Whether it comes from the right or the left, public bullying is never justified

Depending on the focus of inquiry, modern societies are wracked by divisions between right and left, the generations or populism and its antithesis. Battles over small differences quickly turn into schisms. Whole sections of the population can be targeted in an instant. What is common to all sides is the vicious race to the bottom. Ironically, it's not a contest than can ever be conclusively won. The consequent turmoil won't stop any time soon, because protagonists are determined to press increasingly petty points in their attempts to win the argument. This can be seen in the fate of two very different people last week: Henry Kissinge r and Greta Thunberg . One is 95 years old and a lion of the political-security establishment. The second is a 16-year-old schoolgirl, who has spearheaded the Europe-wide movement to demand action on climate change. In their own ways, both are consequential figures. Kissinger is historically significant, while Thunberg may or may not turn out to be. What unites them is that they have both been under full-scale personal attack. The former US secretary of state was guest of honour at the Disinvitation Dinner held by Yale University's William F Buckley Society. He was invited after students at New York University shouted him down, calling him a war criminal and a Nazi. Mr Kissinger's role as overseer of the last half of the Vietnam War has been controversial for decades. Christopher Hitchens, the polemic writer, made a career of baiting Kissinger. The man has remained worth listening to and reflecting on. It is reported that the latest figure to take personal instruction in his brand of statecraft is the relatively new British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt. Mr Kissinger has recently travelled to London for at least two sessions with the ambitious Conservative. Defenders of Mr Kissinger have accused millennials and Generation Z of prioritising feeling over fact. The students are possessed of a puritanical zeal to shut down any views contrary to " woke ideas" of what is correct. A similar tide of hatred has been visited on Thunberg. The Swedish schoolgirl’s campaign on the environment has seen her meet Pope Francis and the EU’s Jean-Claude Juncker, and drawn praise from Barack Obama. The backlash during her recent trip to Britain was remarkably harsh. She had been the star turn of the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations that occupied central London during the Easter break. Some commentators seized on Ms Thunberg's diagnosis of Asperger's and ADHD. Others argued that she was well intentioned but a prophet of doom, little concerned with the facts. She was held up as a pre-modern iconoclast, emitting siren calls that would do far more harm than good. Indicting the Europeans, which have made progress in reducing admissions, she grants a pass to the real big polluters such China, which remains reliant on coal for its energy generation. Green populist calls for the extinction of capitalism turns out to be just as destructive as the socialist variety that has taken over the rest of the Left. Toby Young, the controversialist writer, has never been a wilting flower. He wrote an autobiography titled How to Lose Friends & Alienate People that was made into a Hollywood movie. He wrote that Thunberg would be nothing had her mother not been a famous singer who once performed in the Eurovision song contest. That triggered a wave of attacks on him, pointing out that his father had been a member of the House of Lords who secured his son’s place at Oxford with a phone call. On Twitter, Mr Young blocked a friend who pointed that out. Dishing it out and not taking it back is the tone of the moment. Sir Roger Scruton is an important British philosopher and one of the few to see the Brexit debate has an ultimate destination of a new nationalistic ideal that will reshape the country's culture. He lost his unpaid post as a government adviser this month after a magazine interview in which he was reported to have derided the concept of Islamophobia. Supporters of Mr Scruton have cried foul at his alleged entrapment by the interviewer. The man himself has joined in, while maintaining that he "speaks as he speaks". As he reclaims his own reputation, Scruton commits the classic act of disowning the impact of his own words. The name of the game is to get his point across and put the onus on others for how he is interpreted.

Whether it comes from the right or the left, public bullying is never justified

From Greta Thunberg to Henry Kissinger, public figures are being subjected to vicious personal attacks by their opponents