Disturbances can be positive

2:54pm Monday 21st January 2013 in Letters

MY MY, Tom McCarthy has let the totalitarian cat out of the Christian bag when he states: “for society to be healthy and happy, those that continually disturb its peace must be dealt with.” (South Wales Argus January 12th 2013). By “dealt with” we can presume by being punished as ordained in the Bible? (or maybe by being arrested, fined, imprisoned or indeed executed?) This is the fate of many thousands of people fighting injustice and oppression worldwide.

Surely social change for the better e.g. women’s suffrage, shorter working week, anti-slavery etc has been obtained by “continually disturbing the peace?” Unless you believe in authoritarianism all governments must be actively challenged. Society evolves by such action and we ignore the dialectic at our peril.

Terry Banfield Cardigan Crescent Croesyceiliog

Comments(3)

P C Neilson says...
4:20pm Mon 21 Jan 13

Well put Terry, though I suspect people that are fond of arguments from authority and tradition may think that 'change' is always a bad thing, and that it necessarily infringes on their rights to impose their lifestyles on the rest of us.

Chalk and cheese.

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Llanmartinangel says...
11:15pm Mon 21 Jan 13

Depends what you mean by disturbing the peace. I was in London during the tuition fee protest. I saw a family distraught as 'students' in face masks walked down Jermyn street ripping wing mirrors off cars at random including the family's car. I watched as shops were attacked and we missed our theatre because petrol bombs were being thrown in the street and the police blocked our way. On a seperate trip I saw Paternoster sq outside St Paul's turned into a New Age traveller camp by people with clearly greater knowledge than the rest of us, denying all other citizens, tourists and taxpayers access to a beautiful space. As ever, not that simple is it.

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tking says...
11:35pm Mon 21 Jan 13

Tom McCarthys infantile standpoint is not deserving of serious examination, merely in contradiction to all past historical experience,in other words,another class antagonism in mans ideas, views, and conceptions, in a word, mans conciousness that changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heartburnings of the aristocrat.

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