We’ve all seen the war movies so we all know how exactly how to behave when your bedraggled, weary party of troops is retreating from the implacable, merciless enemy and your injured leg can take you no further. “Lads, it’s no good. I can’t go on,” you say, resisting all offers from your shattered comrades to carry you.
“No. I’ll only hold you up,” you insist. “Just leave me here with the Bren and a couple of grenades. You go on! I’ll take as many of the bastards with me as I can.”
The reason scenes like that resonate with us and often move us to tears of sadness mixed with admiration and pride is because most of us instinctively understand the nobility of self-sacrifice in extremis. Nobody wants to be the one who gets left behind. But when push comes to shove, some sort of atavistic impulse kicks in: that heroic willingness we have to take a hit for the team because ultimately, the survival of the herd, of our mates, of our people, of our nation must take priority over our own selfish interests.
This, for me, is what’s so despicable, shaming and unnatural about the events of the last few days in parliament.
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