Nation’s favourite painting
A Rake’s Progress III: The Orgy by William Hogarth
Britain’s Greatest Painting
BBC’s Radio 4 Today Programme in association with the National Gallery are asking the public to vote for Britain’s favourite painting. The hundreds of paintings nominated have now been whittled down to a final shortlist, drawn up by Today’s panel of experts (Jonathan Yeo, Deborah Bull and Martin Gayford) each backed by a celebrity advocate.
The ten paintings in the frame are:
The Arnolfini Marriage by Jan van Eyck
The Fighting Temeraire by Joseph Mallor William Turner
The Hay Wain by John Constable
A Rake’s Progress III: The Orgy by William Hogarth
The Baptism of Christ by Piero della Francesca
A Bar at the Folies-Bergere by Edouard Manet
Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh
The Last of England by Maddox Brown
The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Lock by Sir Henry Raeburn
Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy by David Hockney
Comment on the Today programme:
Hogarth is a peerless 18th C painter and the reason he is peerless is because he is so honest and so truthful about human life. This Rake’s Progress is a satire of what happens to this chap, Tom Rakewell, and the various scrapes he gets in to. We see him here in an orgy where he is being fleeced by a prostitute who is reaching her hand into his bosum and stealthily passing his watch, which is set at 3am so you can see how late it is, to an accomplice behind him. Meanwhile another girl is about to take her clothes off and dance naked. All the human characters you can imagine turn up in Hogarth’s work, every human frailty, every human vice is depicted here and above all satirised here and the reason I want everyone to vote for Hogarth is because he so represents this English tradition of satire and irreverence. If all countries had the same ability to make fun of people’s frailties and foibles then the world would frankly be a lot less terrifying, because, in a way, what you see here in the Rake’s Progress is the essential concommitant to the enlightenment. How about that eh?!
The polls close on the 4th of September, with the winning painting announced on the Today programme on the 5th, so get your skates on, get out there, vote early and vote often here till closing date!
See comment on the result
113 Comments
I agree with Nora about the wall, but I voted for Turner, more for the painter than the painting, as I prefer some of his other works.
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I enjoyed the recent tribute to Spike Milligan on tv.
I particularly liked his cure for sea-sickness: sit under a tree.
I’m afraid, however, that since he wrote it, some cruiseliner has probably installed a jungle of trees in its foyer. Perhaps even plastic versions.
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Yo Mark, I didn’t vote, sorry. For reasons see above. I thought we were being directed away from the original subject matter by the powers that be. I confess I’ve been a little distracted this week by an excellent film I found called ‘Prick Up Your Ears’ starring Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina. A very useful and very welcome distraction from people chasing me for money. And to think what I used to be chased for…. Oh well, seems I’m not ageing as well as a Hogarth!
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Settle a wager please. Does Duddingston really exist and did the artist invent the Raeburn (as in the similar Aga)too?
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Jaq: Prick Up Your Ears (biog of playwright Joe Orton) is a v good film, a great book, and a top title which was probably immensely popular in the Mid-West Stateside: they’re funny and unpredictable that way.
(Name Drop Alert) I met the biography’s author, John Lahr, a few weeks back – at Giraffe of all places, you know, the United Colours of Benetton fusion restaurant? Oh, please yourselves and titter yet not, noooooo… – er, Anyway.
Mr Lahr was suitably and modestly appreciative of my gushing encomium (?)of his book but slightly pissed off about the film when I mentioned it. Perhaps it was the portrayal of Mr Lahr in the film by the screenplay writer, a certain Mr A Bennett.
It would be nice to see some Joe Orton on the telly with some big names – Entertaining Mr Sloane perhaps, with David Jason et al. A reanimated Orton would have a field day with our New Labour/Big Brother/ Celebrity culture, just as he ripped the piss out of Britain in the 60s. Shame about his early encounter with the Ruffian on the Stair (the Grim Reaper, aka his lover Ken Haliwell with a hammer).
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Markgamon asks what is the left-liberal conspiracy dominating threatening the soul of the nation.
Well I don’t think I used the word conspiracy. I said establishment, because they are the establishment now, well ensconced in nearly all the centres of power, including the courts, the Police, the media and the education system.
The left-liberal establishment was born out of a reaction to the conservative, deferential, hierarchical, imperialist, racist establishment that preceded it. From that point of view people are quite right to “look back in anger” at the iniquities and inequities of the past. I don’t want to go back there.
But the modern establishment has replaced the old hierarchy with a kind of sub-Marxian pseudo-meritocracy. There are now certain ruling orthodoxies. Key among them are the following:-
- that all cultures and religions are of equal merit
- that there are no gender differences of any significance for society
- that the monogamous marriage-based family has no special status
- that material deprivation is the sole or overriding cause of social deprivation
- that all differential performance of ethnic minorities must result from racial or cultural discrimination by the majority group.
These ruling ideas are indeed of great danger to our country. We have already seen how they have led to a situation where millions of people have been let into this country from abroad without any sought of check on their loyalty to our values, so that we are now actually harbouring thousands of people who hate us and want to overthrow our consitutuion and do us harm.
So – our consitution is threatened by the left-liberal establishment.
We also have a situation where people are regularly being harrassed by the Police for expressing opinions that differ from the ruling ideas. These aren’t horrible hate-filled racist opinions – simply opposing bogus asylum seekers has been enough to bring on visits from the local constabulary. The Government is now introducing legislation to ban criticism of Islam which Rod Liddle described recently and quite correctly as a primitive and cruel religion.
So the left-liberal establishment threatens our
free speech.
