At the end of May my friend Martin brought his sheep up the hill and we were joined by neighbours keen to help the young shearers Elwyn and Harry. Kevin fed the sheep into the race, actually the alley of our sheep shed, and John was the catcher. Martin rolled and packed the fleeces and, because age has some benefits, I pottered around working the exit hurdle and acting as assistant to the others, as well as being foot trimmer and bactakil sprayer. Shearing is hot sweaty work, and all concerned have to keep their eyes open for escapees. Every year has a memorable moment and this time there were two. One young ewe fainted, and a 95 kilo ewe fought Harry to a standstill so I had to help. Whilst bending over I received a hefty two legged kick on the shoulder from the ewe being sheared by Elwyn, fortunately she missed my head. All this excitement was for about £1.70p per fleece which, by the time the wool is being sold by a haberdasher for home knitting, will be 70 times the equivalent per ounce. I hope the effort is worth it.
I know values change and the world rotates and the same is true of ideas. We now live in an age when the hard work of an actual farmer, fisherman and miner is less valued than the TV campaigner for ‘this idea or that cause.’ This is also true about the teacher who is trying to present a balanced perspective of history when modern political theorists say that history can be ignored, except when it shows up Britain in a bad light. However, this up-to-date one sided view has bad consequences which are evidenced by a recent survey amongst teenagers which shows that a majority felt ashamed of their British nationality. Surely something has to change when it has become easier for academics to appear to be more righteous in print, than it is for ordinary folk to live fair minded lives in practice.
I had such thoughts of change in mind, when I recently read some words of Dr Kissinger the US statesman written in one of his doctoral theses sixty years ago. He noted that a thousand years ago people accepted that the final arbiter of right or wrong was God, and so to satisfy God’s Will, earthly rulers and political authorities saw their own chief purpose as being the elimination of wickedness. (We still see evidence of this view being acted out today by regimes mainly in the Middle East) However, in Europe from about 1600, in what we now call the Age of Reason, right and wrong moved from being God’s Will; to being an outcome of the reasoning of mankind itself.
Kissinger saw this change as being so profound that the fundamental purpose of politics also changed. In earlier days its role had been to eliminate wickedness, but now its role was to promote righteousness.
To paraphrase Kissinger’s conclusions; Prior to the Age of Reason rulers tried to make sure the people did God’s will so that they would not be wicked, but after the Age of Reason rulers tried to make sure the people did the rulers’ will to make certain they were righteous.
In the West we see evidence of this change acted out by campaigners and rulers who, having themselves ‘reasoned’ that they are right, then try to force all of us to live and think solely in accordance with their ‘righteous’ views. In today’s world I believe Kissinger’s wisdom is much needed especially as he asks, “Can we trust the ‘righteous’ to inherit the earth on our behalf, or is the limitation of righteousness a necessary condition of the control of wickedness?”
Thank goodness Britain’s political system is less susceptible to such pressures than many, and so can give ordinary folk hope that its inbuilt inertia will retard the growth of the extreme reasoning of today’s ‘righteous’ people.
For readers who find the last few paragraphs a bit heavy going I apologise. But I believe, that as the reasoning of mankind will always be flawed the result is, that half are not as clever as they think they are, whilst the other half think they are not as clever as they really are.
This means that tolerance is required of us all.
Such as when ….
A dentist and a manicurist married but fought tooth and nail.
View from the Pew 