If you want to understand the mentality of 21st-century Leftists, you need to read a writer who died decades before they were born. Aldous Huxley is best known as the author of the dystopian novel Brave New World. But, in my view, his most chillingly brilliant lines are to be found in a foreword he supplied for an edition of Samuel Butler’s Erewhon, in 1933.
“The surest way to work up a crusade in favour of some good cause,” wrote Huxley, “is to promise people that they will have a chance of maltreating someone… To be able to destroy with a good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behaviour ‘righteous indignation’ – this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”
I remember those words every time I read about the gleeful cruelty of modern progressive “activists”. Such as the anti-Israel protesters who have taken to targeting Luke Charters, the Labour MP for York Outer.
Last week, Mr Charters has revealed, a group of masked thugs flung a tin of baked beans at him in the street, while chanting, “Labour, Labour, genocide.” Then, on Saturday, around 20 of them tried to block the entrance to his constituency surgery, while bellowing, “Luke Charters, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” As a result, he says, several constituents were too scared to attend meetings they’d arranged with him.
What on earth could possess someone to think it’s acceptable to hurl a tin at an MP (or, indeed, anyone?). Huxley knew. These foaming narcissists clearly believe that their cause is so unimpeachably righteous, they’re entitled to bully anyone who doesn’t share their fanaticism. And they do it with the most jubilant relish.
If you want to understand the mentality of 21st-century Leftists, you need to read a writer who died decades before they were born. Aldous Huxley is best known as the author of the dystopian novel Brave New World. But, in my view, his most chillingly brilliant lines are to be found in a foreword he supplied for an edition of Samuel Butler’s Erewhon, in 1933.
“The surest way to work up a crusade in favour of some good cause,” wrote Huxley, “is to promise people that they will have a chance of maltreating someone… To be able to destroy with a good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behaviour ‘righteous indignation’ – this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”
I remember those words every time I read about the gleeful cruelty of modern progressive “activists”. Such as the anti-Israel protesters who have taken to targeting Luke Charters, the Labour MP for York Outer.
Last week, Mr Charters has revealed, a group of masked thugs flung a tin of baked beans at him in the street, while chanting, “Labour, Labour, genocide.” Then, on Saturday, around 20 of them tried to block the entrance to his constituency surgery, while bellowing, “Luke Charters, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” As a result, he says, several constituents were too scared to attend meetings they’d arranged with him.
What on earth could possess someone to think it’s acceptable to hurl a tin at an MP (or, indeed, anyone?). Huxley knew. These foaming narcissists clearly believe that their cause is so unimpeachably righteous, they’re entitled to bully anyone who doesn’t share their fanaticism. And they do it with the most jubilant relish.