Woke Wars and Cambridge Change

Tom and Sandra live in a quiet street in Anytown. In the house opposite, a happily married couple have just moved in. ‘How can they both be each other’s wife? The world has gone mad’ mutters Tom from behind the curtain. ‘They’re not harming you’ says Sandra, ‘live and let live.’ Same sex marriage is not the only thing that annoys Tom these days; he is frustrated by immigration, some friends are struggling to get jobs and it seems that part of the problem is people coming into the country and taking them. Sandra points out that he cannot simultaneously be angry at the same immigrants for both taking jobs and claiming benefits. Then there is their daughter’s friend who asks to be addressed as ‘they/them’. What is that all about? Sandra says that he has to accept that things change and that the world moves on. Tom thinks that the changes are for the worse since everything went ‘woke.’  When we speak to people who share Tom’s views, particularly if they are a little older, it seems that much of the frustration they experience with aspects of the modern world is to do with change. But to what extent is this frustration justified?

Types of Change

Philosophers have been interested in change since the very beginnings of the subject that we now call philosophy. It was the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who told us that we cannot step into the same river twice and that everything is changing. Change is the one constant in the world. It is also clear that we often find change very difficult. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ famous change curve was initially developed as a way of explaining how patients process a terminal diagnosis. There is shock, denial, anger and blame before hopefully a move towards acceptance. If you have done any leadership courses, you may have found it repurposed as a mechanism to explain how people deal with change.

So we may find change difficult but are we right to do so? A typical philosophical answer might be that ‘it depends what we mean by change!’ There are different types of change. Some changes are clearly changes for the better; when I get paid for work I have done, there is a positive change in my bank account. When my car is stolen, that is a negative change as I used to have a car and now I do not.

Cambridge Change

Other types of change are tricky; one of these is a particular type of change named in the 1960s by Peter Geach is Cambridge Change. A Cambridge change is where something external to me has changed whilst I have remained the same. Cambridge Change is particularly tricky as in a sense it is not a change at all. For example, suppose one of my children who was once smaller than me is now taller than me as an adult. I have remained the same height even though I now feel smaller. Consider a second case, my relative who lives in Sheffield takes a train to London. This morning they were north in relation to me and now they are south. There is a change, but it is a change external to me; my location is unchanged.

It is this phenomenon of Cambridge Change that may help us think through the issues that Tom and Sandra find themselves debating; issues that we might refer to as culture wars or woke wars. Tom is convinced that everything has changed for the worse; others may disagree. Is he correct to interpret the events in this way? Could it be that the lens with which he views the world is in some way in error? Has his situation actually changed at all or is it a case of Cambridge change?

Rights

Some of the issues that arise in culture wars involve rights – rights are understood as things that a person is entitled to such that it would be wrong to deprive the person of that thing. Many of the changes that have occurred in the last century have extended the rights of various groups: the equal pay act of 1970 ensured that women should be paid the same as men for doing the same job, the race relations act in 1976 ensured that no-one should be subject to racial discrimination or harassment, in 2014, legislation on equal marriage gave gay people the right to marry someone of the same biological sex. In extending these rights to other groups, Tom is not affected. He is still entitled to be paid at least the minimum wage, he is still able to marry, is free to worship should he choose to do so and can walk down the street without being legally harassed. It seems that these are all Cambridge Changes in Tom’s case and if he does in some way object to them or argue that his life has become worse as a result of them, he may struggle to put forward a logical argument as to why this is the case.

