People, Power and Politics

The core value which we believe can bring people together in this country is the ideal of an open, inclusive and cooperative society from which no group or individual is excluded, and from which no group deliberately excludes itself.

Cooperation is not of course an exclusively British value, but in Britain it has been embodied and expressed in certain shared experiences, practices and institutions which have given it a distinctive flavour. For an older generation, the value of cooperation was epitomised by the experience of the Second World War and especially the Blitz - a situation in which everyone was in it together and had to pull together. For the post-war generation it was exemplified in the institutions of the welfare state, such as the National Health Service, public service broadcasting, a state system of education, and social security. More recently such institutions have come under threat, and perhaps they have never commanded universal support, but even those who make use of private health care or private education are likely still to acknowledge the importance of public provision, and for the majority of people in this country such institutions, to which everyone contributes and from which everyone can benefit, continue to embody the ideal of mutual dependence and reciprocity.

The value of cooperation can be contrasted, in one direction, with an ethos of rugged individualism, which insists on the absolute primacy of individual rights. From the perspective of cooperation, rights require a recognition of social responsibilities. Rights and responsibilities are mutually supportive. The cultural experience of this country is significantly different from that of the United States of America, for instance. The cult of individual self-sufficiency has much less appeal, and neither the widespread support in the US for the right to bear arms nor the ‘weakest to the wall’ approach to economic life has great resonance here.

The value of cooperation can also be contrasted, in the other direction, with a strident nationalism. There is a British brand of nationalism, typically focused on royalty, tradition and heritage - not to mention brands of English, Scottish and Welsh nationalism whose relation to ‘Britishness’ has still to be worked out. But there is also a distrust of formal oaths of allegiance, an acceptance of diversity and individuality, even a fondness for eccentricity. The value of cooperation is rooted in more spontaneous expressions of community such as neighbourliness, the traditional British pub, the music festival, and support for the local sports team.

Cooperation understood as reciprocity carries with it a commitment to the idea of fair play. This means a rejection of cheating and free-riding and benefiting at other people’s expense, but it does not mean a rigid conformity to rules for their own sake. Cooperation for mutual benefit requires impartial rules which ensure that people do not exploit one another unfairly, but those rules get their force from the spirit of cooperation and are not ends in themselves. The rules of the road, for instance, are essential to enable all road users, motorists and cyclists and pedestrians, to get around without endangering one another, and are greatly preferable to anarchic chaos, but it would be pedantic for pedestrians to refuse to cross the road at a pedestrian crossing until the green light appears even if there is no traffic in sight.

The value of cooperation is a participatory ideal, stressing the importance of involving everyone in contributing to the common good. This entails empowering individuals to enable them to contribute. Though the value of equality remains contentious, there is a deep revulsion at huge inequalities and broad support for the value of equality of opportunity. That means removing the hurdles of discrimination and prejudice which prevent people from participating in society’s goods, and it requires also the positive provision of education and other facilities which enable people to participate.

The emphasis on participation entails also active encouragement for minority communities and sub-cultures not to separate themselves off from the shared culture. Modern British society is diverse, pluralistic and multicultural. This is a real strength, but it should not lead us to see our society as simply a collection of mutually isolated communities. The participatory ideal requires us to challenge any ways of life which trap individuals in oppressive roles and relations, even if those ways of life claim legitimation from other cultures. It means rejecting, for instance, the view that girls should not be educated to the same level as boys, or have independent lives, and rejecting practices of forced marriage.

A particular implication of this participatory ideal is the importance of English as a shared language. In practical terms, it means that people settling in this country whose first language is not English should be actively encouraged and enabled to learn it. Only by so doing can they play an active part in the wider society. A suggestive image which helps to capture the ideal of cooperation is that of society as an on-going conversation in which everyone can participate. Perhaps the nearest we can get to a ’social glue’ which holds everyone together despite their differences is the sharing of a common language.

Thinking of our society as a shared ‘conversation’ is more than just a telling image. It underpins the values of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. These are important rights, but they are more than just individual rights, they are preconditions for fruitful debate and for the pursuit of a shared understanding of the world and of one another. The institution of Speakers’ Corner, though not perhaps a particularly effective forum for real debate, continues to epitomise the commitment to the free expression of views however eccentric they may be.

Genuine freedom of speech requires an openness to debate and criticism which some may find offensive. A particular and controversial case in point is the importance of open debate about religious beliefs. Some people may find any criticism of their God and their cherished religious beliefs and traditions offensive. People’s sensitivities should be respected, but not to the point of silencing debate. Mutual criticism between people with differing fundamental beliefs should be carried on in a way which is not gratuitously offensive. It also goes without saying that criticism of particular religious groups must not be used as a covert means of stirring up inter-communal conflict and hatred. The value of tolerance, the willingness of people with different religious and non-religious beliefs to live in harmony, to accept their differences and to respect one another’s right to hold their own beliefs, is vital. But tolerance should not mean treating certain views as off-limits, immune to criticism. To do so would be to lapse into a view of our society as no more than a collection of separate communities with no common life.

Cooperation as a participatory value has implications not only for our shared way of life but also for our personal ideals which encapsulate our vision of a flourishing life. Foremost among these is the value of personal autonomy, the capacity of individuals to be the shapers of their lives and to make their own choices about the most important features of their lives. This is not only an individualistic ideal, but a recognition of the importance of developing each individual’s ability to make an active contribution to the shared life. It should be the guiding principle of an education which stimulates pupils to think for themselves, to challenge received ideas, to share actively and creatively in the arts and cultural activities, and to cooperate in making sense of the world.

The idea of conversation also has a direct practical application to education. We have in mind the increasing use of ‘community of enquiry’ programmes in schools, to encourage children to reflect collectively, openly and critically on the big questions of life, from quite a young age. Such methods help children to make sense of their shared experience and thus to foster a sense of community and belonging.

The values which we have identified, all stemming in one way or another from the value of cooperation, are rooted in shared practices and institutions. They are not just abstract principles, and they do not depend on any creed or formal system of beliefs. There have been those who will claim that a British statement of values should foreground the tradition of the Christian religion as its essential underpinning. To do so, however, would militate against the genuine sharing of those values in a pluralistic society which includes people of all religions and of non-religious beliefs.

We are submitting this paper as a group of humanist philosophers, but the values we have identified are not exclusively humanist values. They are first and foremost human values. The values of cooperation, openness and inclusiveness ought to be manifested in any human society because they derive from the shared needs of human beings as social beings. Of course these general values are exemplified in different ways in different societies. They are made real in people’s lives insofar as they are transmitted through particular social traditions and institutions, but no tradition or institution can claim an exclusive or dominant importance in this regard. It is essential that the values of our society should be shared values.

This is why we have, in this paper, sought to identify values rooted in institutions and ways of life which are genuinely shared. To say that they are shared is not to deny that these values are all too often violated or neglected. There are plenty of instances in our society of failures of cooperation, of intolerance and divisiveness, oppression and injustice. To that extent the values we have identified are values which people ought to live by, but not necessarily values which people always do live by. However, they are values which most people can readily acknowledge. They are values which already have a living presence in this society and should continue to do so.

Humanist Philosophers’ Group, 2008

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