Lord Freud, Theresa, and the evil of workfare: The ‘fragile artifice’ of morality
In a long essay in yesterday’s Guardian, John Gray notes that our leaders talk frequently about conquering the forces of evil – for example when Barak Obama vows to destroy ISIS’s ‘brand of evil’. But he believes that this rhetoric illuminates a failure to accept that cruelty and conflict are basic human traits.
John Gray’s essay – I urge you to read it here – refers us back to an ‘old-fashioned understanding’ that is ‘a central insight of western religion’, as well as Greek tragic drama and the work of the Roman historians that ‘evil is a propensity to destructive and self-destructive behaviour that is humanly universal’. He adds: ‘The restraints of morality exist to curb this innate human frailty; but morality is a fragile artifice that regularly breaks down. Dealing with evil requires an acceptance that it never goes away.’
His essay continues: ‘When large populations collude with repressive…
View original post 1,491 more words
Same Difference 
Trackbacks