Wednesday, April 11th .....

I’ve just finished reading a book by Robert Crais and I’m left with a feeling of disquiet, a sort of bad taste in my mouth. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on the reason why but I’ve now realised that it’s a culmination of an issue that has been building up in the back of my brain for some time.

I think it started months ago when I was reading a book where the hero had been a sniper in Vietnam. That’s OK, I know people do these things but maybe it’s like kinky sex – not to be talked about in public. I find it hard to accept that a soldier could be a hero if he sat up in a tree picking off people who randomly wandered by. But at that stage I simple shrugged my shoulders and moved on to the next book.

Later, I happened to be reading The Eleventh Commandment by Jeffrey Archer. The hero of this book is lauded as a hero, a good family man who deserved the congratulations of a grateful nation. The problem is, he was an assassin for the CIA, following the orders of politicians to bump off the Defence Minister of some South American country, or whoever happens to be in the way of the USA’s foreign policy. What’s heroic about that? He’s no more than a cold-blooded murderer.

The Robert Crais book brought all my misgivings to the surface. The hero, Elvis Cole, is a private detective but goes further than that. He thinks it’s OK to shoot people who get in his way. He and his off-sider, Joe, shoot first and asks questions later. I know, I know, it’s only fiction but what effect is it having on a culture which no longer has a moral compass. Once upon a time, we grew up with a set of values which we absorbed from people we respected – parents, political leaders, church leaders, police, school teachers and so on.

Sadly, our respect for these pillars of society has been eroded and we now look to pop-stars and celebrities for moral guidance. God help us!

Talking about God, I can’t help but comment on the confrontation on Q&A this week between Richard Dawkins, the well-known atheist and Archbishop Pell. The Archbishop was well out of his depth and his muddled and incoherent philosophy would convince no-one. Dawkins is a smug and unlikeable individual but more than held his own against a very poor opponent. Tony Jones stepped outside his role of moderator to assist in putting in the boot to the Archbishop but I imagine it would have been hard to resist. What a mismatch!