The essential task of replacing ourselves

Our most important task as human beings is to successfully replace ourselves. Our lives are a transient moment in history and even the greatest of us will one day be forgotten. Recognising our own transience does not mean that our lives are meaningless, rather that our lives are part of a sequence, a very long sequence of lives. For many of us, this sequence is most immediately from our parents to our children. We hope to replace ourselves with descendants who know more, will lead better lives, and will ultimately be wiser. Replacement is important too for those without children. They can hope to inspire and teach the young, and to work with others to ensure their best values are continued. Our significance, therefore, lies in our impact on the lives of those who come after us. 

Replacement is the ongoing work of civilisation. Each generation as a whole must teach its successors the accumulated knowledge of the world, the skills needed to maintain the social and material standards of life, and the obligations we have to each other. Societies aim to achieve this through its schools and universities, but replacement is also the central task of communities, organisations and families. Successful replacement includes the preservation of human achievements, buildings and landscapes. Yet what we teach differs from what we ourselves learnt as children because we have experienced a generation of learning and adaptation. Our preferred values change over time. A world with more travel and communication is one where there is greater awareness of other ways of life and greater personal experience of different types of people. In such societies, social harmony therefore requires mutual tolerance and acceptance of diversity. But the same awareness may also generate a destructive hostility and suspicion of change. 

Replacement can therefore fail, when people refuse to learn and adapt, when children and parents no longer communicate, when institutions do not teach skills to a new generation, and when the aim of leaders becomes to create a false immortality rather than ensuring the continuity and wellbeing of their people. False immortality results in the construction of monuments to themselves. These monuments rust and crumble because egocentric rulers have little interest in putting aside the resources needed to maintain them, and so their monuments eventually remain only as trunkless legs of stone in the desert.  

This is of course a reference to Shelley’s poem Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Dangerous journeys

Men and women live in separate worlds of danger. Coming home late at night, a man will take the bus or train and then walk to his house. In most cases (in this country anyway), he will be untroubled and not consider himself at risk of assault. By contrast, a young woman travelling late at night will be alert for danger. When taking a late-night taxi journey, she will only book a taxi from a reputable firm, sit behind the driver to avoid eye-contact, check that the route is correct on her mobile phone, speak as little as possible but mention a husband or partner at home (even if she lives alone), and ask to be dropped off near but not at her front door. A YouGov survey in 2022 found that 74% of British women aged 18 to 29 feel unsafe when travelling in a taxi by themselves. Yet other surveys report that women still regard taxis as safer than buses. 

Women’s fears come from personal experience and what they have heard from their friends. A survey by the British Transport Police in 2023 found that one third of women have experienced sexual assault or harassment on public transport. ‘Harassment’ ranges  from touching and groping, to catcalling and improper suggestions. One of the most common types is when a woman sits alone on an empty train or bus and a man chooses to sit next to her. Danger can arise not just when travelling, but also when waiting for a train, bus or taxi. Suburban and country railway stations are unmanned, particularly at night. Even in mainline stations, there may be long dark platforms, large and poorly-lit carparks, and no obvious refuges. Many trains and all buses are driver-only, which means there is no source of help to passengers in case of threat. The walk home in the dark from the bus stop or station can feel unsafe, and many women use their mobile phone to speak to a friend or relative so that they can call for help quickly. 

Responsibility for the personal safety of women on public transport therefore largely falls upon the women themselves. But much more could be done by public authorities to reduce risk. Railway stations should be better lit and better staffed. Transport authorities should employ officers to patrol bus routes which have a high incidence of abuse, while CCTV on buses and shelters can be monitored centrally to spot problems. Taxi services need a central register of approved drivers, and licenses should be reviewed regularly and taken away from drivers with a record of harassment. 

We also need education so that people who work in public transport know how best to manage any harassment they observe, how to respond if they are approached by someone needing support, especially to avoid minimising the situation or blaming the victim. Most important of all, we need to educate men. Most men have little idea of the risks women face in public places and how this shapes their behaviour. Many are influenced by the vast tide of malevolent information on social media, funded by neo-Nazi billionaires, which extol a fake masculinity which denigrates women as subservient beings who exist only to be impregnated and abused. We need to assert a better masculinity, which teaches that the role of men is to provide, to protect and to comfort. 

