Staunton 17 #1 Posted January 12, 2015 '… no one would remember the good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well'. So said Margaret Thatcher. But her analysis was hopelessly flawed, because the point she was making quietly ignored the implications of her own reference: how come the traveller from Jerusalem was robbed; what sort of a world is it where people are not safe on the streets? What has happened to society when a priest passes by an injured and vulnerable man and looks the other way? For further information see Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level (Revised ed., 2010) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
mossdog 10 #2 Posted January 12, 2015 '… no one would remember the good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well'. So said Margaret Thatcher. But her analysis was hopelessly flawed, because the point she was making quietly ignored the implications of her own reference: how come the traveller from Jerusalem was robbed; what sort of a world is it where people are not safe on the streets? What has happened to society when a priest passes by an injured and vulnerable man and looks the other way? For further information see Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level (Revised ed., 2010) Same old same old......give it a rest and tell us how you would go about changing the world and what you are personally actually doing about it! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
Staunton 17 #3 Posted January 12, 2015 There is a great deal that we can do! There will always be much that must be done. As I have already indicated, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's The Spirit Level (2010) is a good place to start, David Marquand's Mammon's Kingdom (London, 2014) provides a great background to the contemporary crisis. For a complex but brilliant analysis of consumer culture you could do worse than read Zygmunt Bauman's Consuming Life (Cambridge, 2007) or take a look at the powerful little booklet from the Methodist Tax Justice Network, The Bible and Tax: A Fresh Application of 'Sabbath Economics' (2014) available on line at: http://methodisttaxjusticenetwork.nationbuilder.com/resources Join Church Action on Poverty http://www.church-poverty.org.uk/ and the Sheffield Equality Group http://sheffieldequality.wordpress.com/ Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...