SHAMELESS: A RESPONSE TO DANNY FINKELSTEIN.
In politics shame it seems is out of fashion, passé, uncool,
indeed to invoke the idea that someone should be ashamed of, for example,
refusing to tell the electorate precisely who will be affected by £10 billion
worth of welfare cuts, is it seems being
‘childish.’
ALEX TALBOT @ALEXTALBOT116 APR 30 HTTP://WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM/POLITICS/2015/APR/29/DANNY-ALEXANDER-TORY-PLANS-WELFARE-CUTS-CHILD-BENEFITS
… STILL NO SENSE OF SHAME @DANNYTHEFINK ?
BTW I COME FROM FAMILY OF 5. CHILD BENEFIT VITAL £
FOR MY MOTHER.
DANIEL FINKELSTEIN @DANNYTHEFINK
@ALEXTALBOT116 YOUR SUGGESTION THAT
SHAME IS APPROPRIATE IS CHILDISH.
8:11 AM - 30 APR.
Note the absence of argument, the smart derisory response
with its implied stifled snigger, from an otherwise intelligent commentator. It
seems that shame is now to be treated in the same was as ‘evil.’ Dismissed as an
anachronism part of the language of the politically naïve untutored in the ways
of realpolitik.
Shuan Wright PCC Rochdale Shameless before Commons Committee |
If the concept of shame does continue to be dismissed in
this way it is not without consequences. Shame, a feeling that some actions are
unworthy, incur disgrace and for which we must pay a penalty both in social disapproval
and in the intense discomfort of having done violence to our conscience. As I
have written elsewhere
we are now beginning to see the emergence of the truly shameless individual. The
bankers who destroyed their banks and the wider economy who still demanded that
their bonuses be honoured, the NHS executives who ran hospitals that allowed
the sick to be neglected and left to die but continue to draw their
considerable salaries. Those who presided over the industrial scale rape and
abuse of young girls in Rochdale, who then refuse to own that they did anything
amiss and seek to stay glued to their well remunerated posts. The heads of the utility companies and companies
like Amazon and Starbucks, who demand a free ride in the countries out of which
they make their immense profits and of course our very own Chancellor of the
Exchequer. All of them I suspect would snigger at the notion that they should
be ashamed.
These truly shameless individuals, the booted and suited sociopaths,
increasingly representative of the age in which we live, now hover like grim
reapers over the decline of social cohesion and anything that might be
reasonably called a civilised society.