was a woman?), and our expectations of the State were lower; but we knew we were immensely privileged and wanted as many as possible to share that privilege. Education was worthwhile: it meant hard work and sacrifice and laid obligations on us which we cheerfully accepted. It made idealists of us.

Looking at what happened in London yesterday, my own idealism began to slip. I thought I understood why the Government proposed the changes it has; I thought I understood how the scheme will work; and I thought I understood why so many people are angry; but I sat on the fence because I thought I also understood the wider economic argument. The violence and vandalism we saw yesterday are completely unacceptable. They show the argument has been lost, and in losing the argument we  have lost something greater still, the sense of what higher education is.

Long ago, a charming and brilliant friend who had devoted her life to the W.E.A. mused aloud, “education is too good to be wasted on the young.” I don’t agree; but I do think education is too precious to be wasted. Breaking windows and throwing paint are like Xantippe’s piss-pot. I hope they will not distract us from the serious matters we need to address.

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Shame on a Salisbury Street

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Yesterday an elderly man fell in a Salisbury street and lay there, in freezing temperatures, for nearly five hours before a passer-by called an ambulance.

I don’t, for one minute, think that the citizens of Salisbury are any more callous than the citizens of anywhere else, but this incident does highlight something of the bleakness that has crept into society. We are afraid to get involved. Much safer to pass by on the other side rather than deal with someone who may be drunk or on drugs or otherwise a “danger” to us.

It won’t wash, of course. Like it or not, we are our brother’s keeper. It may seem a huge task, to keep our humanity when society urges us to “look after number one”, but is there any other option? Advent is about bringing light into darkness, and there is no greater darkness than that which we find in our own hearts, the darkness of fear and selfishness which makes us shrink from the Light and cripples our humanity.

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