[annb]

Please can someone use explain the connection between Utiliarianism and Evangelism. How was 'self-help' important to attitudes toward the Victorian poor ?

[MrJohnDClare]

annb, on Jun 9 2008, 05:55 PM, said:

Please can someone use explain the connection between Utiliarianism and Evangelism.

I don't know if there IS a connection.
Utilitarianism, dreamed up by a guy called Jeremy Bentham, is the idea that the government ought to to the thing which brings the greatest good to the greatest number of people. It lay behind a number of acts in the 19th century, including the New Poor Law - on the grounds that the greatest good to the greatest number was to reduce the Poor rates.

Evangelism is persuading people to become Christians. It lay behind the work of some social reformers like Booth, who founded the Salvation Army. It did lead to some social action, becuase the Christians moved in and helped the poor out of the moral and economic mess they were in as part of saving their soul.

Quote

How was 'self-help' important to attitudes toward the Victorian poor ?

Samuel Smiles wrote Self-Help, in which he claimed that, with hard work, anybody can 'make it' in this life. Although Smiles himself never said so, this was siezed upon by some people, who then reassoned backwards that poor people ust be therefore to blame for their own poverty - they hadn't 'helped themselves'. It led to a diminution of sympathy and help for the poor.

[annb]

MrJohnDClare, on Jun 10 2008, 06:21 AM, said:

annb, on Jun 9 2008, 05:55 PM, said:

Please can someone use explain the connection between Utiliarianism and Evangelism.

I don't know if there IS a connection.
Utilitarianism, dreamed up by a guy called Jeremy Bentham, is the idea that the government ought to to the thing which brings the greatest good to the greatest number of people. It lay behind a number of acts in the 19th century, including the New Poor Law - on the grounds that the greatest good to the greatest number was to reduce the Poor rates.

Evangelism is persuading people to become Christians. It lay behind the work of some social reformers like Booth, who founded the Salvation Army. It did lead to some social action, becuase the Christians moved in and helped the poor out of the moral and economic mess they were in as part of saving their soul.

Quote

How was 'self-help' important to attitudes toward the Victorian poor ?

Samuel Smiles wrote Self-Help, in which he claimed that, with hard work, anybody can 'make it' in this life. Although Smiles himself never said so, this was siezed upon by some people, who then reassoned backwards that poor people ust be therefore to blame for their own poverty - they hadn't 'helped themselves'. It led to a diminution of sympathy and help for the poor.

Thanks