Thread by @rogerahicks

I saved the lives of two worms the other day by moving them from a dry path to the verge.
Why? I asked myself.
Because to a higher being looking down on me, I may seem like a worm, & if she sees me being kind to worm, perhaps she'll be kind to me.

I knew when I wrote the above tweet that I was half-jokingly rationalising my motive for saving the worms.

My actual, spontaneous, motive, I'm pretty sure, was compassion. But showing compassion for a worm is embarrassing, like crying at a scene in a sentimental film.

Most humans are capable of compassion, which is one of our more likeable traits. I say "capable", because we have to be very selective about showing or indulging it. Otherwise I'd have to spend my whole day saving worms, or whatever.

I'm not compassionate towards female mosquitoes, but swat them mercilessly, with only a slight twinge of conscience.

I tend to have more compassion for birds & mammals than for cold-blooded animals, & more still for fellow humans, but here too one has to be selective.

I used to get very annoyed at #TVadverts my bed-bound mother was subjected to in an attempt to loosen her purse strings out of compassion for needy African children, #MaltreatedDonkeys, or whatever #NobleCause it was.

Perhaps they were noble, but I suspect also mercenary.

And besides, it is not decent to come into someone's home & beg, even when it is on behalf of the genuinely needy.

And now for something very non-PC: I'm inclined to feel more compassion for my own RACE than for other races.

For @DAaronovitch this makes me a RACIST.

I pick on #DavidAaronovitch, an eminent, "liberal" British journalist & #OrwellPrize winner, no less, as the epitome of #AntiRacism, which dominates western civilisation with its #MoralSupremacism, telling everyone how they should & shouldn't FEEL & THINK about RACE.

I put "liberal" in quotation marks because on most issues I share David's genuinely liberal views. But his #antiracism is not at all liberal. It is illiberal, authoritarian & quite Orwellian, dictating how one should feel & think about race.

David's #antiracism is also state ideology in virtually every western "democracy", where it is used as an instrument of socio-political intimidation & control.

ALL #NationStates, I have come to realise, are Orwellian constructs, which trick us into loving #BigBrother by deceitfully posing as our nation.