Wednesday 24 March 2010

A Tyranny of Busybodies

Today I was leafing through dd's collection of Charlie Brooker essays, "The Hell of it All". One article really struck me. It dates from 2008 and is a rather eerie portent of what was about to happen to us home edders. I just love this bit where he borrows from C S Lewis. It sums up why it's so frustrating to be subjected to well-meaning but ill-judged scrutiny:-

"Once upon a time, in between scrawling allegorical fables about lions and wardrobes, CS Lewis said something prescient. "Of all tyrannies," he wrote, "a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." "


Better start queuing for my Freedom of Choice permit ...

1 comment:

  1. It is the best explanation for the danger of "for your own good" that I know. I refer to it a lot! Excellent stuff ;-)

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