Older People: Their Place and Contribution in Society

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

Friday 14th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

My Lords, I have sometimes said to the most reverend Primate, “Rowan, God has given you every possible gift under the sun, and as your punishment He made you Archbishop of Canterbury”. Very sadly from the point of view of the Church of England, the good Lord did not hand down a life sentence. In His mercy, the most reverend Primate was awarded early release on grounds of good conduct, but it comes with the proviso that he will continue to make his very remarkable contributions to public life in Cambridge.

My starting point is the same as his, and it is one that everybody in this debate has shared. It is the fundamental value, dignity and worth of every single old person. Unless that fundamental value is in place and fully affirmed, our political policies will be skewed and the care patchy. Our society shares that value, which is why there are protests when it can be shown, for example, that care has not been what it ought to be. However, it can be undermined, even against our resolve. I think we need to be aware of some of the assumptions in our society in order to challenge them, for otherwise, despite our best intentions, they will undermine what in our good moments we want to affirm.

I want to look at a few of those unthinking assumptions. The first is thinking of human value only in terms of our capacity to be productive. I know many noble Lords, notably the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, have emphasised the capacity of older people to contribute, and I do not in any way want to deny that, but many people become very elderly and frail, and we cannot possibly value them simply in terms of what they can physically produce or physically contribute.

The second assumption that we need to challenge is thinking of our human value simply in terms of our ability to consume. While in recent years there has been a great deal of talk about grey financial power, we cannot forget that 1.7 million pensioners are living below the poverty line and another 1 million are living very close to it, and I doubt very much whether this grey financial power will apply to future pensioners in the same way that it has in the golden age of pensions in the past 30 years.

The third assumption that we need to challenge is thinking of the human person as essentially someone who is independent and in control of their life. As we get older, many of us become rather dependent on others, but life is a mixture of dependence and independence. We begin dependent and, after a period when others are very dependent on us, we might possibly become dependent on others again, but we do not thereby cease to be a person who is to be accorded proper respect and dignity.

The fourth assumption that we need to challenge is thinking of the human person in essentially individualistic terms, a view which has taken increasing hold in Europe and the United States since the Enlightenment. As the Africans like to say, we are Ubuntu: we are persons only in and through our relationship with other persons.

To resist the undermining effect of these assumptions, we need to affirm that we are essentially social, that mind is a social reality, that we become persons only in and through our relationships with other persons and that we do not lose our essential dignity as a human person, even if we become dependent on others or if our capacity to think, choose or even speak is impaired. This means that we need a vision of society not as a collection of isolated individuals, but as a network of mutually supportive relationships and mutual giving and receiving. Only if we have some such vision will we have a proper place for old people in our society and will we value the contribution that so many of them are now able to make.

Only if we have such a vision will we be able to resist the corroding effects of late capitalism with its individualism, material values and “devil take the hindmost” attitude. With such a vision, the values of the market economy will have a proper, indeed an essential, place as serving the wider good. Only with such a vision will we have the conviction to put the right policies in place and the determination to press for the highest standards of care in every aspect of our lives.

The kind of vision I have outlined can be recognised by anyone. You do not have to be religious or a Christian to see it. As human beings we have the capacity for moral discernment through the sheer fact that we are human. From a Christian point of view, that is part of what it means to be made in the image of God.

It does mean, however, that we cannot see life simply as a process of physical growth followed by physical decline. It is a process of physical growth which is integrally linked to growth of other kinds—from a religious point of view, particularly spiritual growth. Even as the forces of diminishment take hold of us, the words of Yeats come to mind:

“An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress”.

It is very difficult to put into practice but, without claiming the high moral ground, I believe that a Christian understanding of what it means to be a human being in society—made in the image of God, with an eternal destiny and vocation to become part of that ultimate community, of which the communion of saints is the harbinger—does underpin, strengthen and give an impelling power to a purely ethical vision.

In short, behind policies towards old people there must be a continuing deep conviction about their dignity and worth. This means a vision of what it is to be a properly human society; one that is characterised in relation to old people as well as to everyone else. From them according to their ability and to them according to their needs: only some such vision can withstand the eroding effects of rampant capitalism, which by its very nature will measure everything in economic terms. This is a vision which, I believe, secular humanists and religious believers alike should work to maintain and strengthen.