Theodore Dalrymple: “Both Althusser and Cantat illustrate the new moral law for modern man: that moral concern rightly increases as the square of the distance from the person expressing the concern. Only thus can a man be utterly selfish and egotistical on the one hand and a moral exemplar on the other;” reflections on the murder of French actress Marie Trintignant by rockstar boyfriend Bertrand Cantat in a drunken, jealous fit. Although the inimitable Dr. Dalrymple tilts at the windmill of moral hypocrisy, he has a knack for being sanctimonious only about leftist hypocrites (especially when he thinks that extracting the lessons from their hypocrisy will be a major maturing influence on his readers and his students). Dalrymple is, however, full of compassion, making an interesting point in the process:

When I look at the pictures of Cantat after his arrest, head bowed and misery patent for all to see, I am reminded of the many murderers I have met shortly after they have killed their lovers from motives of jealousy. Most of them have also tried, as did Cantat, to kill themselves afterwards (a third of British murders were once followed by suicide). Of course, jealousy is nothing new—where humans, their weakness and wickedness are concerned, there really is nothing new under the sun. Othello is more than sufficient to prove it. But this is not to say that some ways of life favor some human responses, while others do not. When the sexual revolution is lived as if it were possible to do so without consequences, the result is a huge increase in sexual violence…

Perhaps because I work in a prison and not a morgue—that is to say, I see the murderer rather than the murdered, lying bruised and battered on the slab—I feel an anguish for my murderers, at least of the jealous kind. Their suffering is intense, and their efforts to be reunited with their loved ones (religion is dead, but not the belief in a hereafter), so that they can undo what they have done, apologize and fall at their feet, genuinely move me. Cantat devoted his life to anti-art posing as art; he did not know himself as he should have done; but I still say, priez pour lui, as well as for Marie Trintignant of course. The New Criterion [as always, props to walker for keeping me informed of the juiciest of Dr. Dalrymple’s literary exploits]