November 2008
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28 November 2008
Urban regeneration and the economic downturn
One of our annual highlights yesterday was the Royal Designers for Industry dinner. The winner of our Bicentenary Medal and keynote speaker was Tom Bloxham of Urban Splash. When we told Tom he had been given the award we asked him to speak on how urban regeneration might be affected by the economic downturn. That was last July when things seemed difficult but not nearly as bad as they look now.
Tom didn’t hide how tough things are now in the property sector. But he expressed the hope that in times of austerity good design would be seen as an even more important virtue.
Let’s hope he‘s right but, in fact, as I intimated in my earlier blog on Virgin Trains, the recession could drive producers and consumers in two directions. On the low road, sellers will try to screw every penny out of us as they seek to keep their head above water, while consumers will go for the cheapest option. On the high road, sellers will do everything they can to retain the loyalty of customers while buyers will be much more discerning, making sure that they spend their limited money on quality products made to last. The outcomes will in large part reflect the nature of different markets and sets of consumers. Those with a monopoly will try to screw people (as in Virgin Trains), poorer customers will have little choice but to go downmarket.
Our actions as individual consumers will have unwanted collective outcomes. As Anne Ashworth comments in the Times today, we may not think now we will bemoan the loss of Woolworths but we will feel differently when our run down high streets are full of boarded-up shops. In some villages – for example Blockley in Gloucestershire - the combination of an imaginative business strategy and a commitment by residents has seen the local shop not just saved but turned into a thriving social business.
Tom says that fewer people can buy his flats but more people want to rent them. In this way he can continue to design and build great homes. Many businesses will need to look to fundamental changes in their business model to survive. In doing this, there is a case for producers and consumers to work together to get through the bad times. We need to create the spaces for communities to talk over the tough choices we face over the next few years.
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28 November 2008
More on the saving communities debate - but from a different perspective
Here’s another contribution to this debate – albeit from a privileged perspective...
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27 November 2008
The downturn - and the unexploited potential of civil society
Notwithstanding my Kerry Katona like mood swings, I find myself increasingly convinced that the economic downturn is going to be very, very bad; so much so that our lives and our country will never be the same again. Even if we have seen the beginning of the end of the problems in the financial sector (and there is still a huge amount of leveraging to unwind), and even if the economy starts to pick up slowly towards the end of next year, we then face severe cuts in public investment. On the one hand, this could kill off any recovery (as we now know, much of the job creation of the last decade has been in the publicly funded sector) while on the other, we will all suffer diminished public provision and many will face real hardship.
As the Conservatives inadvertently underline every day, there is no alternative; things are going to be grim. What we must do – the ‘we’ in this case being society in general and organisations like the RSA – is make better use of the under-used capacity which exists in society.
Innovation is very often precisely about this mobilisation of capacity. So, as I was saying to Leonard Cheshire Disability this morning, individual budgets for social care work in part because they tap into the previously unseen and unused capacity to manage their own lives and services which exists among social care clients and carers. Another example, which I heard in Leicester from a Fellow called Nigel Lowthrop, is a successful scheme in which young people who have been in trouble or have dropped out of school clear and maintain the gardens of people unable, for one reason or another, to do it themselves. Using a time bank mechanism the young people then trade the hours donated to the gardens for time getting one-to-one tuition in the basic skills they often failed to pick up in formal education. Apparently, the scheme is proving too successful in that the barrier to it now is not the need for or supply of volunteers but the capacity of the local authority and third sector to manage the scheme.
If we are to improve the quality of our lives, protect the most vulnerable and strengthen communities we need these kinds of experiments to be taking place everywhere. However much capacity we are going to lose in the private and public sector, it is dwarfed by the unexploited potential of civil society. Mobilising this capacity should be a priority for policy makers and a new raison d’etre for the RSA Fellowship.
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27 November 2008
Cultural theory happening in practice
Regular readers will have heard me banging on about cultural theory – the idea that in all organisations there are certain fundamental ways of viewing the world which will be at play: egalitarianism, hierarchy, individualism, and fatalism.
If you haven’t already heard too much, or have never understood what I have been going on about, you might enjoy listening to one of our leading cultural theorists, Michael Thompson, in discussion with John Gray in an excellent Radio 4 programme yesterday. And, yes, I do admit to a family connection!
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Just a few minutes after I wrote this, I popped into Vauxhall station to buy a newspaper (I had half an hour to kill before giving a talk to the charity, Leonard Cheshire Disability) and, by an amazing coincidence, saw a classic example of cultural theory happening in practice.
Due to delays on the tube network, a queue had formed in the booking hall waiting to get into the station. On the left, people were patiently standing in line, but on the right (the exit) a small number of people had ducked under the barrier and forced themselves to the front, jumping the queue.
So the forming of the queue can be seen as a hierarchical response – we listened to the station controller and accepted the need for authority and regulation. Those ducking under the barrier represented individualism – the system wasn’t working, so it was ‘every man for himself’. As more people queue jumped, an audible murmur grew amongst those waiting patiently. By voicing their disapproval, they were expressing an egalitarian solidarity - a shared set of norms; they were the kind of people who queued and listened to instructions, and wanted to separate themselves from the disruptive behaviour of individualists. Of course most in this situation are simply fatalist – accepting that getting to work is a nightmare!
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26 November 2008
A traveller's tales .. and responses to the recession
The recession poses a question to businesses. In the face of declining demand do they work even harder, cutting margins and providing a great service to attract customers in a buyers' market? Or do they adopt a slash and burn policy of making money wherever they can regardless of the longer term consequences for their brand. Of course, companies with monopolies will be more likely to adopt the latter approach - Virgin Trains being a case in point.
Last week I was forced to cough up three times the pre-paid cost of my train ticket from Manchester to London because I caught a train 30 minutes earlier than the one I was booked on to. There was no lack of unreserved seats on this train and, had there been, I would have been happy to stand. Indeed, given that the pre-ordered ticket was reduced price I would have accepted paying some kind of inconvenience fine. But for Virgin the issue isn’t fairness - it is screwing the passenger. This may be why the ticket inspectors treat those who are on the wrong train (there were three in my carriage alone) as if they are fair dodgers.
What is really galling is that while Virgin is charging me £48 for my minor misdemeanour travelling I am unable to get any recompense for Virgin’s many failings: late trains, closed buffets etc. This morning on the way to Birmingham I was next to an overactive heater. To avoid expiring I was down almost to my underpants by the time we reached New Street. I have little or no choice but to use Virgin and to pay even more to do so next year. But in a classic Taylor act of impotent rage I will spend the rest of my life avoiding any other product with the Virgin brand.