Lastly (for this brief survey), I would say that the left-liberal consensus has created a whole sub-culture of welfarism involving millions which has pernicious effects through out society – seen in terms of criminal and anti-social behaviour, economic depression in large parts of teh country, high taxation, drug use and mental illness.
So left-liberalism really does gnaw away at the moral fabric of society. Of course the establishment’s beneficiaries are mostly protected from the worst consequences as they live in middle class enclaves in the big city or in pleasant country villages. They don’t inhabit our huge council estates where the worst is to be experienced.
The cure for all this is to subject these ruling ideas to thorough-going criticism.
If you still aren’t convinced about the reality of the power of this left-liberal establishment how about posing yourself these questions:
- Why do we never hear on TV from the residents who are forced out of their homes by the Notting Hill carnival for trhee days every year? Are they happy to be deprived of their homes in this way?
- Why whenever lower average pay for women is mentioned do we never hear of one possible explanation: that women (on average) prefer to concentrate time and attention on family and home and therefore take a conscious or unconscious decision not to compete for top jobs that demand complete commitment to the work organisation?
- Why did it take 50 dead in the tube and on the streets for the establishment to admit that perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to allow these Islamonazis freedom to spread their poison in our society?
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Hi Jaq
Blimey. Lots of food for thought there. Let me try and respond to some of it…
Re: your ‘ruling orthodoxies’:
- that all cultures and religions are of equal merit. I agree with you that all cultures are not of equal merit. Not sure how you can say the same about religions. In my experience they’re all dangerous, but pretty much equally bad.
- that there are no gender differences of any significance for society. Well. After thinking about it, I agree with you. And yet somehow disagree too. Women are better at certain types of task, drive differently, and know how to have babies. They’re also entitled to earn the same money as men. Men on the other hand are physically stronger, usually logical rather than intuitive, and aggressive. Which makes them responsible for 99.9% of the wars we fight, and the global conflict between Pepsi and Coke. On balance, I’d pay women more. They do more useful stuff.
- that the monogamous marriage-based family has no special status. Nor should it. It’s an archaic institution kept alive to feed the marriage industry’s profits, prop up the legal profession, and generate profitable paperwork in the financial services sector.
- that material deprivation is the sole or overriding cause of social deprivation. Errrr. Pass. What are we saying here?
- that all differential performance of ethnic minorities must result from racial or cultural discrimination by the majority group. I agree. The ‘establishment’ does tend to fall back on this kind of thinking. So do a lot of people who have nothing to do with the establishment.
Our constitution. What constitution? Can you tell me where I can buy a copy?
The one I really must take issue with is your ‘sub-culture of welfarism’. Seems to me this establishment is just as keen as the previous one to blame welfare for crime, drug use, and anti-social behaviour in general. But welfare is just another symptom. The cause of crime is poverty. Which is why there’s less of it in East Herts, Kingston, and Harrogate. Yes, I know we’ve all got fridges and TVs now. But poverty is also relative, and exacerbated by the economic freedom that allows those TVs to be used to bombard people with reasons why they’re being left behind.
You may have meant something else when you indicated your concern about welfarism. Please ignore the above para if I’ve misinterpreted.
As to your questions, I’ve been posing them to myself.
Re: Notting Hill Carnival. Pass, again. I wasn’t aware of the problem.
Re: pay for women. When I say women should have the right to equal pay, I’m thinking in terms of remuneration per unit of labour. Measuring ‘commitment’ and ‘competition’ is a tougher call. But then I find myself asking why competition is seen as such an admirable quality. Or whether a life committed to increasing Coca-Cola’s sales figures (say) is worth the extra money our culture seems to think it merits, or even worth the living.
Re: the fifty dead, and the Islamonazis. I share all your concerns/despair/disgust at the rabid end of Islam. I really do. But I think you’ve contradicted yourself here. You can’t complain about the state picking on people for ethnic criticism unless you also complain about picking on people who voice fundamentalist islamic views.
Personally, I’d stick with full freedom of speech, and keep the Islamic clerics here where we can keep an eye on them. In fact I’d insist as a precondition of their residence in the UK that they attend compulsory ‘doctrinal colleges’ (preferably lasting many weeks) where they’re forced to argue their case rationally with leading Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist clerics.
Something of a mish-mash of responses there. Hope you’ll forgive me for not constructing a coherent argument. The thing that always makes me see red in an argument is a catchall phrase like ‘left-liberal establishment’. It suggests order and control where there is none.
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Try and talk it out? Rationalised debate with other religious leaders? What? Talk it over? It would simply state the case for extradition even more strongly.
We CANNOT be tolerant of this nonsense situation, and we must not be reasonable. We are in a totally UNreasonable scenario. We are being hounded and silenced and scared and murdered by people who come here with HATE in their veins.
Make that reasonable.
To tackle an unreasonable scenario we do not take the “moral” highground. Forgive me, not even that, I mean the politically correct ground. We must take action.
It is such a similar thing to burglary. You must use reasonable force. When a stranger breaks into your home, invades your property, your four year old daughter is asleep upstairs, he thinks he can rob and assault you. Totally UNreasonable. Act accordingly.
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Errr…
The ‘doctrinal college’ idea WAS tongue in cheek…
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Good God. I go away for a week and Boris’ blog about pretty pictures has become a place to rant about Guardianistas, fascists, Islingtonites and random misspelt entries about apostrophes. If this were a real live conversation in Boris’ living room, he’d have gone to bed by now and angry Telegraph readers would be drunkenly shouting phrases such as “no no no no” and “but how far do you go?” and “and another thing” at each other. Whilst spilling cognac on Boris’ lovely sheepskin rug.
