A Generation of Cheap Sardonics

“The deserving poor.” Officially an old fashioned saying according to the Cambridge dictionary, one which doesn’t accord with our modern conceptions of who’s deserving of our sympathy and whom we ought to revile.

There used to be a time when we understood the importance of personal virtue; where working hard, honouring one’s commitments, dealing fairly with others, and accepting responsibility for one’s mistakes were things that we celebrated – and yet we also recognized that even when the va...