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Sticking on the combined topics of the downturn and my grumpiness, it is depressing that Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley has agreed to apologise for his comments about the health consequences of recession. He simply said on his blog that by reducing consumption on things like booze, fags and sweets a downturn can be good for our health. Not only is it true but it is a rare example of a politician engaging seriously with what the downturn will mean for us. Governing politicians (here, and particularly insanely in the US) are like drug dealers encouraging us to get hooked onto debt again, while the Conservatives try to imply there is another way out of the crisis without ever quite telling us what this is and why no other Government in the world seems to agree with them. In contrast Andrew Lansley said something honest and thought provoking – no wonder he was forced to recant.
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Turn away if you don’t like swearing…I love the West Midlands. This morning after my speech to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust I popped into a New Street outfitters to buy a cheap suit for the RDI dinner tomorrow night. The assistant and I got talking about politics as I tried (successfully) to negotiate a discount. As is often the way in this part of the world other customers were soon joining in.
As I was leaving he shouted after me ‘anyway since the VAT cut we’ve been flooded with customers’. Call me gullible but I was genuinely interested to hear that the PBR has been such an instant hit. ‘Really’ I said taking a step back into the shop .To which he jovially replied to the immense amusement of the rest of the shop ‘have we f**k, you daft bugger’. Now, that’s what I call service.
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26 November 2008
Where do ideas come from?
Where do ideas come from? As I tour around the country – yesterday it was Leicester – talking to Fellows this question keeps nagging away at me. (Before those of you who are only reading in the hope I will say something indiscreet about my time working for Mr Tony click on another site, I should say there are some interesting insights to gained from what we are doing here at the RSA.)
The idea of enabling the Fellowship to move from being an inward-looking social club into being an outward-looking network for civic innovation (that beeping sound is your Windows cliché checker) is gaining ground. The forces of conservatism (small ‘c’), as the aforementioned former leader once called them, are in retreat. The question now is not ‘why should we?’ but ‘how do we?’ – which, it turns out, is a much harder question.
It involves creating the right spaces for ideas to emerge (on-line and off-line). It means developing a culture in which bad ideas die elegantly and good ideas thrive. It forces us at HQ to be clear about the kind of backing we can give to emerging ideas.
But where do ideas come from?
Three answers, three implications for how we work. Ideas come from giving creative people in interesting combinations time to work together. The Leicestershire Fellows group I met yesterday told me they wanted ‘to do something about older people’. But, as we talked, it became clear that for some people this was about meeting needs, while for others it meant addressing negative perceptions of ageing. From this disagreement started to emerge the idea that we should meet older people’s needs by drawing on their strengths - a great conversation, but probably only a tenth of the way to developing a good idea. Through creating more enjoyable informal spaces for Fellows to meet and talk, and replicating this on line, we can allow ideas to emerge, evolve and mature.
Ideas come from the urgency and focus provided by a problem. Drawing on its incredible networks, its brand and its national resources, the RSA Fellowship should be able to respond quickly and generously when a need arises that we can meet. We can develop local solutions derived from an international network of experience and expertise. I have a fantasy about a Fellow saying ‘this problem we’ve got in Stoke-on-Trent, well I’ve been sent a really good idea by a Fellow who tackled something similar in New Jersey (or Melbourne, or Paris or New Delhi)’.
Ideas occur to us in the shower. When Fellows have that Eureka moment they should be able to stand shivering and dripping by their computer throwing the idea out to the wider Fellowship. While I’m being watery, the RSA should be a pond into which we can skim our half formed idea pebbles. Most will sink without trace (I have an interesting thought every day and a useful one every month) but some will set off ripples.
Thank you to the Fellows in Manchester and Leicester who got me thinking this way. The transformation of the Fellowship won’t be easy. But whereas before it felt like digging ourselves out of a hole, now it feels like we are trying to climb a mountain - just as hard but much, much more fun.
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25 November 2008
We shouldn't have started from here
There is page after page of newspaper analysis and comment of yesterday’s mini budget but the top line critiques of the package may be rather confusing to those without the time or inclination to dig deeper. Darling is criticised simultaneously for doing too little to boost the economy (there is widespread scepticism about the impact of the VAT cut), for borrowing too much and for raising taxes in two years to help pay for that borrowing (in fact, the Government’s main medium term strategy to tackle the deficit is tight restraint on public spending from 2010 onwards).
There is a widespread view in the print media that the Government has somehow cheated in managing to achieve higher popularity ratings while the economic news worsens. Today is payback time. George Osborne is back on form and no one is asking whether, at a time when we should be boosting people’s confidence, it is responsible for him to say everyone earning over £19,000 will soon be worse off. In fact someone on that salary will - according to the Conservatives’ own figures - lose five pence a week!
But Labour can’t complain. Whatever the merits of yesterday’s package we shouldn’t be starting from here. It’s true – as I have said in the past and Larry Elliot said more elegantly than me yesterday - that most of us played our part in fuelling the debt bubble. It is also true that by wanting low taxes and action to tackle inequality and improve public services, public opinion created the political dilemma to which more Government borrowing was the answer. But politics is about leadership. This Government, and those like me who have advised it since 1997, have to take responsibility for not explaining the real choices and stopping the party before it all got out of hand.
Unless the whole of society is willing to follow the Government’s model and go deeper into debt, it is difficult to see how things will improve. Indeed the best bet must be for a very long period of sluggish growth. Even if things do pick up slightly next year, with interests rates already very low and the Government not able to offer any extra fiscal stimulus, it is difficult to see how a crawl back to recovery will become a march.
So we are back to the question of how we adapt. On the one hand, we have to lower our expectations as private and public sector consumers. On the other, and more positively, we must explore and exploit untapped social capacity.
To take one example, there is already a social care funding crisis. Unless we can reduce unnecessary dependency and increase voluntary effort the care gap will grow into a chasm. Public funding won’t help us out, nor can we expect people to suddenly start saving lots more for their old age. If there is an answer it involves some combination of mobilising voluntary effort, increasing the productivity of public investment (especially so it goes into maintaining people in independence rather than paying for dependency), fostering innovation (so, for example, we can create an effective intermediate labour market of people, many of whom may be retired themselves, being paid for a few hours caring work here and there), and much better collaboration between the different agencies and NGOs working in the field.
