Understanding David Blunkett

norman dennis, 7 December 2004

Sociology until the nineteen sixties was greatly interested in “understanding” how people behaved socially. “Understanding”, though he retained much of its ordinary meaning, was defined with painstaking exactness by Max Weber.
One of his basic ideas was the common-sense one, that people can’t act on the basis of what all the facts of the situation are–they can’t possibly know the truth of more than a tiny fraction of them–so they act on their beliefs about what the facts are (and can, of course, be quite mistaken).
The sociology established by Max Weber saw its business as examining the evidence about what people believed to be factually true. What do given people believe is factually true about human nature? Are human beings born good or bad? Does every human being on the planet come into the world as a blank sheet on which society can transcribe any personality and from which it can draw any ability it wants, or is every individual mainly programmed by his or her genetic makeup?

What do given people believe is factually true about how people interact with one another? Left to follow their own self-defined interest, will they, because that is the way things work, further the interests of other people, led “as if by an Invisible Hand”? Or, if people are left to follow their own self-interest, will it result, on the contrary, in the “war of every man against every man” with everybody’s life “solitary, poor, nasty, brutal and short”? On that view, rigorous laws, ruthlessly applied, are necessary to stop society’s natural tendency to descend into civil war.
What do people think is true of the physical world? Was the earth and all its plants and animals created 6,600 years ago by God, and is what we see around us every day–“the signs of the times”–the clear factual indication that the Battle of Armageddon is imminent? Or is that all antiquated nonsense?
His second idea was an equally common sense one, that any two people can agree on what the facts are, but they can differ on what they should do about them. One person can think that the existence of a given (believed) “fact” requires him or her to behave in one way. The other person, believing in the same “fact” can think that it requires him or her to behave in quite a different way. They differ in their moral commitments.
Most people agree that the number of abortions is higher now than in the early 1960s. Some people think that abortions should be available under more restricted conditions than today, and that there should be fewer. Other people think that conditions should be relaxed–that their should be abortion on demand, and abortions should be allowed later into the pregnacy.
They agree, say, that there has been a given percentage increase in a specified period in the proportion of families without a father to bring up the child. They can share the belief that the facts show a given percentage increase in the number of crimes committed by young men. They share the belief that the facts show that there is a demonstrable connection between a child being brought up in specified type of lone-parent household (say, that of the never-married mother) and the likelihood of that child committing a crime.
But one set of people, believing all of that, can believe that the right thing to do in response is to do what can be done to strengthen life-long monogamous fidelity. Another set of people, believing the same thing about what the “facts” are, can think that the right thing to do is remove all trace of privilege from the relationship of life-long monogamous fidelity, nationalise child care, and make sexual partnerships a generalised free-for-all.
This kind of sociology, sometimes retaining its German label, verstehende Soziologie, to make sure that people are talking about Weber’s precise concept, designed for sociology, helps to make sense of what otherwise seems the impenetrable puzzle of the David Blunkett affair. Unless one applies the techniques of verstehende Soziolgie, the most puzzling thing of all is Blunkett’s obvious sincerity, his insouciance, in his statements that he has done nothing wrong.
On the BBC’s 10 O’Clock News last night he was crystal clear. “I don’t think anybody can say I have said one thing in public and done another in private.”
Many people will be amazed at that claim, and think it cannot be true. The mistake such people make is that they think that there exists in fact an institution called “the family”, that this institution of the family is defined by a sub-institution called “marriage”, and that marriage is defined by a voluntary undertaking by the wife and husband to live a life of mutual sexual fidelity.
Many people are married in Christian churches in this country, and do so using the the form of words that it is a relationship “ordained by God”. Whom God has put together must not be parted by any human being; and neither the husband nor the wife should commit adultery.
But even if we forget the Christian churches, at any civil ceremony the bride and the groom are told that “marriage according to law in this country is the union of one man and one woman entered into for life to the exclusion of all others”, and it is on that basis that the state’s authorisation rests.
