Morphogenesis and Human Flourishing pp 239-260 | Cite as
Eudaimonic Bubbles, Social Change and the NHS
Abstract
Eudaimonia is a term for a society in which we all flourish in our differences. The world we live in is far from that, even though, I argue, there are persistent tendencies pushing us in its direction. A fundamental question that arises is whether we can achieve a degree of flourishing along one set of axes at least, in the here and now. To this end I introduce the notion of eudiamonic bubbles, by which I mean relatively advantageous, if often precarious, conditions in which sub-communities can insulate themselves, relatively speaking, from specific sets of dehumanising or oppressive features characteristic of the wider community within which they are located, and which allow a degree of flourishing. I explore the conditions of their emergence and survival and illustrate using the case of the (English) National Health Service. I also identify systematic forces working continually to burst this particular bubble and question whether, even in the immediate future, the NHS, qua a eudaimonic bubble, can survive.
Keywords
Human flourishing Eudaimoic bubbles National Health Service Community awareness Critical ethical naturalismReferences
- Addison, P. (1975). The road to 1945: british politics and the second world war (pp. 178–181). London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
- Bevan, A. (1952). In place of fear. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
- Bloor, K., Harvey, E., & Maynard, A. (2005). NHS Management and Administration Staffing and Expenditure in a National and International Context, York University: unpublished paper (embargoed by the Department of Health).Google Scholar
- Browne, A. (2001). “Why the NHS is bad for us”, the Guardian, published online (and observed on 08/10/2015) at: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/oct/07/comment.comment
- Collier, A. (1999). Being and worth. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Davis, J., & Tallis, R. (Eds.). (2013). How the NHS was betrayed – And how we can save it. London: Oneworld Publications.Google Scholar
- El-Gingihy, Y. (2015). How to dismantle the NHS in 10 easy steps. Alresford: Zero Books.Google Scholar
- Huitson, O. (2013). ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’ in Jacky Davis and Raymond Tallis (eds.) 2013, chapter 5.Google Scholar
- Katwala, S. (2013). “The NHS: even more cherished than the monarchy and the army”, New Statesman, Jan 14. The report by Katwala can (25/10/2015) be downloaded here: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/01/nhs-even-more-cherished-monarchy-and-army
- Lawson, N. (1992). The view from No 11: Memoirs of a tory radical. London: Bantam Press.Google Scholar
- Lawson, T. (1997). Economics and reality. London/New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Lawson, T. (2000). Evaluating trust, competition and co-operation. In Y. Shionoya & K. Yagi (Eds.), Competition, trust and co-operation – A comparative study. New York/Berlin/Tokyo: Springer.Google Scholar
- Lawson, T. (2003). Reorienting economics. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Lawson, T. (2013). Ethical naturalism and forms of relativism. Society, 50, 570–575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Lawson, T. (2014). A speeding up of the rate of social change? power, technology, resistance, globalisation and the good society. In M. S. Archer (Ed.), Late modernity: Trajectories towards morph genic society. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
- Lawson, T. (2015). Critical ethical naturalism: An orientation to ethics. In S. Pratten (Ed.) (2015) pp. 359–387.Google Scholar
- Leys, C., & Player, S. (2011). The plot against the NHS. Pontypool: Merlyn Press.Google Scholar
- Paton, C. (2015). At what cost? Paying the price for the market in the English NHS, Published by the Centre for Health and Public Interest.Google Scholar
- Pollock, A. M., Price, D., & Roderick, P. (2012). Health and social care bill 2011: A legal basis for charging and providing fewer health services to people in England. British Medical Journal, 344, e1729. Published 08 March 2012. Downloaded from http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e1729, Oct 2015.
- Pratten, S. (Ed.). (2015). Social ontology and modern economics. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Reynolds, L., & McKee, M. (2012). Opening the Oyster: the 2010-11 NHS Reforms in England. Clinical Medicine, 12(2), 128–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Rosa, H. (2003). Social acceleration: Ethical and political consequences of a desynchronised high-speed society. Constellations, 10(1), 43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Rosa, H., & Scheuerman, W. E. (Eds.). (2009). High speed society: Social acceleration power and modernity. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
- Stoll, L., & Bhutta, M. (2015). The contracting NHS: Can the NHS handle the outsourcing of clinical services? Published by the Centre for Health and the Public Interest, March.Google Scholar
- Timmins, N. (2001). The five giants: A biography of the welfare state, (revised edition). London: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
- Webster, C. (1988). The health services since the war. London: HMSO.Google Scholar