If things are going to be as tough as many people suspect, social care is only one of the many needs that are only going to be met thought this combination of pro-social behaviour and innovation. As I will be telling an RSA meeting in Leicester tonight, there couldn’t be a more important time for the RSA and particularly its talented and conscientious Fellowship to be turning outwards and asking what difference it can make.
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24 November 2008
The politics of tax pledges
Having argued just a few days ago for an increase in tax for the highest earners to help fund public spending and tax cuts that help the poorest, it is beholden on me to applaud Alistair Darling’s announcement of a deferred rise for those earning over £150, 000. By delaying the increase until 2010/2011 Labour can remain true to its manifesto pledge to maintain income tax rates.
Over the next 24 hours we can expect to see footage of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown signing the first income tax pledge back in 1996. Darling’s move will be portrayed as a watershed and, for some, the final nail in the coffin of New Labour. Given that today’s move is, we understand, to be justified not just in terms of fiscal rectitude but also fairness this is a significant shift (although the contribution the higher rate increase will make to the overall fiscal gap is pretty small). Polls taken before the financial crisis did not suggest much appetite in the electorate for redistribution, but now we all know we are going to feel pain down the road the voters will probably think it right that the best off make their contribution. The public may also approve of Labour’s political courage – it is not often that the first pledge to go into a Party’s manifesto is to raise taxes.
But if Darling’s announcement goes down well commentators from the left should resist the temptation to argue that Labour should never have made the tax pledge in the first place. In looking at the opinion polls leading up to the 1997 election some analysts have argued that the Blair modernisation project was unnecessary. After all, the decisive decline in Tory support happened immediately after Black Wednesday (when John Smith was Labour leader) after which Conservative support flat lined right up to their election rout.
Attempts to reconstruct history usually provide more insight into the prejudices of the person doing the reconstruction than say anything useful. No one knows what would have happened had John Smith lived. But the last 18 months have certainly taught us three things. First, holding on to a poll lead is just as hard as grabbing that lead; we are now in our third major swing of the pendulum since Tony Blair left office. Second, there is no simple correlation between the state of the economy and a Government’s performance in the polls. Third, once things start turning against you, they take on their own media-fuelled momentum – just ask George Osborne.
Unless someone can explain why the electorate has become much more inherently volatile over the last ten years, Blair and Brown’s achievement in keeping their foot on the Conservative’s political windpipe looks more and more impressive. From the perspective of 2008 there doesn’t seem there was anything inevitable about the situation in 1994 that would lead to Labour’s victory in 1997. It was Labour’s single minded determination to win and the Conservatives apparent death wish that turned an economic crisis into a political sea change.
Tony Blair’s tax pledge in 1996 was an important part of maintaining the contrast between a brilliant opposition and a hopeless Government. Today, as Alistair Darling reverses that pledge the balance of political forces is much more even.
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20 November 2008
Reporting back from the Manchester Exchange Fellows' meeting ...
Now on my way back from Manchester. It was a success. The turnout was good, the commitment tangible and the quality of discussion high. There will be time for a fuller report – coming soon on the revamped networks platform – but here are some highlights of the morning.
In a breakout group to discuss Fellows’ responsibilities the question was posed: ‘what is it that we have in common?. We knocked this around for a while before someone said ‘isn’t what is different about the RSA is that we all come from different backgrounds and perspectives, so isn’t it up to us to create what we have in common?’ What a brilliant thought.
In a group to discuss communication, a Fellow who had been quiet up to then suddenly burst out: ‘you mean, if I want to, I can just contact local Fellows and start a local group; I don’t need permission from London or the regional committee?’ Exactly. In another group a universal agreement that being an RSA Fellow didn’t mean you have to sign your life away or promise to have a great idea every ten minutes; it means being open to the possibility that you might one day choose to work with other Fellows to develop their idea or your own. Unlike being a member of other organisations, being an RSA Fellow doesn’t mean a choice between disengagement and diving in at the deep end - there are plenty of ways to paddle too. Absolutely.
On days like today it feels like we are so close to the tipping point, when the Fellowship starts to generate the level of engagement, the quality of ideas and the practical action which make us a real force in the land. There are bad days too when it feels like we are pushing water uphill or when we have to deal with the loud but dwindling minority who want the RSA to be little more than a closed social club. But, overall, I am convinced we are getting there.
Thanks to everyone who made today - the Fellows who gave up their mornings, the staff who made it all work and most of all the magnificent Vivs. She is one of those people who creates energy wherever she goes.
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20 November 2008
On my way to Manchester to pursue the RSA's mission .... and youthful memories
I’m on my way to Manchester for an RSA Networks open day, of which more later. When RCE (Barbara, or ‘the Real Chief Executive’ as everyone knows her) told me my train was at 6.20 I was spectacularly unchuffed. It’s not so much the getting up early that I find objectionable, more the going to bed early that I find impossible.
Walking through the streets of Lambeth at half past five this morning I was reminded of my brief stint as a street cleaner in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It was the summer of 1977. Every morning I was full of energy and hope, even though I’d rarely had more than three hours sleep. I loved walking across Chelsea Bridge as the sun was rising, and even one day when I watched the police river boat haul a body from the Thames, it seemed somehow elegiac.
I recall my first morning most vividly. I turned up at 5.00 am and the foreman allocated me to Reg, a short, stoop shouldered man with skin etched with street dust and a dormant roll-up permanently attached to his bottom lip. He looked about 75 but I later found out was in his mid fifties. Reg took me to a street behind Sloane Square gave me a broom and set me to work.
After about half an hour I was regretting ever taking this summer job. I was covered in sweat, my eyes were streaming and I had already developed a pathological hatred for dog owners. Reg sidled up to me. He pointed back to the pristine pavement stretching 100 yards or so behind me. ‘’Ave you done this?; he asked in such accusatory tones that I assumed my productivity was well below par. ‘Yes’ I nodded, bracing myself for a lecture about the fecklessness of youth. ‘Listen mate’ said Reg patting me on the back ‘this is a job not a bleeding vocation’.
That’s when the proper initiation began, the most important part of which concerned the morning inspection round made by the foreman on his motor scooter. Looking in his white pith helmet every inch a district superintendent on an imperial posting, the supervisor made it a matter of pride that he kept always to a strict timetable. You could set your clock by when you would hear the putter of his scooter rounding the corner and see his jaunty salute as he satisfied himself that the Royal Borough's staff were hard at work.
And we did set our clocks.
For this was the only time of the day when we could reliably be found with brooms in our hands. At all other times we would be distributed far and wide, some at home, some in the pub or the betting shop, one even pursuing a Lawrentian affair with a Sloane dowager. The only one of us who was generally to be seen with his handcart was Sean the junky who used his to secrete car radios nicked to pay for his habit.
