Well, the multicultural experiment seems to have had a short life but a merry one. What began as a grand design, apparently hatched up by the BBC and the university history departments, seems to be gurgling down the drain. This does not mean that the multiple cultures in our country have disappeared ; but it does mean that the predicted harmonious relations between those cultures have not been supported by the observed facts.
So what is to be done? There will be no shortage of advice to (and from) the politicians, the academics and the broadcasters, but we may be sure that the substance of the advice will not be either broad enough or deep enough to make a difference in the longer term. We may be sure of that because the august bodies that determine our fate have failed to realize that the problems are moral problems, whereas they see them as political. What we shall be given is not moral solutions but politically correct solutions ; they will be solutions founded on the political beliefs and expediencies of the various parties, and hence of no lasting value.
But you cannot be rid of political correctness ; indeed, we should not wish to be rid of it. But mere PC is not robust enough to support a nation, any more than mere sand is strong enough to support a skyscraper. What is needed is a moral foundation, a rock on which to build with confidence.
Perhaps we can accept that morality is the set of unalterable principles which guide us in governing the relations between people ; and, because government is all about the relations between people, moral principles are indispensable to social stability. And, because the principles are unalterable, they must be simple. In themselves, they are not detailed enough to be made into state laws. For example, the moral principle “You shall not kill” cannot be absorbed directly into law for there might be occasions when killing is unavoidable or even just. It might well be unjust to punish somebody who kills in self defence or in the defence of other innocent people.
So, we need to build a body of secondary principles upon the moral foundation. We might call these secondary principles our ethics. They represent our generally agreed interpretations of the moral principles ; an ethical principle amplifies a moral principle by giving concrete examples of what is meant by it. It is to the ethics that politicians turn when drafting their policies, and to ethics they turn when drafting or amending a particular law.
But now we come to the thorny question : who decides the unalterable moral principles on which everything depends?
A simple answer is that the politicians do. Another simple democratic answer is that the people do. But both politicians and people are variable in their opinions of morality ; so both these answers land us back in the realm of political correctness. And PC doesn’t work.
So, who does have the authority to decide the moral principles?
Jamie
You may have noticed that I have given up on this one. There was an old Cycle and now there is a new one [you may also have noticed that I once wrote a lot about Cycles and Circles] and the new Cycle will play until it is over just like the old one.
Hello, Ike. Yes, I guess we all know about cycles! Round and round and getting nowhere. But I prefer to think of spirals, so that we enjoy the same repeated views, but never return to quite the same old place.
Happy Birthday, Jamie!
All good wishes for a most Happy Day Marya x
Many thanks, Marya – I celebrated with my daughters in Cheerful Cheshire and we all agreed that I could be thirty-two again, just for the day. It’s lovely to be with them here for a holiday, tho’ their rain is very much like our own back in Norfolk.
I have guessed that you must have been away, too. I hope very much that you enjoyed your break (and are now brimming with new ideas for us).
I’ll be back to sober living again next mid-week, and in circulation too.
Take care, Jamie x
Jamie
I see there was a birthday and feel terribly guilty; more so because it makes you a lion too. Please accept my belated but sincere good wishes.
Many thanks, Ike – and now I feel that I have let down a fellow Leo. To my shame, I am hopeless at keeping up with birthdays and other anniversaries. On the other hand, I don’t feel sore if people forget mine. 🙂