Tag: dailyprompt-2160

‘Nothing so true as what you once let fall: / Keir Starmer has no Character at All’. A case study.

December 22, 2025

I ought to apologise to Alexander Pope for twisting his tritest lines – the opening of ‘Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle II: To a Lady on the Characters of Women. But the lines are indeed trite and bear nothing much beside the most rank misogyny – but pointed at political women. But it does have … More ‘Nothing so true as what you once let fall: / Keir Starmer has no Character at All’. A case study.

Would a good judge (of character or anything else) be necessarily a good – or even just – person?

December 13, 2025

To be good at judging the character of others clearly indicates some skill, knowledge and values (developed to a high standard) in the activity of ‘judging’ – and in this case of ‘judging character’). But what loaded words these are! Being, for instance, a ‘judgmental’ person is rarely seen as the quality of a good … More Would a good judge (of character or anything else) be necessarily a good – or even just – person?

To ‘judge character’ is easy. The difficult thing is to appreciate a person.

December 13, 2023

A ‘judge of character’ is a tautology. Sometimes we go to great lengths to harmonise the various supposed signals of the notion of character, as we adjudge it, to persons, assuming for sake of control of a world that can seem to be unreadable, I think, that we can even assume a correspondence in inner and outer … More To ‘judge character’ is easy. The difficult thing is to appreciate a person.