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| A matter of right and also-right | A matter of right and also-right |
| (about 23 hours later) | |
| Is it easier to sell peanuts or moral relativism?Moral relativism is not an easy concept for some people to understand, says Laurie Taylor in his weekly column for the Magazine. | Is it easier to sell peanuts or moral relativism?Moral relativism is not an easy concept for some people to understand, says Laurie Taylor in his weekly column for the Magazine. |
| Last week, idly glancing through a five page document which had arrived from my accountant, I learned for the first time that the private pension I'd been assembling over the last few years had halved in value. Noughts had simply disappeared. | Last week, idly glancing through a five page document which had arrived from my accountant, I learned for the first time that the private pension I'd been assembling over the last few years had halved in value. Noughts had simply disappeared. |
| It seemed obvious that if I was still to enjoy the relaxing sun and Scotch-soaked retirement I'd always envisaged for myself, then I'd need to find some extra work. There was little hope that I could now return to higher education or any other salaried occupation. I'd need to act for myself. Become an entrepreneur. FIND OUT MORE Hear Laurie Taylor's Thinking Allowed on Radio 4 at 1600 on Wednesday 14 JanuaryOr download the podcast here | It seemed obvious that if I was still to enjoy the relaxing sun and Scotch-soaked retirement I'd always envisaged for myself, then I'd need to find some extra work. There was little hope that I could now return to higher education or any other salaried occupation. I'd need to act for myself. Become an entrepreneur. FIND OUT MORE Hear Laurie Taylor's Thinking Allowed on Radio 4 at 1600 on Wednesday 14 JanuaryOr download the podcast here |
| I wasn't without experience. Back in the early sixties at my teachers' training college in Sidcup, I'd gone heavily into peanuts with my best friend, Tom. During a heavy drinking session one night, we'd calculated that the peanuts we were eating at the bar cost nearly two pence a dozen. Surely we could buy them cheaper in bulk and market our own brand? | I wasn't without experience. Back in the early sixties at my teachers' training college in Sidcup, I'd gone heavily into peanuts with my best friend, Tom. During a heavy drinking session one night, we'd calculated that the peanuts we were eating at the bar cost nearly two pence a dozen. Surely we could buy them cheaper in bulk and market our own brand? |
| Indeed we could. When we wrote to the company name on the side of the packet we were offered five pound boxes of peanuts which, when divided into pub-sized bags and sold at half the pub price, would still give us a 200% profit. | Indeed we could. When we wrote to the company name on the side of the packet we were offered five pound boxes of peanuts which, when divided into pub-sized bags and sold at half the pub price, would still give us a 200% profit. |
| We promptly named our enterprise Fireside Foods and set off with a barrow and a paraffin-heated hotplate to Sidcup High Street. Our peanuts were not only cheaper but they were also semi-roasted. | We promptly named our enterprise Fireside Foods and set off with a barrow and a paraffin-heated hotplate to Sidcup High Street. Our peanuts were not only cheaper but they were also semi-roasted. |
| Sociology van | Sociology van |
| And that was the problem. We'd had the bad luck to set up our enterprise in one of the hottest summer months on record. As people all around us scrambled for shelter from the blinding sun, we alone stood out in the middle of the street tending to a steaming hotplate. Sales were very slow. A packet of hot nuts in that climate seemed about as desirable as a mug of Bovril. | And that was the problem. We'd had the bad luck to set up our enterprise in one of the hottest summer months on record. As people all around us scrambled for shelter from the blinding sun, we alone stood out in the middle of the street tending to a steaming hotplate. Sales were very slow. A packet of hot nuts in that climate seemed about as desirable as a mug of Bovril. |
| Rather more planning has gone into my latest entrepreneurial idea. What I'm thinking of doing is purchasing a small second-hand van and having the side inscribed with a modest name check and an invitation 'LAURIE TAYLOR. Sociologist. Your Problems Solved. £10 a solution.' Children who devised their own moral code were far more likely to adhere to it than to one which had been handed down by authoritarian figures | Rather more planning has gone into my latest entrepreneurial idea. What I'm thinking of doing is purchasing a small second-hand van and having the side inscribed with a modest name check and an invitation 'LAURIE TAYLOR. Sociologist. Your Problems Solved. £10 a solution.' Children who devised their own moral code were far more likely to adhere to it than to one which had been handed down by authoritarian figures |