Where’s the lovely @ to keep us on track? I’m betting she’s given up on this one and joined an elite society of punctuation recluses in Wargrave.
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Markgamon -
It was me – Field – rather than Jaq who took you to task over the left-liberal establishment.
Seems though from your reply that you are not so sceptical about its existence as I at first thought.
Just to pick up on a few points:
1. Constitution – constitutions don’t have to be written. As it is though, a lot of our “constitution” is written down in various laws taken to be fairly fundamental. But even in countries like the USA, the consitution (i.e. the system of government) is not to be found purely in the founding consitutional document. Much of teh American constitution can now be found in judgments of the Supreme Court and histroical events – e.g. the Civil War which put paid to the idea of a voluntary union of states.
2. I’m not surprised you haven’t heard that hundreds of thousands of residents affected by the Carnival are pissed off by it because they either have to leave their homes or be held prisoner in them. That fact is not allowed to be communicated in the left-liberal media. I’m pleased to see that this year’s carnival was relatively peaceful. Let’s hope it stays that way but in any free society it should be possible to debate the merits of such street festivals openly and freely without fair of intimidation.
3. You are obviously wedded to the left-liberal analysis of social deviancy – crime etc. as resulting from relative poverty.
Clearly there is some relationship. But equally, it is quite clear that at times of extreme relative poverty e.g. in the Victorian period and the 1930s crime actually reduced. Similarly in New York crime has been greatly reducedin recent years even though relative poverty has certianly not declined much and may have been reduced.
Crime could be said to involve motive, means and opportunity.
Under the left-liberal establishment all three have flourished:
- Motive: people have been encouraged to think of themselves as victims if poor, rather than to focus on self-improvement.
- The means to commit crime has been occasioned by failure to imprison criminals and by disempowering the law-abiding.
- The opportunity to commit crime has been brought about by a failure to patrol on foot as well in vehicles on a 24 hour basis.
A worrying trend has been for the left-liberal establishment resorting to gimmicks liek ASBOs which some authorities are only too hjappy to use in a way which undermines our free society.
Crime is clearly a complex problem – one can’t do it justice (no pun intended) here but I think the links between crime and unstable family background are clear to all except those so blind as will not see. The issue then is shoudl the state subsidise unstable families or should it rather marshall all its resources to require people to behave responsibly.
My view of humanity is a generous one. I think people are generally pretty rational. Most girls of 17 won’t get pregnant if they think there’s nothing in it for them, if say the state had a modern (more humane but not attractive) version of the workhouse rather than providing a flat and a regular income.
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Apostrophe -
Agreed. Action rather than debate is called for although I would also stress that a responsible media would be making sure there was also vigorous debate, ensuring that teh apologists of Islam were obliged to state and defend their opinions, rather than hide behind devious generalities and careful bromides. The Panorama programme on the MCB was at least one example of what should be done. (Incidentally I ahve always argued against some other bloggers that the left-liberal establishment will not necessarily roll over for Islam – some will, following Galloway’s lead, but others, motivated by their secularism and atheism will go on the offensive as John Ware obviously has – it’s not unliek the situation in 1939 when leftie pacifists suddenly mutated into anti-Nazi war mongers).
As for the action the key would be to have again a serious sedition law, so that actively campaigning for the replacement of Parliament with Sharia law (or any other non-democratic system of law) would be defined as the sedition it is and seditionaries would be arrested and imprisoned for long terms or deported.
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Heartily concur with the Merkin. This post is now out of control, Mere Anarchy is loosed upon the world etc. Melissa needs to crack the whip. Ah, that’ll just encourage the Tories…
Order! Order!
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Once again I think Field has points that require some consideration, although I think every time he uses the word liberal it should be in quotes – which look very much like apostrophes but I’m not going there!
Maybe we ought to look at how we are using the word establishment. The idea of an establishment was first mooted – I believe – in the late 50′s or early 60′s. It suggested a loose network of almost entirely males in the upper reaches of the aristocracy, universities and – even – business, meeting at London clubs and so on. There was no explicit conspiracy, as in the same sense as the Communist party, rather a shared and unquestioned understanding of what was right and what was wrong.
Today in the universities, BBC, some sections of the press, the arts, politics and the public services there is a loose – and more heterogenous network of people – with a shared and unquestioned understanding of what is right and what is wrong. Earlier I stereotyped these punters as Guardianistas and Islingtonites, but they could be Luton based Independent readers. They buy into the great semi-socialist utopian experiment. Every time an aspect of this runs into trouble the underlying premises are not questioned, rather it is seen as a cse for more money throwing. Not all of this is entirely philanthropic, albeit with other people’s money.
Many of these people are employed by the state, nationally or locally. Just as the ‘old establishment’ would close ranks against threats to their way of life, so does the ‘new establishment’. When a university professor says ‘Gosh – my post-modernist media studies course is actually not very useful culturally, economiically, socially or individually. I must resign my post so that they can have a professor in engineering or history instead’ then I might be convinced of the self sacrifice of the ‘new establishment’.
There may well be lots of the ‘old establishment’ left. But I suggest that there is now a pretty vigourous ‘new establishment’.
(Maybe Dawkins’, Dennet’s and Blacknmore’s ideas on memes might be useful here?)
