Nicola Sturgeon Hates the Tories

The First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, recently said over the BBC that she detested the Tories (the Conservatives) and all they stood for.Full marks to her for discerning what they stand for, at least in their present incarnation — they hardly know themselves. The nearest I can come up with is low taxation and high expenditure, which is unlikely to prove a feasible policy long-term, any more than is Ms. Sturgeon’s policy of high taxation and even higher expenditure. Another senior member of the Scottish National Party, and possible successor to Ms. Sturgeon, Angus Robertson, said that he hoped for a Tory-free Scotland.Even if he didn’t mean it in quite Hitler’s sense of a Jew-free Germany, which is not absolutely certain, what he said nevertheless indicates a desire for power untrammeled by such inconveniences as an opposition.This is not just a storm in the Scottish teacup. It discloses the state of mind in much of the west, even in the oldest established democracies. I suspect that many politicians, not only in Scotland, dream secretly of one-party states, without the constant irritation and fleabites of criticism.The most significant word in what Ms. Sturgeon said is “detests.” Detestation, or hatred, has always been by far the strongest political emotion, just as hatred of the rich — that is to say, those with more money than oneself — has always been much stronger than love of the poor.In the not distant past, however, it was not thought right or proper to admit openly to hatred or detestation of those of different opinion from oneself. And since feelings are influenced by the way in which they are expressed, controlling expressions of feeling helps to control the feelings themselves just as habit helps to form character. Open expression of hatred, far from assuaging or lessening it, only increases it. Far from being a release, open expression of detestation or hatred, turns our speech into an internal and external echo chamber.A sense of proportion is the beginning of political wisdom, and if you detest Tories in Scotland, what words or feelings will you have left for Vladimir Putin? And yet, it is supporters of the latter who have threatened, not without some plausibility, to annihilate the very country in which Ms. Sturgeon lives. She is like a person who complains in the middle of a famine that her soup is cold.Hatred has its gratifications, however, among which is an assurance that one is a highly moral person. After all, what reason could there be for hating, other than the defense of the good? Hatred is by far the easiest and most enjoyable way to be good.Therefore, hatred is a permanent temptation for anyone who holds any political opinions whatsoever, which is the great majority of us. The impulse to hatred can be controlled only by the habit of tolerance, which in turn is most likely to be exercised within a culture of tolerance which we seem increasingly to have lost. Such a culture is a rare achievement in human history, and not at all natural. Which is why the idea that liberal democracy is destined to triumph once and for all is completely mistaken.People of both the left and of the right now complain of the intolerance of people who disagree with them, which is the reason that they cannot bear to be in the same room or round the same dinner table with those of differing opinion. Intolerance is a vice from which only others suffer, never oneself. The way to protect oneself from it is never to meet people of opposing views or read what they, or the people who think like them, write.At the present, the intolerance of the left is far greater than that of the right, at least in intellectual circles, where intolerance is at its most destructive and dangerous, because ultimately it is ideas that make the world go round. One day, not yet on the horizon, it may be the intellectual right that becomes more intolerant that the intellectual left. As the saying painted on the sides of buses and taxis in Nigeria used to put it, “No condition is permanent,” and pendulums swing, often too far. We must guard against hatred. Hatred has no sense of proportion. It misidentifies dangers, exaggerating some and ignoring others, often more serious. It is self-replicating, like DNA. It justifies cruelty. Above all, it is fun. I hate it.

Nicola Sturgeon Hates the Tories

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