Found the missing word!
For maybe years now I’ve felt a lack of a word. Some word to describe this ubiquitous phenomenon today of insincere people imposing their will on us all in the name of this or that minority.
Theodore Dalrymple, that most worthy man, has apparently found the word for me according to a post in ‘the Skeptical Doctor’ where it quotes him as having said:
Cant is more destructive than hypocrisy because it is harder to expose and because a humbug deceives himself as well as others, while a mere hypocrite retains some awareness; he is a rogue rather than a villain. Cant is the vehement public expression of concern for others, or of anger at an opinion casting doubt on some moral orthodoxy that is not, and cannot be, genuinely felt, its vehemence being a shield for insincerity and lack of confidence in the orthodox opinion.
Leaders in cant are not inquirers after truth but seekers of power, if only the power to destroy, which is often a delight in itself. Cant is the weapon of the ambitious mediocrity, a class of person that has become much more numerous with the extension, but also dilution, of tertiary education. Such people believe that social prominence is their due.
That’s it. Without a doubt. The venom that is rotting our society from within.
That’s it. They’re cants. I’ve been using a very similar word which though it was right in what it said didn’t satisfy as being overall too vague, too essentially pointless, failing to attack the essence of these people.
They’re cants.
That’s what they are.