Mark is being disingenuous. He neatly bundles up ‘on this side.. on that side..’ arguements without looking at the premises. For example Field said
‘We also have a situation where people are regularly being harrassed by the Police for expressing opinions that differ from the ruling ideas. These aren’t horrible hate-filled racist opinions – simply opposing bogus asylum seekers has been enough to bring on visits from the local constabulary. The Government is now introducing legislation to ban criticism of Islam which Rod Liddle described recently and quite correctly as a primitive and cruel religion. ‘
and
‘Why did it take 50 dead in the tube and on the streets for the establishment to admit that perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to allow these Islamonazis freedom to spread their poison in our society?’
to which Mark responded
‘Re: the fifty dead, and the Islamonazis. I share all your concerns/despair/disgust at the rabid end of Islam. I really do. But I think you’ve contradicted yourself here. You can’t complain about the state picking on people for ethnic criticism unless you also complain about picking on people who voice fundamentalist islamic views. ‘
Sorry Mark. I think Field is referring in the first place to – for example – people who rightly or wrongly perceive that some folk get a preferential break because they are from an ethnic minority and complain about it, and in the second case to people who are calling for jihad against this country. The state has no business threatening people in the first category, though it does have an obligation to explain just where the benefit system is allocating tax money. If it is distributed without favour to those in need then it needs to make this clear to people who object and not threaten them. In the second case the state has its primary role of defending the realm.It may be unfashionable to say so but if the country goes down the tubes then everyone’s human rights get hit bigtime and not even Gareth Pierce can sort that one out.
OK I went into that diversion just to highlight how people often make ‘neat’ and ‘symmetrical’ points without stopping to question premises of their argument.
I’m not picking on Mark here – I’m sure he is robust enough not to worry if I were. I find his stuff somewhat more challenging than what I hear in well known newspapers and areas of London. I’m even thinking of buying his book (how many pages Mark – I want to get to get an idea of reading enjoyment per pound (sterling)).
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Field – sorry. Don’t tell me we’ve got a ‘constitution’ unless you can show it to me. Or recite it, if you prefer not to have it written down. The way you describe it, the thing we like to call a constitution is just a bunch of disparate laws, created piecemeal and without thought. I know the US Constitution has grown and developed, but the point is that they sat down and analysed what they were trying to do, then stated it simply in language that anyone could understand. I’d like to see us do that here, and I’m not happy with our constitution being an airy abstraction.
Crime – yep, I’m wedded, if that’s how you prefer to see it. I don’t have access to your stats, though I bet I could come up with an equally impressive list to prove the counter-argument. I’m just looking at where the crimes take place.
Curiously, I agree with some of your thoughts about the causes of crime.
Of course we should be patrolling on foot. Should have been for the last three decades, now I come to think of it – and long before the ‘left-liberal establishment’ arrived on the scene.
Ditto ASBOs, which are nonsensical.
I can’t see how sending more people to prison to learn more about crime actually helps reduce the crime rate, but I do recognise that this is a matter of figuring out how to define an incarceration offence. Of course the really bad guys should be locked up.
And I’m entirely with you on disempowering the law-abiding.
The part that really rankles is your link between crime and an unstable family background. What exactly IS that? Are we talking about physical/sexual abuse? Unemployment? Redundancy? Drink? Crack? Disability? Divorce? Single parents? Aren’t all families unstable to some degree? Where do you draw the line?
In the old days (and perhaps in saloon bars up and down the land today for all I know) coming from a ‘broken home’ was always considered the first step on the long slide into depravity. I’m divorced. So were my parents. So were my grandparents, come to that. None of us has ever committed a crime, beyond the odd speeding fine. Yet I’m awfully worried that without a meaningful definition, we’d all be considered ‘unstable’.
Can I also put in a word for teenage girls? You’re right – most teenage girls won’t get pregnant if there’s nothing in it for them. I’d go further than that: most teenage girls DON’T get pregnant if they can avoid it. The ‘single teenage mother sucking the state dry’ is the hoariest old saloon-bar cliche of them all. Count the cost of all the single mothers on benefit in this country and you could probably cover it by not ordering the next couple of jet fighters. Let’s get our bogeymen in perspective, please.
Jack – thanks for bringing a little analysis to what constitutes an ‘establishment’. It’s not the existence of an establishment I’m challenging – only the stereotyping of it as ‘left-liberal’.
Re the free speech thing: I’m taking a step backwards on that. I still think you have to be even-handed, but I’m not sure now that I understood what Field was saying. I took it to mean that he was (rightly) objecting to proposed legislation to ban criticism of Islam, whilst at the same time calling for legislation against people who criticise a non-Islamic way of life. If I musunderstood that, beg pardon.
Field – can you advise on the above?
To tell the truth, folks, there are so many debates running in parallel here that I’m inclined to give up the ghost. Or concentrate on just one. I’m spending so much time scrolling up and down to remember what people said half a dozen posts ago that my head is spinning. I better get out of here and do some real work for a while…
Enjoying the cut n’ thrust, though…
PS: Jack – it’s just over 300 pages. And I can guarantee there’ll be nothing in there about free speech or the British constitution. Though there is one single mother, now I come to think of it. But only in passing.
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Merkin: “Where’s the lovely @ to keep us on track? . . .”
keVin b: “Heartily concur with the Merkin. This post is now out of control, . . . Melissa needs to crack the whip. . . .”
Melissa will be back from holiday next week, I believe.
I am hoping we can discuss the Tory leadership contest – too important a matter to just leave to members of the Conservative party!
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Anyone who has read the Lord of the Rings probably appreciates why children of all ages (inc 50something middle-right Tories) need discipline. And this thread is now the island from Lord of the Rings of blogging. Until headmistress @ returns, I’m taking Jacinta and Tarquin away from the Seychelles (for that is where it was, apparently) and renting a B&B in Kingsley instead.
