Society, Community And The Politics Of The Pigs' Troth

Society, Community And The politics Of The Pig's Troth

I had some friends around to eat the other night, among them friend Nick who lives just along the road. We ended up, over coffee and calvados, reminiscing about our childhood. Both of us had what could today be called a deprived childhood, although neither of us wanted to claim that, but it certainly wasn't privileged. It was both happy and innocent but involved actions that today could have called down the wrath of authorities, court cases and who knows what else. So exactly what has changed, and made things worse?

I think there are three basic causes. one is political correctness, another is the politics of the pigs' troth and the third is a lack of any sense of society and community.

In our youngest days (and I speak here without Nick's specific if perhaps general consent) we would try to see a girl's knickers, claiming to be one up if we did so, and girls would collapse giggling if they saw a boy's penis (or nearly). So what? It's what kids of 7-8 do, isn't it? They're curious and want to get one-up on their mates. But a boy bending down to see a girl's knickers or flipping up her skirt, or a girl doing something to see a boy's underpants /penis is technically a sexual assault. Similarly, a kid scrumping apples/pears/cherries even flowers (which we all did; I well remember pinching a rose from someone's garden to give to a girlfriend) is technically theft but would be met with a thick ear if you were caught. There was never any question of making a court case out of such routine occurrences. Of course there were paedophiles then, as there are now, but then you lived in a community who knew who the paedophiles were and kids were warned to stay clear of them. It wasn't watertight prevention but was generally effective.

A clue? I've used the word “technically” twice and that is what the political correctness adherents do. They advocate that what is technically true has to be the truth and want the full force of the law to back them. To what end? To prove that they are right, whatever the social consequences; necessary at the time, perhaps they would claim, in denial of the consequences.

If this is music to the ears of anyone it is to those of unscrupulous lawyers and insurance companies. Lawyers want legal challenges; that is their source of revenue. Insurance companies want risks you might be persuaded to insure against.

Which leads me to the politics of the pig's troth, of which unscrupulous lawyers and insurance companies are only part. When Nick and I were young there were numerous trades, disciplines, potential careers apparently available; but just making money wasn't obviously one of them. You made money if you were successful in your career. Now, making money is a career in itself (means irrelevant) in an analogy to those people who, by general consent, are famous for being famous rather than for anything exceptional that they have done.

Once making money becomes a career (means irrelevant), the idea of achievement in any field becomes irrelevant. It doesn't matter how good you are, at anything, what matters is how much money you make, by fair means or foul. So we have the rip-off society, which ignores all social consequences. Society is dismissed. It is a hymn to Thatcherism, “there is no such thing as society”.

Mitterand once said that “nationalism is war”. The same could be said of a lack of any sense of society or community, as is evidenced in numerous suburbs of large towns around Europe. In the place of community and society, destructive gangs proliferate, feeding off their own. “Alienation” is the word always used there. So, we need to get rid of aliens? Or do we need to build a consciousness of the importance of society and community?