Writing in yesterday’s London Evening Standard, Philip Delves Broughton gives his readers a preview of ‘Freedom’, the new work by Jonathan Franzen, the widely admired American novelist:

‘…This is the key theme of the book, and the reason for the title. We pampered creatures of the 21st century are ruined by our own freedom. Instead of bringing us happiness, it brings us only uncertainty. Having eschewed the certainties and disciplines of earlier generations, we find ourselves lost and adrift, propelled by the lingering emotions of childhood into futile searches for meaning.’

Questioning freedom is now all the rage. The RSA has been exploring the problems with the idea of human autonomy for some time, for example in our Social Brain project or the 21st century enlightenment speech. A critique of a shallow, individualistic, notion of freedom is also central to an essay on the sixties I have written for broadcast on Radio Four on 15 September.

I guess we should be pleased that we have caught the zeitgeist. The danger is that it looks like the RSA is now following fashion rather than leading it.

I have been reading the proofs of a new short book by the moral philosopher Mary Midgley (we are honoured to be hosting her here at the RSA on 20 September). The book is a critique of the idea of human beings as being wholly driven by self interest and is full of wonderful insights and arguments. I had heard many of these points before but Midgley’s powerful and persuasive style makes you think of them afresh. For example, if self interest is natural in humans while altruism is a cultural construct, why is it, Midgley asks, that we are often driven by our natural impulses to behave in ways which are demonstrably against our self interest?

She gives the example of someone who ruins their chances of promotion by having a furious row with their boss. As I have often discussed in this blog, much of the recent economic crisis can be put down to us following our animal impulses rather than cool calculation. It is not just social constraint that stops us being selfish but our animal passions; desire, loyalty, fear, a sense of fairness (which we now know children exhibit before even being able to speak): the crude neo Darwinian idea that selfishness is natural and altruism not is simply untenable.  It is in our nature that we have somehow to manage the individual and collective dilemmas which result from being animals driven by a combination of self interested, social and blindly emotional forces (or as Freudians might put it, ego, superego and id).   

Mary Midgley’s book is likely to be seen as another powerful assault on the ideology of individualism. But just when I was in danger of succumbing to feeling aggrieved that so many other – more esteemed – people are getting credit for making an argument we have been pursuing for several years, I had lunch with my own personal guru, Geoff Mulgan. He reminded me that the idea that freedom was both modernity’s  greatest virtue but also its greatest problem was the very first point in his 1998 book, Connexity.

There is no such thing as a new idea, especially one as big as this. Rather than trying to claim credit for an intellectual fashion, the task for the RSA is to delve more deeply and widely into the debate, to make it interesting and accessible to as many people as possible and to explore new practical applications of a more sophisticated, social, idea of autonomy.

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A day with RSA Scotland gave me new insights into our ambitions for Fellowship.

I spent Saturday in Edinburgh as a guest at RSA Scotland’s AGM. The first half of the day comprised a fascinating conversation about food policy chaired by Sheila Dillon of Radio 4’s Food Programme. I spoke in the afternoon but the main business was conversation around various small projects which have been supported by the RSA Scotland venture fund (the trail blazer for the international Catalyst Fund).

Although the overall numbers weren’t as high as might have been hoped, the event exemplified best practice for national/regional organisation.  The emphasis was on the impact the Scotland RSA could have in wider society. There was great support for establishing local networks (to go with those already in existence in Edinburgh and Glasgow). Issues were raised about John Adam Street – particularly in relation to the bugbears of Fellowship profile on the website and the Fellows’ Directory – but the discussion was based on a shared commitment to make the Fellowship experience better and better. The whole event was friendly, informal and thoughtful and the three non Fellows who had been brought along as guests were clearly impressed by what they saw.     

In the closing part of my speech I explored how I saw Fellowship as integral to the new mission of the RSA, summed up in our new strap line ‘21st Century Enlightenment’. There were, I suggested, three dimensions to this:

1. Through the lectures, website, Journal, research reports and other outlets RSA Fellows deepen their insights into the foundations and development of human capability. The RSA’s focus combines a fascination with the eclectic and growing body of research into human nature and behaviour with a normative belief that the good society relies upon the cultivation of a more ambitious, responsible and rounded account of the good life. Many RSA Fellows are already well versed in these issues and every Fellow I meet seems to be interested. Our ambition should be that the Fellowship becomes a vibrant space for inquiry into and debate about human capability.

