Rowan Williams on virtue and the riots
By Mark Vernon on Friday, August 12 2011, 07:18 - In the news - Permalink
After venturing a little on virtue yesterday, I saw that the Archbishop of Canterbury did the same in the rather more important forum of the House of Lords debate on the riots. He put things rather well, focusing on seizing the moment to refocus on the need for an education system that teaches excellence not instrumentality, which 'takes seriously the task of educating citizens - not consumers or cogs in an economic system, but citizens'. Some other key points:
... character involves not only an awareness of the connection between cause and effect in my own acts but a deepened sense of empathy with others and a deepened sense of our involvement together in a social project in which we all have to participate.
What we have seen is a breakdown not of society as such, but the breakdown of a sense of civic identity - shared identity and shared responsibility.
Then, noting the 'generous, sacrificial and imaginative' way that affected people have responded to the riots, he concludes:
People have discovered why community matters. They have discovered why solidarity is important. They have begun to discover those civic virtues that we have talked about in the abstract. In other words, this is a moment that we must seize; a moment when there is sufficient anger at the breakdown of civic solidarity; sufficient awareness of the resources that people have in helping and supporting one another; sufficient hope - in spite of everything - of what can be achieved.
Comments
Interesting picture of Rowan - I thought at first that someone had chained him to a post for the incoming tide to claim; like the Christians in Shusaku Endo's "Silence". Or maybe a Dover Beach moment....
His bit you quoted about character is excellent, and a lot like my own understanding of Kamma.
It will be very interesting to see whether the debate about virtues takes off in any significant sense and reshapes the moral landscape. He is, of course, up against the CBI and all those who complain about the lack of employability skills in school leavers. The God of this world values not what a person is, but what they can be made to do for profit.
I might be a bit jaded this morning, but I can't help thinking that the government will give "serious consideration" to the inculcation of civic virtues in schools, etc., and the National Curriculum will have an optional bolt-on of an hour a week when pupils learn about rights and responsibilities, etc., which will soon be watered down.
In addition, does he mention God or the transcendent at all? Is it considered poor tactical play to speak as anything other than a caring liberal humanist in robes? I suppose i ought to check out his full speech...
Interestingly, these are just the kinds of things that many RE curricula concern themselves with in secondary state schools -especially if 'citizenship' is not taught as a separate subject. The problem is that many schools do not really value this and most people don't realsie that it is actually part of the RE curriculum. Doubly sad, then, that Michael Goves wants to eliminate RE from the new Bac.
Community is not only the sole way to oppose violence; it is also the sole way to wage the war against corporate power.