Institutionalised misanthropy
If I was editing The Blog Digest this year (and I’m not), this by Alex Harrowell would be up front. I’m not going to quote it, just go and read it.
I suppose it struck a chord with me because over the years I’ve being trying to reach my own synthesis on the psychology of government ministers and other public ’servants’ seemingly indifferent to the suffering of their fellow man. I may be some time.
Let’s just say that Alex and I are on the quest for the hidden human in these people. We haven’t found it yet but there’s a nugget of hope at the heart of our hunt nevertheless.
Posted on September 30th, 2007 at 6:44pm under Evil of banality
Justin,
As a matter of interest, did you read the very next (and final paragraph) of that Sarah Sands article?
I think that it puts a rather different spin on her piece than that implied (not to say that the thrust of his article is not correct, merely that I consider the selective quoting there to carry shades of intellectual dishonesty).
Alex may or may not agree: I guess I won’t know until the comment comes out of the other end of his moderation queue…
DK
Intellectual dishonesty? Oh, come off it Devil.
My Pole explained, in fluent English, that he wanted a bit of work-life balance. He had acquired a baby and a Rottweiller, like his neighbours. He was content. How could I reply without sounding like a resurrected Leona Helmsley? My Pole merely wants to live like an Englishman.
‘My Pole’!? ‘A Rottweiller, like his neighbours’?! Perleeeze!
Her last paragraph confirms everything Alex says and I can’t see a different spin whatsoever. Or do you seriously think she was being sympathetic?
I agree with Mike. That last paragraph doesn’t change anything other than to emphasise that she despises the working classes but she despises the Polish working class a little less than the English.