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Monday 23 November 2009

I wrote ‘hug a hoodie’ and I’m proud of it

28 June 2008

Danny Kruger, who was David Cameron’s speechwriter, defends his most notorious piece of work for the Tory leader and says that love is a neglected crime-fighting device

This speech has gone down in Tory lore as a terrible blunder, but I am still rather proud of it. The nub of it was, that while we should certainly punish people who cross the line into criminality, on this side of the line we need ‘to show a lot more love’.

Love is a neglected crime-fighting device. But the need for it is powerfully proved in Felicity de Zulueta’s important book From Pain to Violence: The Traumatic Roots of Destructiveness. She argues that violence and hatred are not motive forces of their own: they are the terrible expression of wrecked relationships, of thwarted love.

Men and women seem to have a yearning for agency, for the ability to affect things. As de Zulueta puts it, the sense of helplessness is ‘a state tantamount to annihilation’; we will do anything to avoid it. Hence self-harm, and what youth workers call ‘self-sabotage’ — the apparently wilful screwing-up of opportunities, the no-show, the walking-away at the moment before achievement. People who feel incapable, feel the need to prove it: failure, at least, is something they can author.

This need to own the pain you feel, to make it yours, helps explain the deep guilt felt by victims of abuse or trauma. Taking responsibility for what you went through at least means you did something, rather than merely received the experience passively. The psychoanalyst Ronald Fairbairn called it ‘the moral defence’: it is, in a sense, understandable and rather admirable.

Except that a common consequence of the moral defence would appear to be violence towards others. Living with unjustified guilt is deeply painful. And we use pain to authorise evil.

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adrian drummond

June 26th, 2008 3:45pm Report this comment

A bit Lord Longford'esque.

So you want ‘to show a lot more love’ to the boy that gave you a thick/cut lip?

Not me. My answer would be a bad lads army. Naturally, this is an old fashioned approach and would not go down well with the new 'aristocracy' of which you are one.

You lot - the new 'aristocracy' - have screwed up this country and now we - the victims - have to watch you try and put it back together again.

Good luck.

Christopher Chantrill

June 26th, 2008 6:54pm Report this comment

You have to say that Danny Kruger is walking the walk. In On Fraternity he wrote:

"Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says 'we should…'."

You could look it up on Wikiquote.

Parasite

June 26th, 2008 7:32pm Report this comment

The kid who split your lip and shouted abuse at you for having the temerity to not want the moped stolen is the product of a society in which "greed is good". He thinks he (or rather his fellow chav who was on the thing) has the right to the moped.

It's the result of the crude gimme-gimme materialism unleashed in the 80s. The rich simply got it, the poor think they have a right to it, and the means don't matter. And how dare you stand in their way, that is the thought process.

Whether a Tory columnist would like to hear it or not, the responsibility for your split lip ultimately lies with a little old lady living in Dulwich who you all blindly hero-worship.

David

June 27th, 2008 11:17am Report this comment

Except, Parasite, that the trend could be seen starting in the Seventies, the first generation brought up under the full embrace of a welfare state, where society was supposed to give them what ever they wanted otherwise it wasn't fair.

John Bull

June 27th, 2008 2:10pm Report this comment

Congratulations twerp !

It seems even a thump in the face can't drive any sense into your thick neanderthal skull.

My hope it that you insist on personally visiting all your little ( and big ) crooked and violent 'clients' in their own neighbourhoods - and without any police 'protection' of course. Darwins selection theory still works !

You may live to tell your tale - who knows - but not before your wrecked body heals first.

Grow up and stop pandering to all the thugs and scum perpetuated by your own stupidity.

Just because that mindless wonder, boy Cameron, articulated your rubbish does not make it any more sensible - quite the opposite.

John Bull

June 27th, 2008 2:16pm Report this comment

Danny - if you have life or health insurance, I hope you have declared your mentality to your insurers - none with any sense of 'risk-assessment' would touch you with a bargepole !

'Dead-Man-Talking' is an apt epitaph for your tombstone. Save your descendents the trouble - order it now.

Female 29 Australia

July 14th, 2008 1:13am Report this comment

I believe this too. Thank you for printing this where we can all read it. And for the great work you devote yourself to.

Bill McCall

July 29th, 2008 4:16am Report this comment

Boofheads like Kruger are a blight on Conservative politics, but unfortunately too many of them are already in positions of authority, the current leader being another.

Thor

November 26th, 2008 9:38pm Report this comment

Yup the Beatles put it thus..."all you need is love, love, love, love is all you need".. they was dope smokin musos though so thats ok.. but torys are not aloud to have a sensitive side?

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