Dave muses on how world events can reshape our personal thinking about our own lives and what we want to get out of them.. and give to others whilst living them..
‘For the greater good’ I read in a news article some months ago about the covid pandemic. Now, there was a phrase I hadn’t seen for some time. But then, just the other day, I read it again in an article about the Ukrainian war. Like buses suddenly the phrase is back again and coming at us repeatedly in a short time. But I found myself idly wondering, what exactly does it mean, for whose greater good?
Some quick and dirty searching on Google, told me that it is a saying usually attributed to Jeremy Bentham, (1748-1832), who, in 1789 presented the world with an ethical position that became known as utilitarianism. It is usually accepted that there are, or rather were, three key principles that served as the basic tenets of his position. Simply expressed, these were that pleasure or happiness is the only thing that truly has intrinsic value; that actions that promote happiness are right but wrong if they produce unhappiness and finally that everyone’s happiness counts equally.
..the social contract theory, suggests that we should all try to live in a way that is essentially ‘for the greater good’ of the security of shared life ‘in a community’.
You could of course, spend all day picking holes in these statements: their benefits, as it stands, are that they are pretty clear, simplistic notions, that can be easily understood, their problem being that they offer pretty clear simplistic notions, that can be easily mis-understood. How do we relate it to non-human activities for example, (should animals strive for the greater good as well?) and external issues, like the environment? The shareholders in a large oil company may be very happy with its profits, even when it’s despoiling and polluting the planet, for the rest of the other animals living on it.
Bentham’s utilitarianism however went hand in hand with a concept usually called the social contract theory, which suggests that we should all try to live in a way that is essentially ‘for the greater good’ of the security of shared life ‘in a community’. So then we need to define how we are going to interpret the word ‘community‘. On the whole, it’s an ideology which became less popular in the last century, as concepts like the development of self help rose to greater prominence in the dominant western world order.
After some musing I still feel that Bentham’s ideas above seem ‘reasonable things’ to strive for in the long term; whilst I accept that others seem to feel that it is more important to prioritise the things you have a direct responsibility for, such as your family, your job, your own future. However, it is nevertheless a phrase, that I had noticed some people had started using again recently, during the recent covid years about looking after others around us, ensuring we carry out social activities, such as mask wearing and following other practices that might help to limit the spread of the Covid virus in your locality or indeed, the world. And as befits the difference of opinion about it more widely, there was vocal disagreement on the idea as it related to Covid prevention too. It ‘takes away from our personal freedoms and liberty’ people argued, to be ordered to wear masks. ‘Whatever next in our increasingly ‘Big Brother’ orientated society’?
One thing we can probably agree on at least, it’s been a difficult few years for us all..
When I was younger, collective responsibility meant everything to me and I tried to find positions that allowed self help to integrate with this constructed responsibility; positions within the social construct. But I wondered if I too had drifted away from that, almost without realising, into something more personally orientated, more, dare I say, selfish? Is selfish always a dirty word?
One thing we can probably agree on at least, it’s been a difficult few years for us all. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) compilers decided, when looking for its usual ‘word of the year’ that there had been so many new words during 2020 and 2021 that we were using to describe our changed circumstances, they wouldn’t pick one at all. It seems a slight cop out. I think Pandemic would probably have done. This is a word that has been a part of our history for a long time; it first appeared in 1666, the year the Great Plague ended; likewise self quarantine was also recorded for the first time in relation to the events in the ‘plague village’, Eyam, in Derbyshire that year, where the concept of quarantining all residents, to escape infection, was first introduced in the UK.
Yes, pandemics have been living with us for a long time and it should be no great surprise when another comes upon us. And yet it usually is, and it’s no easier to live with, to struggle against, each time it occurs. We are reminded of our own mortality, as we see others around us, relatives, our loved ones, good friends, struggling to overcome infection caused by the virus, which seems to particularly affect the eldest amongst us. And yet, and yet: for some of us, it took us back to a beginning again. To the days when another pandemic was making the headlines. In the early eighties a ‘dreadful new disease’ was roaming the streets, as the actor John Hurt told us in sombre tones. The TV showed us huge gravestones, reminiscent of some B movie zombie horror flick and, for some, this narration was both cliched and distressing. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) and HIV, (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) the virus that causes the related symptoms, had already been a talking point within the gay communities scattered pretty much around the globe, for some time. Where was the targeted government action to combat the disease, which like the Covid virus initially had no vaccine or cure, (in fact it still hasn’t) and was already killing hundreds, soon to be thousands of gay and bisexual men (along with certain other groups)?
There was talk of a greater good then as well. Some right wing MP’s and red top newspapers (Ok, I’m pointing my finger at The Sun) were suggesting that all those afflicted should be locked up and left to fend more or less for themselves. Naturally, those afflicted tended to disagree. A rather more caring, compassionate view prevailed, whereby society accepted it would care for those afflicted, though honestly it felt like it was touch and go at times.
So I am always wary of these phrases which it is very easy to trot out, as a kind of simplistic ‘catch all’. On the whole if we really must use them I hope that they cause discussion and mediation on the subject and recognition that such circumstances are rarely simplistic enough to warrant such broad brush notions. That people have the right to be treated as individuals with their own human rights and dignity. And whilst I would be the first to admit it is a complex subject I suspect such catch all phrases are not helpful from those who may utter them (politicians, I am looking in your direction). Whilst it is sometime easier to side with simplistic notions I suspect that to stand up for the complexity that is often necessary when mediating on such subjects will serve us all, and society in general, better in the long term.
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