De nye puritanere
Fra The Observer, The Guardian´s søndags-udgave:
'Something very interesting, indeed radical, is happening to Britain,' confirms Jim Murphy, associate director of the Future Foundation, the trends forecaster which coined the term 'New Puritan'. 'If you look at the way our lives are filled with different kinds of social opprobrium, a lot of people are increasingly under ethical pressures which influence their choices.'
According to the Future Foundation, we are increasingly curbing our enthusiasm for profligate consumption, and health and environment-threatening behaviours. Gone is the guilt-free pleasure-seeker, to be replaced by the model well-meaning citizen, the New Puritan - a tag interchangeable with neo-Cromwellian, if you really want to seal its 17th century origins - who thinks through the consequences of activities previously thought of as pleasurable and invariably elects to live without them. Think of it as the dieticians' favourite adage, 'a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips' given socio-economic resonance.
Arguably, these personal codes of conduct would be an arresting enough story on their own, but the New Puritan's curbs must also be extended to other people's behaviour, and wherever possible enshrined by legislation - for New Puritans do not fear the nanny state. According to Murphy, 'In common with all important movements, this one has a silent march. It's under-noticed and under-observed.'
Such stealth might suit elements of the movement quite well, especially when it comes to tackling the menace of the Sports Utility Vehicle. Part of the New Puritan brief is to penalise those who make poor choices on behalf of the rest of society - in this case the gas-guzzling, emissions-generating Montessori wagons that choke our town centres. In Paris, the well-supported rage against this particular machine comes in the form of Les Degonfles (The Deflated), a clandestine team who, in the dead of night, run round deflating the tyres of SUVs and splattering them with mud. Les Degonfles aim to deflate about 40 SUVs a week.
In the UK, the job of deterring SUVs has fallen to Sian Berry, a rational and reasonable young woman who runs the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s and spends her spare time posting offending vehicles with fake fixed penalty notices. Granted, this is lowintensity warfare; but if governments won't legislate - only Sweden has brought in plans to ban non-registered 4x4s, in Stockholm - then the New Puritans will go it alone, with only their principles for company.
Admittedly, these principles vary. But you can guess that a New Puritan does not binge drink, smoke, buy big brands, take cheap flights, eat junk food, have multiple sexual partners, waste money on designer clothes, grow beyond their optimum weight, subscribe to celebrity magazines, drive a flash car, or live to watch television. And the list is likely to grow longer: research by the Future Foundation has found that 80 per cent of people agreed that alcohol should not be allowed at work at all; 25 per cent said snack products should not be offered at business meetings; more than a third agreed that we should think twice before giving sweets and chocolates as gifts to family and friends, and a further 25 per cent thought that 'the government should start a campaign to discourage people from drinking alcohol on their own at home' (this rises to 41 per cent in Scotland).
These are all statistics that I find comforting, but it's obvious that this wave of opprobrium-bearers makes Jim Murphy more than a little uncomfortable - his original report on the phenomenon bears the pejorative title Assault on Pleasure.
'Ten years ago, many of these propositions would have been preposterous,' he says. 'My mother, for instance, would have thought it a terrible blow not to give a child sweeties; now the debate centres around whether it's in any way acceptable to do that. And by 2015,' he ventures, 'global tourism could be in decline, because taking a flight to Costa Rica is considered a terribly irresponsible thing to do.' Murphy also points out that a significant proportion of people agree that 'food companies should be made to pay a levy to the NHS for the cost of treating obesity'. ..
If New Puritans want to spread their 'good' behaviour to the population at large then, it could be argued, they need a populist approach, which is where Jamie Oliver comes in. He might not be a fully fledged NP - what with the enormous bank balance and supermarket adverts - but his campaign to kick the junk out of school dinners has had a knock-on effect rivalled only by Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me, which took McDonald's to task. When education secretary Ruth Kelly announced a nationwide ban on junk food in schools from next September, in canteens as well as vending machines, the Jamie Oliver effect was very much in evidence.
So, with a few grand gestures and some high-profile converts New Puritanism offers a powerful escape route from our impulsive, reward-driven lifestyles. It might just have the potential to stave off the horrors promised by an out-of-control consumerist culture in which, according to agrarian essayist Wendell Berry, 'The histories of all products will be lost. The degradation of products and places, producers and consumers is inevitable.'
Consider the New Puritan philosophy from this point of view and it can look like a blueprint for a rather noble kind of empowerment. Our New Puritans become less like neurotic killjoys and more like early adopters, with an enhanced ability to recognise the pitfalls of contemporary life. A battle is shaping up between the New Puritans and the old guard libertarians, but at the moment it's a vastly uneven one. The New Puritans might be a trend, but it's still a small one, swimming against a seemingly inexorable consumerist river.
But New Puritans shouldn't be deterred. As Oliver Cromwell, their ancestral spiritual leader, put it: 'A few honest men [and let's add in women for contemporary relevance] are better than numbers.'
Læs resten selv, inklusive et par portrætter af "Nye Puritanere" og en test for at se om du selv er en.
UPDATE:
En anden artikel om de nye puritanere, under titlen "The Assault on Pleasure".