2. The RSA’s commitment to an idea of enhanced citizenship should be reflected in the collective commitment of Fellows to have a benign impact on wider society and the commitment of RSA HQ to give Fellows the support and the tools to have that impact. Unlike most other charities, the RSA does not have to focus on only one area of social concern or offer only one variety of intervention. The two successful venture fund winner we discussed on Saturday were a community garden and a new process for public engagement and deliberation.  The RSA believes that future citizens should be more engaged, more resilient and creative, and more altruistic. Any Fellow-led idea or intervention which can help towards this broad progressive goal is welcome. The important thing is that we cement the shift from a perception (often unfair) that the RSA is a social club for its members to the commitment that the RSA Fellowship should be a powerful force for good in the world.

3. I finished my annual lecture this year with a Margaret Mead quote along the lines ‘never imagine that a small group of determined people can’t change the world; in fact, it is all that ever has’. This is the good news. The bad news is that it is far from easy to get small groups of people – however committed and talented – to feel able to work together to make a difference. Obviously, this is even harder when the people concerned are volunteers with busy lives. I have suggested in the past that effective group working requires that the group is made up of people who are able to work co-operatively (not hierarchically or bureaucratically), that the group has enough initial capacity in terms of commitment and skills, and that the group is able quickly to develop a strong ‘content proposition’ (the thing it is going to try to do). The problem is that if the group has two out of three of these attributes it isn’t generally enough for success. To this I would add a new insight emerging from the growth of Fellows’ projects: successful RSA projects require the three characteristics I described above, the group then needs to see very quickly how working in the RSA adds value to their endeavours (through the brand, seed funding, access to the wider Fellowship, insights from the lectures programme or projects team etc), then, as the project starts to develop (and if there is ambition for it to last and to grow) a route to sustainability needs to be developed possibly involving accessing funds from other sources or developing a viable social business.

The third part of our ambition for Fellowship is that we develop powerful insights into how to get groups of people working together to develop and implement good ideas. This challenge is certainly not one many other membership organisations have worked out how to crack (which may be why so many beat a path to our door to find out how we are doing and collect tips). Of course, we don’t yet have the answers but the RSA is in this for the long haul, and just by continually asking the right questions Fellows and staff (for example through the work of the  Fellowship Council) are beginning to develop valuable knowledge and experience. 

Through shared interests and awareness, through making a real difference to the world and through developing insight into how to foster collaboration and innovation the Fellowship will become the driving force of the RSA as a 21st century enlightenment organisation.

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It’s lazy, I know, to make my readers do the work but here are three things you should be read and watched together: 

Robert Peston on the revival of financial trading, in currencies and various forms of derivatives. Once again, he suggests, a small number of people are getting very rich by pursuing activities which are of dubious value to the wider ‘real’ economy. 

LSE Director Howard Davies on the failure of attempts at international reform of banking and financial trading.    

David Harvey’s RSA Animate, arguing that the growing power of finance in capitalism is not an accident or a coincidence, nor is it simply a reflection of human frailty, it is an inevitable development of capitalism. 

Two years ago there was much talk of regulating financial transactions and rebalancing the economy towards manufacturing. There is very little of that talk now. Arguably for good reasons, the Coalition Government is sceptical of the role of Government in supporting industry, and anyway there’s no money. 

So, in a very short space of time, after the most dangerous and far reaching crises in the history of global capitalism, this country and others, like America, are going back. Back to being highly dependent on a finance sector many of whose instruments are good at making some people rich, but which mortgage the future and carry major risks of contagion, and which seem to have little or no effect on the wider economy or the livelihoods of those outside finance (apart perhaps from people who sell fine wines and yachts). 

For an economic layman like me, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that capitalism has become dominated by finance because its underlying logic dictates so. I am sure there is a way of achieving a more balanced and fair economy without abolishing capitalism but at the moment it doesn’t look like anyone knows what it is.   Fortunately, my ignorance may be dispelled this evening with our fascinating event this evening with the development economics expert, Ha-Joon Chang, chaired by Larry Elliott.

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One of the most interesting lines in Tony Blair’s revealing book comes in the introduction:

’…I was and remain first and foremost not so much a politician of traditional left and right, but a moderniser. I wanted to modernise the Labour Party so it was capable, not intermittently but continuously, of offering a progressive alternative to Conservative rule. I wanted to modernise Britain so that, while retaining pride in having worn the mantle of the world’s most powerful nation as the twentieth century began, it didn’t feel bereft and in decline as the twenty first century began because that mantle would no longer fit’.