Some politicians or media organisations at times do complain about ‘human rights going too far,’ yet it is difficult to see how these changes can affect those who previously enjoyed special access to those rights. The presence of Muslims or Sikhs does not prevent me from attending church, legalising same sex marriage does not prevent me from exercising my right to a heterosexual marriage if that is my orientation. In terms of John Stuart Mill’s harm principle – that the only legitimate reason for a government to intervene is to prevent harm - there is the removal of harm for those in minority groups who now gain rights, without an impact or harm to the majority. For the majority this is just a Cambridge Change

Resources

The case in terms of resources is less straightforward particularly if resources are in some way limited. As businesses are not allowed to discriminate on the grounds of race or gender, more women are in the workplace than 40-50 years ago and some people who have arrived from overseas are highly qualified so it is possible that Tom’s friends may find it harder to get a job or a promotion as the field of candidates has increased – assuming that the number and type of jobs is broadly the same. This assumption is important in other areas: if population grows, and the number of other resources such as GPs, schools, buses and trains stays roughly the same, then it may genuinely be harder to access resources, if resources increase in line with population, then this is less of a problem. Rather than bemoan our smaller slice, we can urge the powers that be to do things that would increase the overall size of the cake.

Given what we have said above, change in access to resources may not necessarily be a Cambridge Change. However, it is worth noting that what Tom is experiencing as a white male is not a disadvantage but the removal of an advantage.  We may observe the influence of John Rawls’ principle of equality of opportunity at work here. Rawls argues that a fair society is one that we would agree to from behind a ‘veil of ignorance.’ Rawls argues that we would be committed to giving basic rights to all and then ensuring that we work towards equality of opportunity by helping those who are most disadvantaged – for example providing funds to support those from marginalised groups who may be underrepresented at more prestigious universities. Rawls thinks that someone like Tom ought to agree to this as, it is merely an accident of birth that means he is a white male in the UK and not a gay man in a country where homosexuality is criminalised.

In practice this can still be of a tightrope. For those on one side of the debate, it is possible to find examples where positive discrimination has meant that a person of colour or a female candidate has been picked over them. Yet for those on the other side, there are plenty of statistics that show that minority groups continue to be under-represented in boardrooms and prestigious academic institutions.

Roles and Relationships

Given that Cambridge Change is all about other things changing in relation to us, it is perhaps appropriate that a final consideration is around roles and relationships. The world that Tom and Sandra grew up was certainly different in terms of roles and relationships. Both Tom and Sandra had traditional upbringings where their fathers went out to work and their mothers did everything around the house; there were clear male and female roles. There were closer relationships with extended family and the local community, most people had lived in the same area for years. Tom and Sandra have both always worked and shared (or argued about) domestic duties. Now their adult son works from home part-time as their daughter in law has the better paid job. Like many of their friends, the older children have moved away and the town in which they live now has unfamiliar faces; they no longer know all their neighbours. Large supermarkets exist out of town and what was Uncle Bob’s grocery store is now run by an Asian family. As Tom and Sandra have remained, familiar people have moved away or died and unfamiliar people have taken their place; some of the roles played in Tom and Sandra’s lives are now vacant. This too is a Cambridge change and yet is also a real change as those people are lost from Tom and Sandra's lives.

In terms of their domestic roles, Tom took on some of the housework out of necessity when Sandra had the opportunity to go full time. The roles in their marriage have changed but because they have a relationship, he is able to adapt to the change. Again, this may be a Cambridge change; it doesn’t change who Tom is even if it slightly changes what he does around the house. It is relationship or having a connection which might also explain why Sandra is a little more progressive in her views on certain issues. Her job brings her into contact with a range of different people in a way that Tom’s does not. She has colleagues and friends of different races, faiths and sexuality.

Onto the next chapter

If lack of relationship and connection is part of the problem, then it may also be that here we find the beginnings of an answer. Conversations happen when putting out the bins; the couple opposite support the same football team and agree with Tom that the lack of a quality striker is the key issue. Later that evening Tom will enjoy watching a film with his daughter and their friend and declare that ‘‘they’ are alright’. During a future conversation at the local shop, he will discover the owners have a remarkable story of escaping persecution in the country they left. It makes Tom think that his life probably isn’t too bad after all. His views on immigration or transgender debates are not necessarily completely changed by these encounters, but he realises that the world is more complex than he previously thought – and that seems an important first step.