The death of Princess Diana: a new age had emerged in which appearing to care had become the prime social virtue, and a means for forming social bonds

AFTER DIANA: THE AGE OF EMOTIONALISM

BY PATRICK WEST


It is 20 years since emotional incontinence went mainstream.

It is almost exactly 20 years ago to the day that Britain’s national character changed utterly. Or more precisely, it’s 20 years since it became abundantly clear that there had taken place a shift in the way we in the UK, and the Western world in general, conducted ourselves in the public sphere. The now infamous ‘outpouring of grief’ over the death of Princess Diana that followed her death on 31 August 1997 came as a shock to many. Yet it was no aberration, no insignificant isolated incident, even if Diana herself has been relatively forgotten.

If Paul Gascoigne’s celebrated tears in Italia ‘90 were, in hindsight, an early indication of the transformation of a nation’s psychology, Diana’s death seven years later put into sharp relief what had indeed changed. It represented something quite profound: it signified the coming of a new era of emotionalism, and the twilight of the age of reason and rationalism. We see it and its consequences all around today, from therapy culture, virtue signalling and the promotion of ‘self-esteem’, to hate-crime legislation, offence-taking, censorship, Safe Space and trigger warnings. September 1997 signalled the dawn of the age of feelings and emotion.

Prince William and Prince Harry have recently talked of their bewilderment and discomfort at the behaviour of the multitude of mourners that September, bawling over the death of a stranger, their own mother. In this respect, they were not alone that month. The mass public grieving, the oceans of floral tributes, the rush to buy multiple copies of Elton John’s ‘Candle in the Wind’, the demand from the teary masses that the queen show some emotion, even the tremor in Tony Blair’s voice: all of this first shocked, bemused and then irritated many parts of Britain. It wasn’t just republicans or those on the left who were nauseated, as they are wont to be by anything crassly populist or connected to the royal family. The people most taken aback were conservatives, and this includes left-leaning, social and moral conservatives, who were horrified at such public bawling and this unashamed, unfettered unleashing of emotion.

It wasn’t merely that people’s emotions were on open display. Some questioned the authenticity of this public weeping, wondering whether it wasn’t merely the intoxicating dynamics of the mob at work: when people are gathered in their thousands, whether at football matches, political rallies or mass religious ceremonies, emotion always takes over – and is liable to veer into mania, hysteria, ecstasy or anger. Others wondered if those who were sobbing weren’t really mourning for Diana, but were using the occasion as a form of catharsis, to unburden themselves of their own personal sadness.

A new age had emerged in which appearing to care had become the prime social virtue, and a means for forming social bonds

In any case, it seemed that the traditional British reserved character and stiff upper lip had vanished, to be replaced by ‘mass hysteria’, ‘floral fascism’, or, for my own small part, what I later called ‘conspicuous compassion’ – a new age in which appearing to care had become the prime social virtue, and a means for forming social bonds. As I wrote in the book of that name, ours had become a superficial, emotionalised era, in which appearing to be good now took precedence over actually doing good (1). I wrote that the reaction to Diana’s death could be placed in context with the emergence of empathy ribbons, historical apologies for past wrongs or the anti-war slogan ‘Not In My Name’: public and political behaviour had become about displaying what a virtuous person one was.

Although my small book of 2004 (hilariously described by the national press as ‘a report’) made the national news in February that year, no one today talks of ‘conspicuous compassion’. Instead we hear of its close, associated relation, ‘virtue signalling’, the propensity to display a political viewpoint that is fashionable and ostensibly caring in order to make you look worthy – even if you don’t necessarily adhere to it or are prepared to do something about it. The existence of ‘virtue signalling’, like ‘conspicuous compassion’ before it, demonstrates the establishment and resilience of our era of emotionalism and superficiality. Virtue signalling is the symptom of a culture now firmly governed by emotion, feeling, empathy and gestures, of a culture that to a large degree eschews reason, objectivity and action.


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