Abstract
Frances Ward, Why Rousseau Was Wrong: Christianity and the Secular Soul, Bloomsbury Continuum: London, 2013; 272 pp.: 9781441115539, £14.99 (pbk)
Frances Ward argues that our society is dominated by the secular soul, by which she means a set of values and assumptions derived from the Enlightenment. She lists these as individualism, utilitarianism and identity. This secular soul, or what Charles Taylor termed our ‘social imaginary’, is responsible for the fact that our society is now so brittle, a term she prefers to broken. As a sign of this brittleness she points to the 2011 riots as analysed by David Lammy, MP.
That something is fundamentally wrong with our society at the moment is a view shared by a range of thinkers, secular and religious. What makes this book distinctive is the unusual and welcome confidence she shows in the Anglican tradition and its capacity to offer an alternative set of values and assumptions, even to agnostics. Together with this she looks to Burke and what the ‘little platoons’ of civic society can contribute to our renewal.
Ward clearly has in mind her thoughtful agnostic friends who are suspicious of religion, and she writes in an accessible manner, with a wide range of references, drawing on novelists Peter Carey and especially Alexander McCall Smith, to illustrate her points. There are clear expositions of Rousseau, Burke and Bentham. Ward’s vision is first for a sense of belonging together. Here, drawing on St Paul, she uses the word ‘corporate’ in contrast to individual. But I wonder if that word can be detached from some of its negative associations. Perhaps the African word Ubuntu would be better. Secondly, she argues for doing things for their own sake, not just for some utilitarian purpose. Here, worship provides the model. Thirdly, there is an emphasis on character rather than identity. One of the implications of this in education is the need to get away from ‘child-centred’ education to one which stresses entering into a tradition which involves learning and practice. Here the cathedral choir school provides the model.
Much of this is to be welcomed, but two major doubts arise.
First, Enlightenment values are still very much needed. One of Ward’s targets is liberal egalitarianism. But it was precisely liberal egalitarianism which has brought about the legislation that affirms the dignity of gay people, for the most part against the opposition of the Church of England. Enlightenment values need to be held within a wider, richer framework, not jettisoned.
Secondly, in her stress on civic society, Ward does not pay enough attention to the state, and in particular to the role of political parties. She rejects Tony Judt and, despite Jesse Norman’s recent book on Burke, does not seem to hold out much prospect of a renewal of the Burkean tradition within the Conservative party. But ‘Blue labour’ and ‘Red tory’ in their different ways are trying to deepen and enrich their respective traditions, wanting something that shifts them away from the combination of social and market liberalism that now slews our society. For good or ill, the state now dominates our lives, and there is no hope of the kind of renewal Ward hopes for without a serious engagement with those at the heart of the political process.