If something is going wrong — which is dead certainty, since there will always be something going wrong somewhere — then it must be, it seems to Andrew Brown, because of a lack of faith. Which is why, I guess, I despise the man so much, because he is so trite and predictable. This time he argues in his Guardian CiF piece that
The rejection of God by Social Democrats and societal values by neoliberals has left a moral vacuum that will be difficult to fill.
I know nothing at all about Sweden — it is Swedish society he is analysing in his latest CiF Belief column: “Sweden and the Loss of Trust“ – but it’s just like Brown to fill the slot “what’s wrong?” with “the rejection of God”. He starts off by telling us about the leader of the Social Democrats, Håkan Juholt. No sooner had the man been elected, and the public heard that his partner (whom he met on a dating site – Brown just had to add) had been given a suspended sentence for embezzlement from her employer, and that Juholt himself had overcharged on his parliamentary living expenses while staying at her house. Obviously, then, there is a moral vacuum at the heart of Swedish society, mainly due to the rejection of God.
Then there’s the matter of nursing homes, some of which have been privatised, and now that they are meant to be turning a profit the inmates are being neglected, covered with faeces, diapers not changed, etc. So, obviously, this has something to do with the fact that God is no longer at the centre of Swedish society. After all, wherever it came from, there used to be a conformism about Swedish society. Some people thought it came from the top, but Brown doesn’t think this at all. No, no: it worked like this:
The way it really worked was written in gothic script outside the German church in the old town of Stockholm: “Fürchtet Gott! Ehret den König!” – “Fear God and honour the king!”
But no one in Sweden fears God any longer. The Social Democrats showed that society could do without God, for which they substituted the future. And this would work “just as well, if everyone believed in it.” Now, here comes the really heavy social analysis:
Social democracy spent decades smashing up the old authority structures, among them God and the traditional family, in order to take over their authority. From the 1980s onwards the neoliberals spent decades smashing up Social Democratic beliefs. And at the end of this process, the future has let both sides down. The idea of society as a place of mutual service has disappeared or at least attenuated to an ideal.
So, the only answer is to go back the God and the traditional family and reinstate their authority, I guess. Instead of “individual fulfilment through magically enlightened self-interest,” what we need is more ”Fürchtet Gott! Ehret den König!” But isn’t Brown forgetting something? For centuries the influence of God and the church were overpowering in Ireland. Schools were run by priests, lay brothers, and nuns. Belief in God, and the fear of God was apparently everywhere. People flocked to mass on Sunday, and many nipped into church of a weekday morning too, to partake of the sacred mysteries. And yet the Magdalene “Laundries” (as they were known) and the industrial schools were horror houses where children were physically, sexually and psychologically abused, and many of the kids were sent there — as criminals! — because they were born out-of-wedlock. And belief in God propped up this diabolical system until very recently — very recently indeed. And still props up a legal regime where women have no control over their own reproduction, and where the ban on divorce was only lifted in 1995. Until then unhappy partners were bound to each other for life.
So let’s not hear about the old structures of God and the traditional family, and the good old days from Mr. Brown. Perhaps there is a malaise in Swedish society. I don’t know enough about Sweden to know. But I know enough about the way God and the traditional family have functioned in various societies to know that, then too, there were abuses and horrors enough and to spare. God is only the answer to those who think that the old structures of authority that the church once underwrote are the only way to order a society successfully, but Brown, as usual, has given us not one single reason to think that fearing God and honouring the king would really help Swedish society cure whatever malaise it is that afflicts it. It is really annoying when people like Brown mouth the old platitudes, as though societies living under the scrutiny of God and God’s minions were better, more healthy and fulfilling than society without such ultimate invigilation.
Reading Andrew Brown is usually a very painful experience. When he writes about my native Sweden however, It’s so painful physical violence would be preferable.
He should look on the UN research on where societies rank in corruption. Or the three day media storm witch followed when our former leader took a piece of candy without paying for it in a store if he only understands anecdotal evidence.
The fact that he knows about Juholt and our currently heavily debated elder-care is because we care. Juholts ratings plummeted when we found out. The bad for-profit elder-care companies are losing their contracts and people are being fired.
When you’re done loving the invisible sky gods you can start loving the people around you full time. And we are quite content and happy doing that in Sweden (again look at what the UN:s figures tell you).
Lars, couldn’t agree more. Reading Brown is a painful experience, but anyone, and I mean anyone, who knows what is was like when churches were in charge, can tell you that things could be very bad indeed. I am not surprised at all to hear that Juholt’s ratings plummeted, nor that the misdoings in the elder-care institutions are being dealt with. We are human beings. Things will inevitably go wrong, but neither God nor the traditional family (wasn’t this “Leave it to Beaver” ideal just that — an ideal seldom realised in the flesh?) will make things better. All Brown has to do is look at places like Ireland (the asylums for children) or Spain and Italy (support for fascists), to know that God and tradition are not the answer.
I found it to too tiresome to comment yet again on the Andrew Brown blog. I note that elsewhere (Spiked) people are arguing that Social Democracy, and similar leftish parties, have lost their way as a political movement because in many parts of the developed world the main dynamic is no longer workers vs capitalist bosses. They wonder what will replace that dynamic too. No mention of god in that explanation…
In my opinion Andrew Brown loves mystery, human exceptionalism, and social order – yet he denies himself the solace of a faith. I hope he sorts himself out for it is becoming too painful to watch.
Yes, I agree, DJ, I almost let it go too, but it was simply too obviously Brown on his hobby horse again, which he doesn’t seem able to distiinguish from the real thing, that I felt I had to say something. Of course, you are right, and the left really does seem to have lost its way, as Nick Cohen has pointed out over and over again. Half of it seems to want to temporise with Islamists, and the other half is simply confused. And it is hard to say, now that there is no strong left social pressure, to see where it might go and what it might represent. But Brown’s solution is simply too simplistic. Even Brown needs to try a bit harder.
This is certainly the case in Australia, where the Federal Labor Party is currently jerking like a marionette between two poorly-coordinated puppeteers: on the one hand the union movement, who retain control over the votes and funding for the party despite playing an ever-diminishing role in Australian society; and the green movement, whom Labor needs to retain the balance of power in Parliament. The results would be hilarious if they weren’t costing taxpayers quite so much money.
And our ‘atheist’ Labor Prime Minister, by the way, has come out against gay marriage and continued to pour vast sums of Federal money into rich faith schools: she’s hardly a poster child for rational government.
I won’t let anyone forget Andrew Brown’s 2010 article in Foreign Policy “We are all Swedes now”, where his entire thesis was based on comparing Sweden’s murder rate to DC’s. The only problem is that he claimed that Sweden has roughly twice the population of DC, when in fact it’s closer to 16 times as large. He also failed to mention that Swedish authorities had changed the method by which they counted homicides between 1990 and 2009. His qualification as a Sweden expert should be risible. Truly one of the stupidest persons to ever be given a column.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/26/were_all_swedes_now?page=full
I grew up in Catholic Ireland, spent 15 years in England before moving to Sweden about 8 years ago so I can, perhaps, compare godlessness in different societies. Brown’s article is simply lazy. He takes two examples, that would be unexceptional anywhere in the western world and extrapolates them out to cover the entire Swedish society. Sweden is a paragon of virtue in terms of corruption compared to some religious parts of Europe (Italy anyone?)
And as for private companies caring for profits over people! Are we supposed to draw some sort of particular godless Sweden down the moral plughole conclusion? I think we are!!
As others have mentioned in other venues, Brown is simply a troll, he functions to write contentious articles that get a lot of hits for the Guardian – mostly from people writing in to point out where he got it wrong this time.