A Culture of Hell

Every human group has what we can call a culture. This can be defined as the values that define what is right and wrong in that society. Consider Stafford Hospital between 2005 and 2009.

“The neglect described is so basic in nature – the placing of food out of reach, the failure to provide a drink of water (so patients were reduced to drinking out of flower vases) – that even a broken organisation around them cannot absolve individuals for their want of sympathy..what sort of person can ignore an old man begging for water or an old woman screaming with pain?” (Independent 7.2.13).

Of course, this is just one of many examples in the papers this week of cruelty and inhumanity. But it happened in the face of relatives’ complaints and distress, which only really came to light when an action group was formed in 2006. I want to suggest that there are many organisations (let's apply it to our schools) in the UK today that suffer from the same basic conditions of amorality highlighted in the report by Robert Francis QC – which are these….

1.Over-confident leadership. Leaders who mask their lack of engagement with an apparent confidence are dangerous to community flourishing. Do our schools have leaders who genuinely listen or who prefer to dictate? It may seem strange sometimes who ends up as a Headteacher – are they necessarily the best leaders (and listeners)? How do we build a listening culture?

2. Obsession with targets. I left full time teaching in July partly because I have become disillusioned with target setting. Six times a year I was required to rank students by four numbers according to four categories. I can’t think of a more meaningless activity – people reduced to numbers. And ask your own teachers what they make of league tables.

3. Lack of accountability. Governors are the groups that are ultimately reviewing activity in your school. In the partly independent Stafford Hospital it was a group of ordinary citizens monitoring standards “beset by infighting”. How often human society is ruined by petty jealousy, insecurity, and childishness – in this case, as hundreds died unnecessarily. Do you know your governors, and your governors know you?

4. Ignoring whistleblowers. No society can flourish unless those who point out its faults are valued rather than faced with nodding heads, complete inaction and the prospect of no promotion. Does your school have an open door to anyone pointing out its faults? Or is it basically a top down organisation of authoritarian style, where those who have a prophetic sense of what is wrong have long decided that its useless to speak?

5. Tolerance of immorality. Immorality can mean all sorts of things, of course. But we need not be confused by talking about relativism here. We all know that lying, bullying, coldness, failure to say good morning, failure to fill a glass of water, believing yourself to be superior is wrong. there may be gradations of these things – and Stafford was extreme – but the wrongness is always universal.

Equality is one of the values that unites our moral theorists (Kant’s second formula of the Categorical Imperative or Bentham’s everyone to count for one, or Natural law’s absolute sacredness of human life). A failure to treat people properly, with due sympathy and care, is a failure to recognise that we are all equal (tell bad leaders that), and no superior salary (£160,000 for the Chief Executive of Stafford Hospital), posh job title (Minister of State for Health), or excuse of being “too busy to talk” can mask the unease we must all feel when amorality turns a culture into hell.

Image © Rebecca Dyer