January 09 +James CONSPICUOUS COMPASSION
Spotting one of the many books about Princess Diana on a friend's bookshelf, I was reminded of the extraordinary ‘Diana syndrome'; and those memories were reinforced by a second viewing of Stephen Frear's film ‘The Queen' when it was shown not long ago on television.
Soon after the Princess's funeral I invited the then Dean of Westminster (Wesley Carr) to come and talk with clergy in Chester Diocese where I was working. He spoke brilliantly - and I was especially struck by his comment that during the week before the Abbey service he received no less than a million e-mails, mostly from people who had never met Diana, telling him what he ought to do and say (and how he ought to do and say it!) What business was it of theirs, I wondered?
Then there were the mountains of flowers - the massive crowds of people - and the floods of tears, again from people who had never met or even seen the Princess. This time the question wasn't mine. It was voiced by Helen Mirren playing the Queen. ‘Whose grief?' she asked the Prime Minister, her voice chilly. Whatever was going on?
Had this been an isolated phenomenon, perhaps it could have been explained by the extraordinary hold the Princess of Wales had over the public's imagination and the charisma she exhibited through the media as well as in person. But it wasn't. Since 1997 we have had the tragic deaths of Jill Dando, Linda McCartney, the Soham girls and Marc-Vivien Foé (a young Cameroon footballer) - all of which, in their own way, prompted similar outpourings of mass emotion.
So it was with considerable interest that I recently read a short book by Patrick West called ‘Conspicuous Compassion'. He argues that those hundreds of thousands of mourners were crying less for the dead than for themselves. The death of a ‘celebrity' provides an opportunity to (in)articulate our own unhappiness. Thanks to the fragmentation of the family and declining influence of the church, many familiar and necessary social ties have been eroded. By ‘emoting in public' people attempt "to form new social ties to replace those that have disappeared".
According to West, demonstrations of this kind indicate not so much how compassionate and communitarian we have become - but rather how alienated and opportunistic. That is why those who dare to suggest that there may be something unhealthy about mass displays of emotion are speedily vilified. The distinguished journalist Kate Adie was criticised because her reports from Dunblane weren't emotional enough. The BBC presenter Peter Sissons was accused of disrespect because he wore a brown tie when announcing the Queen Mother's death. Professor Anthony O'Hear was attacked by the tabloids when he suggested that the reaction to Diana's end was a symptom of "the elevation of feeling, image and spontaneity over reason, reality and restraint". And of course we all know what happened when Boris Johnson went to Liverpool!
West contends that ‘public displays of empathy' do not change the world for the better. "Our culture of ostentatious caring is more about feeling good than doing good; more about projecting one's ego than helping those in trouble." He observes that just as lapel ribbons multiplied and commemorative silences lengthened, donations to charities dropped.
At the risk of personal vilification, I think he has a point. ‘Weeping with those who weep' is an important Christian virtue. But until (through Christ) we have come to terms with death - our own and others - and until (through the church) we rediscover those ‘bonds of community' which are nowadays in short supply, we shall never learn how to do it with Christian dignity and fortitude.
James Newcome Bishop of Penrith
