'As his nose audibly grew, his pants caught fire and squadrons of pigs flew past the window, the assembled dupes decided to believe him.'
It's that 'decided'. Lovely.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
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June
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It's where the whole company most sincerely duped itself - Brownites and opponents - that it could be the most dangerous.
ReplyDeleteI'm not talking about pig-squadron-evoking Brown promises to change. There was another aspect of his successful appeal, sympathetically reported by the likes of Barry Sheerman: that there are deeply important issues we all have to deal with before the next election, and these must come ahead of mere factionalism. Specifically included was the pressing need to do something about climate change - even though such measures will be unpopular, as any MP knows. That stood out.
Think again of the context: a great deal of demoralisation, at many levels, of Labour MPs. To be told that there is a higher purpose you are serving, a problem of great weight that nobody else can solve, is a particularly dangerous idea (I almost said meme) at that kind of moment. It can cause you to follow paths that James Lovelock and I would agree are not only complete tosh but very damaging to the mass of humanity. (Worth taking in the import of the agreement. Neither of us is that dumb, at least in my worldview.)
There is often volition involved in deception. But the worst forms are where it's buried under a shared sense of enlightenment and purpose. That's the most shocking thing about reading the accounts of ordinary Germans caught up in mass murder of innocent women and children from 1941 onwards: a genuine belief in serving a higher purpose, however difficult the work. (Beware, BNP, beware.)
The moral compass of contemporary culture needs the most searching investigation in the global warming mitigation area, as Lovelock has done well to argue. Given the scepticism expressed in opinion polls and the strong commitment of the EU to the scam - where another form of scepticism has been made manifest in the latest real poll - it would serve democracy well if one of our main parties embarked on such a radical exercise, scientific foundations and all.
Nick Cohen has quite rightly been asking for more courage in public life. Here's the perfect arena.
No,its not so much that they decided to believe him, more that they decided not to venture out into the cold, where the rest of us live, until they absolutely have to.
ReplyDeleteCircus monkey, thou speakest the truth. Have a banana.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that, as I lay hands on my pigs with wings.
ReplyDelete