Very interesting though, nonetheless. Esp about the constitution – my only ever published letter to a broadsheet was about the lack of a need for a written constitution. But that’s for another time, on a thread not about pretty pictures…
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Mark -
I can see why you might feel aggrieved about the point about welfarism. Of course, a two parent stable family background is no guarantee of virtue and the absence of stability carries no stigma. I am simply making a statistical point which can be readily if you compare the family backgrounds of the prisoner population and that of the general population.
Incidentally you completely underestimate the financial burden created by single parent families. I looked into the figures. There are 11 million dependent children in the country and now one in four families is single parent. So let’s say that we have about 2.5m children in one parent families. I also found that only 57% of single parents work. Let’s ignore the fact that many or most of those are doing part time work (which means they will still be receiving substantial state subsidies) and let’s assume that half the 2.5m children are in one parent families where the adult doesn’t work. That leaves 1.5m. Each family will be receiving at least
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Surely I’m not the only one to be unworried by the eclectic content of this thread? It beats the OU.
Mark – I have no problem with the many single mothers I know socially and through work. Quite honestly I take my hat off to them and how they manage against the odds. The major problem is single motherhood or rather zero fatherhood. Where are all these guys who think it’s OK to have a bit of fun and sod the consequences and why do they think like that? The good thing about the traditional (but evolving) family is that it incorporates the duties of joint parenthood. No suitable state substitute has been found for this imperfect arrangement.
Should have realised from the sample text that it wasn’t a slim volume! Shall order a copy forthwith or at least when the mother of my children tells me where the credit card is.
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Field – I had a hunch you might come back with some maths on that one. I didn’t say it wasn’t a lot of money. I did say that you could probably cover it with a couple of jet fighters (OK, maybe a few). Or the annual redecoration bill in Whitehall. Or the Civil List. Or the army, or the air force, or the navy. Or the war in Iraq. Why, morally, should one section of the population expect another to pay for all these activities that serve no useful purpose and of which they fundamentally disapprove?
The point is, we do pay. And we also pay to help young kids who screw up their lives. Of course some of them do it because it guarantees a free ride on the state. A lot more do it because they’re stupid or they believed what the boy told them or because they live in a rubbish place they can’t get out of or because they never took any GCSEs and can’t see any way out so they might as well do the one thing they think they might be good at or because they’re really really stupid and they saw some celebrity adopting a baby in their copy of Heat and that triggered off a daydream about how they’d love to be a bit – just an everso little bit – like that celebrity. And they’re 17 years old and they got it wrong.
They’re the symptom, is what I’m saying. Just like the economic migrants posing as asylum seekers. And what we should be doing is shouting about the causes.
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Lemon curry?
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Thank you, Vicus. Just what the doctor ordered.
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Jack – that’s very decent of you. I do hope the credit card shows up. Let me know if you have any trouble with the mechanics of the ordering website.
You have a good point about two-parent families. Two always does the job better than one. I just get hacked off when ‘family’ is equated with ‘marriage’. Thanks for making me think.
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Jack -
Yes I like that – “zero fatherhood”. Certainly sums up part of the problem. There are a lot of young men determined to evade their responsibilities.
But again, a lot of young mothers calculate quite rationally that they will generally better off without a father on the scene. Without a father there is a guaranteed income from the state and housing as well; one has a definite status as a full time mother; one doesn’t have to worry so much about violence from the father or whether the father will be an off-on parent – appearing and disappearing and creating emotional turmoil in the children.
And a lot of young mothers deliberately become pregnant without the father’s explicit consent.
We can’t solve all these problems immediately but we need to send a message to teenage girls that there will be no easy passage as a single parent. I don’t think society would stomach children being taken away from those incapable of supporting them materially, but I think there could be a consensus that immature girls who get pregnant do NOT get preferential treatment on housing. Either they stay with their parents or they go into some kind of supervised accommodation. It doesn’t have to be low standard accommodation. The key is that the mother is not a free agent and there will never be a separate family home provided by the state. I think further that as the state will be paying for the children, the state has a right to monitor the effectiveness of the teenager as a parent i.e. the mother’s performance will be subject to regular assessment and review.
Coupled with incentives to marriage (let’s say at age 21 or above), I think the above would be enough to encourage most sensible young women not to get pregnant. I don’t really agree with Mark about the large number of silly girls who don’t think things through. Most people I see otu and about seem perfectly able to exercise intelligent free choice when ordering meals, going on holiday, buying shoes etc. In my view they are doing jsut at teh moment with our crazy welfare system.
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Field: “A LOT OF YOUNG MOTHERS DELIBERATELY BECOME PREGNANT WITHOUT THE FATHER’S EXPLICIT CONSENT”
Wonderful. I would like to nominate this as the quotation of the week.
Imagine the scene at the Henley-on-Thames Young Conservatives ball:
Damian: Coming back to my place, then? The Porsche is just outside, you know.
Gwendolyn: Well I shouldn’t . . . and I promised Mummy I would be back by 11.30 . . . and actually I don’t usually do this (giggles) . . . but you’re a w fu l l y cute (giggles) . . . but I’m not on the pill, you know, uh, would you mind signing one of Mr Field’s ‘Explicit Consent Forms”?
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Oh dear, dear, dear.
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This HAS been a most extraordinary string of comments. I hope we haven’t upset Melissa.
Field – I’m backing off really. But there was one thing in your last post I couldn’t make sense of. What did you mean by ‘incentives to marriage’? I’m not querying it, just don’t understand.
Anyone fancy chatting about Hogarth for a bit?
