Geneva, Switzerland

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Walking recently in a quiet quarter of Geneva—is there any other kind of quarter in Geneva?—I looked up and saw something strange. Everywhere in Geneva is expensive, and this was not the least expensive part of it. Draped from the window of a flat in a fin de siècle building, a flat that must have been worth millions, were three flags: two rainbow flags with the words “No War” inscribed on them, and one Palestinian flag.

I am no expert on Hamas’ attitude to homosexuality, and I am unsure as to what kind of freedom is espoused in the slogan “Palestine shall be free from the river to the sea,” except to say that it is unlikely to include free inquiry into the historical origins and intellectual foundations of Islam. What interests me here is the state of mind of people who drape such flags in such situations.

In his novel Bleak House, Charles Dickens satirized the tendency of certain middle-class persons to concern themselves more with distant problems that they were largely powerless to effect, rather than with the problems under their very noses, about which they could do something practical. Mrs. Jellyby concerns herself in Bleak House exclusively with the condition of the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger, while neglecting her own children. Dickens called this telescopic philanthropy.

There is also telescopic morality, which is the feeling that, by espousing some cause in the abstract, and advertising that one is doing so, one is actually being a virtuous person. It matters little whether the advertisement of one’s virtuous sentiments has any effect: Life for some people is perpetual psychotherapy or psychodrama, and by sloganeering one has discharged oneself, so to speak, of the onerous duty to be good.

No doubt there are still some enthusiasts for war who think that a large war would finally put some backbone into a younger generation rendered soft, spoiled, degenerate, and decadent by peace and prosperity. Perhaps there are also some who think of war as a test of chivalry—a little like the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, at the beginning of which the British commander allegedly said, “Gentlemen of France, fire first,” to which the French commander allegedly replied, “Gentlemen, we never fire first.” (About 20,000 men died in the ensuing battle.)

But while some people argue for a particular war as being the lesser of two evils, few people believe in or argue for the benefit of war as such. I cannot recall ever having seen a flag waved, not in favor of a particular war, but for war, any old war, against any old enemy, so long as there is a war.

Even those in favor of a particular war often change their minds. At the outset of the War of Jenkins’ Ear, in 1739, Sir Robert Walpole, the first British prime minister, said of the popular enthusiasm for the declaration of war against Spain, “They now ring the bells, but they will soon wring their hands.” This has happened many times in history—the First World War being perhaps the most dramatic example—and no doubt it will happen again, since an increase in human wisdom is not to be expected in the near future.

I have developed a kind of mental allergy to slogans brandished as virtuous that do not say anything that anyone (apart from lunatics) would contradict or oppose. Sloganeering in general is the death of thought, and the only slogan I have ever really appreciated was that of a man with a sandwich board who used to walk up and down Oxford Street in London, warning the population against the seven deadly proteins. They were supposedly connected in some way with the seven deadly sins. The man was serene in the confidence of the value of his message, but I think that he must have long ago fallen prey to something other than the seven deadly proteins.

There are certain symbols to which I have a deep aversion also; for example, the dove of peace. At best it has been used by well-meaning but ineffectual Mrs. Jellyby types, but at worst by highly militaristic regimes such as the Soviet, that impoverished their populations by concentrating the wealth of the country on armaments.

Before going to Geneva, I caught a train in England that had a white ribbon—one of those horrible little ribbons that the morally complacent and self-satisfied wear on their lapels—which was supposed to indicate that the train company was opposed to violence against women. It is surely a long time since anyone recited and meant literally the old proverb “A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be,” and I do not expect one day to see people wearing a ribbon of a hitherto-unused color promoting violence toward women. No doubt the train in question had carried quite a few wife-beaters in its time; quite rightly, for the purpose of a train is to transport people, not to prevent them from being violent to women.

Another train went by painted in rainbow colors, with a single word inscribed in capitals on it: PRIDE. Sexual proclivities are nothing to be proud of and may be nothing to be ashamed of, either, though some are appalling, like those of Jeffrey Dahmer, who liked to paddle in the intestines of his victims whom he killed for his sexual pleasure, or Szilveszter Matuska, who apparently derived sexual pleasure from blowing up trains (as it happened). I am not sure that diversity is always to be “celebrated.”

By the way, the very word “celebrate” has come, at least for me, to connote something dreadful: It means that we are enjoined, on pain of being publicly denounced as bigoted if not as outright fascist, to rejoice in something that we do not welcome in the least, and certainly do not want to celebrate, even if we do not abominate it.

You can hardly open a packet of anything these days without being informed of how good the product inside is for the environment. I am coming to hate anything that claims to have anything to do with the environment.

I have never felt that I would like to throw a grenade as much as on seeing “No War” draped from a window in Geneva.

Theodore Dalrymple’s latest book is On the Ivory Stages (Mirabeau Press).