My good friend and Cardiff University’s friendly neighbourhood demagogue Swithun has started a blog, The Eclectic Rambler. He can be a bit wordy, but I’m sure it will prove to be interesting because Swithun both has real conviction about what he believes, and opinions on just about everything. While I often disagree with him, it’s always entertaining to discuss with him.

One of Swithun’s recent offerings was about the Tories’ plans to give financial incentives to married couples as part of a package of efforts to rebuild society. I think the Conservatives have identified a real problem. For all our prosperity and affluence, in terms of happiness and social well-being, our country is very lacking. It’s hard to bemoan the state of society today without sounding like an old fart, but from our target-obsessed education system to stable nuclear families seeming like an anachronistic oddity to the ubiquity of materialistic consumerism, there seems to be a genuine malaise afflicting Western culture today.

So what exactly is the root of the problem? According to Swithun, “The destruction of marriage, the family and society can almost solely be blamed on the state: in particular the welfare state”. Elaborating on his theory, he claims “Where the state does more, the Church and family (nuclear and extended) do less.” You can read his full argument here.

My first question would be, were the Church and family looking after everyone properly before the Big Bad State came along and spoiled everything? Well, a quick look at history would show you that the poor were not being provided for as they should be, at least if you regard a reasonable minimum of care to be somewhere above sending people to the dreaded Poor House. Yes, Church and family should help care for those in need, but there also needs to be a safety net for when they can’t or don’t. What’s more, unless there’s a massive revival in religious participation, then the Church is in no place to shoulder that responsibility, and I can’t see society organising itself to look after all those in need spontaneously.

Secondly, just off the top of my head, I can think of several other likely causes for the destruction of traditional social structures, such as:
1) The Industrial Revolution
2) The Sexual Revolution, particularly the invention of contraceptives
3) Secularisation, both in its Modernist and Postmodernist forms

The technological advances of 1) and 2) are not in themselves bad, and carry with them the potential for a great deal of good. However, we’ve rushed to embrace these new developments without stopping to catch our breath and deal with the social consequences that they have. Although I think Marxism is dramatically mistaken on many counts, I admire it as an attempt to understand and respond to the upheaval that industrialisation brought. It gives a wrong answer, but at least it’s asking the right questions, which is more than the Church has done in general. We’re still reeling from those changes, and are rushing headlong into the Information Revolution, again without stopping to try and plan how we’ll manage the changes that will bring.

I think that Swithun has some good points about how certain forms of welfare can encourage irresponsibility. But I don’t agree with him that “Only the entire abolition of the welfare state will solve this and many other problems; as long as it exists these problems will be perpetuated”. Welfare is not inherently unfair or inherently socially destructive. It all depends on whether it’s being given fairly to those who genuinely need it. It’s a tool for social engineering, and whether or not that’s a good or a bad thing depends entirely on what kind of society you are trying to engineer. Let’s hope our politicians can find a way of turn it to helping create a soulful society that encourages community and family life, that gives people a sense of responsibility, rather than our soulless society of consumerism, individualism and triviality.

But the change that’s needed is more than just economic: it’s cultural, tied up with what people think and believe. Any attempt to solve the problem purely by economic means will fail. People need to really believe that they have a responsibility to one another, that they need to invest time in relationships, and not just in the bottom line when it comes to educational or financial targets. Unless people’s souls are changed, then no amount of economic fiddling – either modifying the welfare state or abolishing it altogether – will create genuine change.