Now, I guess, I do have a vocation, or at least a mission. Today is a big day for the RSA as we try to transform the Society into a powerful force for social innovation. The Fellowship and network teams have done a great job of preparation and I am really looking forward to the day (I will report back later from the train home). But sometimes, only sometimes, I wish I could return to those days when creativity was something you used not to improve your job, but to avoid having to do it.
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19 November 2008
Swimming in a sea of social pessimism
I have been swimming in a sea of social pessimism. Last night it was the focus for my talk to a Joseph Rowntree Foundation event on new social evils. This morning I went along (in a personal capacity) to a Progress seminar about the ‘broken society’ thesis. The seminar featured the predictable split between those who urge ministers and progressive commentators to refute the broken society thesis and expose the motives behind it, and those who warn that unless Government shows it is responding to public concerns (however misplaced or anecdotal) it will look complacent and out of touch.
These options having been stated early on, there were then attempts to suggest a middle way: empathise with social pessimism but maintain that something is being done about it; or encourage optimism but with a ‘pro social’ emphasis on the responsibility of citizens to contribute to further progress.
Inevitably one of the speakers this morning was Ben Page from IPSOS MORI. Ben, you will recall, provided entertaining and authoritative overviews of the public mood to each of the RSA’s three party conference meetings. It was on a different issue that I cornered him as I left the seminar.
Ben spoke here at the RSA last week. But his findings highlighting public inconsistency and pessimism were called into question by Professor Paul Dolan from Imperial College. Dolan argues that survey data on questions such as the state of the country was of very little value for three powerful and overlapping reasons. First, people rarely think about such grand issues, so the response they give is bound to be off the top of the head rather than considered. Second, the framing of the questions is highly suggestive of particular responses; just asking ‘do you think the country is going in the right direction’ seems designed to produce the response ‘well, if you’re asking, I guess the answer must be ‘no’’. Third, there is a great deal of evidence that our answers to such questions are heavily influenced by ephemeral recent events. People will give more positive answers on sunny days and much more positive answers if something good has just happened to them.
This struck a chord with me as in recent talks and conversations I have been extolling the virtues of cultural theory (yes, that again). With public sector types one finds oneself underlining the importance of engaging with the individualist perspective: the view that nature is resilient and that the world goes on just fine if we all do what comes naturally to us. The problem is that the tool councils use to find out what people want tends to be polling (usually done by colleagues of Ben Page). But, as I now tend to argue, in view of the limitations of polling, they should be spending much less time asking people what they think and much more finding out what people do.
A classic example of this relates to green public spaces. If during the design process for a park which may be, let’s say, rectangular, members of the public are asked whether they will stick to the paths round the edge of the lawned space they are likely to say ‘yes’. But, in fact, we know that if there a quicker diagonal route between entry and exit points to the space the public will quickly create an unofficial path or ‘desire line’ cutting the park in half.
I said all this to Ben expecting him to respond with a spirited defence of opinion polling. But, no, as usually he was unflappable. ‘Very interesting’ he said ‘and probably why we have started employing our own in-house ethnographers at IPSOS MORI’.
PS: Five minutes after finishing this blog, I came across the front page of Society Guardian about Irena Bauman. She, it turns out, is doing exactly what I advocate above and has been doing it for some time, and brilliantly.
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18 November 2008
The social implications of neuroscience and a fantastic essay by Zadie Smith
When my blog site is upgraded (I am told ‘it is only a matter of time’) I will be able to link to some of my own favorite sites. One that I discovered only recently is ‘The Frontal Cortex’. It’s a great site which focuses on one of my own main interests – the social implications of neuroscience.
What particularly attracted me was a post from the site’s author Jonah Lehrer about a fantastic recent essay in the New York Review of Books by Zadie Smith. In the essay Smith contrasts two novels – one the best selling and highly acclaimed Netherland by Joseph O’Neill, the other Tom McCarthy’s avant garde masterpiece (according to Smith), Remainder. The question posed by Smith in a piece that combines forensic critique with barely suppressed rage at the persistence of the conventions of novel writing, is why it is that the mythical world of lyrical realism has such a grip on us. Smith’s questioning is made more poignant because she is herself an exponent of exactly the form of writing she is critiquing.
In this sense Smith’s piece is a classical restatement of the modernist question? Why is it that we accept the way the world is portrayed in conventional realism as if it really is how the world is? Lehrer usefully makes the link between Smith and Virginia Woolf’s classic essay "Modern Fiction":
Look within and life, it seems, is very far from being "like this". Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions--trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday, the accent falls differently from of old
As Lehrer goes on to say:
“Woolf doesn't name drop neurons, but instead uses the language of contemporary science ("impressions," sensory "atoms"). The connection between this Smith essay and Woolf's modernist manifesto becomes even more explicit when Smith goes on to consider the flaws of realism (as represented by Netherland). She compares the depiction of reality in "realistic" literature to the flux of self-conscious experience, ridiculing the strict constraints of 21st century realism just as Woolf had mocked "Mr. Wells, Mr. Bennett and Mr. Galsworthy" in 1925, for never grappling with the disorder of "human nature".
Netherland doesn't really want to know about misapprehension. It wants to offer us the authentic story of a self. But is this really what having a self feels like? Do selves always seek their good, in the end? Are they never perverse? Do they always want meaning? Do they not sometimes want its opposite? And is this how memory works? Do our childhoods often return to us in the form of coherent, lyrical reveries? Is this how time feels? Do the things of the world really come to us like this, embroidered in the verbal fancy of times past? Is this really Realism?'
Earlier this year in my annual essay - notable for the fact it has been read or watched even fewer times that my blog has been read (yes I know self pity is ugly but in my case I can promise it is authentic) – I asked what might happen when greater awareness of brain science made it more difficult for us to maintain the myths of Western selfhood? In responding David Willetts questioned whether ‘knowing’ something scientifically, but which is counter intuitive, always changes the way we see and act. For example, he said, we know the sun doesn’t ‘rise’, it is the earth that turns but that doesn’t change either how we talk about it or how we see it.
The irony of the lyrical realist novel is that far from persisting because it describes reality it gets its power from reinforcing the myth of a separate, continuous, Cartesian self.
