When applause for the Prime Minister's remarks about the affair was not universal he sought to backtrack: like Mr Hoddle
When applause for the Prime Minister's remarks about the affair was not universal, he sought to backtrack: like Mr Hoddle, he never said them things.Which brings us to the thinly-veiled snobbery which manifested itself in our newspapers. The greater our propensity to anger, therefore, the greater our propensity to intolerance. The Prime Minister's support of anger and intolerance on this occasion was opportunistic and despicable, an example of the unhealthy combination of caesaropapism and spin-doctoring. And when we feel rage on our own behalf, it is because we are victims.
By definition, victims are good people.To cause pain to others in the name of virtue is, of course, one of the great illicit pleasures of life. To have brought about the downfall of a successful man in the name of compassion is thus to have indulged in that vile pleasure while feeling virtuous at the same time.Unfortunately, it is difficult to be tolerant and angry simultaneously. We glow with moral satisfaction, because we have been both generous and compassionate, without so much as having moved from our chair. When we feel rage on others' behalf, it is like doing good works, but without going to the trouble that good works usually entail. Reports in newspapers of unorthodox ideas act as electrodes in our amygdala.There is, however, a difference between the cats and us: we enjoy our rages.
And nowadays anger, in the words of the journalist Bea Campbell, is its own justification: I'm angry, therefore I'm good.This propensity to anger reminds me rather of physiological experiments performed years ago, in which electrodes were implanted into the amygdala of cats' brains which, when stimulated, resulted in an insensate rage reaction. With increasing frequency, such headlines begin "Fury at...", as if fury were a kind of caffeine, without which no one could be expected to start the day. It is indeed surprisingly easy to work oneself up into a tizzy under the influence of a lead story in a newspaper. The headlines of our daily newspapers (of all political persuasions) foster this unpleasant tendency. He should therefore be helped by every possible means to do so.But such subtleties are easily overlooked.
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