12-05-2025
It's no surprise that curiosity deepens with age
Modern anxiety is often about our minds. Once, such worries mainly surrounded morality or spiritual welfare. I have been re-reading George Orwell's A Clergyman's Daughter and watched poor Dorothy set herself penances for a fleeting uncharitable thought about her disgusting parishioners. (Orwell, meanwhile, can't mention a character without some bracingly uncharitable insult.)
Two generations after the fictional Dorothy, I still recognise her mindset: my old French school missal prescribes a scarifying examination of conscience, demanding confession of every unkind thought.
Attitudes have changed. Certainly, there is a current of public censure about modern 'wrongthink' (note last week's line from a WPC in another mistaken raid, saying the suspected wrong-tweeter owned 'Brexity books').
But far more prevalent, bigger than any wokery, is a prevailing anxiety about
