Happiness and government, Good parenting
Thinking Allowed
BBC
4.4 • 997 Ratings
🗓️ 20 April 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Happiness - Should the government promote it? Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, talks to Laurie Taylor about the necessity to inspire a better politics with new measures of what matters most to us. These would include the avoidance of misery, the gaining of long term life satisfaction, the feeling of fulfilment, of worth, of kindness, of usefulness and love. Politicians, he contends, should promote a collective good which incorporates these priorities. They're joined by Paul Ormerod, economist and Visiting Professor at UCL Centre for Decision Making Uncertainty, who contends that policymakers should not claim that they can increase happiness through public policy decisions.
Also, do dominant ideals of 'good' parenting contain a class bias? Esther Dermott. Professor of Sociology, argues that the activities of the most educationally advantaged parents are accepted as the benchmark against whom others are assessed.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a Thinking Aloud Podcast from the BBC and for more details in our terms of use and much, |
| 0:06.2 | much more about thinking aloud. Go to our website at BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:12.0 | Hello. I did Wordsworth for my A-level, you know, Daffodills, Tintan Abbey, Westminster Bridge, |
| 0:17.4 | and the long one about things which I have seen, I now can see no more. |
| 0:21.0 | And I like the poems, but I never really bought into the philosophy you |
| 0:24.6 | know the idea that little children came straight from heaven trailing clouds of glory |
| 0:28.9 | it simply didn't fit my mewling little sister who displayed no discernible celestial virtues and clearly needed |
| 0:35.3 | some very, very firm parenting. Firm parenting such as I enjoyed. You see, I was a true be king |
| 0:41.2 | child, hardly ever cuddled and only fed every four hours no matter how much I screamed. |
| 0:47.0 | It very much made me the man I am today. |
| 0:50.0 | But my muling sister was totally spoiled by Spock, constantly cuddled and indulged, and told that she was very, very special. |
| 0:58.5 | I'm still surprised that she ever emerged as a fully functioning grown-up. |
| 1:02.8 | But whether you were brought up according to Truby King, or Spock, or Winnicott, |
| 1:06.2 | or Leach, or Ford, or Frost, |
| 1:08.1 | you'll probably subscribe to the idea that there is such a thing as good and bad parenting. |
| 1:13.0 | And in recent years that common sense distinction has gained more and more political significance. |
| 1:18.0 | In Nick Clegg's words, parents hold the fortunes of the children they bring into this world in their hands. |
| 1:24.8 | And the parents who are most picked out as being delinquent in this respect are almost invariably |
| 1:28.6 | those who are poor and disadvantage. |
| 1:31.4 | Poor people it seems are poor at parenting. |
| 1:34.0 | Well, time to turn to my first guest today. |
| 1:36.0 | She's Esther Dermot, who's professor of sociology at the University of Bristol. |
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