The Worst Thing That Could Happen Is That You Could Die

Knowing what the stakes are

People…continually expose their souls to mortal danger in imagining that they are free of it, when, indeed, the only mortal danger for the spirit is to remain too long without it.

-from A Soldier of the Great War, by Mark Helprin

Let me start with a story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

There was a young man of 17 or 18 who used to come to my karate club; we’ll call him Luke. Luke in many ways had it made. He was good-looking, intelligent, tall, in great physical shape, and also very kind-hearted and polite - the kind of man who you would have no qualms about having as a son-in-law. But he had been abandoned by his father at a young age, and this seemed to have instilled in him a frightful desperation to impress any putative father-figure in his life - a desperation so strong that it was almost crippling. Having latched onto our karate teacher as a role model, Luke would almost literally freeze with anxiety whenever called upon by this teacher to do even the simplest task, in a manner that was painful to have to witness; he was so fixated on doing well that his entire body would simply go rigid and refuse to cooperate in the quixotic quest that he had embarked upon to be better than perfect.

One evening, during our regular training session, for whatever reason the tension within Luke had reached a crescendo and, when asked by the teacher to perform some element or other of a kata, he was simply struck with a paralytic spasm; his body stopped working altogether and he was left standing completely inert, except for a vague tremor and the movement of the beads of sweat running down his brow. We all looked at him, and then at each other, wondering what to do. But then our teacher did a very wise, but unexpected thing. He walked over to Luke and said, with a grin, ‘Cheer up, Luke. The worst thing that could happen is that you could die.’

It was as though a spell was broken. Luke laughed. He couldn’t help himself. And nor could the rest of us. Everything, and everyone, relaxed. I don’t wish to claim it was a turning point in Luke’s life - he still got incredibly nervous all the time - but, for that evening at least, it worked.

The line, though, has always stuck with me. Obviously it was meant as a joke. The stereotypically supportive thing to say in that moment would have been something like ‘Relax, there’s no pressure, everything will be fine.’ The humour lay in subverting that expectation.

But there was a serious point being made too: sometimes it’s important to be contemptuous of fear - even, and perhaps especially, the fear of death. And this requires you to accept the risk that what you are scared of will actually happen. Otherwise fear will overwhelm and paralyse you, and you will end up so scared of failing, and of its consequences, that you will unable to do anything at all.

This is, in a way, common sense. It is something that would have been understood by all of humanity until very recently. But we have stopped teaching it to children and have almost lost sight of it entirely, and it therefore sometimes helps if it is stated bluntly: The worst thing that could happen, in any situation and in pursuit of any goal, if you act, is that you could die. You could make enemies, lose social standing, lose money, literally lose your life. But you have to act decisively anyway or you will achieve nothing.

This is in many ways the lesson for our times. Western democracies have, collectively, become scared to act decisively. We think of ourselves as getting by, muddling through, kicking the can down the road, making messy compromises - but these increasingly sound like euphemisms for fear and paralysis. We are terrified of the consequences of doing what we know to be necessary. And, even while this sad state of affairs has arisen, we have found ourselves reaching a point at which very hard decisions are going to have to be made, and at which a certain ruthlessness, and a certain contempt for safety and security, will have to be displayed in order that our civilisation can be made to endure - let alone be revitalised. In short, we have a pressing need for politicians who accept death as a consequence of acting, and we have probably never found them in shorter supply.

And let me be crystal clear on this point: I mean ‘death’ here both literally and figuratively. We all know that reputations, careers, livelihoods (and, more pertinently for politicians, the reputations, careers and livelihoods of family members) are on the line for those who for whatever reason fall outside the narrow consensus view on issue X or Y - often on the basis of having expressed views that are perfectly reasonable and were perfectly normal to express even 10 years ago. In this respect, the threat of ‘death’ is social rather than physical - for all that it remains acute.