The admission that Blair was not a man of the left – indeed he acknowledges that on economics and law and order he is on the centre right – may appal some in the Labour Party but comes as no surprise to those of us who worked for him.

Everyday it seems a Labour leadership candidate repudiates another aspect of New Labour doctrine and record. But behind this tactical posturing there is a more profound questioning, which is of wider relevance and interest than Labour’s internal manoeuvrings.

In this month’s Prospect, two former Brown advisors Nick Pearce (now back as Director of ippr) and Gavin Kelly write about the need for social democrats to tap into a sense of ‘social patriotism’:

‘Beyond eco-conservativism, the centre-left hasn’t worked out the strands of conservative thinking that should form a core part of its political identity in the 21st century. Only when it finds a sure footing on this territory will it find a way of responding to some of the cultural concerns of the electorate that currently find expression in hostility to immigration.’

And here is Jon Cruddas MP, one of Labour’s most original and respected thinkers, writing in a few weeks ago in the New Statesman:

‘Labour has to win back…terrain with a language that can encompass both cosmopolitan modernity and English conservative culture, linking them together in a sense of national purpose. It would incorporate all the things Blair dismissed as anachronisms: tradition; a respect for settled ways of life; a sense of local place and belonging; a desire for home and rootedness; the continuity of relationships at work and in one’s neighbourhood.

England once had this kind of conservative, common culture; it acted as a counter to the commodification of labour and to social isolation. Ruskin provided its rallying cry, “There is no wealth but life.” At one time Labour gave expression to this kind of conservatism. It need not be reactionary, right-wing, or sentimental, although it has been all these things. Its political character will depend on Labour’s capacity to articulate a progressive and ethical conservatism that embraces difference. It need not be parochial or conformist: England celebrates a rich tradition of volatile, creative cultures. ’

These ideas strike a chord. Here is an extract from an article I wrote last year in Prospect:

‘New ideas about human nature can contribute to a more substantive meeting of minds between left and right. Thoughtful conservatives are once again recognising the importance of social context, inequality and the limits to market rationality. Labour thinkers can use the research to make the case for collective action and social justice, but they may also become more cautious about the capacity of the central state to empower communities, and more interested in the role of social norms and civic institutions”
 
So as Tony Blair reminds us that he was above all a moderniser, some thinkers from the left are exploring how (small ‘c’) conservative perspectives can be incorporated in the social democratic story.

Call me a sad case, but I find this intriguing. The RSA is a strictly politically non-aligned organisation but that doesn’t mean we aren’t interested in politics. Indeed, over the last few years we have had fascinating events discussing currents in left, right and liberal thinking.

Usually when people talk about moving beyond traditional left and right it is seen as a political ploy – a form of triangulation. But exploring the possibility of philosophy and practical politics which seeks to reconcile the ideals of social justice with the insights of social conservatism is a fascinating intellectual exercise.

I see an RSA event in which social democrats and social conservatives (like Roger Scruton or Ferdinand Mount, for example) are invited to explore common ground.  Any takers?

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A journey across England underlines the political and economic division in our small country.

I was a guest last week on Any Questions, hosted by the Workers Education Association in Newcastle . The other guests all tweeted their followers to get them to listen or send in questions, but I’m not that organised and sadly my tweeting is now restricted to an automatic notification of new blog posts.

Judge for yourself but I achieved the three key objectives I set myself:

• Mention the RSA
• Don’t make a fool of yourself
• Be reasonably politically balanced

I was helped in the final task by being sandwiched between Tory blogger Iain Dale and former Gordon Brown pollster and RSA speaker Deborah Mattinson. It may have simply been that her answers were better but Deborah was easily the most popular guest with the audience.  The WEA is an organisation with roots and branches in the labour movement but even so the audience reaction underlined that the North East is systematically more left wing than most other parts of England.

It is also – and of course the points are related – the region whose economy is most dependent on public spending. So the future for the region is of deep and painful cuts which will be implemented with little or no public sympathy.

I have long thought that the North East needs to think boldly about how it can boost public service productivity both to improve services but also to exploit the commercial potential of cutting edge public services (after all, education, health care and security are all fast growing global markets). I tried to get something off the ground with ippr North but it turned into a damp squib. A more recent attempt to develop a project with a high tech health company specialising in remote heath care also came to nothing.  

I know there is interesting work taking place in the North East, particularly through its universities (notable for the high level of regional collaboration). But the danger is that the region succumbs to a feeling of victimhood and victimisation in the challenging times ahead. I wonder whether the RSA in the North East can do anything to foster a more creative and positive response?

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