I found this in my drafts, I thought I’d published it already!

When televisions first came out in the UK, there was one broadcaster: the BBC. In 1954, aware of the monopoly the BBC had on broadcasting, Parliament passed the Television Act creating another network: Independent Television (ITV). ITV would operate locally, providing regional news and documentaries funded by advertising. Today, however, ITV shows programming such as “the X-Factor”, “the Xtra Factor”, “WAGS boutique”, “Love Island”, “Celebrity Love Island”, “Loose Women”, “Paris Hilton's British Best Friend”, “CelebAir”, “Katie & Peter”, “Katie & Peter: Stateside” and “Peter Andre: Going It Alone”. It really isn’t worth watching.

So, I was shocked when I found myself watching “The Duchess on the Estate” on ITV1 the other week, a two-part documentary following the Duchess of York’s attempt to fix so-called ‘broken Britain’. Most critics focused on the fact that the problems faced by Britain couldn’t be solved in a two-hour fly-on-the-wall documentary, but what I found remarkable was how the government was often cited as not only the cause but the solution to the problems faced by locals. One man commented…

To be quite honest I got laid off from work last week…something needs to be done because it’s not getting any better and government after government are just leaving it and it’s getting worse and worse and worse and eventually we’ll end up like America won’t we?

And another…

Don't you think the Government wants it to carry on like this?
It keeps everyone happy.

In the first case, yes unemployment is bad at the moment but it’s not like the government’s not doing anything to help. The latter statement is completely absurd, the idea that our government tries to keep the poor impoverished is completely unfounded. In fact, I’d say that the Labour government has done more this decade to help those less well-off than has been done since the establishment of the NHS. Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), generous student loans, Child Trust Funds, Tax Credits and the Sure Start Maternity Grant all benefit those on low-incomes – compare this to the Poll Tax under Thatcher.

What does this have to do with Catholicism?

This “blame-the-government” culture links with the idea of sin. The UK has become a “surveillance society”, where there are fourteen CCTV cameras for every citizen, at a total of 4.2m cameras. These cameras have aided in many high-profile cases, but they’ve also created a kind of “parent” in the government, someone who tells us off for littering or bunking off work.

In child development, children move from having an heteronymous moral authority to an autonomous one. That is, they move from judging right and wrong based on the praise or punishment of a parent to passing their own judgement as they grow up. With the increase of CCTV, we seem to be going backwards. Now it’s the government’s job to tell us if we’ve done wrong based on what they’ve recorded. We’re losing that sense of personal moral integrity. If we can “pull one over” on the government then good for us.

As a Catholic this is interesting because (generally) we’re bought up with a strong sense of moral integrity. We’re taught that a sin is a sin is a sin, there’s no justifying wrong-doing. There’s no need for a heteronymous authority like the government, we know when we’ve sinned and we feel guilty about it. Even if nobody knows about what we’ve done, we still feel guilty. If anything, God is the authority before which we feel guilty.

Final thoughts

I’m ending this post on a pretty pessimistic note. As I write this I’m aware that this post lacks a real point because it feels pointless to even attempt to talk about overhauling the system we have in place. I am by no means against a welfare state or government intervention, in fact I’m for it. I just think that CCTV’s prolific take-over of our streets has gone too far. I remember reading the other day of government plans to move troublesome families out of their homes and into government-run compounds (temporarily) where they’d be under twenty-four hour supervision. Where has personal moral integrity gone?

In the media: this post is part of a feature discussing how Catholicism links with, or is portrayed by, the media. View other posts in the series…

Labels: britain, commentary, media, review