Impotence and platitudes

After every latest Islamist terror attack — the massacre of Manchester’s children being this week’s entry — we hear variations on a theme. “We stand with you,” say leaders of nations not yet hit.

After that, the chattering classes’ obfuscations flow, an attitude captured in the assertion heard on Monday’s Q&A that refrigerators are more dangerous than terrorists.

In the wider community, well the graphic below charts the progress from outrage to impotence.

Brendan O’Neill writes:

After the terror, the platitudes. And the hashtags. And the candlelit vigils. And they always have the same message: ‘Be unified. Feel love. Don’t give in to hate.’ The banalities roll off the national tongue. Vapidity abounds. A shallow fetishisation of ‘togetherness’ takes the place of any articulation of what we should be together for – and against.

And so it has been after the barbarism in Manchester. In response to the deaths of more than 20 people at an Ariana Grande gig, in response to the massacre of children enjoying pop music, people effectively say: ‘All you need is love.’

The disparity between these horrors and our response to them, between what happened and what we say, is vast. This has to change.

O’Neill’s entire essay can be read via the link below.

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