Total depravity, broken Britain and optimism

Many years ago, a Calvinist friend pointed out that the Calvinist, foundational doctrine of total depravity is usually and popularly misunderstood. Now whether or not his apologia and portrayal of the doctrine is fair and right-enough I'm not going to comment on here. What I would like to do is make an observation based on said friend's characterisation of the doctrine: that it isn't saying that absolutely everything is depraved, rather it is saying that there is nothing about being human that is not touched by fallenness (an important corrective to the optimism of Enlightenment rationality which seemed to assume that Reason was unfallen -interestingly, post modern chritiques seem to agree).

What this means for the kind of political posture mentioned in this article: Why Cameron ditched 'broken Britain' | Madeleine Bunting | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk is that we need to recognise the obverse: everything that is fallen ('broken') is grounded on a basic goodness. So, "on balance people are wealthier, have more choice and are better educated than 15 years ago. Along with this progress have come some drawbacks – increased access to cheap alchohol – but you can't tease them apart from the benefits. Britain may have a louder, more excessive night-time economy than some European countries, but that is part and parcel of a vibrant, irreverent culture which is innovative and widely admired in many parts of the world where a higher premium is put on a narrower social conformity."
'Broken Britain' is also Britain where some things work well-enough, where there are som good things which break or can be exploited for ill. There is no getting away from this double-sided nature of human reality: what is good is capable of carrying bad stuff, what is bad is rooted in the good and is often redeemable or capable of being called back to its good purposes. Our struggle will ever be to discern what needs to be addressed when and how. It can never simply be a 'war on ...' because that makes the mistake of assuming that something is totally bad, irredeemable. Only by engaging with the goods in a situation can we hope to work for the common good.

We Christians have to make the discovery, now that we have thoroughly taken on board the doctrines of Fall and Depravity, of how to hold that in tension with the original goodness which yet peaks out and underlies all human endeavour, however distorted.

And so, the old justification for Christian Conservatism needs questioning, that it is a philosophy that takes seriously the fall and seeks to use it. We need also to take seriously the human capacity for good, however limited or imperfect.... So it is interesting to see that Cameroonians have sidelined the Broken Britain slogan.