Nice people thread part 3- Nice as pie

lostinrates

lemonjelly wrote: »

The whole big society makes me angry lir.

IMO the state already gets the voluntary sector to do a lot of its dirty work for free. Now it wants it to do even more (yet ironically they are cutting funding to non-profit sectors). Ideologically, the tories sold off everything they could in the 80's, delegated additional responsibility onto local councils (yet cut their funding) & absolve themselves of responsibility - the market will sort it out.:mad:

Now, they have nothing left to sell off. So the plan is to get as many people as possible to do stuff for free.

Doubt you'll see many tories involved in volunteering though.

lemonjelly, I know quite a few volunteers, CAB, charity etc etc...who are tory voters. I'm afraid I think you are wrong and prejudiced on that.


People SHOULD be doing stuff. My issue with the thing is not expecting people to be...human in their daily lives...its asking them to find the time to when they work long hours and need to spend time with children etc too. Its ok for people like me, but harder for, say, a working mother.

where the state has done things I think a lot of us have divorced ourselves from our responsibilities...which makes the state systems more fallible...e.g. it takes neighbours who know each other to spot someone...a child,and old person or just someone generally run down...who needs help. People too easily shrug and say ''not my problem''. Now a Neighbour can't BE social services, but they can help. I'm sometimes upset I see about things ...say a mother melting down in shopping centre...but more shocked that noone flinches or seems to notice. This is not right or healthy...for that person or the rest of us IMO.

Its not always a perfect solution. I'm thinking of a big flaw ATm where an acquaintance who is a recovering addict is in a mentor role to other addicts. This person is barely keeping head above water themselves and is not really in a position yet to help yet is being encouraged to do stuff that is both not IMO a volunteers work nor good for them.

lemonjelly

silvercar wrote: »

I thought a lot of volunteering was done by "the blue rinse brigade".

Certainly the ladies round here who do the patient liaison at the hospital and provide transport to and from hospital for those unable to manage themselves look as though they would be the sort of people that would only ever vote tory. Not that I'm stereotyping.

A small portion will be more enlightened (& therefore more likely to do something) I accept silvercar. To be fair, most will do so because of personal experiences they have had (though a fair few will be left sided tories in my experience).

Unfortunately there are also quite a few (mainly men, it has to be said) who will "volunteer" so they have something to boast about at the golf club or similar.

lemonjelly

LIR/tomterm, I posted after reading silvercars response but prior to reading yours.

Hands up, yes, probably a little prejudiced.

What I would say is that I am not referring to tory voters, more harder tories/party members and so on.

Yes, it probably is a prejudice.

(I always used to say "I'm not prejudiced, I hate everyone equally")

lostinrates

lemonjelly wrote: »

Unfortunately there are also quite a few (mainly men, it has to be said) who will "volunteer" so they have something to boast about at the golf club or similar.

so what?

It can't be bad to have people boasting about that,inspiring others to do the same....altruism, I'm not always convinced by that.

tomterm,I don't thing the big society (although I repet I relly hate the term I get the feeling behind it) should be replacing all state care,but significantly augmenting it. I think we should all be trying to do what little is within our remit. I mean, think if all of us did something good today, not for us, or our friends (ergo I can't count the babysitting I'm doing now!) whether its grab shopping for someone ill, walk/drive to school with the kids of someone who can't take them...just small things that fill cracks.

lostinrates

lemonjelly wrote: »

What I would say is that I am not referring to tory voters, more harder tories/party members and so on.

I'm sorry, again I know differently!

tomterm8

lemonjelly wrote: »

LIR/tomterm, I posted after reading silvercars response but prior to reading yours.

I'm going to offer my own prejudices, but in my experience as a non-tory who disagrees with most Tory policies, Tory party activists are very nice people, and generally volunteer more than most other sectors of society.

Actually, political party activists for any party seem more likely to volunteer than other segments of society.

lostinrates wrote: »

tomterm,I don't thing the big society (although I repet I relly hate the term I get the feeling behind it) should be replacing all state care,but significantly augmenting it. I think we should all be trying to do what little is within our remit. I mean, think if all of us did something good today, not for us, or our friends (ergo I can't count the babysitting I'm doing now!) whether its grab shopping for someone ill, walk/drive to school with the kids of someone who can't take them...just small things that fill cracks.

But how is that different from what we already have? Anyone can choose to volunteer if they want to, anyone can help out other people if they want to... if that is what the big society is, then we already have it. Since when does it take a political party moralising to get other people to help each other?

lemonjelly

lostinrates wrote: »

so what?

It can't be bad to have people boasting about that,inspiring others to do the same....altruism, I'm not always convinced by that.

tomterm,I don't thing the big society (although I repet I relly hate the term I get the feeling behind it) should be replacing all state care,but significantly augmenting it. I think we should all be trying to do what little is within our remit. I mean, think if all of us did something good today, not for us, or our friends (ergo I can't count the babysitting I'm doing now!) whether its grab shopping for someone ill, walk/drive to school with the kids of someone who can't take them...just small things that fill cracks.

I'm not always convinced it is altruism though lir - based on experience, a lot of the time it is a status thing.:(

lostinrates

lemonjelly wrote: »

I'm not always convinced it is altruism though lir - based on experience, a lot of the time it is a status thing.:(

Exactly....that's what I was saying ...who cares if it helps people and if status starts to be measured by how charitable you are rather than by size of car etc then....who loses out? I'm saying I'm sceptical about some,not all, people who claim altruism in career choice etc any help is good help.

edit: I've made the same argument for tackling tax avoidance...I thinkwe should create a title for people who are full tax payers....''Friend of Britain'' or some such, for people who pay tax that could be avoided or off shored. Could be printed on album covers or whatever the download image is, on business letterheads, on personal correspondence etc...and be renewable...it would be mainly stroking, but people might make purchase decisions. I'll pander to an ego for a better world without feeling too grim.

lostinrates

tomterm8 wrote: »

But how is that different from what we already have? Anyone can choose to volunteer if they want to, anyone can help out other people if they want to... if that is what the big society is, then we already have it. Since when does it take a political party moralising to get other people to help each other?

What I'm saying is though the possibility exists now people do not always feel the responsibility, in a organised way or otherwise.

when does it take a political party? I suppose when we don't have a faith or a general pressure of society to do it. when people aren't helping each other very much. (Incidentally I've always thought we should have a ''good Samaritan'' imperative too!)Those gaps exist now....so we need to fill them instead of sitting and waiting for ''the state'' to do it.

I think we have done the sort of thing we are all talking about here before, and I'd like to do it again, and I'd like to do it more and more in real life too.

lemonjelly

lostinrates wrote: »

Exactly....that's what I was saying ...who cares if it helps people and if status starts to be measured by how charitable you are rather than by size of car etc then....who loses out? I'm saying I'm sceptical about some,not all, people who claim altruism in career choice etc any help is good help.

I'm not convinced they do actually help people. It is more a badge for them to wear. I question their commitment to the cause. They like to be seen to be doing good, rather than actually doing something good.

Like I say, I can accept I may be tainted by the experiences I've seen. NDG posted on another thread that an anecdote does not constitute data (I'm paraphrasing, apologies to NDG if I got that wrong).