Astrology and ADHD

Many years ago, I owned a book on astrology. This provided detailed descriptions of the types of personality associated with each of the twelve star signs. I was born almost at the end of the month of August, and so fell within the Virgo range. Reading the book, I did find some congruity between my own character and that attributed to Virgo. However, I find it difficult to believe that the motions of the constellations affect individual character or the events in our lives, although seasonal variations may play a part. The school year in England begins on the first day of September, and so I was the youngest child in my primary school and in every year group throughout my education. I believe this had a profound effect on my personality - always being the youngest, struggling to be taken seriously by my more confident and more grown-up peers.

Few doubt that personality is deeply affected by the experiences of childhood and adolescence, and also by the culture in which a person is raised. But there are clearly variations between people raised in similar circumstances, and these variations have attracted the attention of philosophers and psychologists. The result has been multiple definitions of personality types and traits in levels of detail that rival those proposed by my old book on astrology. A recent approach is to define different types of personality as variants of psychopathology, of which the most popular is ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). This began as a diagnosis for a specific range of behaviour problems in young people, but has since been extended to include adults with milder symptoms. People in the latter group (which may include myself) tend to start more projects than they finish, have problems beginning tasks which do not interest them, are restless, sometimes disorganised, and may be loners. On the other hand, they are creative, recognise patterns where others do not, and are good in a crisis. They are therefore useful members of a team.

‘Team’ here is the crucial word. A good team has a balance of different types of people with a range of useful skills, and well-balanced teams of this kind are the major productive force in human society. Seeing society as a network of teams differs from the opinion that society is little more than a relentless competition between individuals. In organisations built on such principles, people with ADHD can be disadvantaged, and may compare themselves ruefully with people who are ‘neurotypical’. But this is a misconception. There are many other types of personality besides ADHD, and those who rise to the top in big organisations are often people with self-seeking, conformist, and ruthless personalities. As Lord Acton wrote, "Great men are almost always bad men". Another problematic personality type is found among those who are conformist, uncreative, fearful of change and diversity, and willingly subservient to any powerful individual they can worship. Thankfully, most people fall in neither group, and are kind, tolerant, and caring. I am lucky to be married to a wife with such a personality. 

What should replace the House of Lords?

The UK has a new prime minister and we may have entered a new era of constitutional change. Andy Burnham has spoken positively of electoral reform, devolving power to local government within England, a written constitution, and reform of the House of Lords. 

The UK does not have a single document called a ‘constitution’, and so changes to our institutions occurs incrementally, rather than by a formal process of amendment. Over the last 30 years, there have been three incremental changes of this kind. The first has been the creation of devolved parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These have taken over responsibility for domestic policy in their countries, leaving the Parliament in Westminster as a de facto parliament for England for much of its legislation. Devolved parliaments have therefore reversed to some degree the characteristic centralisation of government in the UK. Even so, the new devolved government in Scotland has maintained this tradition by rapidly centralising all public services in Edinburgh. 

Services in England are moving in the opposite direction. The second major constitutional change in the UK has been the creation of elected metro mayors heading strategic (or ‘combined’) authorities. The first such elected metro mayor was in London, which also has an elected assembly and 32 elected borough councils. The new strategic authorities outside London have councils of members nominated by the constituent local government authorities. The new metro mayors have responsibility for transport, economic development and regeneration, while some also run police and fire services. At present, 48% of the English population live in 19 areas with strategic authorities, but it is probable the whole country will follow in the next three years. The Government proposes greater devolution of funding and tax-raising powers to these authorities. 

The third major constitutional change is to the House of Lords. Hereditary peers finally lost any right to sit in the House in 2026. But the resulting chamber is hardly satisfactory. It currently has over 770 members, all but 26 of whom are appointed for life by the government of the day. The average age is 70 years. The 26 exceptions are bishops nominated by the Church of England, making the UK (with Iran and Vatican City) one of only three countries in the world with religious nominees in its legislature. There have been proposals to impose a retirement age and a minimum rate of attendance (about 300 lords attend infrequently). But there is an important case for replacing the house by one chosen in a different way. 

