What do the riots mean?

Mindless yobs? Social unrest? A lack of morality? A need for more discipline? More hugging? Class war?

There has been rioting and looting in England for the past four nights. It began and has been most intense in London - sparked by the police shooting of a young black man, but has spread to other cities, notably Birmingham and Manchester.

The understandings of the unrest have been many from all directions and perspectives. Blame has been directed at the Tories for their draconian cuts, but also at Labour for somehow creating the conditions for this in the first place. People on the right blame a lack of discipline and morality in "those people" and blame the left for coddling "them." They want to see plastic bullets, water cannons, tear gas, and generally stronger law enforcement.  The left blames the right for insensitivity and destruction of the safety net that gives the poor opportunities and hope. They want to see more programmes and resources for the poor.

These differences echo George Lakoff's model of the difference between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives hold a world view that sees a need for government taking a "strong father" role; what's needed is greater discipline. Liberals go for a "nurturing parent" perspective where underlying motives are considered and actions are directed toward supporting and changing based on the understanding that we are all essentially good and need to be nurtured toward greater goodness.

I'd like to avoid that usual left-right dichotomy, although my thinking certainly leads to a liberal approach.  My take is this: Class Division + Materialism = Trouble

Modern Britain is a society with an enormous class divide. The disparity between rich and poor is said to be the greatest it has been since the second World War. The economic climate, the severe cuts to benefits, the increases in the cost of higher education, and the numbers of poor youth growing up in dysfunctional families leads to a sense of hopelessness and lack of ownership. In other words, they feel that they have very little to lose.

People who feel they have nothing to lose are dangerous indeed.

Now add to that picture the fact that everyone is bombarded in nearly every waking moment by the advertising message that "you are what you have." Our value as human beings and our happiness - we are told - depend on having the newest smart phone, the right trainers, the most stylish jeans, a big flat-screen TV and on and on. We begin to learn this message before we can speak. Everywhere we go and whatever we do, the adverts are there to keep that message firmly in place.

When people who have nothing to lose understand that material goods are the only thing worth striving for and have no hope that they can reach a place in life where they can obtain them legally, criminality seems certain to be the response.

Is there a solution? Not an easy one. Materialism is the very basis of our capitalist economy. Unless capitalism falls entirely and something takes its place that nurtures good values rather than materialistic ones, the materialism factor will remain unchanged.

The class divide has grown and continues to grow. The levers of power are preponderantly in the hands of the rich who find rather little motivation to seek greater equality. They can simply build higher walls, invest in more police and prisons and simply keep this untidy little problem under control.

We need change. We need to invest in programmes that will provide real hope and opportunity for those at the bottom. We have now begun to see - once again - the results of neglecting whole swaths of the population. It is time to break down the class oppression that is built-in to our culture.

The barriers to love

I am proud of Unitarianism/Unitarian Universalism.  The faith to which I have committed myself has been an activist, justice seeking movement. It has been at the forefront of the struggle for GLBT rights. We have seen our male-dominated ministry turn into a majority female one. We continue to struggle mightily to combat the causes of racism and are prepared to do the hardest work of all - to look within for the persistent seeds of that poisonous tree.

But, as the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) President Peter Morales describes as reported in the UUA World, the growing diversity of the leadership of even this remarkably open and accepting faith masks a deeper barrier to true diversity

When we look more closely at the change in our professional ministry, we see that the vast majority of women, gays, and lesbians admitted were middle class, well-educated people of European descent.

The barriers of race and sexual orientation, while challenging, are as nothing compared to the fortress-like walls presented by interconnected differences of culture, education, and social class.

The UUA can be justifiably proud that its two most recent leaders are not from white Anglo backgrounds. Morales is of Mexican descent. His predecessor, Bill Sinkford, is black. But these steps forward hide the fact that class and culture barriers remain intact. Morales again:

We have seen this in our nation with the election of Barack Obama and in our UU movement with the election of the Rev. William G. Sinkford and myself to the presidency. Each of us is less threatening to the dominant culture because we are the products of elite educations and have spent our lives in the dominant culture. If Barack Obama sounded like a poor urban African American he could not have been elected. If I sounded like San Antonio’s West Side barrio, I would not [be] president of our Association.

The barriers of race, gender, and sexual orientation are challenging - make no mistake about it. These differences activate strong hard-wired fears of difference. Those who look or love differently from us make us fearful and wary. But, with honest and courageous effort, we can enter into open dialogue. We begin to understand that they are like us - we have so much in common beneath the superficial differences.

But this moment of conversion happens because more basic, more essential, facilitators of dialogue are present - they are based on other similarities. If class and culture match, we have the tools we need to cut through other differences. Yet we have not connected simply on the basis of being human. We have connected because we share similar struggles, like similar writing, speak in similar vernacular, and have similar goals. We have a common 'language' to allow us to see beyond our differences.

It is when cultural and educational differences between people directly frustrates attempts and deep communication - when  common ground can not be found because we approach life with different stories, with deeply different perspectives based on educational background, and deeply different interests - that we fail to connect.

This is the continuing problem of our world. The divide between rich and poor grows larger in Britain and elsewhere and the divides are not necessarily around skin color, gender, or sexual orientation. The divides are based on class and culture which translate into the presence or absence of opportunity. This is a justice issue - perhaps the single greatest justice issue of the developed nations. As long as class and cultural differences continue to define who we can understand and who has a chance to get ahead, there will not be true equality.

But as Peter Morales adds, this is not so much a practical or political issue, but rather a deeper question of who we choose to be as human beings and to what vision we are dedicated:

This great challenge of culture and class is ultimately a religious, moral, and spiritual issue rather than a social justice issue. Perhaps the great challenge for us [...] is whether we can learn to understand, accept, include, and ultimately love our neighbors who are different from us.

The work is enormous and may never be completed. That is no reason not to begin it. The first step - as always - is the vision. Can we imagine a society where class advantages disappear? Can we imagine a society where our cultural background does not define our opportunities? I hope that we can commit to that kind of a future and begin the work today of trying to understand across the great barriers that would divide the human family.