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Simon – What you are indulging in is SPIN not argument. Presumably you had a think about it, saw you couldn;t come up with any rational counter-argument and so invented some fanciful scenario, which – Spitting Image style – is supposed to substitute for argument.
Nowhere did I suggest that anyone fill in forms. Quite the contrary. In fact it is the creation of irrational incentives (irrational from the point of view of society but not the individual single parent) for out-of-wedlock births under the current welfare system that leads to form filling – see the Child Support Agency or whatever it’s called. I am calling for incentives to give birth after marriage, which will precisely avoid the need for form filling and bureaucracy.
Mark -
Happy to return to Hogarth – one of my favourite painters! As for what I meant by incentives, I was referring to such things as tax breaks, advancement on council housing waiting lists (I would suggest for instnace that all young married couples born in the UK should be given priority over single mothers and asylum seeker or immigrant families). I think we should also reintroduce mortgage relief for young married couples and baby payments for the children of married couples.
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Field: “What you are indulging in is SPIN not argument”
No, it was just a quick bit of satire.
I shouldn’t really be here, but let me say that, quite apart from the male chauvinism in your statements, you are overlooking the universal facts of sexuality and the need for love which drive young people, and have always driven young people (and often older people), in frequently chaotic and irrational directions. You are also making assumptions about marriage and illegitimacy.
I suggest that there are a number of different social problems operating here, and in different communities. No doubt all of them represent some kind of failure in the educational system which should be turning children into responsible adults, but that brings us back to poverty and deprivation.
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Field – thanks for the clarification. I’m all in favour of cleverly applied tax breaks too. I’d give them to cyclists, and people with no more bedrooms in their house than the number of people needed to occupy them, and people who install solar heating in their roofs. So I’m with you on tax breaks to help young couples.
The only part where I’ve got to ask you to be a bit clearer is where you keep saying these couple have got to be married. Can’t they just be couples?
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“Universal facts of sexuality” That’s a bit exclusive of asexuals isn’t it?
From the dim recesses of the memory of my adolescence I seem to recall, from my experience and the reported experience of those somewhat more successful that the “need for love” was seldom conjoined with the “universal facts of sexuality”. I was a webby footed East Anglian so maybe things were different in Isli- sorry – the big city.
Satire and wit are seldom very useful in trying to track truth and often destructive of the process. I recall a discussion on TV with the follicly challenged punter who used to play Kojak and Ian McLellan (he’s the Gandalf man not the writer – hope I got that right). Anyway McLellan put forward a well crafted argument against Section 28 (I think it was 28 about “teaching homosexuality in schools” – correct me if wrong please). There was silnce and then the Kojak man made a witty comment which said nothing but the audience loved it. They had been let off the hook of thinking about a then unpopular argument (philosophical sense). I was uneasy about getting rid of section 28 but McLellan convinced me to look at my own reasoning again.
Now for some real culture!
Ofttimes you will hear that stuff is witty
Beware its rhyme says my little ditty
Oh stuff may sound smart
But take it apart
You may find you’ve been fed something s****y
Apologies to Melissa whose dainty ears should not have to listen to locker room language.
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Mark
It might sound like the sort of thing Harry Enfield’s Kevin would say but children don’t ask to be born. The participation in either role of the process of becoming a parent I feel imposes a duty on an individual as part of a partnership because you are in a position to cause great suffering and would not have been had you not participated. The “universal facts of sexuality” are rightly not a defence of rape. I think they should not be a defence of causing children to suffer either. You may argue “but hold on these two people agreed to this so that is not as bad as rape”. Of course the mutual act of intercourse is not in itself wrong whereas the act of rape as a violation of another is clearly wrong. However the mutuality without thought for the future which could bring about the unnecessary suffering of a child is wrong.
The point about marriage is that part of its traditional contract was to be for the care of children of said marriage. Like the family, it was an imperfect institution and many people, mostly women, got rough justice from it. But there was on the whole a much greater degree of protection for children within it.
Now I get the impression that a lot of contributors aren’t over enamoured of capitalism. Chacun a son goat, though what goats have to do with it..
One thing that is important for the capitalist system is that punters stick to contracts. Capitalism doesn’t do so well if people fiddle. All you Marxists and anarchists out there should be applauding the Enron crooks etc. They are screwing up the system like you couldn’t dream of!
I could try an emotional witty slight of hand and say if we can put up with contracts to keep money circulating then we can put up with contracts to make people think carefully before they have children. Oh I’ve just done it!
Anyway I think that contract is crucial. It can’t really be part of the law because of all sorts of reasons about what penalties would apply and that wouldn’t work. The proliferation of laws is usually an indication that the rule of law is not doing so well.
Mark is right in the sense that many unmarried couples have a perfectly good unofficial contract. But since marriage is no longer seen as necessary prior to becoming a parent, people of good will should press for general realisation that **usually** children are better off with two parents, one of each type and, in the same way that you should not cause unnecessary suffering by acts of omission, so you should not cause unnecessary suffering in this situation.
If we look at racism then, despite all the self loathers, there is a good deal less racism nowadays than when I was a teenager. This has come about more because of a feeling that racism is wrong than because all of the laws. Sensible people can ignore all the PC stuff and get to the nub. What we could do with is a general feeling that having children without regard for their future is also wrong.
I think my bolognaise is about to burn and my tribe return from the seaside.
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Jack said: ” “Universal facts of sexuality” That’s a bit exclusive of asexuals isn’t it?”
Please consider the expression as inclusive.
” . . . from my experience . . . the “need for love” was seldom conjoined with the “universal facts of sexuality” . . .”
Well, we were talking about young women, rather than young men.
