A great story. The Socialist Sunday Schools certainly did not deserve the opprobrium directed at them by the colonialist establishment, and their teachings had a moral quality that was absent from colonialist propaganda.
However the problem with the SSS teachings, and all socialist teaching based on the idea that the ultimate purpose in life is happiness ("they would be taught how to live and be happy, and that the best way to be happy was to make other people happy") is that there is more than one way to happiness and capitalists are just as capable of making the claim that they have "the best way to happiness". Elon Musk, for example, doubtless accepts the principle that "the best way to be happy was to make other people happy" and his means to that end are X, SpaceX, Tesla, Donald Trump and so on. We can debate the particular merits of each of his offerings but the point is that giving people what they want (or think they want) is not the way to a better world.
The United States was founded as a secular society dedicated to "the pursuit of happiness" yet it is a state that has brought untold grief to the earth and will yet harvest the bitter fruit of what it has sowed.
The truth, therefore, is more complex and contradictory than is allowed for in Marxist ideology. While we all desire to be happy, neither the pursuit of happiness nor "making others happy" should be our ultimate goal in life.
The flaws inherent in the simplistic approach of the SSS would have been apparent even to the children who attended. They would have understood that it is not strictly true that "all the good things in life are produced by labour". Are commodities the only good things in life? What about the sea and the sky, the bush and all the plants and animals that fill the earth beyond the reach of mankind?
Is it true that "whoever enjoys (commodities) without working for them is stealing"? Children know that they and their beloved grandparents enjoy the fruits of other's labour, yet there is no guilt attached. Still, on balance the SSS were a positive counterweight to colonialist propaganda. Reverend Chapple's remark that "So-called Socialist ideals are in the very best sense religious. Teach them how to think and not what to think…" remains valid today.
Beautifully written article about an aspect of our social/ political history that we know so little about. The fanatical opposition to the schools makes highly amusing reading today. I wonder how much, if any, of it was based on actual knowledge and experience of sitting in on an SSS while it convened, and observing the kids (modelling Lenin no doubt) with their Plasticine!
A great story. The Socialist Sunday Schools certainly did not deserve the opprobrium directed at them by the colonialist establishment, and their teachings had a moral quality that was absent from colonialist propaganda.
However the problem with the SSS teachings, and all socialist teaching based on the idea that the ultimate purpose in life is happiness ("they would be taught how to live and be happy, and that the best way to be happy was to make other people happy") is that there is more than one way to happiness and capitalists are just as capable of making the claim that they have "the best way to happiness". Elon Musk, for example, doubtless accepts the principle that "the best way to be happy was to make other people happy" and his means to that end are X, SpaceX, Tesla, Donald Trump and so on. We can debate the particular merits of each of his offerings but the point is that giving people what they want (or think they want) is not the way to a better world.
The United States was founded as a secular society dedicated to "the pursuit of happiness" yet it is a state that has brought untold grief to the earth and will yet harvest the bitter fruit of what it has sowed.
The truth, therefore, is more complex and contradictory than is allowed for in Marxist ideology. While we all desire to be happy, neither the pursuit of happiness nor "making others happy" should be our ultimate goal in life.
The flaws inherent in the simplistic approach of the SSS would have been apparent even to the children who attended. They would have understood that it is not strictly true that "all the good things in life are produced by labour". Are commodities the only good things in life? What about the sea and the sky, the bush and all the plants and animals that fill the earth beyond the reach of mankind?
Is it true that "whoever enjoys (commodities) without working for them is stealing"? Children know that they and their beloved grandparents enjoy the fruits of other's labour, yet there is no guilt attached. Still, on balance the SSS were a positive counterweight to colonialist propaganda. Reverend Chapple's remark that "So-called Socialist ideals are in the very best sense religious. Teach them how to think and not what to think…" remains valid today.
Beautifully written article about an aspect of our social/ political history that we know so little about. The fanatical opposition to the schools makes highly amusing reading today. I wonder how much, if any, of it was based on actual knowledge and experience of sitting in on an SSS while it convened, and observing the kids (modelling Lenin no doubt) with their Plasticine!