The kindness paradox
The pre-eminent virtue for individuals is being weaponised in the culture wars
Last week, BBC radio’s Moral Maze on which I’m a panellist discussed kindness.
This was loosely pegged to the brouhaha over remarks made in the Sun by journalist Jeremy Clarkson. In an ill-advised display of polemic exaggerated for comic effect, Clarkson wrote that he dreamt of Meghan Markle being paraded naked through the streets while crowds threw lumps of excrement at her. His remarks went beyond the bounds of common decency and he duly apologised.
Kindness seemed an appropriate topic for the last Moral Maze before the Christmas and new year break. As the panel’s chairman Michael Buerk put it on the show’s website, the seasonal “ideal of goodwill” was being sorely tested by the absence of kindness, courtesy and respect in our culture wars.
This was duly proved once again after I took up the same theme of kindness in my Times of London column (£) yesterday — and promptly became the target of a distinct absence of goodwill.
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