PS In yesterday’s blog I asked whether the ban on smoking in public places will reduce smoking overall. Mike Bury e-mails me to point out figures showing an unprecedented decline of 400,000 in the number of smokers since the ban was introduced. As you say, Mike, it’s a triumph for progressive paternalism
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17 November 2008
Smoking bans and presumed consent
On Friday I was in Ware talking to various local government leaders about behaviour change. I used the opportunity to elaborate on cultural theory and its four paradigms for social relations: the hierarchical, the egalitarian, the individualist and the fatalist.
To what extent, I asked, do behaviour change strategies in areas such as obesity, alcohol abuse, anti-social behaviour engage with these ways of seeing the world and acting upon it? Behaviour change as a concept is hierarchical, being as it is about people in authority deeming a behaviour to be unacceptable and then maintaining that, through the use of expertise and authority, they can solve it. But how, if at all, do these strategies engage individualism, egalitarianism and fatalism?
We discussed the ban on smoking in public places, which is widely seen as a success. I suggested that it had worked – in the sense that it has been accepted – because the hierarchical authority of health experts and policy makers had reinforced the egalitarian demands of non-smokers (made more powerful by evidence of the effects of passive smoking). Individualist pressures were balanced between smokers and non-smokers while fatalist smokers would stand out in the rain resigned to their status as social outcasts rather than mounting the barricades in defence of their habit. Whether the ban will work in its wider aim of reducing smoking is less clear. With pubs closing every day and, presumably, more people drinking and smoking at home it could be that the mixture of wilfulness and passivity among smokers will leave smoking levels only marginally reduced.
This discussion took place on the same day as the UK Organ Donation Task Force announced that it had decided against recommending ‘presumed consent’ for organ donation. Among the reasons given was the concern that this might lead to a backlash against the policy and doctors administering it. In cultural theory terms the argument here is that presumed consent could create egalitarian momentum as patients came to believe that they were vulnerable to being exploited by doctors.
Cultural theory argues that each of the four views of social relations gains its energy from its opposition to the others. Doctors have largely escaped the loss of public esteem and trust that has affected other authority figures. The legitimacy accorded to the medical profession means that their authority is not perceived as a hierarchical imposition so it has not generally provided the context for the emergence of an egalitarian or individualist opposition (although there have been critiques of medical practice from particular communities of patients). Given the mixed evidence of the actual impact of presumed consent on donation levels, the task force clearly felt that trust was too big a price to pay.
Gordon Brown seems to be considering overruling the recommendations but in recognising the limitations and vulnerabilities of policy based on hierarchical authority, and in urging greater commitment to the ‘clumsier’ solution of organised voluntarism, the Task Force may be offering wise counsel.
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13 November 2008
The age of austerity and the rediscovery of Keynes
Another great event here last night. It was the first in our series about a new age of austerity and last night a distinguished panel, including Lords Skidelski and Desai and Martin Wolf, were exploring the rediscovery of Keynes.
The one non-economist was John Naish, author of ‘Enough: Breaking free from the world of more’. John’s focus was on a Keynes essay entitled ‘economic possibilities for our grandchildren’. In this essay Keynes predicted that the progress of technology should mean that by about now we could stop worrying about economic growth and instead concentrate on cultivating the good life. For Naish the economic crisis, combined with the even more profound challenge of climate change, is the opportunity for us to reconsider the whole growth strategy of consumer capitalism.
I have some sympathy with this view. As I have said in recent blogs we are still waiting for our political leaders to be upfront with us about the sheer scale of the problems we face and the kind of adjustments individuals and society will need to make, not just to get through this crisis, but to reduce the risks of it happening again.
But the focus now is on what to do to stop a recession becoming a deflationary depression. Our experts last night tended to agree that increasing borrowing (primarily to allow tax cuts with the aim of increasing consumption) was a necessary evil. In today’s Guardian, Gavyn Davies (a friend and advisor to Gordon Brown) is even more radical, stating that the Government faces no alternative but to simply keep printing money until the danger of deflation recedes.
One problem here is that the message from Government and most economists to consumers, businesses and banks is to do precisely what caused the crisis in the first place: spend, borrow and lend like there’s no tomorrow. This is what happens when you move from a bubble in which people can raise money for anything, however crazy, to a bust in which no one will lend or borrow for anything, however sensible. But not only is it difficult to persuade people to resume the behaviour which got them into the pickle they are now in, there will also be a tomorrow in which the money now being thrown at banks, public services, and soon taxpayers, will have to be reclaimed.
Because people had their fingers burnt and because they are fearful for the future. Government has to go to great lengths to persuade them to spend. This in turn creates the danger that the medicine causes reactions as bad as the illness, for example, the depreciation of the pound and the risk of national insolvency. My own prescription, for what it is worth, is that whilst borrowing will inevitably increase, we should also re-profile existing spending. In particular, I would enact a time limited tax increase for higher rate tax payers (including me), passing the revenue over to increase unemployment benefit, which I am told is one of the best ways of ensuring that additional public spending translates directly into consumer spending.
I am not a good enough economist to know whether there is a genuine choice between radical short term actions aimed at making the recession ‘v’ shaped and a more profound policy approach which accepts the inevitability of a long term period of economic stagnation while seeking to manage its social impacts. The case for the latter approach is based not just on concerns about the knock on effects of the emergency measures now being discussed, but also the persistence of the underlying economic challenges which have been obscured by the crisis. As I said, climate change continues to be the greatest threat facing the world. Add to that a report yesterday from the International Energy Agency saying both that oil would run out without a massive increase in investment in research and infrastructure and that there is still a deeply inadequate global response to the need to generate more energy from non fossil sources. Then add other underlying resource issues such as food shortages plus the impact of demography. As David Brindle pointed out yesterday, rising life expectancies are increasing UK pension liabilities (not to mention future health and social care costs) by between £8 and £9 billion a year. John Naish and other environmentalists might argue the case for a zero growth economy. The problem is that no growth would actually mean either sharply deteriorating public services or sharply falling living standards.
Economists are busily tearing up almost everything they have written for the last thirty years. But this mustn’t just be in order to justify emergency measures today. We also need a much more profound debate about how our national and global economy can be restructured to meet the demands of the 21st century.
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12 November 2008
Discussing civic engagement when in a foul mood ...
I spoke last night at an ACEVO event on civic engagement. I left late and got hopelessly lost behind Liverpool Street station. So by the time I arrived in the three quarters empty room I was in a foul mood. This was only exacerbated by the idealism and cheeriness of the panel members, keynote Trevor Phillips, Chair of the ECHR, Baroness Jill Pitkeathley OBE and Stephen Burke, CEO of Counsel and Care. They were all terribly in favour of civic engagement. So being a mature, responsible, thoughtful person I arbitrarily decided I would be against it for the night.