Several countries have upper houses that are directly elected, usually with either different constituencies or different electoral systems than the lower house. This is favoured in countries with federal constitutions, on the belief that the upper house will protect the interests of the provinces/states. But this kind of upper house usually just comprises another nationally-oriented cadre of politicians with no additional knowledge or skills but with a temptation to use their power to impede the wishes of the lower house. This is true even with the House of Lords, in which some members have used an endless sequence of amendments to delay and finally see off the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) bill, passed earlier by a large majority in the House of Commons.  

Germany provides an example of how an upper house can provide additional expertise and can protect the interests of the constituent regions of the country. The Bundesrat (upper house) has 69 members allocated in a rough proportion to the population of each land (province). Members are delegates sent by the government of each land, which always include its ministerpräsident (premier). If political control changes in an individual land, then a new delegation to the Bundesrat is appointed immediately. The Bundesrat is not an amending chamber, but it can delay legislation and its approval is required when a law would have an effect on the lands or if they would have to participate in its enforcement. The system is designed to avoid delay while ensuring that the government operates as a partnership between the federal and the land governments. 

How would the German model work in the UK? The House of Lords would be replaced by a House of Nations and Regions, comprising delegations from the three devolved parliaments and from the English strategic authorities. Delegations would be proportionate to population, and would automatically include the three first ministers and the metro mayors. The consent of the House would be needed if legislation proposed changes to the powers of the national parliaments or strategic authorities. For other legislation, the House would give advice but would not have the power of amendment. An upper house of this kind would thereby protect the powers of devolved parliaments and regions, while also avoiding the kind of political delaying tactics that can impede effective government. 

Enemies and friends of the state

 There are few experiences more dispiriting than attending a planning appeal hearing. There is the facade of objectivity, and the outward resemblance to a court of law. Witnesses are called and each side may be represented by a lawyer: one for the local planning authority which has refused the planning application; and one for the developer who is appealing against this refusal. But the outcome is largely pre-determined. At the most recent hearing I attended, the planning application was a poorly-drafted cut-and-paste affair. Our village was mistakenly located many miles from its true location and on the wrong half of the county. The proposed development was on high-quality open farmland on the side of a beautiful hill, to be covered with a banal estate of houses that could be built anywhere. The developer’s case was presented by a smooth KC, whose website recorded his many successes in previous appeals and the vast tracts of English countryside concreted over as a result. He was supported by witnesses paid by the developer to make spurious claims that the proposed development would be ‘sustainable’ because people would be able to travel to work using our infrequent bus service or by cycling many miles down narrow and winding country lanes. The appeal was of course allowed by a single planning inspector (a civil servant pretending to be a judge) who had spent an hour or two viewing the site. The passionate opinions of local people and their elected representatives counted for nothing. The planning inspector reached his decision because government planning policy is strongly tilted in favour of developers and against local authorities and protesting village communities. 

The various departments and agencies that constitute the modern state each have their own sets of friends and enemies. Friends are those organisations which share objectives with the agency, often facilitated by the similar social backgrounds of their leaders, and promoted by shared social events. Friends of the agency help it attain its smooth functioning, promoted by incentives. Enemies are those organisations and groups of people who are seen by the agency as impeding its objectives or which generate additional work for its senior officers. Enemies of the state are subject to sanctions rather than incentives. In the case of planning, the developers are the friends of the state while the people of rural England (often denounced as ‘NIMBYs’) are its enemies.

Sometimes the enemies of the state win. This is particularly the case on the rare occasions when they succeed in overturning longstanding official policy through political action (usually after many years of campaigning) or by a favourable judicial ruling. But these victories often sour. Victims of official malevolence may be compensated, but this is usually much delayed and niggardly. This is true of the schemes for the sub-postmasters persecuted by the Post Office, the families of those who died because of the official incompetence that led to the Grenfell Tower fire, the ‘Windrush people’ deported because they lacked documentation, the victims of the infected blood scandal, and the veterans whose health suffered when they were exposed to nuclear tests. 

