There was a time when shame meant something. In politics, it was usually associated with its contrary, ‘doing the honourable thing’, as, in the course of the normal cycle of the parliamentary year, politicians of all hues would resign and then publicly admit to their faults, their disappointment at letting down their family, friends, and the electorate in general. The scenes became almost clichéd in their identifiable tropes: the tearful but resolute wife standing by her disgraced husband; the request that they be allowed to return to their private life; the media quietly disengaging from their fallen prey to go chase the next big beast caught at the wrong watering hole.
But then something happened…
You could say that the world changed. You could even say it was the growing acceptability of a popularised form of moral relativism, which meant that many who would have at one time called for a politician to do the ‘right thing’, no longer felt themselves able to claim to be ‘whiter-than-white’. The argument runs: we each share the burdens of living in the world and we all eventually fall, a little way at least, so who are we to judge what is ‘right’ or indeed ‘honourable’ in this world of uncertainty? This has become the stock answer for many. It infects our schools, colleges, and universities, where youth is no longer taught how to be judgemental. The very notion is anathema to modern academia. All they are certain of is their own self loathing.
Yet for many more people, there is an even simpler creed to follow. It is that of the alcohol-fuelled nihilism found operating in any suburban park or provincial town centre on a Friday night. To those locked in this mindset, politicians are just one more thing among very many that have let them down. They soak themselves in despair as easily as they knock back the alcho-pops. Political corruption is inevitable. The world stinks. There is nothing we can do about it. And so too, all they are certain of it their own self loathing.
The John Prescott saga has come to symbolise the extent to which self-loathing has spread through the collective psyche. He has no shame because, as a nation, our shame is collectively so much greater. There will be no equivalent to the Poll Tax riots trying to oust Prescott. There are no lines of the aggrieved picketing Downing Street. Yet many of us are deeply offended by Prescott. The blogosphere is alive with outrage directed towards the Deputy Prime Minister. Even in a Labour Party heartland, he is discussed in many a bus queue, and rarely to his credit. The character of the corruption emanating from just this one man would have been enough to bring down at least a Tory government, but possibly two or three. Yet still, Prescott will not fall. He is the political equivalent of that old joke which sees a lumberjack cut through the base of a tree and still find that it refuses to fall.
And in his defence: why should he? In the popular media, Angus Deayton and Jamie Theakston, have both returned to prime-time television within months of the sort of shame that had previously ended the careers of many minor celebrities. Craig Charles may well be the next phoenix to rise from the burning wreck of his career and who will complain if he does? Redemption is now assumed because in the vices of others, we are reminded of ourselves.
Even when we have what we believe is an old-fashioned scandal, involving a ministerial resignation, it is only something spun out for the cameras. Peter Mandelson has yet to meet a scandal that can defeat him. And when the Liberal Democrats held an election for party leader, two of its candidates were shamed by the media. In the case of Mark Oaten, it was enough to make him to withdraw from the Liberal front bench. Yet within a few months, Oaten returned to the public eye, blaming a ‘mid-life crisis’ for his faults. On BBC1’s Question Time, he looked a little shabby — unshaven, wearing no tie — but in no way appearing ashamed. That would not suite the air of the penitent he carries about him these days.
Set against this, we have a Tory Party trying to reinvent itself. Redemption is high on David Cameron’s agenda. In seeking to offer redemption to the traditional targets of Tory censure, he is trying to offer redemption to the party itself. Perhaps he does speak to a nation that no longer believes in retribution, punishment, or even shame, but more certain is the fact that it is too easy to mock him for asking us all to ‘hug a hoody‘. He has identified one of the prevalent modes by which youths now disengage from the world around them. Made to feel ashamed of their natural will to form judgements, youths are humbled when they should be outspoken, feel unworthy when they should be self-confidently arrogant.
Need we remember that penitents traditionally wore hoods, so they could see out without being recognised? Made to feel guilty of every judgement we and our forefathers have ever made, we have all adopted the habit of penitents. All of us, in one way or another, have become hoodies. And when we all feel so ashamed, uncertain about what is right, then the only real victors are those people who cannot feel shame, wear no hoods, and are brazen in the face of their utter disgrace.
