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There can be no doubt that society in the West has changed enormously over the past millennium. Scientific advances have moved us from superstitious musings about the universe to an intricate understanding of a vast array of phenomena. Technological advances have transformed our lives from grinding subsistence to a pampered world of luxury. However, most interesting of all, in my opinion, are the changes in attitude in society over the past thousand years.
Systems and cultures that were accepted without a second thought, are regarded today with abhorrence and disgust. The emergence of democracy, the emancipation of women, and the abolition of slavery are all good examples of how the attitudes of society have metamorphosed.
Given these healthy metamorphoses, it is easy to feel a sense of complacent superiority over our ancestors and their societies and their values. Indeed, it would be natural to assume that such complacent superiority would have also been felt by, for instance, Christian medieval society over their pagan forebears, and by liberal Victorian society over previous slave-trading generations. And yet the medieval Christians had no qualms over slavery, and the Victorians persisted in viewing women as mere chattels of their husbands. Such an observation surely forces us to question our society and its values. For if all previous generations accepted readily attitudes and social structures that we find appalling today, it would be, without doubt, monstrous to suppose that we have reached a peak, and that our descendents will not find moral and social failings to which our society is blinded. In this way, any such sense of complacent superiority is distinctly arrogant.
What might these failings be to which society is so blind at present? Given that I am a member of that ‘blind’ society, I am obviously prevented from giving any complete answer to this question. However, as society is able to evolve and discover its faults, it would appear to be more accurate to view society as myopic rather than blind, with its failings slowly becoming recognisable through the blurred haze of time. With this in mind, I feel able to make a tentative suggestion of my own of what I feel might be one aspect of modern society that the future generations of the next millennium will judge harshly.
The United Kingdom is a rich and privileged country. Despite our open and co-operative relationships with many other countries in the world, we remain jealously protective of our position and affluence. For instance, our society may accept (to greater or lesser degrees) into its midst those fleeing from another country due to the threat extreme political persecution, but it closes its door firmly against those who wish to share in its bounty. What is more our society accepts as gospel the need to spend vast sums to provide its own health care and education, extravagant beyond belief compared to the majority of the world where even the most rudimentary provision is regarded as luxury. And how do we gain the rights to such privileges? By our merits? By our labour? No, merely by accident of birth. To be a citizen of this country is to be an aristocrat in the world.
Given that we recieve these positions and privileges simply through virtue of birth we have no more rights to them than the aristocracy of ages past; the very aristocracy whose positions and privileges have been systematically dismantled over the course of this century and decried almost universally by society as undemocratic and elitist. If we in society are not to commit a hideous crime of hypocrisy, we surely must recognise the morally indefensible nature of our country’s position and take the noble and courageous step of dismantling this national aristocracy from within, rather than ignoring our responsibility and waiting for change to be ignominiously thrust upon us.
This suggestion of mine will doubtless have its critics (indeed, I am not sure I agree with it wholeheartedly myself), but whatever its merits and failings such introspection and examination of our values as a society is vital if we are to mature spiritually and grow into communion with God. To follow Jesus Christ is surely to attempt to root out, as he so effectively did, those accepted, yet rotten, values and morals of society. The dawn of the new millennium seems an ideal time to do just this, following the examples of the great Christian social and moral pioneers of history such as Martin Luther and the Earl of Shaftesbury, as we journey onwards towards the Kingdom of God.
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Last modified: 25th November 2005