Day: 7 December 2020
Robert Owen and New Lanark
Paternalism is a common attitude among well-meaning social reformers. Stemming from the root pater, or father, paternalism implies a patriarchal, benevolent but superior sensibility. Paternalistic social reformers feel a social responsibility and believe that they should “uplift” those beneath them, but also see those they help as inferior, or childlike, in some way. Paternalistic industrialists…