Henrik
'Something very interesting, indeed radical, is happening to Britain,' confirms Jim Murphy, associate director of the Future Foundation, the trends forecaster which coined the term 'New Puritan'. 'If you look at the way our lives are filled with different kinds of social opprobrium, a lot of people are increasingly under ethical pressures which influence their choices.'
According to the Future Foundation, we are increasingly curbing our enthusiasm for profligate consumption, and health and environment-threatening behaviours. Gone is the guilt-free pleasure-seeker, to be replaced by the model well-meaning citizen, the New Puritan - a tag interchangeable with neo-Cromwellian, if you really want to seal its 17th century origins - who thinks through the consequences of activities previously thought of as pleasurable and invariably elects to live without them. Think of it as the dieticians' favourite adage, 'a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips' given socio-economic resonance.
Arguably, these personal codes of conduct would be an arresting enough story on their own, but the New Puritan's curbs must also be extended to other people's behaviour, and wherever possible enshrined by legislation - for New Puritans do not fear the nanny state. According to Murphy, 'In common with all important movements, this one has a silent march. It's under-noticed and under-observed.'
Such stealth might suit elements of the movement quite well, especially when it comes to tackling the menace of the Sports Utility Vehicle. Part of the New Puritan brief is to penalise those who make poor choices on behalf of the rest of society - in this case the gas-guzzling, emissions-generating Montessori wagons that choke our town centres. In Paris, the well-supported rage against this particular machine comes in the form of Les Degonfles (The Deflated), a clandestine team who, in the dead of night, run round deflating the tyres of SUVs and splattering them with mud. Les Degonfles aim to deflate about 40 SUVs a week.
In the UK, the job of deterring SUVs has fallen to Sian Berry, a rational and reasonable young woman who runs the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s and spends her spare time posting offending vehicles with fake fixed penalty notices. Granted, this is lowintensity warfare; but if governments won't legislate - only Sweden has brought in plans to ban non-registered 4x4s, in Stockholm - then the New Puritans will go it alone, with only their principles for company.
Admittedly, these principles vary. But you can guess that a New Puritan does not binge drink, smoke, buy big brands, take cheap flights, eat junk food, have multiple sexual partners, waste money on designer clothes, grow beyond their optimum weight, subscribe to celebrity magazines, drive a flash car, or live to watch television. And the list is likely to grow longer: research by the Future Foundation has found that 80 per cent of people agreed that alcohol should not be allowed at work at all; 25 per cent said snack products should not be offered at business meetings; more than a third agreed that we should think twice before giving sweets and chocolates as gifts to family and friends, and a further 25 per cent thought that 'the government should start a campaign to discourage people from drinking alcohol on their own at home' (this rises to 41 per cent in Scotland).
These are all statistics that I find comforting, but it's obvious that this wave of opprobrium-bearers makes Jim Murphy more than a little uncomfortable - his original report on the phenomenon bears the pejorative title Assault on Pleasure.
'Ten years ago, many of these propositions would have been preposterous,' he says. 'My mother, for instance, would have thought it a terrible blow not to give a child sweeties; now the debate centres around whether it's in any way acceptable to do that. And by 2015,' he ventures, 'global tourism could be in decline, because taking a flight to Costa Rica is considered a terribly irresponsible thing to do.' Murphy also points out that a significant proportion of people agree that 'food companies should be made to pay a levy to the NHS for the cost of treating obesity'. ..
If New Puritans want to spread their 'good' behaviour to the population at large then, it could be argued, they need a populist approach, which is where Jamie Oliver comes in. He might not be a fully fledged NP - what with the enormous bank balance and supermarket adverts - but his campaign to kick the junk out of school dinners has had a knock-on effect rivalled only by Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me, which took McDonald's to task. When education secretary Ruth Kelly announced a nationwide ban on junk food in schools from next September, in canteens as well as vending machines, the Jamie Oliver effect was very much in evidence.
So, with a few grand gestures and some high-profile converts New Puritanism offers a powerful escape route from our impulsive, reward-driven lifestyles. It might just have the potential to stave off the horrors promised by an out-of-control consumerist culture in which, according to agrarian essayist Wendell Berry, 'The histories of all products will be lost. The degradation of products and places, producers and consumers is inevitable.'
Consider the New Puritan philosophy from this point of view and it can look like a blueprint for a rather noble kind of empowerment. Our New Puritans become less like neurotic killjoys and more like early adopters, with an enhanced ability to recognise the pitfalls of contemporary life. A battle is shaping up between the New Puritans and the old guard libertarians, but at the moment it's a vastly uneven one. The New Puritans might be a trend, but it's still a small one, swimming against a seemingly inexorable consumerist river.
But New Puritans shouldn't be deterred. As Oliver Cromwell, their ancestral spiritual leader, put it: 'A few honest men [and let's add in women for contemporary relevance] are better than numbers.'
Læs resten selv, inklusive et par portrætter af "Nye Puritanere" og en test for at se om du selv er en.
UPDATE:
En anden artikel om de nye puritanere, under titlen "The Assault on Pleasure".
Henrik
posted by Henrik | 2:34 PM
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