‽istis reclaims personal matters (weekending June 26th 2021)
This week ends with news breaking in
the UK of the doings of a Cabinet Minister that may indeed do for the Health
Secretary what a pandemic and its handling could not necessarily do: bring an
expression of ‘full confidence’ (or similar, oh so potentially loaded euphemism)
from the Prime Minister?
With the mantra of the apparent
current answer to the public/private morality equation being worked out in TV
and radio studios across the country by colleagues (‘it is a private matter’, ‘not
my job to comment on their private life’, etc.) and the sound of silence, perhaps,
as stones are not cast first or thrown in glass houses… ‽istis does wonder, and may even be so bold as
to ask, whether the personal and the professional, the private and the public can
be so easily ‘consciously uncoupled’?[i]
Leaving the Secretary of State for
Health and Social Care to spend more or less time with whomsoever he chooses and
with or without the red boxes, can it really be that how anyone is in part of
one’s life, or how one is with those to whom someone has responsibilities and
duties (never mind expressions of commitment, love and intimacy) cannot be
linked to how one is in other parts of our lives…? that matters of faithfulness, integrity,
honour and empathy might not cut across our connected roles and relationships?
And so, recognising that we may all live
in one very large glass house, ‽istis wonders how different the world might be
if perhaps, possibly, maybe all people (including you and me) were seen in the round
- public and private, personal and professional? How would reappraisals,
curations, judgements and histories develop in the light of a potentially changing
consensus[ii]
of morality and norms (and their personal, social, cultural and legal
expressions)?
And as for another potential story
behind the story (a Minister’s office, a camera, some footage and a national
newspaper), well that is probably for another day…
©
Pistis
NB: further reflections and comments linked to
this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily
indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’:
@Pistis_wonders
[i] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/26/conscious-uncoupling-gwyneth-paltrow-chris-martin
[ii] Leaving
the discussion of how ‘consensus’ may be generated or maintained in any time or
place – for another blog wondering…