But we also all know that the spectre of political violence is looming. In this respect matters are worse in the US, where two credible assassination attempts have been made against a Presidential candidate this year. But we should be under no illusions that we live in an age in which political disagreements can all be resolved reasonably and in good faith. There are people out there who are willing to use, and are capable of using, violence to achieve political ends - and who consider their political enemies to be wicked, malevolent, less than human. These are not the conditions under which pre-political loyalties can keep everybody playing by the rules of the game. They are the conditions under which friends encounter enemies. And they are therefore the conditions under which anything might go, and any action might be sanctioned, in the pursuit of a ‘virtuous’ agenda.

This gives political leadership in our age a certain piquancy. And it requires of leaders that they have the wherewithal to accept risk - risk not just of defeat but of reputational destruction, social ostracism, repercussions for family members and children, and physical danger. Leaders - real leaders - are, then, going to have to be ruthless. And they are going to have to be willing to act and to lead even when to act and to lead is to attract serious risks.

In this respect I greeted the recent election of Kemi Badenoch as leader of the UK Conservative Party with cautious optimism. Foreign readers may find it mystifying that although there was a general election here in early July it was only on Saturday 2nd November that a Leader of the Opposition was finally installed. (British readers may find this mystifying, too, of course.) But now we finally have one. And, setting aside policy - Badenoch wisely focused during her campaign not on what she would do in government, which is not going to happen for five years if it happens at all, but rather on tone - she is a promising prospect. Because she appears to have an understanding that we are indeed at a point at which paralysis and fear is going to have to come to an end, and at which decisive action is becoming not just desirable, but necessary - in spite of the dangers.

In this respect I thought it fascinating that in her short victory speech, after going through the usual motions of being nice to her rivals and predecessor, Badenoch chose to emphasise one thing - truth. As she put it:

The time has come to tell the truth. The time has come to tell the truth, to stand up for our principles, to plan for our future, to reset our politics and our thinking, and to give our party, and our country, the new start that they deserve.

I found the fact that she said this impressive. Because it cuts to the heart of our predicament. If there is one thing that characterises British society in 2024 (it is hardly unique in this respect) it is a problematisation of truth. On the one hand, we are terrified of speaking it - paralysed by fear. And on the other, as I have previously put it, we are increasingly governed on the basis of producing within us an understanding of ‘truth’ on particular terms, and inculcating within us the capacity to only be able to speak a certain ‘truth’ by which we are indeed governed. We all know what this ‘truth’ is that we are expected to declare, and believe, at all times and in all places. And we are all now intimately familiar with the way in which it smothers genuine truth like the most soaking of wet heavy blankets.

That we now have a leader of the opposition who is prepared to speak in defence of truth-telling - real truth-telling - is therefore grounds for hope. Kemi presumably has her flaws as a politician. But it seems to me, in short, that she is the type of person who understands, as a general rule, that the worst thing that could happen is that she could die - and she is going to do what she thinks is right anyway. That she has in particular declared her intention to speak the truth, regardless of the risks associated with doing so, also shows that she understands something important about the nature of our predicament. This places her in marked contrast to the trends in modern governance in the West - and speaks of that rare political talent of being able to put one’s finger on the real issues that need to be confronted.

This is worth taking seriously. It is worth us giving her the benefit of the doubt. It suggests that Kemi has a message the country could do with hearing. And all of this is enough, for the time being, for me to be able to cling to a chunk of optimistic jetsam on the sea of pessimism upon which almost everybody in the country now seems to be being borne. Whether this bears me to a safe harbour or ends with me being smashed on rocks is something that I will find out in the fullness of time, of course, and is about as far as the metaphor can be extended. But I feel better knowing that there is now a fight on with Sir Keir Starmer’s government, that one of the participants seems to know what it as stake in that fight, and that she has the appetite for risk that is necessary to act. So, Kemi, if you happen to be reading - on the country’s behalf, I wish you the very best of luck. Speak the truth. The country needs to hear it. And the worst thing that could happen is that you could die.