BS Summary: This article contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Indoctrination, and Slippery Slope, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 45.2% saturation with 364 hits. Analysis detected 1,925 faulty-reasoning hits from 806 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 65.9% and a BS Rank of 74% (5,767 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 73.70% of the article peer group.
Though Presidents Xi and Putin might be slightly ambivalent about what is, in the grand scheme of things, a bit of a small ministerial role, imagine the briefing crossing the desks in Beijing or Moscow: Britain’s safeguarding minister has just resigned because, in her words, the job was too ‘triggering’, as Natalie Fleet did this week.
They would scarcely believe that a senior British politician had cited such a silly-sounding reason for stepping down.
Politics is ultimately about exercising power, restraint and good judgement, especially under pressure.
It’s about responsibility.
A nation whose politicians struggle with the emotional demands of high office begins to look unserious.
Especially when the politicians are so open about their inability to cope.
Bafflingly, Fleet even used her resignation to congratulate herself, describing it as the ‘bravest thing I have ever done’.
I would like to take a moment to acknowledge Natalie Fleet’s past.
She was, as are so many, the victim of abuse at a startlingly young age.
She has spoken publicly about her traumatic experiences, and more power to her for it.
Nobody should belittle the genuine trauma she experienced: I’m certainly not about to.
Psychological injuries are lasting and society is right to treat survivors with compassion.
My concern is that, in the manner of her resignation, she has taken on the mantle of victimhood, painting herself as a member of the very group she has a moral obligation to protect.
Also, I worry that someone carrying those burdens should voluntarily assume responsibility for one of the most emotionally weighty ministerial briefs in government, only to abandon it later down the line.
Politics should be a serious affair, Labour group selfies, dancing Lib Dems and other such hijinks aside.
Public service has never been an easy calling.
Ministers are routinely expected to grapple with some of the darkest aspects of human life: child abuse, domestic violence, murder, terrorism, natural disasters, war.
The safeguarding brief that Fleet held is among the most emotionally demanding in government.
It meant a day job spent confronting the suffering of vulnerable people, adults and children alike.
I don’t think anyone could pretend that it’s a pleasant job.
And surely nobody debating whether or not to take the job in the first place would be under any illusions that it’s easy.
This is precisely why those who accept briefs like that of the minister for safeguarding must honestly judge – *before* taking office – whether they are capable of taking the burden, as should those promoting them to the position.
There is the same expectation in countless other professions.
Doctors deliver devastating diagnoses to families.
Police officers investigate horrific crimes.
Judges hear harrowing evidence – as do members of the public doing jury duty.
We recognise that these jobs take an immense psychological toll, and we rightly provide support for those who do them.
But we also expect those voluntarily entering these professions to make a sober assessment of whether they can perform the duties entrusted to them.
Ministers should be held to no lower a standard.
Quite the opposite.
Millions depend on the sobriety and steel of their judgement and on their willingness to shoulder the kind of responsibility few would relish.
Increasingly, the language of therapy has become the lingua franca of public life.
Words like ‘triggered’ in all their passive-voice pettiness were once used primarily in clinical contexts to describe genuine psychological concerns.
They are now routinely invoked to explain why people can no longer fulfil their responsibilities.
Feeling overwhelmed seems less like an obstacle to overcome these days; it has become, in Fleet’s case, sufficient justification for stepping away altogether.
I don’t want to argue in favour of reviving the old British ‘stiff upper lip’ or to pretend that mental suffering is unreal or unimportant.
Not at all.
And compassion for our fellow man is an important virtue.
But so is resilience.
A healthy society should encourage both, not allow one to eclipse the other.
We should be led by people who can stare coldly into the abyss.
If our instinct is to lower our expectations and make allowances whenever emotional difficulty arises (especially for highly paid people in plum jobs, who have willingly taken on their responsibilities in good faith), we risk cultivating a culture devoid of fortitude.
Courage, after all, isn’t the absence of feeling – it’s the *acceptance* of fear, pain or vulnerability, and facing up to one’s duties anyway.
I sympathise with Natalie Fleet.
I suspect that Presidents Putin and Xi do not.
I imagine, as and when they learn of our leading figures’ weaknesses, they will be rubbing their hands in glee.
We’re easy pickings in the soft and decadent West, after all, if our ministers are so easily triggered.
**James Dixon** is a Glasgow-based novelist, poet and playwright.
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0%flagged-word coverageJames Dixon
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