I was reading Danny Finkelstein in The Times this morning. His piece was urbane, civilised, a measured appreciation of Winston Churchill. The great man's anti-Nazi steadfastness had saved the lives of Finkelstein ancestors, yet Churchill had been an avid and brutally-efficient colonialist and a believer in the virtues of Empire.
Churchill, Finkelstein concluded, was a flawed man and in the light of modern progress we should not be afraid to judiciously call him out.
Of course I don't agree with this lazy, self-serving and complacent restatement of the common wisdom. I reject the entire paradigm.
But who cares what I think? And if Danny Finkelstein lost his establishment pulpit and wrote his very same thoughts from this morning in an obscure blog from the provinces, who would care about his views?
I read somewhere recently that ideas in themselves never count. Never. Only when they are instantiated in effective organisations do they begin to matter. The transition from ideas per se to schools of thought.
My problem is that I survey the visionary movements available right now and don't agree with any of them.
