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Thursday 10 September 2020

Sinister and Vain



Mighty pride, with its thousand baleful heads, stirred his wretched heart. Vanity, that powerful agent within us, works us measureless evil.


Victor Hugo – The Man Who Laughs (1869)


The UK coronavirus debacle could be sinister in a totalitarian political sense, but it could also be the outcome of extremely stubborn human vanity. This would be vanity where the main actors are absolutely unable to accept the consequences of being horribly wrong about the severity of the pandemic and their gross overreaction to it.

The consequences for expert advisors could be a blight on their careers as government experts with all the loss of professional standing, personal kudos and perhaps income.

The consequence for Boris Johnson could be ignominious political failure, the loss of his position as PM before he goes full term or the loss of the next general election.

The consequences for Matt Hancock could be the loss of his ministerial position, his political ambitions and any personal loss such a public failure may imply.

It is easy enough to see vanity at work here, but this is where vanity and sinister totalitarian trends join hands because totalitarian trends appeal to people who cannot be wrong. There is a powerful element of vanity in that too.

So sinister it is.

4 comments:

AndrewZ said...

I'm reminded of a quote from American political commentator Richard Fernandez (@wretchardthecat):
"The biggest reason people don't learn from experience is pride. Pride is the single
biggest reason for human disaster."

Sam Vega said...

Yes, good point. Political parties can be seen as loose coalitions of the vain and self-righteous. That explains why they like to talk as if they were like-minded armies, but act like back-stabbing prima donnas.

Scrobs. said...

I take the view that displayed vanity tends to cause normal thinking citizens to start off doubting anything a politician says, then, after filtering out the BS, to form a personal view.

My latest emails on a local matter from Greg Clarke displayed all this, and the expectation of anything ever being resolved are almost non-existent.

However, we have had some sort of result on the very same subject from a different quarter, so, like some wag said once, 'half of advertising reaches the minds of people, but nobody knows which half'!

A K Haart said...

Andrew - yes it seems to be a major leadership issue. Yet many prominent failures fail so obviously that they must surely see that things haven't quite gone according to plan. Maybe they don't care as long as they can carry on blagging.

Sam - the back-stabbing can be amazing too, carried on by completely ruthless people who seem to be entirely unaware of their own inadequacies and the vulnerable nature of their own backs.

Scrobs - yet we still vote for the swine because there is always somebody even worse who might get in.