A long time ago I had a boss say to me, “You don’t remove a fly from a friend’s face withe a hatchet.” He was referring to my habit of hitting back hard at even the slightest criticism. The point my boss was making was valid. There’s a time and place for applying the hatchet. On forums I frequent, I apply it to obvious trolls and nuisances that often turn up on non-Cult sites. They think they are cheeky for speaking truth to non-hive members. Telling them to drink poison or calling them child molesters is a good way to handle it.

That came to mind on NRO the other day. In this post from the house homosexual, Jason Lee Steorts, the comments veered into Derbyshire territory. Some said they did not like Derb, despite agreeing with most of what he said. That struck me as odd, but upon further inquiry it was matters of religion that caused the rift. Derb was often ham-handed in discussing religion so I can see why the religious would be offended. Even though I’m not religious, I too thought it was small of him to pick fights with the religious over evolution. Still, I enjoy Derb’s work so I can overlook it.

I was thinking about that while reading this from Theodore Dalrymple. Over the years I’ve enjoyed his work, for the most part. His essays about his prison work were always fascinating. He’s one of those Brits who seems to have the right distance between total detachment and emotional engagement. Often, British writers come of a bit sterile trying to be too objective. Others are too Benn Hill, silly for the sake of being silly. Like Derb, Dalrymple usually strikes the right tone for my tastes.

That said, there are times when you see the frayed edges of someone’s character. Derb’s taunting of the religious is one such example. I suspect he does it because he harbors his own doubts. I would not more debate the existence of leprechauns than debate creationism. Your belief in either has no impact on me. In the case of the Dalrymple column, I get the image of a prickly old dickhead who has decided he cannot enjoy life and remain a moral man. I’ve known a few of those in my life. They obsess over some popular trifle to the point of distraction.

A old fellow student of mine, now a distinguished professor, recently gave an interview in a learned journal and was asked what gave him the greatest pleasure in life. He replied that it was when the team he supported scored a goal.

I tried to work out whether this was worse true than untrue. If true it implied a rather sad existence, in which the kicking of a ball into the net of an opponent’s goal by a highly paid mercenary, who would immediately play for the opposing side if offered a few paltry millions more a year or a week to do so, and who had absolutely no connection with the area of the team for which he played, not geographical, cultural, personal, familial, or even national, was the highest imaginable point. But if untrue, why the lie, why did he pretend that a goal scored by “his” team was so important to him?

It is one thing to not follow sports. I don’t follow soccer, for example. They could hold the World Cup in my front yard and I would go out of town to void the crush. But, people enjoy it and there is no obvious harm in it. Life is for living. If you get pleasure from watching little men in shorts chase a ball around a field, good for you.

I know people who collect butterflies, guitars, antique golf clubs and little bottles of chili sauce. I have no interest in any of that, but the people who do it are nice enough and they are causing me no harm so I wish them the best. That seems like a normal response, the most common response.

This is one of those examples of someone’s slip showing. He strikes the pose of the intellectual, but at some level he sees himself as self-taught member of the lower class and it bugs him, maybe even haunts him. So much so he he is driven a bit mad by it.

It’s one of those things that causes you to rethink your evaluation of someone. It’s like learning a person you admire hates animals or is sexually attracted to obese women. You overlook it, but it forever colors your view of the person. It’s why sharing intimate details of ones life is always a bad idea, even among close friends. There’s no obvious benefit and plenty of downside. Still, Dalrymple is a fun writer to read and this is a small matter, but….