“Satire and wit are seldom very useful in trying to track truth and often destructive of the process.’
(Without wishing to make any claims whatsoever for my little paragraph above), satire has a distinguished history in European literature. There are innumerable examples I could point to, from Cervantes to Voltaire to Orwell, where satire illuminates the truth far better than laborious tomes refuting boring and silly arguments. In many cases the satire lives on (e.g. Candide), when no one any longer reads the relevant tomes.
Satire is economical. That is a wonderful virtue. Long live satire!
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Satire only works where the statirist’s target is upholding an absurd position. There was nothing absurd about what I was saying. It is a fact that many young men become fathers as a result of an act of will on the part of young women and without the young men ever expressing any consent to the process. So what is absurd about communicating that fact? I never suggested that we should have a system of form-filling to establish consent. That was Simon’s invention. If you have to invent targets for your satire you are not a satirist. George Orwell didn’t have to invent the Soviet Union.
Mark asks why I refer to married couples rather than just couples. It comes back to the child. On the radio this evening I heard part of a programme on how schools are dealing with behavioural problems among some students. The special unit in one school dealt with 40 problem students in a year. We were told that of those only five came from two parent families. The rest came from single parent families. (Even if only 50% of the students came from two parent families that would still suggest single parent families performing 8 times as bad as two parent families).
Now, I’m prepared to have a debate about whether reducing the number of single parent families would lead to improved behaviour but what I cannot accept is the left-liberal establishment’s attempt simply to ignore the issue or pretend that there is no difference in outcome. Whatever indicator you look at: child poverty, school behaviour, crime, educational achievement, life chances – we find single parent families perform appallingly. That has to be the agreed starting point for a sensible debate.
Without marriage (or some sort of binding lifetime contract – whatever you want to call it) there is no commitment to the long term care of children by the two parents – as Jack rightly points out.
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I have lost the will to live.
Oh well. Triangles vs dyads. The Triangles have it. OK.
Can we move on? Per-lease?
I thank you.
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Sorry folks, bit squiffy (NOT binged) when I posted the above, hence monomaniacal bid to curb free speech and befuddled obliquity. Triangle = the Holy Family (Mummy, Daddy, young Tarquin, Dyad = the Evil Single-parent Family. Sorted.
All I have to add is Go Ken! Nice to see him rough up Blahr. Once bumped into Kenny + good lady wife in Sainsburys in Nottingham – similarly Boris in Waitrose. Just proves they both have the common touch eh? (Not too common tho – Morrisons would be non-u, Aldi unthinkable. Tescos? Hmm.)
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Simon
Surely the only way that “Universal facts of sexuality” could be inclusive of asexuals would be by seeing the complement of such facts as being about asexuals. Neither useful or simple. Is not asexuality something in its own right rather than some form of deviancy?
OK I concede that satire may illuminate the truth. It can hold up a brief flashlight to a darkened scene. Well done it can breach the ramparts of accepted ignorance. Often it is done by brave people who risk at the least ostracism, Orwell, or possibly imprisonment or death – I think Cervantes might have. But the process of tracking and illuminating that truth for the first time is not done by satire. More or less along the lines of Field, truth must be already arrived at, perhaps tentatively, by other means. By all means use satire to loosen up the intellectual logjam but there’s still work to be done by reason.
Unfortunately satire seems to now include any form of rudeness that is directed at hate figures of our old friends the Gs and Is. GWB, TB, Daily Mail Readers, the dear old CofE, East Anglians – all are grist to the mill of Radio4 ‘satirists’.
For example on one of the R4 ‘comic’ shows a ‘satirist’ characterised the Tory MP who told the distastful joke about Chinese cocklers as ‘a stupid racist’. Probably true on most reasonable definitions of racism. But fummy or satirical? Later on in the show the ‘satirist’ suggested that for every asylum seeker the UK admitted one Daily Mail reader should be dispatched to a Zimbabwe farm. At that time there was an upsurge in murders and rapes of, mostly but not exclusively white, farmers. If the Tory MP’s joke was unacceptable was not this?
Next time you listen to a ‘satirical’ show ask yourself whether the ‘satirist’ is illuminating truths or just churning out button pushers to a fairly self selected studio audience.
I have a personal grudge here. About the time Boris was dispatched to meet the grim faced Scouser scallies, another ‘satirical’ show suggested that we East Anglians were webby footed and the males amongst us went to barn dances to be introduced to our sisters. Was the DG of the BBC ordered off to the Fens to be humiliated by a bunch of locals? No way Jose!
POETS day again for Mon-Fri wage slaves. Have a nice weekend. I see Boris is back in the dear old Telegraph so perhaps Kevin will get his squiffy wish. I think Melissa has despaired of us all and gone to be a nun or a merchant banker.
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Just pushing this string over 100 comments.
Nothing further to say on marriage. Clearly there are people out there who need paperwork to prove their commitment. Who am I to argue?
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Jack: Considering your disapproval of satire, there were a lot of amusing moments there. I enjoyed it. Of course there is good satire and bad satire, like everything else. (In the case of my own Damian/Gwendolyn dialogue, I thought of a lot of improvements after I posted . . .)
I don’t really get your point about asexuals. Why are they relevant here?
Everyone seems to be concerned about Melissa, but she is a sensible young lady and I am sure she won’t waste her time reading these 100+ meandering comments when she comes back. This has become a kind of superdome of stranded blog commenters waiting for some action. I just hope Ken Clarke can shake everything up.
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Simon
If I can cause the lightest chuckle I consider it adds some meaning to my brief existence between two slabs of dull eternity.
