Some years ago I touched on the way in which some phrases become popular because they summarise a topical subject. I spoke of the time I was on Tewkesbury Borough Council, and of how my colleagues would take great pains to make sure that every one of their public utterances contained a reference to ‘Half-Life’. This phrase is a measure in the thousands of years, of the time nuclear material takes to decay to half of its toxicity, and Councillors were greatly exercised when it was mooted that the area could safely accommodate nuclear waste buried deep underground.
It was also the time when I realised the power of particular phrases and how their use could be used to influence public discussion. After all, which of us does not like to appear knowledgeable, or to signal that we are up-to-date with the latest concerns or even to flaunt our virtue by using a phrase so self-evidently moral that a listener will be impressed.
Last September, such a phrase started doing the rounds in the Benefice. It was used initially to prepare the ground for when the possible closure of churches would become a talking point. The phrase was, ‘People matter more than buildings.’ Although not a new idea the phrase was taken up and used extensively from the pulpit and in discussion. It was usually uttered in such a way as to be so self-evidently correct that no further discussion was necessary. In short, ‘Closing a church or two was a price worth paying so long as the intention was to focus on people.
Some people tried, in vain, to explain that the logic of the argument was being pushed too far and that, whilst it is true that you would save a child from a burning house, human beings and buildings go together, and should not be seen as mutually exclusive. But the phrase kept on being repeated until its purpose had been served and it became clear that closures, though likely, were not imminent. At one point whilst the phrase was in vogue, I amused myself by extending the logic behind the phrase to conclude that, if people were really so much more important than buildings, we may as well stop building homes for the homeless and instead give money directly to those in need.
The way in which this phrase was taken up was an example of how logical reasoning was being pushed too far but not to its limits. (My example did that) In this case however I could accept a case for closing a church on the basis that, ‘We can’t afford to keep it open.’ That would be honest, but to link such a decision to a moral imperative is a step too far and disingenuous at best.
However, I was reminded of the phrase about people and buildings a few weeks ago when fire struck Notre Dame Cathedral. Within days £800 million had been donated towards its estimated rebuilding costs of £2 Billion. I wonder if those who told us that people matter more than buildings have now reconsidered that maybe, their initial repetition of the phrase may have lacked a fuller and wider perspective. Or it could be that they have calculated how many parish churches could be kept open with £2billion. Or how much fresh water could be made available in Africa.
At least a balanced view by the editor of the Daily Telegraph opined that, “It is strange that an inanimate building can seem to embody (more than do ordinary human beings like us) a yearning for continuity, life, eternity.”
Last Christmas one of my presents was the latest historical novel by C.J Sansom entitled Tombland. Its leading character is Matthew Shardlake a lawyer active during the reigns of Henry the Eight and later during his son Edward, who governed under the Duke of Somerset as Lord Protector. Samson was himself a lawyer, and so takes us into the detailed niceties – and the not so niceties – of the law as it was during Tudor times. His character Shardlake does not align himself to any of the political or religious factions but still manages to be seen as a threat by many of those with vested interests in the status quo of the time.
Sansom, who has a fan in the Oxford historian Professor David Starkey, brings us the smells, sights, sounds and harshness of life in Tudor Britain. His books help us see how the natural instinct for hierarchy (pecking order) in the human species, led to a society in which the political and religious machinations of ambitious men led to laws which still embed the modern hierarchal order. In Tudor times the pecking order prohibiting which clothes could be worn by whom, where one could live and even what one could and couldn’t say. (Bit like political correctness today) Theft of food would lead to hanging, and treason led to being hung, drawn and quartered. This was not a time to stand out from the crowd: and yet some did.
Tombland is set in 1549 and covers the Norfolk rebellion led by Robert Kett against the sequestration of common land in Wydmonham. This became a practice of land owners who could make a lot of money out of sheep, and so legally or illegally fenced off land which had been farmed for centuries by families of peasants on a subsistence basis. The act of fencing forced peasants and even yeomen off the land, and often meant that those dispossessed lost both their source of food and income. And, because the industrial revolution had not yet really got going, people were forced into towns which were unable to accommodate them and lacked work opportunities.
Although the Tudor period set the stage for changes to the system of governance which had created a huge gulf between the richest echelons of society and the very poorest, the Tudor elite still largely followed previous practices by using the civil and criminal law to maintain power. Some of this will sound familiar to today’s readers, but we should also recall that life was much harsher in those days for everybody rich and poor. And that relatively speaking, the middle class worker of today lives a life broadly equivalent to that of a member of the County nobility of Tudor times.
It is, of course, much easier to hold ‘liberal’ views today than it was in 1549, and so Shardlake’s problems usually came about because of his tendency to plead the case for the folks at the bottom of the pile, rather than advance himself up the social hierarchy. Unlike some today however, Shardlake spoke up for all his clients (peasantry or royalty) out of a sense of personal gratitude for what life had given him, rather than, as can be the case, for moral posturing rather than bringing a focus to the needs of another.
A small but important example of changes in the power structures brought about by real-people who, like Shardlake, spoke, ‘Truth to power,’ is that afternoon tea has become popular across the country. Once a diversion only for the upper middle classes, hoteliers became aware that many people now have money to indulge themselves, and so last month my wife hired a room at the Feathers in Ledbury and invited a number of neighbours and friends to ‘Afternoon Tea.’
My Great Grandfather, who died in 1953 could not have done this,. But I guess he would be pleased to know that, the opportunities available to ordinary folk have now much closer to that class of folks who, during my childhood, viewed the majority of us as being in dire need of the most detailed guidance and instruction in all aspects of our lives. (Mind you, there are still folk around who do not understand the distinction between helping and patronising)
But even a desire to be helpful can have unintended consequences as can be seen from the following examples:
Bangkok Dry Cleaners: Drop your trousers here for the best results.
Nairobi Restaurant: Open seven days a week and weekends.
Swiss Restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.
I end by paraphrasing St, Paul:
“Without hope I am, of all men, most miserable”.
View from the Pew 