So people who think that there is an institution of the family, and a sub-instituion of marriage, and further sub-institutions such as weddings, can feel that they are on pretty firm empirical ground, to such an extent that it will not occur to many of them that anybody can have a different belief about what the “facts” are.
But this idea, that there exists in this country a privileged cultural institution of life-long monogamy is hardly David Blunkett’s idea of the family at all. In the policy paper he produced in July 2004 he mentions the family many times. But he is never talking about the institution of the family in the sense of the above paragraphs. Marriage is hardly mentioned. A family for Mr Blunkett, is any household with children. What the relationship of the adults is to one another, and what their biological relationship is to the children, makes no difference. If there are children and adults living together, that is a family.
Here, again, David Blunkett’s genuine self-righteousness can, be, in the sociological meaning of the word, “understood”. On the BBC’s 10-O’Clock News he made what appears at first sight the incredible claim that in the Quinn affair he has acted–of all words–“responsibly”. “Everything I stand for is about personal responsibility. It’s about respect. It’s about building a cohesive society where you take the consequences of your actions.”
To someone who believes that the dismemberment of the family calls for a reinstatement of family values and structures, he would have acted responsibly by refraining from entering into a sexual relationship with another man’s wife. A fortiori he would have behaved responsibly if he had refrained from having a child by her. Having fathered a child by another man’s wife who returned to her husband, he would have behaved responsibly if he had recognised that it was not for him to disrupt the family any more, made a substantial financial settlement for the upkeep of the child and, to put is crudely, butted out.
But David Blunkett’s conduct is “understood” once we see that he has no sense that “the family” is or ought to be a sphere of life-long sexual fidelity. He conceives of his “responsibility” beginning much farther down the line–at a point, it has to be said, quite arbitrarily chosen on his personal whim.
He is surrounded by colleagues and bureaucracts in the higher echelons of government and the media most of whom (not all) think the way that he does. Home Office action conspicuously excludes promoting marriage, as does so-called “family supporting” actions of other government departments. In July 2004 a campaign was launched by the Department of Constitutional Affairs to promote “living togther agreements”. The director of the campaign went out of his way with his disclaimer, that “we are not encouraging people to get married”. David Blunkett’s version of the “facts” of what “the family” is, therefore, is infrequently challenged. Astonishingly, it is hardly ever challenged by senior figures in the Christian churches. When it is challenged, the challenges are dismissed as the benighted complaints of superannuated Puritan cranks.
He is therefore quite genuine, and quite clear in his own conscience, that he has not said one thing in public and done another thing in private. He has not said, at any rate in his recent public policy documents, that he is in favour of either religious or civil marriage in this country.
His view of the “facts” of the family, and his “response” to the facts, have led him into a very curious model of child-rearing. He is free to father a child by another man’s wife, and he must show his “respect” and exercise his “responsibility”, by proving his paternity and gaining the legal right, granted by the courts, and enforced by the state, of contact and control of the child’s education, health and other matters.
What has been said about David Blunkett’s lack of attention to the rights and expectations secured by matrimony has to be qualified in one respect. It appears that he has enough respect for marriage to desire to marry Mrs Quinn. Ordinary serial monogamy already throws up myriad problems for the partners, the children and the general public. Serial monogamy on Mr Blunkett’s model, where power resides with the married woman’s lover to intrude still futher into somebody else’s family , multiplies them. Mr B has a child by Mr A’s wife. Mr B then uses the courts to obtain “parental responsibility” for the child in Mr and Mrs A’s family. The child remains with Mr A, and Mr B marries Mrs A. As Mrs B, she takes another adulterous lover, Mr C, and has a child by him. On Mr Blunkett’s model, Mr C can now interfere in Mr B’s family life, while Mr B is still interfering in Mr A’s family life. Mrs B marries Mr C, and has a child in an adulterous affair with Mr D …
What a marvellous future of “a cohesive society where you take the consequences of your actions” and what an achievement to crown the first 34 years that Mr Blunkett has spent, as he put it on the 10 O’clock News, “endeavouring to change the world for the better”. And (God help us all!) “with the Prime Minister’s support” he will carry on doing so.