Our enemies are right to mock us

Theodore Dalrymple

11 April 2007

Grandiosity and lack of character are two sides of the same coin. When someone believes that he is born not with original sin, but with original virtue, he comes also to believe that all his opinions, all his ends and all his actions are, by definition, pure, moral and therefore right. He is able to change from moment to moment, and even to act in a completely unscrupulous manner, secure in the knowledge that he is the moral equivalent of the Cheshire Cat. He may act in contradictory ways and change his opinions to their very opposites, but the purity of motive remains behind when everything else has disappeared. Such a person can have no honour, for honour implies a loyalty to a fixed standard, even or especially when it is not in that person’s immediate or instrumental interest to uphold it.

The lack of character derives also from the elevation of sensibility over sense and of personal opinion over personal probity. This elevation occurred precisely in Mr Blair’s generation, of which, I am sorry to say, I am also a member.

For my generation, purity of sentiment and opinion became the whole of virtue, and the louder one expressed it the better the person one was; morality was henceforth not a discipline and an abjuration but an opportunity to shine in front of one’s peers. Needless to say, purity of sentiment and opinion were not incompatible with our old and trusted friend, the thirst for power (for inside every rebel, there’s a dictator trying to get out), a combination which naturally enough resulted in a bullying sentimentality and a self-righteous lack of scruple. The desire to be both policeman and lady almoner, General Patton and Gandhi, Rambo and Elizabeth Fry, was not conducive to clear thinking or clear policy. That is why our soldiers are now so often reduced to being lady almoners with flak jackets and walkie-talkies. HMS Cornwall, the mother ship of the 15 captives, was never to fire first, whatever the situation, because it was a fulfilling a peacekeeping role, not a war-like one. And so we can bully, but we cannot fight.