What, I said, is the point of civic engagement? Some say it is necessary for democratic accountability but citizens and voters don’t seem to have a problem mobilising when they want to change or stop something. Whether it’s the turnout in the US elections or local campaigns against post office closures, people get moving when they feel they need to. It is not clear that we need to maintain a high background level of engagement in order to foster these interventions.
Another argument says civic engagement is necessary to ensure we get good policy decisions. Well, up to a point. I am all in favour of innovative forms of deliberation like Planning for Real or citizens’ juries (proper ones, not the phoney versions organised last year by the Government), but these are intensive processes which are essentially about taking people out of the community and turning them into experts for the day. The benefits of engaging the wider population (who rarely think about such things and who tend to be suspicious of change) is less clear. That’s why mass societies developed representative democracy.
A third argument is that civic engagement brings communities together and makes them stronger. But in reality civic mobilisation is often about conflict within communities and exclusion. Baroness Pitkeathley positively cited two examples of effective civic engagement around her weekday home in Islington. The first was to establish a residents’ parking zone, the second was to close down a rowdy pub. But, as I pointed out to her, in both cases the community was mobilising to exclude outsiders. This may be good for the community but what about the wider social good – where will the non resident drivers park now, have the pub goers moved on to a community even less able to cope with their exploits?
A fourth argument goes back to the civic republican tradition asserting that civic engagement is simply part of living the good life as a good citizen. I sympathise with this view. But to what extent is my claim that civic engagement is good for you any more valid than someone else’s claim that meditation, eating spinach or wearing crystals is good for you? And, I said, building ever stronger bridges with my audience of third sector CEOs, if civic engagement is so great, how come so many charities try to keep their members and lay activists at arm’s length?
By the time I had finished my rant, everyone in the room was feeling less cheerful but my bad mood had almost gone. So it was time to be more constructive. The point about civic engagement is that it is an important part of the solution to a specific problem. Rather than praise engagement as a universal good in itself, we should see it as an often essential part of what cultural theorists (yes, them again) call a clumsy solution. In his recent book ‘Organising and Disorganising’, Michael Thompson (speaking here on December 4th) cites the example of the relocation of Arsenal football club as an exemplary clumsy solution. He argues that the right outcome – the building of the Emirates Stadium on derelict ground close to Highbury – was possible because the search for a solution involved the hierarchical actor (the Council), the individualist actor (the Club) and the egalitarian actor (the Residents’ Association). Civic engagement was a powerful part, but only a part, of a solution to a particular problem.
It is by understanding the contribution civic engagement can make to clumsy solutions, rather than simply extolling it as a virtue in itself, that we can best develop our ideas and practice.
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11 November 2008
Vince Cable's words of wisdom on the economy
Vince Cable spoke this morning to the 2020 Public Services Trust, a new think tank based here at the RSA, and with whom we are working in partnership. It was an interesting and high powered conversation ranging from the current economic crisis to longer term strategic issues facing the public sector.
Vince is one of our most highly respected Parliamentarians on the basis not just of his cutting wit and self effacing style, but also his perspicacity in predicting key features of the credit crunch. He was one of the very few politicians around the world willing to argue that we would one day have to pay the price for spiralling household debt.
The Lib Dems are now lining up with the Conservatives in arguing that new public expenditure should not be financed by additional public borrowing, beyond that which will anyway be made necessary by the recession. But Cable recognises that in the short to medium term the public sector needs to be protected as a safe haven of employment and a generator of spending on private sector service and goods.
A couple of weeks ago I had an exchange with Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome. We agreed that political leaders needed to be more up front with us about the depth and impact of the economic downturn. We still haven’t heard this speech but listening to Vince I now feel there is another speech we need, directed particularly at the public sector.
In this speech public managers – everyone from local authority chief executives to primary school head teachers - need to be put on notice. While spending levels will be maintained, and may even be increased, in the next two years after that a substantial retrenchment is inevitable. There is much talk in Treasury circles of re-profiling spending plans. In layman’s terms that means spend more now and less in the future. So, for example, a three year programme involving £20 million extra every year for three years (a cumulative £120 million) might be re-profiled as £30 million extra in year one, another £30 million extra in year two but a reduction by £30 million in year three (also £120 million).
As a manager myself I know that I would much rather be told now that I should be planning and investing for difficult times ahead than be suddenly confronted by cuts. In this sense, as I said to Vince at the end of the seminar, the public sector needs to hear the message that too few households heeded in the boom. Borrowing is fine as a strategy, it may be a good investment or an important counter cyclical tool, but growing borrowing cannot become a lifetime habit.
If public mangers start preparing now for the inevitable squeeze from 2010 onwards, indeed if they invest some of the money they now have in measures that can improve productivity and reduce the underlying cost base, then the squeeze when it comes can be tough but not life threatening (more bear than boa constrictor).
For, as Vince said, the danger of assuming we can cut back in future years is that when push comes to shove the cuts are too painful to deliver. In that way a cyclical debt problem can become endemic.
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10 November 2008
Surely the media can't have it both ways?
At the risk of contrivance, I want to try and link four recent events:
· A fascinating debate we had here at the RSA last week about social pessimism (the tendency of the public to be pessimistic about society despite objective improvements in their circumstances and optimism about their own prospects).
· Paul Dacre’s attack last night on Justice Eady and his spirited defence of the right of the press to expose venality and hypocrisy in high places.
· An apology to Shaun Woodward in the Sunday Times.
· A poll published this morning by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, showing that only 22% of those surveyed (down from 27% in 2006) think ministers tell the truth.
In essence, my argument is that the press can’t have it both ways. If newspapers want, as Paul Dacre demands, the right to expose those in power, they have got to accept the responsibilities that come with that right. The problem is not so much the attacks journalists make on politicians and other people whom they deem a fair target, it is the lack of balance and the failure of accountability when the papers get things wrong.
So, in the social sphere, it may be that the newspapers are telling the truth when they give lots of publicity to violent crime – but this is completely out of proportion to the coverage they give to, for example, the evidence that crime levels are falling overall. If things are going well, there is simply no story. So, a visitor from Mars reading any of our newspapers would find it impossible to believe that satisfaction levels with the NHS are currently higher than they have ever been or that school standards are at an all time high. The media are therefore implicated in the phenomenon of social pessimism, something which individual journalists will admit, but corporate media moguls deny.
