Social Evils or Social Change?

Here’s something from The Guardian - by way of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation - to think about. Madeleine Bunting says the results of the Joseph Rowntree Trust’s investigation into the public’s view of the social evils facing contemporary Britain presents a thought-provoking conundrum.

There seems to be a remarkable degree of consensus on how to define today’s social evils. Individualism is top, closely linked to greed and the decline in community; also part of the definition is a sense of decline in values and a deterioration of virtues such as honesty, empathy, respect and reciprocity.

Family breakdown and poor parenting feature, as do misuse of drugs and alcohol, inequality and democratic deficit.

But there the consensus ends. Is it really about moral decline or is it just a question of perception? Perhaps this isn’t about morality at all, but anxiety about social change?

Well, that’s quite a interesting little anecdotal way of pointing out that sociological views of change often come with ‘values added’.

But you might usefully investigate a bit more deeply. How did the JRF conduct this research? How many people were in the sample? How representative and valid do you think it is?

And there are some big and difficult sociological questions lurking here. Does the identification of ‘individualism’ as an evil, reflect the fact that social groups - like classes - have fragmented in contemporary Britain? And even more complicated - if people don’t see themselves in class terms - does that mean that class doesn’t exist?

Discuss!