Speech by William Clouston at the Battle of Ideas, 20th October 2024
A few observations…
The disconnectedness, social isolation, loneliness that we’re experiencing is a worldwide phenomenon. Atomisation, for instance, is a major challenge for the Chinese Communist Party just as the epidemic of poor mental health is throughout the West. Deracination, semi-nomadic lives, dormitory towns and empty churches are all the products of modernity… or at least these are the destinations where the modern world had lead us. Material wealth combined with spiritual weakness.
I don’t think human beings have changed so much as the conditions in which we find ourselves. What we’ve lost is a life in common. Of being together. A desire to be together still exists but it can be harder to fulfil.
A few days ago I was in the Oxfam shop in Keswick. I saw a book which on its spine was ‘The Year Book for Scotland 1961. I picked it up and found it was the Conservative Party’s Year Book. There were 383 pages of directories of office holders, committees member contacts, honorary treasurers and voting records. They had 10 member committees for practically every electoral division in Scotland. The Conservative Party at that time had about 2.5 million members. Astonishing participation. Now long gone – today it’s a fraction of that.
As Ben Cobley recently wrote, the habits of participation, chairing meetings, minute taking now seem arcane and irrelevant to many. And so many of these little groups simply dissolve and melt away leaving a vaccum in the place. That vacuum is being filled with technology and, in particular, people gazing endlessly at screens. We have an epidemic of screen addiction. Smartphones intervene between people. Literally. Parallel lives at the same dinner table. And this addiction leads to cognitive deterioration, anxiety, depression, loss of sleep, loss of concentration.
A quarter of 5-7 year olds now have smartphones. They are designed to be addictive. I think we should ban Smartphones for U16s.
Let me suggest some solutions.
First, place.
Quote:
‘For most people the meaning of their lives is a local affair’ John Gray.
Solutions will almost always be local.
The Orcadian author Amy Liptrot wrote a book called The Outrun which has now been made into a film. One of Amy’s greatest insights was that when she was in her 20s in Hackney her friendship group was very narrow – people her age of similar outlook with similar habits. This is because it’s possible to convene and select a narrow friendship group in a large city. Amy moved to Papa Westray in Orkney – which has 90 people – and had to interact with people of different ages, backgrounds, outlook. Counterintuitively, social life in Hackney was insular. Social life in Orkney was varied. The solution will always depend, I think, on committing to being somewhere.
Secondly, Communion. As a society I think we are doing as well can be expected to do for a culture which has shed its principal belief system. During the 2019 general election I was asked at the hustings at Leeds University how the SDP would solve a particular student’s anxiety and poor mental health. I talked about NHS policy. I should have asked whether the student had considered going to church. Why? Because going to church not just about belief its about belonging – being together – which is good spiritually – whether you believe or not. I don’t happen to believe, but I attend. Lord Home asked Harold MacMillan if he could put his finger on the point in time when the slide in values in Britain began to set in. His answer came without hesitation: The day when people stopped going to church on Sunday morning. Probably right.
Finally, beneath the surface… there is a community to be convened.
When the pandemic hit and lockdowns were imposed I help set up a volunteer network in my village in Northumberland to help people stuck at home – to run and get prescriptions, to buy food. I was inundated with offers of help. In fact, in each sector I had more volunteers than we could use. It exceeded our capacity to cope. So, in a crisis there was a massive urge to particpate.
I think that showed a latent desire to participate underneath the surface.
It’s there – we need to find it and convene it.