By contrast, the friends of the state rarely suffer. Rather than prosecute, governments set up lengthy and very costly public enquiries, which reward lawyers, divert funds from compensating victims, and aim to outlast public indignation. The heads of agencies and their friends whose malevolence and neglect caused widespread suffering are never punished and never fined, although they may experience transient embarrassment. The next set of public contracts are handed out to the same miscreants by the same agencies. 

Challenging institutional injustice and cruelty is not easy. It requires sustained action by campaign groups, the acquisition of expertise by lay people, and the support of one or more members of parliament as well as of some elements of the mass media. But political campaigns of this kind are the only means of ensuring that the institutions of the state come to seek the friendship of the people of this land rather than just a favoured circle of the powerful.

The New and the Old Convenience of Everyday Life

We live in a world that is vastly more convenient than in the past. Official procedures which once took us hours now take minutes. An example in the UK is the process for updating car tax. This used to begin with a letter from the DVLA (the licensing authority) notifying you of the date by which you needed to pay the tax. You would indicate on the form whether you wished to pay for a year or six months and head off to a post office authorised to deal with car tax. The completed form had to be accompanied by an up-to-date MOT roadworthiness test certificate and an insurance certificate for the car. Payment would be in cash or by cheque. These documents would be scrutinised by the post office clerk, who would return the MOT and insurance documents together with a small road tax disk, which had to be placed inside the car windscreen. This showed the expiry date of the road tax and proved to the police that the car was taxed, insured and roadworthy. Not all post offices were authorised to process car tax. For some years, we had to travel to the next village to tax our vehicle.  

Taxing my car is now much easier. The DVLA emails notification of liability for tax. Vehicle insurance and the results of MOT tests are recorded on national computer databases linked to the road tax database. There is therefore no need to produce documentary evidence. Since this information is all online (and available to the public), tax disks are redundant and were abolished in 2014. Instead, police cars have devices that read the number plates of cars on the road, to check whether they meet the legal requirements. All payment are by instantaneous bank transfer, so there is no need to visit the post office at all. In any case, cheques are all but redundant. Most bills are now paid either directly from your bank account by direct debit or standing order, or by bank transfer. 

Cash too is becoming obsolete. In the past, cash was essential for purchasing smaller items. But it was a chore to get your cash out of your bank account. You had to visit your bank and sign a cheque to yourself. Banks did not make this an easy task - they were usually closed at weekends and even at lunchtimes. I remember when I failed to get to the bank before its early closing on Christmas Eve and had to face the long holiday without any cash. Now of course, cash is easily available by using your debit card in cash machines, even in foreign countries. But even more convenient is payment by contactless credit and debit cards, which are now used for three-quarters of all transactions in the UK. 

These examples show how technology drives social change. This new convenience of everyday life is a consequence of computers, the Internet, the credit card and high-speed electronic transmission. This has replaced an earlier form of convenience, based on the petrol engine, the refrigerator and the telephone. The old convenience involved travel by car to out-of-town supermarkets and shopping centres, as well as drive-in restaurants and even drive-in banks. People could park near giant stores to stock up their large fridges with a month’s supply of food. This pattern of life sustained, particularly in North America, very low-density suburbs where there is little practical alternative to using a car. Footpaths are irregular and services too dispersed to make walking to shops or other services practicable. This old form of convenience took the person to the service by car. The modern form instead takes the service directly to the person in their home. 

Home delivery is not new. When I was a child, the milk, soft drinks, bread and coal were all delivered directly to the house. The Birmingham area even had an excellent local brewery (Davenports) which delivered ‘beer at home’. But home delivery is now used for all food and almost any other purchase, large or small, all of which can be delivered directly to the doorstep at minimal transport cost. My wife buys almost all our groceries online, carefully checking through product reviews, offers and discounts. I visit the village shop (which is within walking distance) for a top-up. I have not been in a bank for a long time, although I have occasionally spoken to banking staff online. I still travel for the podiatrist and my eye tests, although both could be arranged on a domiciliary basis. I am retired, but many younger people I know work some days/week from home, attending workplace meetings online.

