Nobody needs to be Good
Dear Reader,
Last week in England saw the results for the annual GCSE and ’A’ level school examinations. Again we have seen record numbers of pupils obtain the highest grades, some 46% achieving A or A* grade at ‘A’ level. In private, fee-paying schools this percentage rises to 79%. Though it is only a few years since the A* grade was introduced to differentiate between the very high numbers achieving A, grade inflation has caught up once more. Some now call for the abolishment of the exam system while others rigorously defend the results. Highlighting the difference in performance between the private sector schools and the public sector schools, still others call for more investment in the lowest performing schools and communities to reduce ‘inequality.’ Meanwhile the plethora of top grades leaves employers and universities struggling to differentiate between candidates or to know if new employees are capable of doing work required of them. Some universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge, are reverting to setting their own examinations, having lost trust in the system, while others are no longer requiring students to exhibit good grammar and spelling – presumably because it cannot be taken for granted any longer that university students have a good grasp of written English. Meanwhile in educational developments overseas it is reported that in the USA an educational apartheid system is being introduced under the aegis of Critical Race Theory, in the name of racial equality, with some schools segregating classes on the basis of race and other schools allowing BIPOC students to graduate without reaching the necessary standards in English and Math(s). At Yale University Asian-American students are required to score more highly than those of other ethnicities because of their reputation for high achievement. The educational establishment on both sides of the Atlantic has been so gripped by a mania for ‘equality’ that, rather than striving to drive up standards, it has succumbed to a method of manipulating results to achieve an equality of outcome for all. Objective standards have been abandoned in a quest for ‘fairness.’ It is not ‘fair’ that some have greater access to schooling than others, it is not ‘fair’ that some pupils do not come from families that have English as a first language, it is not ‘fair’ that some pupils do not have laptops – so we will manipulate scoring criteria and change the teaching and examination methods to achieve the results wanted, rather than objectively test the pupils for their knowledge. It has echoes of a Maoist drive to increase pig iron production; yes, the pig iron is produced but we cut down all the trees to do it and the quality of the iron is so poor it is unusable – and by the way the peasants are starving now.
Government driven destruction
In the UK this socialisation and levelling process within education has been many years in the making, beginning in 1965 under the Labour government’s Secretary of State for Education, Tony "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England.”1 Crosland. Tony Crosland wanted to improve the life chances of everybody in the UK by destroying the grammar schools, the ladders by which generations of bright boys and girls from poorer backgrounds had received first class education and passed the necessary advanced exams to enter universities or professions. He did not succeed in his aim, largely due to stout rear-guard action by grammar schools that had been established, in some cases, for over 400 years by the time Crosland came along. Nor did Crosland take on the toxic political task of compulsorily closing all fee-paying schools, the other necessity required to achieve his vision of ‘equality.’ In the mean-time the people, in an attempt to escape the ‘bog standard’ education offered by most public comprehensive schools, cluster around what are perceived as the better schools within the state education system, driving up house prices and paying for their children’s education not into the education sector but to banks and mortgage lenders. The egalitarian drive of lawmakers unwanted by the people and circumvented by those who can afford to do so. It could be argued that Crosland and his successors’ attacks on the grammar schools have done more to entrench low educational attainment and destroy social mobility – and thus cement the power of the already wealthy - than any other national policy of the last century. The story of education in the UK over the last 50+ years is emblematic of the whole drive towards ‘equality’ that is rampant across society; it is destructive and self-defeating.
