This entry was posted on 9/23/2009 11:56 PM and is filed under Footnotes.
Reform is in the air – or at least talk of it.
As the summer fades from memory and the autumnal rains and winds blow in, the arguments continue to rage across the world for change. There's hardly an aspect of life, private or public, that's not affected:
Reform of the health care system led to heated tempers and absurd accusations across the US;
Reform of the political system came in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal in the UK;
Reform of the financial system dominated talks among the G20 countries to prevent another global meltdown;
Reform of military strategy in Afghanistan as casualties mounted among nations contributing combatants, especially Germany and Italy.
And that mother of all challenges, which still eludes us: reform of global energy usage and carbon emissions before the icecaps melt completely and the ocean's water flood our low lands.
The problem is not everyone agrees with the diagnosis of the problem under consideration and just as few agree on the reform(s) needed. There is, of course, that pesky issue of vested interest that all too frequently gets in the way. Invariably, reform means taking away resources or privileges someone else has prior claim to or taken for their own. And when it comes down to it, old habits die hard. Do you really want to cycle to work or give up that vacation trip to Maui to reduce your carbon footprint?
All reformers, regardless or place or era, have encountered obstacles to change. It seems that in the great sweep of human history there is always someone who wants to stand in the way, to rain on the populist’s parade. Readers of my blog know I take a long view of the affairs of mankind, drawing on examples from history, especially of Greece and Rome, for comparisons with our own time. Ancient Athens had Theseus(1), Solon(2) and Kleisthenes(3). Sparta had Lykourgos(4). Rome had a great many reformers: the Gracchi brothers(5), Appius Claudius Caecus(6), Marcus Livius Drusus(7), Julius Caesar(8) and Caesar Augustus(9). Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus and Caesar saw their lives cut short on account of their ambitious reforms.
Closer to our own time, there have been formidable individuals willing to seek change. Take Thomas Paine(10), for instance. A couple of weeks ago I was standing as a groundling in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. I had tickets for the opening night of A New World by Trevor Griffiths(11). This entertaining play charted the life of a Norfolk-born schoolteacher who turned out to be one of the world’s great thinkers and reformers. He was a key figure in the American War of Independence and French Revolution. His talent was to formulate ideas and express them in words common people could understand. As the author of Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776-83) he helped propel the movement to oust the British from the Thirteen Colonies. He was feted by Benjamin Franklin (who he had first met in 1774) and Thomas Jefferson.
Of course, the American Revolution succeeded and produced a new world republican form of government, but one that Paine did not always support. His Rights of Man attacked monarchies and hereditary government. His Age of Reason of 1794 argued against organised religion. His Agrarian Justice of 1795 argued for a minimum wage. Yet he died in obscurity in 1809 and only six attended his funeral in New York. (At least he was not assassinated). While he has since become a hero of the United States he remains in the country of his birth a traitor (12).
All this proves to show that change is easier to say than do. History shows that it usually takes many attempts over decades to affect real and lasting change: abolition of slavery in Britain and the US; acceptance of racial equality; granting of votes for women; and decriminalising consenting gay sex – and there’s so much more yet in need of reform. Reformers often articulate change that is popular, but in enacting the reform they often find they are walking a lonely path. It takes an individual of great courage and immense personal resources to go the journey – a hero, in fact. But in the end great ideas that mean change for good do take hold.
Let’s just hope that all that talk of reform today isn’t just hot air – and that we have the mettle to change.
A New World plays at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London until October 9, 2009.
