Decadent and Immoral? You must be from the west then.

Forgot to mention this, also from last week’s Observer.

On commenting on Tory MP, John Hayes, angst dribblings in the Spectator about Muslims being right to hold us in contempt for our decadent ways, Cristina Odone opines that it’s not just 32% of Muslims who believe that “Western Society is decadent and immoral,” but that there are “a number of others who see their values trashed by the liberal establishment.”

These people who “believe in self-restraint… in family life… in divine judgement and in judging others” are infuriated to “find themselves scorned as fundamentalists for holding the same core values that only recently were shared by the whole of society.”

She never says exactly what these core values are, nor when Britain as a “whole” departed ways with them, but she states that, “Britons cannot restore the old value system easily. But they can stop mocking the moderates who take issue with the present lax moral climate.” This is because “By deriding their dissent, they are pushing a basically innocuous force into strident outbursts or, worse, violence.”

Now, have we got that boys and girls? Lax moral climate UNNACCEPTABLE. Violence UNDERSTANDABLE.

It reminded me of the time that my mom told me in all seriousness that in the Good Old Days men never swore in front of women. It was seen a such an insult that if one ever did, then quite rightly other men would beat them up. Swearing BAD. Beating someone up GOOD.

Also, it would seem that though all decent-thinking people have gone to pains to try not to let the Islamic militant violence taint the whole of Islam, it is all right for the political right in this country to dob the whole of the western hemisphere with the wash of moral decay because some people binge drink, and others on live TV stick wine bottles up where they really aren't meant to be.

I happen to be a very moral person actually. But the morals of the left are different to the morals of the right. No doubt John and Cristina would consider my morals the "wrong type" of morals.

To be fair to Cristina though, although she believes “at some point” that the country “declined into a Roman-style moral torpor” she is “not sure” that John Hayes’ insinuation that watching Big Brother makes you less sympathetic to the victims of random attacks.

The whole article left me with three questions:

One) Shouldn’t the 32% of Muslims polled by YouGov who said that Western Society is decadent and immoral, have then been asked “and do you think this a bad thing?”

Two) When was the fabled point-in-time when the whole of Britain stopped sharing Cristina Odone’s core values?

Three) How come Cristina Odone earns a good living doing this type of thing when she’s shit?