The urge for change

A lot of things happen in this world because people feel that it’s time for a change. The fashion industry is the supreme example of this. If skirts are short this season, they’ll be long next season. If trousers are flared today, they’ll be skinny tomorrow.

Fashion editors are practiced at catching this zeitgeist: ‘out goes’ boring old floral patterns (which were so ‘in’ just a few seasons ago) and ‘in comes’ jazzy new art deco shapes.

It’s a staple of fashion, but it’s also true in politics, in literature, in social issues, in ideas.  Sometimes this desire for change is just restlessness and the human appetite for novelty (the most effective word in advertising is ‘new’). Sometimes it is also prompted by an instinct to be fair – a feeling that ‘it’s their turn’.

I’ve seen this in the rise of feminism over the years. In the early days, it was seen as radical, even extreme. But a wave of sympathy for feminism swept over society because people felt that women had not been treated fairly, and that their turn at the helm had come. Today, women are sometimes favoured over men.

Moment 
in 
the 
sun

In much of what is now deemed to be “politically correct” (or “woke”), many ordinary people simply feel that it’s time for change. Minorities haven’t had “a fair crack of the whip”, as a post-Victorian uncle of mine used to put it. Let them have their moment in the sun.

Much popular feeling is driven by an instinct for change”

Even with many of the innovations wrought by Vatican II – they had momentum because people felt there was a need for change. Out went fuddy-duddy beautiful old churches and liturgy, and in came churches designed like aircraft hangers and liturgy emptied of the poetic and the mystical.

And we can, I think, sense this mood with the current election: much popular feeling is driven by an instinct for change. (Mind you, Leo drove the nail into his own political coffin by disparaging pro-life T.D.s as “backwoodsmen”. It was his Hillary Clinton moment, when she insulted voters as “deplorables”.)

Sometimes change is justified!

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Dressing to impress

Prof. Vincent Twomey, who I much respect, has said in a speech that we should sometimes present ourselves in our “Sunday best” for Mass attendance: people too often turn up wearing any old thing. I am in no position to comment, as I know I’ve appeared in church looking as though I’ve just rushed out the door in whatever jumble of apparel I happened to fling on. Which can be the case.

Yet it fascinates me to observe that there’s almost a weekly report these days in the British press of Queen Elizabeth on her way to church, or having just emerged from a Sunday service. She is always in bright colours (complete with elegant hat) for the occasion, and if any members of her family accompany her, they, too, are snapped wearing their best bib and tucker.

Elizabeth’s dresser, the Liverpool-born Angela Kelly, evidently ensures her ensemble makes the best of the 93-year-old’s appearance.

I’m not saying that church attendance should be a fashion parade, but it’s evident that HM’s style draws regular attention to her very regular practice of church-going.

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Perceptions differ from statistics

Let me revisit a point that has had some reaction. Last week I extolled John Waters for his courage and intelligence, but remarked that there isn’t really ‘mass immigration’ into Ireland.

But my attention has been drawn to the stark statistics, as published by Pew Research, regarded as a reliable source of measurement.

In 1990, there were 230,000 people living in this state who were not born in Ireland. By 2017, this had risen to 810,000. So, 16% of the population of Ireland (Republic) were not born in the state. This is higher, in percentage terms, than the UK, where 13% of residents were born overseas (3.6 million born overseas in 1990, 8.8 million in 2017).

Perceptions sometimes differ from statistics. In England, I have sometimes been the only person on a bus (or in a train carriage) not of Asian heritage. In Ireland, this has never happened to me.

However, I accept that there is concern in many parts of the country where the statistics belie my perception.