They say “the Devil is in the details.” Sometimes, so is God. Statists, Socialists, right-wing paternalists – all those who think of humanity in terms of classes, races and masses – need constantly to be confronted with such stories and images. They claim to love humanity; everything they do is for “Society” or “the greater good.” These are the merest of abstractions. A good human loves and cares for other humans around him; for actual, individual specimens with all their faults and weaknesses, not classes or masses.
Next time you hear an appealing abstraction weighed against the interests of an individual or a family, please picture a man making barbed wire to imprison his uncle or my neat little secretary typing a death list. They served abstractions too.