At a personal level, if you get attacked by the press, you can hope to weather the storm, but never expect to get a proper right of reply. Take the example of the Sunday Times and its full page splash on the minister, Shaun Woodward, eight days ago. The paper alleged that, despite the economic downturn, he had celebrated his 50th birthday in the most luxurious, over the top, decadent style imaginable. Unfortunately, it wasn’t true! As the Sunday Times revealed yesterday in its apology, just about everything in the piece was incorrect – the venue for the party, the number of guests, whether they all ended up in a nightclub; even the photograph was from the archives. It is clear from the apology that the journalist made no attempt to check his sources or their veracity. But whilst the grossly misleading story filled a whole page of the newspaper, the apology was one paragraph tucked away on an inside page. Unquestionably, tens of thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands, will have read the story, but may not have spotted the apology.
No-one reasonable wants to punish for the sake of it, but one assumes that the journalist who wrote the story is continuing happily in post. If a politician were found guilty of such public dishonesty, it would be a resigning matter. This is the context in which the survey showing declining trust in ministers has taken place.
Whatever the merits of Paul Dacre’s defence of a free press, the case would surely be strengthened if the media were willing themselves to be self-critical, responsible and accountable, rather than seeming to demand those virtues of everyone but themselves.
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07 November 2008
The possibly far-reaching implications of the Glenrothes by-election
Please excuse a political blog. Old habits die hard and it has been an interesting week!
There is bound to be much speculation about the implications and consequences of the Glenrothes by-election. Momentum is important in politics. Gordon Brown now has some. The financial crisis fits a man who believes in Government and craves big issues into which he can immerse himself. In contrast, whatever points the Conservatives can score by reminding us of Labour’ hubristic claims to have ‘ended boom and bust’, free market values and slick PR don’t sit well with financial meltdown and a mood of austerity.
The expectation will still be of a Conservative victory, although few now envisage a 1997 style landslide. But behind current predictions for the next General Election lie trends which may prove as important as the result itself. While last night was a defeat for nationalism it was also a confirmation of the splintered electoral map of Britain.
There is nothing new about a North South divide in British politics. It was the North and the inner cities that kept Labour alive in the 1980s, when it had virtually no appeal to the middle classes. This divide helped revive nationalism after the failures in the late 70s, especially when the Conservatives decided to use Scotland to test the poll tax. But even then the Conservatives had just enough presence (and recent history) in the north of England and Scotland to claim an aggregate national legitimacy.
But in the next election, a variety of factors including the different values and personal appeal of the party leaders could turn this divide into an abyss. From what I hear of areas like Kent, the South Coast and the wider commuter belt, there is a good chance that, with the exception of some parts of inner London, Labour will be wiped out south of Coventry. Yet the Conservatives have little presence, and continue to be weak, in the conurbations of the North. Arguably, only the North West and Midlands contain areas that feel genuinely contested.
This creates two prospects. First, an election in which the battle of the air (the media contest between Brown and Cameron) bears even less relation than usual to the battle on the ground. While the leaders trade claims on our TVs, on our streets the Tories may be conducting an unopposed sweep of the south (aided by the apparent decline of the LibDems) while a cash strapped Labour satisfies itself with northern consolidation.
Second, an incoming Conservative Government could from day one face a major problem of legitimacy and connection. If the Conservatives decide they can keep relying on the south, and if Labour retreats to its heartlands, the emergence of the divisive geopolitics seen in varying degrees in Italy, Thailand or the US can’t be out of the question.
Whatever its other pros and cons, Scottish independence would go some way to solving this problem. The Scots wouldn’t care who ran Westminster and the Conservatives would so dominate England that the urban north would just have to accept its minority status. But last night’s result suggests the steam may be coming out of nationalism. This offers the prospect of a Scotland lacking the desire to go it alone but viewing a Conservative UK government with a mixture of indifference and resentment. (With electoral politics exacerbating divisions, society will need lots of organisations like the RSA firmly committed to working to the same values and broad agenda across the UK.)
There is of course a simple way out of this: electoral reform. This would guarantee Labour a sprinkling of southern MPs outside inner London and the Conservatives a voice even where they are comparatively weak, as we see in the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament. But here is something about which the two major parties continue to agree absolutely – the maintenance of Westminster’s unrepresentative electoral system.
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06 November 2008
The official opening of the RSA Academy - a big success
In the next couple of weeks I hope to unveil a new format for my blog. As well as linking to all my favourite bloggers and making it much easier for people to make comments, I want to be able to cover both current affairs and news from the RSA. I promised on Tuesday to update readers on the Academy launch but then, like everyone else, I got caught up in Obama fever. My new blog will contain a reserved space for news about the Society.
So with apologies for being one day late I can say that the launch was a big success. Prince Philip was on great form with the pupils loving his characteristic no-nonsense style. HRH’s opening comments included the line ‘I was amazed when they said the RSA was going to run a school. Frankly I didn’t know they could run anything!’ The visitors for the day included local dignitaries, sponsors of the Academy, local people and many RSA Fellows. There will be another grand opening in 2010 when the new school building opens for business but, despite being in the old premises, Mick Gernon, the Principal, and his team had clearly achieved great progress in just a few months.
New uniforms, school bags and signage spoke to the sense of a fresh start, while the school’s organisation, its practical learning opportunities, five term year and application of Opening Minds underlined the Academy’s commitment to innovation. The RSA wanted to sponsor an Academy not as a status symbol but to develop innovative new ways of schooling. I firmly believe that soon the RSA Academy Tipton will be known across the UK and beyond as a symbol of what 21st century schooling can be at its best.
And while I am on the Academy I should pay tribute to Penny Egan, my predecessor, and her Trustees for having the vision and determination not only to commit to the Academy but to choose such a great place for it. We have ambitious plans for further development on the Academy campus and to use the school as a hub for community engagement. For an organisation like the RSA to be so engaged with a community like Tipton (and in it for the long term) is fantastic, and the fact that most of the pupils support my beloved West Brom is the icing on the cake.
The Academy is one part of our ever more ambitious education programme. This week we had some good news on the funding of our progressive education alliance, of which more news soon. And Louise Thomas, a member of our education team, has undertaken a comprehensive review of OFSTED inspections of Opening Minds schools. Her conclusions are incredibly encouraging with over 90% of comments made by OFSTED about Opening Minds being positive. The full draft report can be read here.
