Scotsman debate: Out with the old and bring in the new

Published on Thursday 13 November 2008 21:05

AFTER feisty discussion on subjects such as independence, the military and the arts in Scotland, the final Scotsman Debate took place in the Albert Halls in Stirling on Wednesday. Progess Beyond Politics saw an eclectic group of panellists consider weighty topics affecting Scotland – poverty, community breakdown and young offending among them. Some were optimistic, some despondent, but all agreed the challenges facing Scotland in the coming 50 years are vast.

The panel consisted of Mel Young, president of the Homeless World Cup and co-founder of the Big Issue in Scotland; Alastair McIntosh, author and visiting professor of human ecology at Strathclyde University ; Susan Deacon, former Scottish health minister, now professor of social change at Queen Margaret University; Peter McColl, chair of Transition Towns Scotland; Pamela Brown, head of social and economic regeneration at the Raploch Urban Regeneration Company, Stirling.

The event was chaired by Glenys Watt, the director of Blake Stevenson, the social and economic research consultancy that has supported the whole Scotsman Debates series.

WHAT SOCIAL CHANGE DO WE NEED?

MY: "We have a world where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the gap grows. This leads to injustice and mechanisms are put in place – the third sector, charities and governments to try and plug that gap. If you want to create social justice you have to reform the economic system. What you are seeing now is that the current economic system is not sustainable."

PM: "We need to reassess the way we see the economy and to link the economy better with people. Essential to that is rebuilding community.

Whatever the solution to the problem is, it's not an individual one, because we have tried that and it's failed."

AM: "We are living in a world facing challenges on a scale that is unprecedented. These types of challenges make me think that conventional politics, economics and technology are not going to be sufficient to tackle the problems that the human condition faces. We have to go much deeper, we must look inside ourselves."

SD: "As someone who campaigned for a Scottish Parliament I have a concern about how quickly we have become locked into a certain way of thinking about issues and doing politics in Scotland that is lost in a certain level of raw tribalism. A lot of the time people are looking for government to prescribe answers to them, to produce guidance and strategy. We are in a big, fast moving, challenging world, which is scary, but also full of enormous potential. We need to do more to unlock that potential."

IN A BUSY WORLD, HOW CAN WE MOBILISE ENOUGH PEOPLE TO MAKE THE CHANGES THAT MAY BE NEEDED? (asked by Going Carbon Neutral Stirling)

AM: "I don't have an answer to that. The rate that things are happening is so fast. When you look at history, when a society isn't able to cope with the rate of change, that society tends to collapse via war, famine or pestilence – disease, often forcing a deep structural rethink. Things are happening on a scale most people cannot comprehend. The few who are getting to grips with it are in the position of knowing that they just can't do enough except watch. Yes we can tinker at the margins, but in terms of the level of change that is needed to tackle the major problems of our time – we are in mass denial."

PM: "We mustn't be downhearted. The only thing that is inevitable is change. The big idea is that we give people back control of their lives by telling them that all action is not individual and we tell them that collective action is much more powerful."

MY: "It's very easy to become depressed and paralysed when you look at the problems in the world. Looking at homelessness, depending on who you believe there are 100 million homeless people in the world or a billion. Let's take the lower figure and you think: how can we get homes for a hundred million people? But if you start to think about what you can do for one person in your area, then it becomes something you can engage with and bring about a change."

PB: "No matter what the issue, you can never give up. It comes down to responsibility; that can be individual and corporate responsibility. I feel strongly that individuals are doing what they can and are being encouraged by government. What politicians, pressure groups and individuals do is like a big mosaic. Each small piece does a good thing."

DOES OUR ATTITUDE TO CHILDREN, YOUNG OFFENDERS AND OLD PEOPLE IN SOCIETY NEED TO CHANGE?

AM: "Children need to be respected, to be loved and for that to be carried on through the whole cycle of life to old age, so that when an old person reaches the stage when they are starting to die, they feel they are held in a network of love within society."

PM: "The criminalisation of youth now emerges from an understanding of the individual as consumer. If you see people as only worth what they can spend, you end up criminalising them because they can't afford to buy things. A lot of anti-social behaviour is caused by young people having nowhere to go. People stop offending when they can go to the places in our society where they can socialise which are public houses. In the same way, old people become a problem for us when they stop spending money – we stop caring about them when they stop. We need to start seeing people as people."

SD: "We have spent a lot of time and money drawing up policies and strategies, to meet older people's needs. But if we look to what we want in old age, what is every bit as important as having access to public services is having people around us, not being lonely and not being isolated."

MY: "I would hate to be in a young person's situation now – they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they sit in front of the telly or play computer games, they are going to be obese, and if they go outside and speak to more than three of their mates, they can be arrested. I don't agree that kids have nowhere to go. In fact, they probably have a lot more opportunities to go out and do things than we did when I was younger."

PB: "I feel deeply concerned that young people are demonised because they wear a top with a hood on it. I don't think it can be easy being a young person. They need care and respect and dignity, but it is a two-way street. They need to give care and respect too."

ISSUES SUCH AS CLIMATE CHANGE SEEM REMOTE FROM THE EVERYDAY PROBLEMS OF PEOPLE IN DEPRIVED AREAS. HOW CAN WE HELP THEM?

AM: "You're right that these issues are far removed from ordinary people on the surface of things. But driving climate change is consumerism. Consumerism is consumption. It's when something gets into you, driven by the advent of 20th-century marketing that makes you feel that your sense of identity depends upon what you have. We have all become victims of that way of living."

MY: "The key thing is how do you create jobs. We have created a social security that works against you. If you try to do something you can lose benefits. But it's about this word happiness. In Scotland are we happy? I look around and think probably not. In Scotland we are great at looking at intractable problems, but you should compare what we have to elsewhere. The health service in Scotland is much better in comparison to other countries, yet, we're unhappy and the number of people on anti-depressants in Scotland is alarming. We should change the way we do measurements. Rather than measuring our performance against the FTSE, we should create an index of happiness."

PEOPLE HAVE HAD POWER TAKEN AWAY FROM THEM BY BUREAUCRACY. HOW CAN WE GET RID OF IT? (asked by local councillor Neil Berry)

SD: "There is a problem with managerialism. We are over-managed. I despair at the millions of pounds of public money and time and energy caught up in elaborate strategies and reviews, rather than actually doing something."

PM: "We do need a safety net. But part of the problem is that we have over bureaucratised that system. We need to create a community based on basic rights and a basic safety net which would open people up to entrepreneurship, so that you would be able to take on work that perhaps did not pay in the short term and work in the community."

MY: "As an entrepreneur, I can't stand red tape and it is growing. There is bureaucracy all over the place – lawyers, accountants, companies. It's not just government. The world is moving at a fast pace, driven by technology and globalisation which you can't escape from and the role of government is changing because it can't keep pace."

ARE YOU HOPEFUL FOR THE FUTURE OF SOCIETY?

AM: "I think it is foolish to be optimistic. The problems are primarily being driven by the rich. The earth can no longer afford the rich. We cannot look to the rich and the powerful for solutions. We have to look at the local and we have to look within."

SD: "It's a question of leadership – and I don't just mean political leadership. In a complex fast-moving world we are looking for people not to be prescriptive and authoritarian, but to guide and ask questions, not necessarily to provide all the answers. A different, more creative style of leadership."

MY: "I don't agree that we should be pessimistic. I think there are real challenges, but we can be optimistic because it is up to us to grasp the nettle and do something. You as an individual can make a huge difference. We have the creative power to do that and I am optimistic for the future, because there are a lot of good people in this world doing things against a dark landscape."