'O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us. '
(Robert Burns, (1759 - 1796), 'To a Louse')
Hundreds of thousands of people have joined an
online ‘petition’ that Donald Trump not be admitted to the UK (tho’, as
far as is known, he has no plans at present to come here). This is on account of
his publicly-expressed views on Muslim immigration into the US. As a result, he
has already been denied various privileges; in Scotland, and perhaps elsewhere.
And thousands have ‘petitioned' that the new UK
heavyweight boxing champion of the world, Tyson Fury, should be barred from the
BBC’s sports personality of the year competition because of his publicly-expressed
views on sex, gender, religion and much else. So far our monochrome, politically
correct BBC has not pulled the plug. No doubt Mr Trump will not be arranging a
trip to visit the UK in the near future, nor will Mr Fury win this particular
contest. Safe predictions.
I have no stake in either of these petitions, nor am
I mentioning them simply on account of the way they have the effect, deliberate
or not, of narrowing down conversation, if not of making certain topics taboo. But
I would like briefly to mention one or two questions not that such as these close down, but that
they raise. Not about the petitions, but about the petitioners.
Besides the consequence of influencing
public opinion in the short term, and the particular causes that such petitions
generally favour, what is of equal or of more interest is the psychoIogy or the
morality of the petitioners. No doubt what the they petition about may raise important moral principles, while at the same time making discussion of them more, not
less, difficult. They are not a contribution to discussion, but silencers of it.
But what I wonder is this: do the
box-tickers (that should be, I suppose, 'button-pushers') ever smile at themselves, even as they protest? Or do they live
lives of 24/7 seriousness and solemnity? The American journalist H.L. Mencken
once remarked that the definition of puritanism is the haunting fear that
someone, somewhere may be happy. Are the petitioners a new generation of Mencken
puritans, virtue-signalling for all their worth, but glumly and with tight lips. But if they do smile, do
they ever smile at themselves?
Blasphemy was once a crime, then it was bad bad
taste, and now, at a time when the current PM can publicly allow himself to take
the name of the Saviour in vain, (to curse, as used to be said), not even that. In the course of these changes
in public mores, Christian people have had to learn to laugh at themselves (or they should have), to put up with The Life of Brian (remember it?) and with blaspheming media more generally, and to cursing more generally. They have had to learn to smile and to be polite, when all the while their hearts
ache. They have learned by experience what we were told some time ago, that to be angry does not work the righteousness of God. Christians have had to learn not to take themselves seriously even as they
are mocked by others. Otherwise, in 2015, madness would beckon. Besides encouraging modesty, of not
thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to, laughing at oneself has an oddly
calming effect, doesn’t it? Haven't tried it? It is recommended.
Besides encouraging modesty, this change - from supporting imprisonment for blasphemy to
laughter at it and to smiling at oneself - is a good development, don’t you think, whatever its costs? For
always to get one’s way is surely corrupting. That’s why young children are
restrained from throwing everything out of the pram and taught to recognize
that ’no’ differs from ‘yes’ and from ‘sometimes’. There are occasions when
youngsters have to put up with what they don’t like, despite the odd tantrum.
It is an important part of growing up. The ability to laugh at oneself is another part.
I suppose on-line petitions might be
compared to the tantrums or foot-stamping. For neither the world-view of Muslims
nor that of current virtue-signallers appears to encompass the idea
that there are folk who take another view than theirs, and who find this and
that feature of their ethical outlook, or their political views, amusing. To
Muslims, cartoons of the prophet and jokes about beards are not funny. Is anything funny? (Do current efforts to acclimatise the Muslim
population include sessions on English humour, I wonder? Not likely.) The
others, the politically-correct, are prudish over certain contrary views being expressed loud and clear. Such speech
is, they say, outrageous, deeply offensive. For anyone to publicly express views that others disagree with - provide the traffic is going one way - is an invasion of the 'safe space' that
they are entitled to protect. What’s funny about anything? Not much.
