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The McCanns’ stoic refusal to exhibit emotion in public
caused much hostility |
SPOILT ROTTEN: THE TOXIC GLUT OF SENTIMENTALITY Once upon a time, the
British had a stiff upper lip. At Waterloo, Lord Uxbridge was hit by a
cannon ball while on a horse next to the Duke of Wellington and merely
exclaimed: “By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg!” to which Wellington replied:
“By God, sir, so you have!”
The
remains of said leg were then amputated without antiseptic or
anaesthetic and Uxbridge’s only reaction was: “The knives seem rather
blunt.” He later refused a huge pension of £1,200 a year on account of
his injuries.
Adversity used to be something to be endured and, if possible, overcome
without making a fuss. Children were seen and not heard. Respectability
prohibited washing dirty linen in public and only foreigners
(particularly volatile Latins) were given to embarrassing public
histrionics.
What
on earth has happened in the past half century to produce such unBritish
excesses as Diana-mania, the Jeremy Kyle Show, political correctness,
the compensation culture and public paranoia about everything from
smoking to sunshine?
Theodore Dalrymple’s excellent Spoilt Rotten offers some
thought‑provoking insights and explains how emotional constipation in
our national psyche has become emotional diarrhoea.
It
all started in school. On the old Jesuit principle “Give us a child at
five and he is ours for life”,left-wing educational theorists
systematically undermined traditional values and disciplines. Schools
were not for imparting and storing knowledge but places of “activity and
experience”.
Teaching spelling and grammar was boring; children should discover the
rules for themselves. As Dalrymple tartly observes, that is like putting
a child under an apple tree to discover Newton’s theory of gravity.
Coupled with a collapse of discipline, the result was predictable.
Nowadays, children from dysfunctional middle-class families are given
too many liberties, the benefit of the doubt when it’s clear they’re in
the wrong. Problems have been exacerbated by family breakdown as
marriage has been officially emptied of moral, social, practical and
contractual content. Frighteningly, 79 per cent of children have a TV in
their bedrooms, far more than have their father at home. Not only do too
many have no proper parental role model, what they see in films, TV and
computers anaesthetises them to antisocial behaviour.
Children have to “have their own space” and “do their own thing”. It is
anathema to demand they control themselves for decorum or the
convenience of others. Public displays of drunkenness and other nuisance
behaviour which would once have led to prosecution or social ostracism
are now par for the course every weekend.
We
have created an unprecedentedly egocentric generation, where giving in
to your emotions is a human right. This childish and uncontrolled
emotionalism is carried on into adulthood. Diana-mania would have been
unthinkable in the Fifties. After Diana’s death, the air of menace
towards the Royal Family for not grieving enough in public was very
ugly. The Queen, ever a paragon of dignity and self-control, was almost
dragged by tumbril to broadcast on TV and visit the mountains of flowers
When sentimentality becomes a
mass public phenomenon, it becomes aggressively manipulative.
The McCanns’
stoic refusal to exhibit emotion in public caused much hostility. The
internet was awash with abuse: the Daily Mirror had to close its website
devoted to the case. Some erroneously thought, as they didn’t “care”
enough to beat their breasts publicly, they must have had a hand in
their
daughter’s
disappearance.
Such
mass emotionalism is also a powerful stimulus to insincerity as it often
demands people express sentiments they cannot feel. Tony Blair is the
prime exponent of bogus sentimentality.
This
has adverse repercussions in many other areas. For example, the
MacPherson report on the Stephen Lawrence case concluded the police were
“institutionally racist” because if a member of an ethnic minority
perceived their conduct as racist, it was racist. Full stop. No
assessment necessary.
Such
an attitude makes ordinary, unself-conscious human relations impossible
and shows how enforced multi-culturalism tends to divide rather than
unite. It also undermines the rule of law and creates a feeling of
injustice.
Sentimentality does no harm if confined to private life. All normal
people respond to emotional stimuli like cuddly animals or saccharine
music but, in Dalrymple’s words: “As the well-spring of public policy it
is as disastrous as it is prevalent.” |
