I heard the news Monday morning after breakfast: the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, had died. Images of the former British Prime Minister ran through my mind. It’s difficult to forget her friendship with President Ronald Regan. I experienced discomfort as I recalled her cool, stern voice during her attacks on labor, the social safety net, and any challenge to her understanding of the Empire. She was a force with which to be reckoned. She was convinced of her positions. She was insistent that by following her father’s example of self-reliance, people would have a better life. She contended that the only way to a better life was for people to depend on their own initiative. Indeed, for Mrs. Thatcher, there was only one right way.
Given that she clashed with many of the values of British society and caused hardship for many people, it was not surprising to discover that day of her death, iTune downloads in Britain resulted in an old song moving to top-20 placement: “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.”
From what I know of Mrs. Thatcher, she was strongly influenced by her father, Alfred Roberts. Roberts suffered from poor eyesight, which prevented him from entering the family business of shoe making. Though the Roberts family was politically liberal, Alfred Roberts’ determination for success, which led him to open a small grocery and later move into politics, took him from liberal politics to conservatism. Margaret would have grown up with a father who didn’t allow life’s misfortune to limit him. Instead, her father’s self-determination was the bedrock of his success. Clearly, Margaret came to embrace his values of self-determination and understood it as the way all people should properly live. These values were intermingled with her father’s understanding of Methodism, a tradition in which he was a preacher.
Much like Mrs. Thatcher’s father, my own father was considered “a self-made man.” Having been born in a company-owned coal town in Western Pennsylvania, my father and his brothers completed military service in World War II and returned home to work in the coal mines. Their sense of self-determination led them in different ways to break free from the cycle of life they had known and risk failure in order to create a better life for their families. Ultimately, my father became a successful real estate broker in a small city. Despite his success, he was always embarrassed of his past and wanted to keep his early life hidden from those who knew him in business.
What made my family different from the family of Margaret Thatcher? While there are several different factors that came into play, I believe that the fundamental difference was compassion. While my father valued hard work and personal responsibility, he also taught me that most other people could not do what he had done. I remember him explaining to me that there was a great deal of social pressure to not step out on his own and risk financial ruin by trying a new occupation. Friends would tell him, “You have a wife and children to care for. You at least have a job now. You could end up with nothing if you strive for more.” My father knew that there was a significant chance it wouldn’t work out. Yet, he was determined.
Similarly, my father was aware that his success was not just his own doing. In later life, he shared stories of others who helped him along the way and provided him with opportunities for advancement. While he worked hard, there were times when others opened doors for him.
Key in my father’s transition from life in a small company owned coal town in Western Pennsylvania to a life as a successful business man was not just self-reliance and self-determination but compassion. He experienced compassion from others who provided him with opportunities and open doors. He, in turn, remembered to show compassion to others. There was never judgment that others should be able to do what he had done. He also provided opportunities to others without the expectation that they should either repay him or even succeed because of him.
While Margaret Thatcher was a great woman and a powerful political force, her legacy demonstrates a consistent lack of compassion. Insisting that everyone should be able to achieve success through self-determination as did her father, she failed to understand how unique her father and her family had been. Most people, even when doing their best, are simply not able to succeed on their own. Instead, the success of one depends on the support of others.
The conservative movement in Great Britain, the United States, and other countries suffers from the same limitation as Mrs. Thatcher: a lack of compassion. While there is something to be said for people being empowered to take responsibility for their own lives, people also need to be taught, equipped, and provided with the tools for their own success. Insistence on austerity and a mentality of “pulling yourself up by your own boot straps” only lead people to greater depths of failure.
It’s a difficult lesson to learn but ultimately it is true that compassion empowers people to grow and find ways to lead lives that contribute to the common good. Stern criticism, like that of the Iron Lady, only leads to social discord and suffering while allowing the privileged few to feel superior to the rest.
The world is a different place because of the legacy of Mrs. Thatcher. Perhaps, just perhaps, by reflecting on her legacy and her treatment of others in society we can learn to make the world a better place. Sometimes the best lessons others can provide are lessons that show us what not to do.
“Compassion and generosity are the true measures of human worth.”
– Jonathan Lockwood Huie