The Idol of the NHS
Another example of the restrictive, even destructive nature of egalitarianism can be found in that sacred cow of the British political system, the National Health Service. Such is the universally perceived value of the NHS that no politician standing for election dare do anything but laud praise upon it, to question ‘our NHS’ is to commit the most stringent of political heresies. Over one fifth of UK government spending cannot be questioned because it is spent on the NHS and funding the NHS is a major political battleground at every election, distorting the political debate to the cost of other important topics. And what does the British people get for their money? According to World Population Review, a healthcare system that is ranked eighteenth in the world2, far behind European neighbours such as France, Spain and Italy. As one might expect, while the poor are grateful for it and the middle-earners have no option, the wealthy or those with good workplace health insurance go for private health provision. All the while the NHS health monopoly funded by general taxation is in place, there is a block on imagination and innovation in health care delivery and unquantifiable cost in lost opportunity. What might be unleashed in the economy and the health of the people if that 20% of national tax take were released back into the wallets of the taxpayers? Good quality food and housing might be affordable for the worst off for one thing.
Politicians - the borrowers who never pay back
A further problem of the big government egalitarianist approach to social policy is the big government debt that comes with it. Seeking to equalise society by legislation comes at a cost, which is borne by the taxpaying public who are the self-same object of that policy. Money is taken from the population and then re-cycled back to it. Such is the nature of democratic politics the temptation or electoral need to drive through a popular but costly policy is always there. Inevitably politicians borrow money on the never-never, mortgaging the future, piling debt high for our children and grandchildren to pay, knowing that they will get the credit for ordering the round but not be there when the bar bill is required to be paid. UK National Debt is currently standing at £2.21 trillion / 99.7% of GDP/ £34000 per man woman and child; its highest level since 1961 (when we were still in the process of rapidly paying down the Second World War debt). Debt levels such as this are vastly weakening to society, a constant drain on the welfare of the people far into the future. Debt is as destructive for nations as it is for individuals, for the lender controls the debtor; this is not news, it is 3500 years since Moses noted that debt is a curse (Deuteronomy 28:44).
Equality strips us of values
The problem of egalitarianism goes much deeper however than the implementation of particular social policies. The logic of egalitarianism requires that not only are equal outcomes required but that all human behaviours and the attitudes that drive them, are all deemed of equal value. First, we see the acceptance of attitudes and behaviours that were previously deemed unacceptable, even sinful and wicked, then their celebration. We witness the death of virtue and the celebration and multiplication of wickedness. In moral terms egalitarianism requires the suspension of judgement and the equivalence of things that are not equivalent. Apples are oranges, black is white and nobody needs to be good. Nothing is left on the egalitarian field of morality except the naked exercise of power by the people who have control. It is this stripping out of values that is greatest threat of the egalitarian mindset, when all things are equal it is power that speaks; it is a short walk from egalitarianism to authoritarianism.
Egalitarianism is the scourge of our times, the levelling drive de-humanises us and treats us as objects and categories, not as individuals, it erodes personal freedoms by coercive power and eradicates ambition and the competitive instinct. It robs us of our God-given right to fail and of the dignity and personal agency that we have as beings created in the image of God. It takes the necessity for love out of our human relationships, making kindness and charity a matter of law not of choice and thereby isolating us from our neighbours. A commonwealth of active citizens is replaced by a society of atomised, passive recipients of Caesar’s largesse. The Christian church, called by its founder to be the transformative leaven in the doughy lump of society becomes a privatised superstition which preaches a ‘personal Lord and Saviour’ and a ticket to heaven, not the overcoming religion which proclaims the Lordship of Christ over the nations and transforms the world around it, as it was designed to be. There are many within the Christian fold who are strong supporters of an egalitarian approach to society and its manifestations such as the NHS, seeing in them the fulfilment of God’s command to care for the weak in society, but the Kingdom of God needs to be built in the manner laid out in the word of God. As Christ Himself said, the house that stands is built on the rock of his word, anything else will not stand the time of testing but collapse like a house built on sand. The gospel of Christ provides a much better way than social egalitarianism, one that does not require coercion or all to be the same but creates a culture of continuing uplift within society. Culture, not systems is the social manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth yet our society has pursued ‘systems so perfect that nobody needs to be good’ as T.S. Eliot put it3. But as we shall see, culture continues where systems fail.