I foresee a new play about the interactions of half a dozen stranded bloggers in August. If you start now you should have it ready for next year’s fringe. I’m sure we shall all come to see it!
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The Welsh are also considered fair game – alleged sheep shaggers although as someone of all Welsh descent I can honestly say the sight of wool on four legs does not goad the blood to my loins.
As for this Superdome of a blog, surely it is commendable that we are doing something for ourselves in a reasonably orderly fashion, rather than expecting someone else (aka Melissa) to come and rescue us.
Sometimes I suspect the fond repetition of the name, Me-liss-a, cloaks less noble inclinations
than a desire to see this blog well regulated…
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Take a hold of yourself, man!!!!!!
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Indeed.
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Thought I’d catch up on what y’all been discussing while I’d been on holiday and I’m with you kevin, I nearly lost the will to live!
Field: “It is a fact that many young men become fathers as a result of an act of will on the part of young women and without the young men ever expressing any consent to the process.” (hope I’ve got the qoute right) Aw honey has no-one ever explained the facts of life to you? Can’t say I’ve seen news of many men being forcibly raped! They have a choice – they could be gentlemen!
You seem to hold single mothers as responsible for societies problems, they are not. Mostly they are literally left holding the baby and doing the best they can. For very young mothers it is often the grandparents left holding the baby and bringing up the child as they did their own so your argument breaks down. Not all single mothers are young or badly educated, and why do you think that unmarried always means no male! Like the man said – a couple’s a couple, however long that lasts. You may now blame women for ending relationships but I can assure you that the days of being 2nd class citizens and having to prostitute yourself for a roof over your head are long gone and should stay that way.
Maybe the answer to reducing the number of single mothers is for men to get with the programme and either choose to STAY around or make women actually WANT to be with them.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t MAKE him drink. And by the way, it takes two to screw up a relationship – and sometimes you just can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear, however hard you try.
The cause of societies problems are that of attitude and behaviour generally not of geography. They are not confined to single mothers or absent fathers, look around you. It is the culture of Britain today, we have always had single mothers and absent fathers, we have not always had this culture. After the great wars there were a great many single mothers and they did just fine and so did their children, many struggling in poverty. Find the difference between then and now. You are currently looking in the wrong place.
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Jaq -
You seem almost adept – or unscrupulous – as Simon when it comes to misrepresenting my views.
I note firstly you don’t seek to deny the mountain of evidence showing the statistical connection between single parenthood and disastrous outcomes for the children of single parents in terms of poverty, involvement in crime and drugs and low achievement.
Secondly I note you nowhere provide any argument for why we – the taxpayers – should fund these disastrous lifestyle choices. Take away the financial subsidies and I believe the behaviour would also disappear.
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Jack
Not so sure! good challenge there
Have now jack-knifed myself back into action following a few days of lazily meandering along in floral rural Normandy.
So who’s for the Leader of the Conservatives then ? see latest post today and make your stand!! take a shot! all to be amplified at the forthcoming party conference stage
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Oh well. The ‘Fighting Temeraire’ won the greatest painting contest.
You remember the greatest painting contest ?;)
‘The Haywain’ came second.
Boris should take heart from this. In our visual tastes at least, we’re a deeply conservative nation.
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Field: what’s the point in arguing statistics? You can make statistics say anything: Let’s say the colour white is the highest volume of cars sold, ergo you are more likely to have an accident if you drive a white car as statistics could show. However, the most difficult colour to see is grey or light blue and white is more visable so the statistics could be used to illistrate a misleading conclusion. Similarly single parents are more likely to live in poverty and drugs and crime are more likely to stem from deprived backgrounds ergo etc… But it is the society in those backgrounds that fosters drugs and crime not the fact of single parents. Drugs and crime aren’t the exclusive lot of children of single parents. Perhaps if the absent fathers hadn’t f****d off in the first place and left the poor woman in poverty she wouldn’t be a single parent. Ergo it’s entirely the fault of the arrogant tax payers who seem uncomfortable with thier responsibilities.
Oh, and not all absent fathers are irresponsible. Boris’s parents were divorced when he was 14 and he turned out just fine, they all did.
You say “Secondly I note you nowhere provide any argument for why we – the taxpayers – should fund these disastrous lifestyle choices. Take away the financial subsidies and I believe the behaviour would also disappear.” Why lifestyle CHOICES? Not every single mother is lucky enough to have been married to Stanley Johnson. But if he wants to divorce his wife and marry me I’d stay married, believe me. Then again I couldn’t marry a man who was clearly out of his wits and given the choice of someone so clearly beautiful and accomplished as his wife even I’d marry her! What I mean is, there’s that little thing called love.
Sometimes relationships breakdown and can no longer continue. Are you saying that divorce should only be for the rich? That every battered wife should stay for the sake of your selfish bloody principles. That every single parent has never worked? That no single parent is disabled? That people should live in misery and pain instead of moving on when asylum seekers can come into this country and get everything having given nothing to this society? One rule for foreigners but our own women and children can rot? Get back to the sink woman and know your place?
I’m sorry Field but on this issue your archaic misogynous views just stink.
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Turner has won
see:
http://tinyurl.com/9yety
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Jaq: I understand where you are coming from, and sympathise, but you really can’t take your frustration out on a poor guy who is legitimately expressing the views of an innocent bystander. I don’t think that Field was making any statement apart from the one which states , not every father is cognisant of his fatherhood ,due to his not being informed of a pregnancy. Each case is of course different, and someone who has been abandoned, whilst with child, or even after having borne children, is not the same as someone for whom casual sex resulted in pregnancy.
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