The Big Society – let’s give it a chance!

We frequently hear of the Government’s ‘Big Society’ concept coming under attack. A recent lead article in the Church Times warns that churches and char¬ities in particular are warning that spending cuts will harm the voluntary sector. The retiring executive director of Community Service Volunteers (CSV), Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, has said that cuts risked ‘destroying the volunteer army’. The chief executive of Daylight Christian Prison Trust, John Scott, said that the Big Society needed ‘to be backed by funding to help charities make the most of their volunteers’.

These are sensible words of caution issued by people heavily involved with voluntary agencies and they act as a check and balance to the machinations of the state. However, I am hugely excited by the concept of a ‘Big Society' – am I alone in this? I find it exciting not because it is a new concept but it is new in the sense a Government is articulating it. Too often we hear words of opposition to it which are quite simply politically motivated and we hear repeatedly ‘What does it mean?’ often said in that pseudo-intellectual sneering way that belies the very fact that this concept - whilst it should not be immune to intellectual rigour - is what it says, an idea and one that looks to re-shift the focus from the state supporting the people to the people stating what it is they want from Government and what they can give to the country; an idea not a white paper. We have become so used to Government ‘propping-up’ every aspect of our lives that the prospect of doing something different has some politicians, community leaders and indeed Church leaders decrying this initiative, at best as a political slogan and at worst denigrating all those who promote or support it as idiots or naïve romanticists.

The Church should question it but embrace it wholeheartedly as an endorsement of our Christian beliefs and practices. Julian Glover in a Guardian article in November 2010 wrote; ‘A society reliant on statistical calculation can never be optimistic, as all we can ever see are the limits and the futures’. Anything that challenges the legacy of the last few decades that emphasises Government measuring and targeting everything deserves a chance. The Church should challenge where necessary but stop the petty rhetoric and wholeheartedly, ungrudgingly and non-politically support this concept – after all we started it!

Is there a point to social networking on the internet?

Comments from a blog would seem to be coming back to haunt the actress Mia Farrow as she gives evidence at the trial at The Hague of Charles Taylor the former President of Liberia, accused of war crimes. Things she had written on her blog were scrutinised in extensive detail by counsel for Taylor. As this was taking place I wondered how many people are put off ‘blogging’ because what we say is there for all the world to see, pick over and perhaps subsequently hold us to account.

I certainly have many concerns over contributions to message boards. I regularly access ‘Clarets Mad’ a fans message board for all things connected to the greatest football club in the world – Burnley! I avidly follow the comments, good, bad and indifferent, frequently scanning for news of new signings and even rant to myself at some of the ridiculous comments made by some who ‘engage in debate’ on the site. I feel strangely drawn to observe, to participate in a non-participative way but I never do. In great part this is because quite often many things are posted that result in some very acrimonious exchanges, much of which I’m sure occurs as a message-board offers some form of anonymity through a pseudo-name and thereby desensitising the writer to what they say. In reply to others.

I have a ‘Facebook’ page, occasionally go on it to see what some of my friends who use it are up to; I never contribute. I’m not interested in what someone has for breakfast. I don’t understand ‘Twitter’; why would anyone want to know that ‘The first ever air-conditioned Tube train has gone into service’ which is what a brief foray into this surreal world revealed the other day. I think the whole concept is slightly bizarre and fills me with a touch of despair that for many, this is all they have in the way of communication with others. I have visions of someone sat behind their computer, their whole lives run via ‘logging-on’ to the internet; a metaphor for the person sat pulling their own cracker on Christmas Day – it saddens me if truth be known. The real concern for me is that social networking has encouraged a substantial number to use it as a forum to vent their spleen, resulting in such as ‘cyber bullying’.

Does social networking cut out face-to-face contact? I think it does. Does it diminish and reduce human contact when bizarrely it is supposed to increase it? I think it does. Has it some great uses and serves to keep people in touch with each other? I think it does. Of course many who I know on these sites genuinely seem to enjoy the process and in some ways their cheery, jokey exchange of pleasantries is exactly what friends should engage in. It keeps people in touch, which has to be good. Yet, a balance has to be struck between this and the real effort needed to engage in conversation where you can see someone’s eyes, a smile, tears, their despair and their joy.

In the beginning was a blog entry

Starting this blog is a real leap into the unknown for me; I am out of my comfort zone. I am not very good at writing. I know what I want to say and articulate that moderately well (I would say that wouldn’t I). The problem is though, I spend an inordinate length of time trying to make the sentences and paragraphs flow that I tie myself up in knots in that determination to make what I have to say relevant and meaningful.

So why do it? I just feel it may be right time to share my thoughts around the areas I am passionate about; my faith, spirituality in the workplace, politics and the like. Not because they are better than anyone else’s or that mine should be listened to over another – just that I feel all humankind needs to share and communicate more about what they believe so that reflection may be prompted, dialogue begun, experiences shared and more harmony created.

I need to conduct this experiment, which is what it is, and take part in this open process, not even knowing where the blog will end, how long it will last or how often I will add to it; it may lead me back to keeping my written thoughts to myself! I’ve struggled even at this early stage to see how I would begin, but in the end I’ve shaken myself out of my ‘complacency’, reflected on what this venture means to me and now I wait to see what it produces. If it impacts on others in a positive way then that is fine but I rather suspect the impact on me is what is needed.

St Augustine sums up my rationale perfectly and perhaps gives us all something to think about. He wrote, ‘People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering’; let the wo(a)ndering begin.