I beg to differ.

Moral indignation comes from the rape of a culture for the pleasures of the moment.

As usual, Wells misses the sensitivities of others. Unlike Wells, I assume such things as moral indignation really exist.

Well I never! How can Wells say such things?

Anthony, of course moral indignation exists, and if one takes the statement literally (as you chose to do for some reason), then yes Wells is full of crap. Obviously, Wells meant that moral indignation is frequently (but not always) jealousy in diguise. He was probably referring to public nudity laws or something.

Would you rather he have said "I find that fequently moral indignation is little more than jealousy with a halo. Of course moral indignation exists, but it's often misplaced and hypocritical."? It doesn't flow quite as nicely, does it?

Lucas,

I realize how absurd my remarks must seem to you, but I'm pleased you took the bait. I also understand Wells to mean that moral indignation is more often, or frequently, jealousy. And I'm pretty sure it's nonsense.

Nobody really thinks that when a parent expresses moral indignation over the rape and murder of a child that said parents really sympathize with the acts of the criminal. And yet if we take this remark as both of us read it, most of the time this is what moral indignation would mean.

I'd like to suggest that we have let ourselves be tricked by our own cleverness in some matters so often--so frequently--that ordinary things like moral indignation no longer mean what we say they do, and become instead a substitution we prefer. In this way, we needn't ever face the issue somebody is addressing, because by reading into his supposed intentions, we've turned it into the object of our dislike.

As a matter of habit, we are now inclined to trivialize moral indignation most of the time as something else. Wanting to make Wells' point, you couldn't resist mocking me: "Well I never! How can Wells say such things?"

You see? Most of the time, moral indignation for you is a joke. There's something wrong here, and it isn't the people who say what they mean.

Many other common, ordinary, good things today are the perpetual targets of clever men. Moral judgment, begetter of moral indignation, is one of those targets. Some of us desperately do not want it to exist.

But I think I've now hit my target, and so close.

As a parting shot, I note that Wells was not a very good judge of character. He thought Stalin was an honest and just man.

what does moral "indignation is jealousy with a halo" mean