The country and wider world watched in disbelief this week as the order and security which we so often take for granted unraveled before our eyes. We have all suddenly been plunged into a surreal reality which was always possible but never considered; a kid with a match (and possibly a BlackBerry) can become a major threat not just to the peacefulness of our communities but also to the authority of the state itself.
As the rioters, for the moment at least, seem to have been brought under control, theories about the causes of the riots have been pushed forward by all points of the political spectrum, ranging from socio-economic factors, to a broad moral and cultural breakdown and lack of strong families and discipline.
There is no one simple structural explanation however, that can provide a full account for what has happened this week. Early signs for example indicate that the rioters themselves are a strange mix of people, all with very different and complex motivations that elude simple generalizations. It’s true that the hard core seem to have been young people coming from socially, economically and educationally deprived backgrounds. Others didn’t fit the urban underclass profile – they were first first-time offenders, in higher education, middle-aged or with respected jobs in the community. A new phenomenon of the “middle-class rioter” has arisen.
This begs the question as to why people from relatively comfortable backgrounds, who usually obey the principles of the law, could so suddenly decide to abandon it. Early reports have described how some looters treated the whole thing like a free-for-all shopping trip, taking the time to scan the shelves and make sure they got the right size trainers. The whole act was carried out by some with no sense of guilt or acknowledgement that what they were doing was wrong.
There is a minority in this country then, but perhaps not just a minority, who seem to only be obeying the law out of fear of punishment. They have no regard for the moral community of reciprocity, peacefulness and shared endeavor of which the law is but one expression. When the only boundaries in our society are legal, it should come as no surprise that when people sense moments of weakness in the authorities, as they saw on Saturday in Tottenham, that these bursts of opportunistic criminality break out.
The new focus on public morality that has now entered the public arena should be welcomed. Practically, however, in a secular society, we have to ask where the basis for this morality will come from. Speaking as an atheist, even I do not believe the question as to how we build a solid, moral foundation for society without reference to religion, the transcendent or God has been adequately answered. In the aftermath of the riots, as we begin to think about how to re-build a more cohesive and integrated society, the church must be centrally involved in the response. We need institutions which have the resources to develop a society less likely to venerate materialism, and more likely to place character and virtue at its heart.
Jo Needham recently completed an internship at Theos and is currently studying for a BA in Politics at Edinburgh University.