| What I then intend to do is drive the van slowly along busy provincial shopping streets, wait until I am waved down, and then step out and ask the enquirer to tell me the nature of their problem. | What I then intend to do is drive the van slowly along busy provincial shopping streets, wait until I am waved down, and then step out and ask the enquirer to tell me the nature of their problem. |
| Suppose, for example, someone told me that they were worried about the manner in which their children were currently embracing moral relativism, the ways in which they seemed to make up their own ideas about what was right and wrong without any concern for the commandments and prescriptions laid down by their elders and betters. | Suppose, for example, someone told me that they were worried about the manner in which their children were currently embracing moral relativism, the ways in which they seemed to make up their own ideas about what was right and wrong without any concern for the commandments and prescriptions laid down by their elders and betters. |
| Invalid judgements | Invalid judgements |
| I'd begin with some token reassurance and then go on to discuss some of the parameters of moral relativism, the ways in which such a position derived at least in part from the anthropological insistence upon the uniqueness of separate cultures, from the alleged impossibility of being able to declare one way of living and believing as superior to any other. | I'd begin with some token reassurance and then go on to discuss some of the parameters of moral relativism, the ways in which such a position derived at least in part from the anthropological insistence upon the uniqueness of separate cultures, from the alleged impossibility of being able to declare one way of living and believing as superior to any other. |
| I'd also suggest that a thoroughgoing subscription to moral relativism meant that it was no longer valid or appropriate to pass judgement on such practises as wife beating or euthanasia. | I'd also suggest that a thoroughgoing subscription to moral relativism meant that it was no longer valid or appropriate to pass judgement on such practises as wife beating or euthanasia. |
| But in order not to be too downbeat I'd also point out to my earnest enquirer that there was small consolation to be found in their children's readiness to construct their own ideas of what was right and wrong. | But in order not to be too downbeat I'd also point out to my earnest enquirer that there was small consolation to be found in their children's readiness to construct their own ideas of what was right and wrong. |
| Children who devised their own moral code were far more likely to adhere to it than to one which had been handed down by authoritarian figures such as popes and priests and headmasters and patriarchal fathers. Then I'd say "that'll be ten pounds please", hop back in the van, drive home and count the day's takings. | Children who devised their own moral code were far more likely to adhere to it than to one which had been handed down by authoritarian figures such as popes and priests and headmasters and patriarchal fathers. Then I'd say "that'll be ten pounds please", hop back in the van, drive home and count the day's takings. |
| I've not yet been on the road. I blame my friend Dennis. He saw a sketch of a parked van I'd made and read out the inscription 'Laurie Taylor - Sociologist. Problems Solved. £10'. "That's a bit stark isn't it?" he said. "How do you mean - stark?" "Well, don't you need some sort of logo as a selling point?" "What sort of logo?" "Well, you're a sociologist. So how about 'Never knowingly understood'?". | I've not yet been on the road. I blame my friend Dennis. He saw a sketch of a parked van I'd made and read out the inscription 'Laurie Taylor - Sociologist. Problems Solved. £10'. "That's a bit stark isn't it?" he said. "How do you mean - stark?" "Well, don't you need some sort of logo as a selling point?" "What sort of logo?" "Well, you're a sociologist. So how about 'Never knowingly understood'?". |
| Below is a selection of your comments. | |
