Letters | 14 June 2018

Exacerbating incivility

Sir: I agree wholeheartedly with David Goodhart that if our politics is to ever recover from its current vicious state then all of us need to do our bit to ‘stand up for civility’ (‘The age of incivility’, 9 June). Goodhart explains well that what has ‘gone wrong’ with our politics is exacerbated by, but not entirely due to, social media. If the mainstream media were also to stop and ask whether it has contributed to the problem, that could be a positive step.

The Spectator, for example, has at least two regular columnists in Rod Liddle and James Delingpole who seem to find it difficult to express a political opinion without putting their hatred for people they disagree with on display. In any political debate, if there are valid, serious points to be made, surely they can be made without malice? In their mission to uphold free speech, media can make a choice to uphold free speech underpinned by intellectual or moral integrity — or not. If the commercial realities of the digital era have made it harder for long-standing, quality publications to do their bit to stand up for civility, then perhaps it is time to acknowledge that.
Helen Jackson

Saffron Walden, Essex

The point of kindness

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Sir: Cosmo Landesman (‘Too kind’, 9 June) writes powerfully about kindness having recently been (mis)appropriated by self-help gurus. But it is certainly not new. Two thousand years ago there was a carpenter’s son who developed quite a following in these parts. In fact, his suggestions were so radical in undermining both Jewish and Roman status quo, that they conspired to put him to death. The nub of his teaching? ‘To love your neighbour as yourself.’ The thing is, it only heals the world if your acts of kindness are actually intended to benefit others, and not yourself.