Trivium 21c

The white paper continues:

These traits not only open doors to employment and social opportunities but underpin academic success, happiness and wellbeing… There are many different methods and the government has no intention of mandating a particular approach.

Fundamental British values underpin academic success? I’m not sure if this is borne out by the evidence, immigrant communities seem to perform well, if anything the long tail of underachievement, as it has been known as for years, seems to be fundamentally a trait of the indigenous population.

Maybe these traits – character and British values belong only to the successful and retrospectively we can blame misery on the lack of collaborative work and lack of resilience… Sorry, let’s think this through… Failure seems to be important, if you are able to ‘bounce back’, Chumbawumba did a song about it:

I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never going to keep me down

Pissing the night away

Fundamental British values of getting drunk, knocked down, getting up again… The value of failure – in an economy that is struggling at best, to put everything down to individual character is harsh to say the least but getting up and smashing the system might be a show of character…

But that would be anger… the white paper seems to extol the idea of happiness. The positive psychology movement and the smiley yellow self help gurus with their books are making their mark, but is ‘happiness’ a fundamental British value? Isn’t a good degree of pessimism or ‘mustn’t grumble’ grumbling the reasonably positive traits for those of us born in these Isles? Our sense of humour delights in our collective misery, our ‘happiness’ might depend on an attitude towards tragedy and the rocks that are hurled at us in the every day. Unbridled happiness might diminish the attitude of stoic irony that sees us through the downsizing economy and the efforts of our ‘Betters’ to ensure we are ‘happy’.

Many schools across the country already offer a wide range of imaginative, character-building opportunities to their pupils and our vision is for schools to increase their range of activities, based on strong relationships with local and national businesses, and voluntary and sporting organisations.

I’ve got nothing against this, it’s all to the good, though, depending on the business and what it intends to do with the child to ‘build their character’. It might be that the youth build their character through shifting trolleys around a windswept car park, which does indeed ‘build character’ and it might build a sense of ‘stoicism’, though it would be stretching it to call it happiness. This is where the ‘science’ comes in…

…we will work with the Behavioural Insights Team and What Works Centres to develop tools that schools can use to identify the most successful approaches to building character in their pupils, and to track how well those approaches are working. We will also work with expert organisations to provide a platform where teachers can share best practice about character development, evaluate new ideas, find professional development materials and contribute data to build the evidence base.

And:

We will ensure evidence-based approaches to character development are built into initial teacher training programmes; and work with networks like teaching schools to spread the most effective approaches to developing character in schools. Finally, we will deliver a new round of Character Awards, recognising the schools and organisations which are most successful in supporting children to develop key character traits.

This is where things might get sinister. As Theodore Dalrymple puts it:

The inherent tragic dimension of human existence [is] a dimension that only literature (and other forms of art), but not psychology, can capture, and which indeed it is psychology’s vocation to deny and hide from view with a thin veneer of science. Without an appreciation of the tragic dimension, all is shallowness; and those without it are destined for a life that is nasty and brutish, if not necessarily short.

This thin veneer of science will be placed over ‘character’ as though we can define it, measure it and judge whether the building of it is successful or not. What arrogance! This is government with a missionary zeal to convert your very self, not materially, but personally. This is government that feels its superiority, that is government by the Übermensch and they will use science to fool you into thinking that there is one way to be if you wish to be successful. This is shallow. It is also a sign of a culture in crisis. A confident culture can tolerate difference, opens itself up to conversation and argument about different ways to be, a society that tolerates, that knows it takes all sorts to make up the values that we could ascribe to be British or, indeed, human.

Who is to say what are the ‘key character traits’? This would imply cracking the human code, knowing the answer to what it is all about. Knowing the why and implying that we can codify these traits and all agree what that code might mean in practice. What nonsense, do we want a society where our very characters can be categorically measured against others?

To develop character the school day will be extended to include:

additional activity to help develop young people’s character… high quality instruction and coaching in sports and the arts, alongside activities such as debating, scouting and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.

The