| One of my first-day-of-the semester ploys is to have my students say something about themselves by way of introduction. One semester, during this process one boy said, "My name is Aaron and I don't believe in anything.""Not in ANYTHING?" I asked.He said, "I don't believe in religion or morality or anything."I stared for a second and then asked, "'Thou Shalt Not Kill.' I am sure we all would like to know where you stand on that one.""Oh. I agree with that one."I waited a heartbeat, then said, "Well, then I can let you stay. If you had expressed ambiguity, I would have felt morally bound to insist you leave."I got a laugh, but the point was that moral relativism can have practical consequences. If you are going to go about solving problems as you suggest you will, I would really rather you went back to selling peanuts. Kate Pitrone, Chardon, Ohio | |
| The fact that kids who make up their own morals are more likely to stick to them than they are to stick to established forms of morality seems rather silly, because the whole point of having a moral system is to curb such excessive individuality. If for example I made up my own moral code, I could leave out plenty of stuff other people considered essential and basic, such as not stealing or lying, or only refraining from those things in certain circumstances, and stick to it, but would that mean anything? Not really. People should stop complaining about being taught right from wrong on the basis that it might interfere with their selfish desires and just accept that there actually are some things that you just don't do.Rob, Cardiff, UK | |
| Finally the public seem to be catching up with what philosophers have been saying for years; it isn't possible to know anything. Soon we will discount all morality and decide we can no longer pass judgement on anything. Then the law will go. After that we'll decide we aren't sure about science and technology and then we can scrap that. Then we just need to take apart language and we can all be back in caves in no time, getting some damn peace.Nick Spooner, Ripon, North Yorkshire | |
| This reminds me of a plan i came up with if I ever found myself as out of options and down on my luck as a theoretical physicist. It involved a hat on the ground and a sign that read "will simulation diffusion in fractal environments for food". Good to have that one to fall back on...Matt, UK | |
| So what is wrong about getting morality from religion? Too much commitment for you I guess.Martin, Southampton, UK | |
| Laurie, I will not be investing, sorry. If you ask the average British person in the street, "what are your problems?" you are likely to start a conversation lasting hours, especially now, so at a fixed rate of £10, before overheads, you will be looking at peanuts per hour. Roasted again, huh? And what about those that refuse to pay on the grounds that you have not SOLVED their problems? Also you could be prosecuted for false advertising, breach of promise, street trading without a license, fly parking, obstruction... And isn't a problem shared a problem squared? Probably you'd do better to hang a sign around your neck saying simply "Failed R4 sociologist", get a brown mongrel and sit on an old blanket and just do straight begging. Regular listeners would chip in, and do-gooders would bring soup and Jesus from time to time...Robert Gore, Berlin | |
| I think that if you can find anyone (a) who has so little to worry about in the children, and (b) can understand the complexity of your advice, they're likely to be sufficiently well-educated & remunerated to be consulting their own psychotherapist at [insert fee of choice] per hour. Now, there's a thought for you.Fee Lock, Hastings, East Sussex | |
| No parents in the real world complain that their kids "construct their own ideas of what's right and wrong". They worry that their kids bunk off school, take drugs and get involved in knife crime. Part of the reason kids feel inclined to do such things is precisely the sort of garbage spewing from Laurie Taylor's fictitious van. But he doesn't seem to be mocking those who believe this pernicious nonsense. Quite the reverse, apparently we have moral relativism to thank for the fact that it's "no longer valid or appropriate to pass judgement on such practises as wife beating or euthanasia". Bizarre.Phil, London, UK | |
| It is my 20-something friends who accuse my post-war Baby-Boomer generation of the heinous crime of moral relativism. Current political correctness, like all authoritarian "certainties", insists that one size fits all cases - excepting only those imposing that authority. The only choice appears to be which "approved authority's" current creed you invoke as your justifying mantra. Independence of thought attracts the attention of what looks increasingly like legalised morality police. ChrisJk, UK | |
| Drive a van? Have you seen the cost of petrol?Matt, Thatcham, Berkshire | Drive a van? Have you seen the cost of petrol?Matt, Thatcham, Berkshire |