Society and Responsibility

Margaret Thatcher

[An excerpt from "Aids, Education and the Year 2000,"
Woman's Own, 3 October 1987, pp. 8-10]

Page 10:

Parliament isn't the great institution of life. Churches are your great institutions, as are your great voluntary associations. And you're entitled to look to them and say, "Look, there are certain standards, and if you undermine fundamentally these standards you'll be changing our way of life." When the authority of those institutions is undermined because they haven't been forthright [about the behavior that causes the spread of AIDS], it is then that people turn too much to the State.

In answer to a question about what has caused a deterioration in the nation's moral standards, she answered:

I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. "I have a problem, I'll get a grant." "I'm homeless, the government must house me." They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.

Later, she added:

There is a living tapestry of men and women, and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend on how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves. And each of us, by our own efforts, is prepared to turn round and help those less fortunate.