Behaviour change, my arse

Well here's a little entertainment. Matthew Taylor, for whom I have enormous respect but who in my opinion is visibly in the wrong place, takes issue with Dave Clements on the Joe Public blog for the way he challenges 'nudge theory' and the whole morally-suspect 'behaviour change' approach promoted by what is still known as the 'government'. He describes Dave's post as a 'predictably tendentious and intellectually second rate contribution'.

Well ok, the post looks a little hurried and not as well under-pinned by supportable assertions as we might like, but hey, it's Joe Public. And all credit to Dave for putting his hand up to challenge the snide 'behaviour change' rhetoric. I'd like to extend the challenge to some of the piffle about 'innovation' that comes out of our tired, wretchedly tired, think tanks.

I really don't care about intellectual rates, whatever they are, and I doubt that Dave does either. What I'd like to hear of is some thinking about what comes after the think-tanks, partly because some of them seem to be running on empty, and partly because as a consequence there's a serious danger of this government doing yet more of its own thinking. How scary is that?

About a year ago, before I took this stab at the lamentable pomposity of the RSA, I wrote that:

'Part of the difficulty is that many London-based suits don't speak to people who have the dirt of estate life under their fingernails, unless for a photoshoot and through an interpreter. They meet together in London events to problematise the issue as 'out there', thus ensuring that they do not see themselves as part of it.

'One of the consequences is that any action to be taken becomes the subject of organisational management (control) rather than local networked response.'

I don't think that's far from the point that Dave Clements is making. Because these policy approaches have too arbitrary or fanciful a connection with the reality of so many people's lives, it's hard for them to be anything but coercive.

I see no sign of this state of affairs improving, and 'behaviour change' and the fashionable rhetoric about getting ordinary people to 'learn to innovate' etc seems to confirm that decline. Perhaps the time is right to hear the regal opinion of Jim Royle: 'innovation my arse'.

Whoops, I think I just slipped a few more places in the intellectual ratings.

Comments

[ian]

I think this government are going the same way as the last one - too much focus on managerial change and reform as if that was an end in itself, coupled with a dismissive attitude to the poor sods on the receiving end.

See for example this from a letter via my MP from Maria Miller, Minister for the Disabled about changes to DLA.

She says: “Disability Living Allowance has not been fundamentally reformed since its introduction 19 years ago...We have to ensure that this critical support reflects the needs of disabled people today rather than those of the 1990s”

I say: So what? Has the nature of disability changed over that 19 years? Have the coalition developed some miraculous medical technology that will regrow the nervous system for people with MS or Parkinson’s? If anything the position of the disabled has become more difficult and more complex since then. Outside the major cities public transport, where it exists at all, is still largely unusable by disabled people, transport costs generally have rocketed, health provision is getting more and more centralised, prescription costs are steadily increasing.

[Thomas Neumark]

Good post Kevin, although I do think your point is quite different to Dave's.

I see Dave's point coming from a deep suspicion of government action of almost any kind and a surprising acceptance of the role of the private sector in influencing us. This position is shared by many people who are involved with the Institute of Ideas, Spiked etc...

I do agree with your point about the dangers of think-tanks being removed from most citizens day to day lives and being pompous. Of course, this is also a result of the centralisation of political power in England.