Charity never fails
Prior to the socialisation of society in the mid twentieth century the British had been particularly good at developing mutual support mechanisms. Mutual societies, insurance societies, co-operative societies, funeral societies, credit unions, trade unions, fraternities and charities peppered the social landscape, just as buildings and monuments raised by public subscription are dotted all over our physical landscape. Those pertaining to health were largely wound into the NHS and others converted into public companies over the years but the culture of giving has been sustained in the charities sector. The very word charity bearing witness to the Christian spring from which this culture came; as the Authorised Version of the Bible puts it in 1 Corinthians 13, v13, ‘And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.’ Still today this instinct for charity continues as a distinctive remnant of Christian culture in Britain, and the church is still able to provide the inspiration for society changing social institutions such as The Samaritans (Rev. Chad Varah), the hospice movement (Dame Cicely Saunders) and more recently the food banks that burgeoned in the wake of the 2008 credit crunch, of which two thirds are run by the Trussell Trust, a Christian charity4. The rapid emergence of these food banks across the country, though bemoaned by many who think the state should provide, are a prime example of how culture survives where systems fail. Christ, whose kingdom is not of this world was, it seems, right to build with people rather than power structures.
Within the Law of Moses, the foundation document of Israel, there is a fundamental equality for all as a member of the covenant people of God. All are within the Covenant, all have equal access to the grace of the sacrifice, the Presence of God within the nation is a blessing to all and all have an allotted inheritance from God within the Promised Land. Within the Covenant community of Israel, bound by and under the Law, there is this fundamental equality. Furthermore, within the Law there is the necessity of the rich to care for the poor, the strong for the weak – the widow, the orphan, the stranger and exile. There is also provision, within the Jubilee rules, for the cancellation of debts and the re-distribution of land (capital resource, the original allotted inheritance) back to the family. The Law places the responsibility for our neighbour firmly in the hands of the community, not the government, and creates a rich web of relationship and obligation to bind the whole community together to fulfil that responsibility. Nowhere however does that commitment to the poor diminish a commitment to personal development or the creation of wealth through righteous means; indeed the blessings of obeying the Law include those of abundant material prosperity for the whole nation. The rich are to care for the poor and there is no coercive redistribution. Moving onto the teachings of Jesus again there is no hint of forced care for the poor, distributing money to the poor was an integral part of his ministry as he travelled around but there is no teaching that all must or will be treated identically. The opposite is in fact true, in His parable of the talents Christ shows that our heavenly reward is based on our fruitfulness as servants of our Master. Christ raises the humble and humbles the proud, he makes the last first and the first last – but He does not make all equal, He judges between us.
Everyone needs to be Good
The Law of Moses provides an objective moral standard, rooted in the loving character of God (The Shape of Love) against which we can measures ourselves, both our personal and our communal conduct. The life and sacrifice of Jesus was however made necessary by the failure of humanity to live according to the precepts of the Law. Though in modern times the Church has largely fallen in step with the world and limited the requirements of the law to personal morality as regards sex, money and violence, tending to pass off wrongdoing if it comes from a good intention (i.e. is ‘loving’), the Law is much, much more than that – and Christ fulfilled it all. The promise of the New Covenant, made in the blood of Christ, is not only the forgiveness of sins but a new heart, to enable the fulfilment of the Law.5 The social morality of the Law is as much required as the personal morality and Christ fulfilled it all by a radical method – servanthood. Christ did not come as our master to rule over us, or as our equal to level us but as the lowest of the low to lift us up. Our discipleship is to follow his example in a positive dynamic of mutual service, lowering ourselves to raise others up. As we all engage in this process we create a virtuous circle of lifting each other up, a positive vortex of service whereby all flourish in righteousness. The answer to the world’s woes is not to take hold of worldly power systems to forcibly seek an impossible ‘equality’ but a repentant Church renewed in love and holiness offering itself in service. Everyone needs to be good.
1 ‘Tony Crosland’ by Susan Crosland, 1982
2 https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world
3 T.S. Eliot, The Rock
5 Jeremiah 31: 31- 34
6 https://www.statista.com/statistics/282647/government-debt-uk/
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