Between deference and insolence

In reviewing this book about the social, political and intellectual indispensability of disrespect, I should perhaps declare an interest: I am several times disrespected in it. I hope the author will not conclude, if I fail to take my revenge on this occasion, that I am suffering from the wrong kind of niceness. All my niceness is of the right kind.

My problem is that I agree with quite a lot of what the author says, at least in his individual judgments, though I am not sure that he provides anything like a coherent or consistent argument. For example, he uses the term ‘deontological’ as a term more or less of philosophical abuse, claiming to be himself a utilitarian, without realising that his own utilitarianism, according to which all sentient or conscious beings are to count in the assessment of the utility of any action or policy, itself rests upon a deontological foundation.

Still, he is neither the first nor will he be the last to fail to provide a fully articulated, watertight philosophical argument for his prejudices. Many of them are sound, which is to say that they coincide with mine. He believes, for example, that someone who demands respect from others is being coercive, emotionally and sometimes physically; it is an intrinsically illegitimate demand.

No one on the author’s view is entitled to respect, merely by virtue of drawing breath or by virtue of the social position that he occupies. We owe no respect to Mr Blair and Mr Brown because they are, or have been, Prime Minister. Indeed, the freedom of a society can be measured by the irreverence with which it treats its most prominent members and cherished institutions. The author thinks, probably rightly, that, by this criterion, Hanoverian England was the freest society that ever existed.