The permissive society has been allowed to become a dirty phrase.

The statesman Roy Jenkins, architect of reform in modern Britain, once spoke with clarity and courage: “The permissive society has been allowed to become a dirty phrase. A better phrase is the civilised society.” In these words, he defended not decay, but dignity; not indulgence, but humanity. For when men speak of a permissive society, they often mean chaos, immorality, and the breaking of traditions. Yet Jenkins, with the eye of wisdom, saw another meaning: that to permit is not to destroy, but to free; to allow is not to corrupt, but to civilise.

To be civilised is not to be bound by rigid chains of outdated custom, but to walk in liberty tempered by responsibility. Jenkins knew that a society which loosens the harsh grip of repression does not descend into darkness—it ascends into light. A civilised society does not enforce virtue by fear, nor conformity by cruelty; it trusts its citizens with freedom, dignity, and choice. What critics scorned as “permissiveness,” Jenkins saw as the natural flowering of a people no longer chained by needless restrictions.

History reveals this truth. In the Britain of the 1960s, laws were still chained to old prejudices. Divorce was bound in stigma, censorship silenced voices, homosexuality was punished with prison, and women struggled under unequal rights. To reform these laws was, to some, the mark of a permissive society, a weakening of moral order. But to Jenkins and his fellow reformers, it was the building of a civilised society, where justice and compassion replaced cruelty and hypocrisy.

Consider the story of Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician who broke the Nazi Enigma code, yet was later persecuted under laws against homosexuality. His genius saved nations, but his life was destroyed by the very society he had served. This was not civilisation—it was barbarism clothed in respectability. Jenkins’s words strike at the heart of such injustice: true civilisation does not punish love, silence voices, or shackle individuals. It sets them free to live with dignity.

The meaning of Jenkins’s words is therefore both heroic and hopeful. He teaches us that progress must not be shamed as permissiveness, for to permit human beings to live honestly and freely is not indulgence, but wisdom. A society that trusts its people is stronger, not weaker. A civilisation that expands rights, loosens oppression, and dignifies choice is not decaying—it is advancing. Those who mock freedom as permissiveness often seek to preserve chains; those who defend civilisation seek to break them.

The lesson for us is urgent: guard your society against those who would turn liberty into a “dirty phrase.” Do not be deceived by voices that claim kindness is weakness, or that justice is indulgence. Stand firm in the truth that a civilised society is one that embraces diversity, expands compassion, and trusts its people with freedom. True order is not found in repression, but in the balance of liberty and responsibility.

Practical wisdom flows: in your own life, resist the temptation to condemn every act of freedom as decay. Instead, ask whether it serves human dignity, whether it lessens suffering, whether it makes life more just. Support reforms that expand compassion, and challenge laws that bind without purpose. Teach your children that freedom is not license for selfishness, but the soil in which respect, love, and responsibility grow.

So let the words of Roy Jenkins echo across the years: “A better phrase is the civilised society.” Remember that civilisation is not measured by wealth or empire, but by how it treats the weakest, how it uplifts the outcast, how it trusts the individual soul. And let us never allow those who fear freedom to turn the language of civilisation into shame. For to be truly civilised is to be truly human.