One place I will be making sure to send the report is Conservative Central Office. Michael Gove and his team continue to portray Opening Minds as wishy-washy liberal nonsense. This is a blot on an otherwise thoughtful Tory education platform. I have been trying to get a meeting with Michael for several months. I’m still hopeful that we can find a time soon as I’d hate to conclude that what Michael is trying to avoid us – in Thomas Huxley’ phrase: his beautiful hypothesis being challenged by some ugly facts. It would be disastrous if schools were discouraged from a curriculum that is getting great results and which – above all – enthuses the pupils who study it.
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I had a very interesting conversation about policy making with Michael Blastland (a former speaker at the RSA) on the Today programme this morning. Here is the link.
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05 November 2008
A new dawn?
‘A new dawn has broken has it not?’ said Tony Blair on May 2nd 1997. Those of us who were part of the New Labour team win will find our excitement at Barack Obama’s victory tinged with poignant memories of eleven years ago and an urgent desire to warn of the perils of sky high expectations.
We already know that Barack Obama is a very special man. He has had to overcome personal and social hurdles higher than those that faced Tony Blair. And America is a very different country to the UK, with power more dispersed at the centre and in the states. But with Capitol Hill in the Democrats’ hands, and the Republicans about to enter several years of soul searching, Obama does have scope to deliver the change he promised. So what are the lessons of New Labour that the advisors to President Elect Obama should heed?
- Being in power is different to campaigning for power. Some of the best people in the fight to win office lack the patience, gravitas or personal skills to be in office. Obama will need to have some tough conversations with some good friends. The message needs to change and the way of telling it too. As former New York Governor Mario Cuomo said ‘you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose’. Labour lost goodwill when they looked like they were turning Whitehall into a second Millbank.
- Under promise and over deliver. Expectations for Obama are sky high but while everyone is hanging on his every word he has the opportunity to define success. Making grand pledges now makes for great headlines today when you don’t need them and accusations of failure when times aren’t so good. Much better to promise only what you can deliver and surprise people when the achievements outstrip the promises.
- Take the time to understand the last Government’s policies. It is the job of oppositions to traduce everything the incumbent has done. Things seem so much simpler from outside. It is vital to take the time to listen to those who have been inside Government, and can tell you why decisions were made, and which policies (however they may look from outside) might actually work. In 1997 Labour made the mistake of reversing the Conservative health reforms assuming these were inspired merely by ideology. In fact those reforms were the result of deep frustration with other change strategies, as Labour found out to its cost in term two. Iraq is the obvious area where Obama will need to make the transition from campaigning to decision making.
- Do the difficult stuff early. Tony Blair became a better domestic Prime Minister as the years passed. Unfortunately by the time he really got to grips with the job his political capital was in decline and much of the extra Government investment had already been committed. Obama needs to use the enthusiasm he now has, especially on his own side, to make hard choices.
- Don’t be seduced by the new toys. Labour ministers spent several years pulling levers in their Whitehall offices before anyone had the heart to tell them the levers weren’t actually attached to anything outside. Naturally, when you take office you want to believe you can do anything. But power isn’t like that and neither is society. President Obama needs to develop a clear understanding of the locus of his powers. In its early years Labour too often did things to people (local government, public service workers) rather than with them. As a result natural allies became disillusioned and the centre became chronically overloaded. It takes longer to persuade others to work in partnership but it is a much more realistic way of making change stick.
The reason above all why Barack Obama is such an exciting politician is his ability to engage people directly, to make them feel part of the change. This was one of the reasons his campaign was so special. He illustrated this quality - something he shares with JFK - in his brave speech about race after the Jeremiah Wright row. The new President must carry on explaining to people that real change can only come when government and people share ambitions and the responsibility for achieving them. This is transformative leadership. It is the value added great politicians bring. It is what can make Obama the brilliant campaigner into Obama the great President.
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03 November 2008
What a difference a man (or woman) can make.
In my last posting I linked the BBC’s problems to the exaggerated power of those deemed to have talent and this in turn to a broader questioning of the role of ‘genius’ in culture and science. Writing about the credit crunch and the downfall of some of the big beasts of the banking world, John Kay made a similar point in the FT last week. Kay writes:
The survivor in any bureaucracy, private or public, is not the person who gets things right – rarely a popular figure – but the one who attaches himself to success and distances himself from failure. In the clumsy hands of Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, this behaviour is so transparent as to be almost comical. But Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, deserved the label “maestro” for the skill with which he deployed this strategy for two decades. Like Napoleon, “he did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle, he inclined to the most reasonable opinions, he made no confusion, did not contradict himself, did not get frightened or run away from the field of battle, but with his great tact and military experience carried out his role of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity”. But, just as Napoleon’s run of victories ended at Borodino, Mr Greenspan’s ran out in the credit crunch.
I sent my posting to my free market liberal sparring partner John Montgomery. He agreed with me about the status of celebrities, which he sees as a consequence of post-modernism (isn’t that shooting the messenger John?), but he found my questioning of the contribution of individuals very suspect. Referring to artistic geniuses such as Joyce and Cezanne, John says that anyone who rejects the idea that they changed the history of culture must be doing it ‘for political reasons and collectivist ideology’.
If the polls are right we will start finding out tomorrow how much one person can change history. John McCain may be distancing himself from George Bush but it is difficult to see why things in the US would change greatly if he won. In contrast, President Barack Obama would be expected to make a major difference to his country.
Any complex change results from many things, including other change. So we like to keep life simple by giving responsibility to one person. Behind the enthusiasm for Obama is the sense that a politician can, in addition to whatever legislative and policy changes they make (remember the US federal government has only limited influence on many domestic issues) have an effect on the national mood. Why might this be?
My suggestion is that there are fundamental ways of viewing ourselves, other people and the wider world (as regular readers know I start from cultural theory’s four categories). Each of us contains these perspectives but in differing degrees and at different times in different contexts. They exist not just at the level of ideas but also reflect hard wired cognitive systems. For society in aggregate, events and opportunities (the latter often provided by emerging techniques and technologies) favour some of these ways of seeing and acting over others. At certain times, both for the individual and the collective, there comes a moment when it feels like we are in transition between perspectives. At those times powerful communicators can have an important role. One example might be the way that Margaret Thatcher spoke to many people’s desire to move from the hierarchical-egalitarian assumptions of post-war corporatism to an unashamedly individualistic way of being.
If we listen to one voice, act on that voice and in doing so elect someone who speaks back to us using the same voice, it can mark a genuinely significant shift. So Obama can make a difference not because he is a great man (although he may prove to be) but because he can speak to a latent desire for change that has built up in the US over many years. I think he will win but – and here there are sad lessons to learn from New Labour – his first and possibly toughest task will be to deal with the expectations that have built up around him.
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