Was Jimmy Saville A Force For Good?

If you want to have a really interesting moral discussion, ask people to consider the following; “Was Jimmy Saville a force for good in the universe?” Your gut reaction will be to say no. To look in bewilderment at the person who dares to even raise the possibility. He was a vile predator who bought misery to his victims and left his survivors emotionally scarred and immiserated. His behaviour was allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged for years, largely due to the moral cowardice of those whom should have been braver. People suffered. People are still suffering. His legacy is stained and corrupted beyond salvation. Case closed, right? Not quite, as it turns out. Only you have to be able to see beyond what your raw emotions are telling you. First, some facts. Over the course of his life Saville raised in excess of £40 million for charitable causes. The National Spinal Injuries unit in Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire was a frequent beneficiary of his charitable work. And elsewhere other institutions reaped the fruits of his labour. Over the course of decades thousands of people have been helped. Lives have been restored. Hopes raised. In short, if you were fortunate enough to never have met the vile creature and yet benefitted from his works, one might conclude that his existence was, if viewed in purely remote terms, a positive thing. Now your gut instinct is still feeling a bit queasy as you even contemplate this, and that’s entirely normal. Only a monster would not be disgusted by his antics. Yet the point remains, if viewed starkly from a purely cost / benefit analysis, the question of whether he was a force for good is not as easy to resolve as we might hope. And this is the way with a whole raft of vexing moral questions. Our raw emotions tell us one thing whilst our searing rationality tells us something else. We gravitate towards the simplistic, and let’s be honest, it is much easier just to ignore the whole moral ledger aspect. And that’s what makes me drawn to these kind of conundrums. The mischief of even daring to consider something that differs to what we feel we are required to feel. Should and ought must always be viewed with a degree of suspicion, by the way. This is the gateway to herd mentality, so be on your guard. But what do I think about Saville? He repulses me in every conceivable way. Yet so does the behaviour of so many who failed to act when the red flags were so evident. We’re all guilty of cowardice from time to time, but in this instance the cost of our hesitance was so steep and so profound that many should be hanging heads in shame. And yet, reflect again on all those positively impacted by the life of this creature. The money raised from his marathons, his relentless fundraising. I’m inclined to think he was likely compensating for the dark shadow within him, but whether we like it or not sometimes we find ourselves in odd moral territory. I’d argue that the life of Mr Saville is exhibit “A” in this regard.