The new convenience is changing our towns and cities much as the old convenience did. Supermarkets and out-of-town shopping centres will decline and gradually be replaced by distribution centres and smaller convenience shops suitable for daily purchases by local residents. The large car parks around shopping centres will be used more profitably for new housing. Many banks have already closed, leaving several towns with none. The solution developed by the Government is a ‘hub’, shared by a post office and several banks, each operating one day/week. Shops in high streets will continue to close and be converted into housing. The result will be more densely-populated urban centres where key services are within walking distance. 

These changes are unsettling for many people. The closure of shops in town centres have make some places look bleak and neglected. This is unpopular - people choose not to shop in town centres, but dislike the consequences of their actions. Some people struggle with a world dependent on using computers and the Internet, and find themselves stranded in suburbs and villages and unable to get to increasingly distant local services. People are disoriented when they discover that what they took to be the modern world - of cars, motorways, drive-ins and supermarkets - is now becoming a thing of the past. 

The failed magic of politics

Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I went canvassing for the Labour Party. This was for the General Election of 1966, and was in a part of my local constituency that had some Labour voters, and which consisted mainly of semi-detached houses and council estates. I called at one house and gave my usual little speech to the owner, an old woman. “I’m not voting Labour”, she said. “That Mr Wilson (the Labour Prime Minister at the time) has been in power for 18 months and he’s not done anything about the drive at the side of my house”. The drive was indeed pot-holed and unkempt. Had I been more politically astute, I would have replied by saying “Mr Wilson has a very busy job, but I can get in touch about the drive with the local council, and they may be able to help”. At the time, I put her comments down to a lack of knowledge about the functions of different levels of government. But looking back, I see it as part of something more fundamental - a belief that political leaders have magical powers, that they can change everything all at once. The lack of change, even to minor matters such as an unkempt drive in Solihull, must therefore be evidence that they have chosen to malevolently withdraw that power. 

Ignorance of how governments operate is widespread, then as now. This became evident to me when I became a social worker a few years later. Many of the people who most depended on public services, for housing, income and basic public safety, had little idea of how these services operated and how they could best influence them. This was compounded by poor literacy, so that official letters (this was well before the Internet) were left unread. I remember visiting people about to be evicted from their council house for non-payment of rent to find the warning letters from the council stacked unopened on the mantelpiece. For such powerless people, the route to survival was gaining the ear of someone they saw as powerful. They would approach social workers like myself because we were seen as  possible intermediaries with the elusive people of power. We would do our best to explain official communications and would contact agencies on their behalf. Our role was analogous to that of the priest or saint who could act as an intermediary to God.

There is, however, no need of a god when we have television. Television is a magic window on a shining world of plenty, inhabited by the beautiful and the powerful. People on television (or now the Internet), whatever their shortcomings in real life, are worshipped by millions of acolytes. Indeed, their shortcomings seem to make them more worthy of worship, almost as if they take the sins of the world on their shoulders. Politicians who can transfer this celebrity magic to politics (like Donald Trump) become popular with the powerless irrespective of the policies they espouse. Other, less fortunate, politicians can only mimic this celebrity identity. Tony Blair, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage were successful at gathering some such magic, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer much less so. 

Politicians blessed with celebrity magic are assumed by their worshippers to be all-powerful and capable of correcting all ills. But the gods always fail. Society can not be wished into perfection, resources can not be generated out of nowhere, complex problems can not be solved overnight. Politicians themselves in their autobiographies complain of the immense difficulties of achieving their aims, while those who do make significant changes, like Thatcher and Johnson, often make catastrophic errors. The response to failure among the supporters of celebrity political leaders is severe rejection. This has become the fate of Blair and Johnson, but not of the less charismatic prime ministers like Major, Brown or May whose worth is often appreciated more after they leave office. 

The science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke proposed that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Our ever-more complex world, with multiple sources of powers, innumerable interacting agencies bound by complex rules is already too advanced to be comprehensible to its citizens and even to its supposed rulers. We plunge headlong into darkness.