It is more than fashionable now, it is practically de rigueur, to insist that, in spite of their lack of libraries, cathedrals and space programmes, dolphins, crows and bonobos come incredibly close to human intelligence, ‘altruism’, language and imaginative empathy. It is normal to talk in terms of the ‘bee-pocalyse’ and decimation of the insect population that humans have caused even though this is somewhat in doubt. Whatever your views on climate change are, a performative garment-rending over our destruction of the climate by humans who are seen only as, not an integral part of nature, but alien predators and rapists of it is very much in vogue. Apologies for oppressing, and a restorative identifying with, any number of ‘punched down’ to groups in supposed hierarchies, be they black people, gay people, illegal immigrants or Muslims are accessories you cannot do without.
In all of the above cases noisy and ostentatious apologies are made for our failure to attain a zinging platonic ideal of stewardship, courtesy, thoughtfulness, consideration, unselfishness and compassion. These apologies reach such a pitch that they can be described as a form of almost competitive humility boasting in which great pleasure is taken in abasing and pulling down into the mud the quality of being human at all and being a modern western human being at that. Failing to notice that no other creature is capable of doing anything so perversely sophisticated, we fall over ourselves to repudiate our humanity, our inheritance and our culture to the point where an inverse ratio is set up between our virtue and our trashing of what made us what we are. I trash my culture therefore I am. And, yet, it is obvious that such an orgy of self-hatred is dysfunctional psychologically; the reverse of mental health. So what, exactly, is going on?
The Spectator columnist, James Bartholomew, invented the excellent term – ‘virtue-signalling’. You would have to say that humility boasting is a new sub species in this taxonomical genus. Then there is a recent coinage – ‘humble-bragging’ which means, according to Merriam Webster “To make a seemingly modest, self-critical, or casual statement or reference that is meant to draw attention to one's admirable or impressive qualities or achievements.” Usually this tends to mean something pretty trivial and harmless like saying “Ugh, my phone is so old! I'm embarrassed to take it with me during my dates with supermodels and actors.” However, the kind of humility boasting I am citing has implications of a far more profound pathology than such harmless vanity and of a sinister mechanism which it leads into.
It should be said, of course, that politeness, thoughtfulness, consideration, unselfishness and compassion are all good things per se. Indeed, it is easy to argue that humility is a vital virtue. However, when the real reason for talking about the animals, the planet or groups deemed to be oppressed in society is not genuine concern for them (are they just means to an end?) but, rather, the desire to parade one’s thoughtfulness credentials and advertise one’s humility that, surely, can’t be a good thing. Perhaps it indicates a sin far worse than lacking any of those listed qualities or concern for the oppressed – a kind of spiritual pride whereby we burnish our spiritual nails on our lapels because we are so pleased with how good we are. Is not this kind of smugness one of the most unattractive qualities of all? It is the quality exhibited by Little Jack Horner who
Sat in the corner,
Eating his Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plumb,
And said, “What a good boy am I!
This weird moral pathology then becomes sinister. By loudly protesting our self-abasement thoughtfulness, considerateness, politeness, compassion and unselfishness to the point where they are established as currency just as Bitcoin is established by means of the assertion of confidence in it we begin to accumulate unopposable moral capital. It is not long before we notice that, as humans are, uniquely, moral animals, reputation matters above all things and that perceived moral capital may be a means to power. There comes a point where we realise we can dare those we designate as having less moral capital than us to displease us at the cost of our outing their lack of publicly certified compassion, thoughtfulness and unselfishness. In effect this means controlling the discourse by a kind of blackmail; a manipulation by fear. We are in the territory of the Soviet and Maoist denouncers. One is also put in mind of the manipulative machinations of Dickens’ ‘ever so ‘umble’ Uriah Heep.
All of this works so well because we live in what the 1960s sociologist, Guy Debord, called ‘The Society of the Spectacle’ where everything is enacted on TV, on video on Youtube or Tik Tok or on social media. Because everything is now ‘performative’ the important distinction between Sein und Schein or appearance and reality in human moral affairs has ceased to matter so much. People can be cancelled for a perceived lack of compassion even though, in their souls, they may, in truth, be more compassionate people than accusers who are so smug about their compassionate and caring natures. They know this and many are cowed by it.
This has a political dimension too. The cliché in currency is that the left has cornered the market and gained the monopoly in compassion for our fellow man while the right is populated by heartless, selfish money grubbers interested only in feathering their own nests and in Number One. This narrative has been forced on us to the extent that, any time a government of a slightly rightish hue is in power, it can be manipulated by the Jack Horners of the left who persistently brandish the veiled threat of exposing those flinty hearts for what they are by referring to the widely accepted cliché that gained its currency when Theresa May sold the pass and accepted the narrative by inventing the phrase – ‘The Nasty Party.’ Seeing Conservative governments running scared and kow-towing to the compassion shibboleths is all too common a sight. It explains endless recent u-turns by the Johnson government. No sooner do they catch wind of this tactic being employed than they run for the hills and do everything the media demands of them. In this sense the Jack Horners in the media or on the left call the tune of nearly everything that happens whether they be in power or not. De facto they are in power.
The modern world in the West is put in motion by a Prime Mover who has found the fulcrum on which he should place his lever. We should be extremely suspicious of Little Jack Horner.
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