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The Sycamore Gap vandals were chasing the wrong sort of fame

Fifteen minutes of notoriety is nothing - just ask St Cuthbert.

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A felled decidious tree lies sprawled on the ground. The freshly sawn stump and roots are in the foreground
The stump of the felled sycamore tree.
Wandering wounder, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

It was Andy Warhol who is said to have uttered the famous statement: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." Never mind the fact that the quotation has been attributed to other people as well, whoever came up with it first can hardly have anticipated how quickly it would come true.  

In our times, social media has democratised information. We all now have our own individual press office, issuing our considered statements to the world in the form of Instagram or Facebook posts, comments on X, reels and the like. Secretly we all hope one of our gems of wisdom, a joke or a video of something weird will go viral - in a positive way - and we will get our 15 minutes of fame.  

I was thinking of all this recently on a walk by Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland in the North-east of England. It so happened that on that very day, the Wall was in the news, as the two men who had cut down the famous tree at Sycamore Gap – the one featured in the Robin Hood film - were convicted of the crime. We looked up at Sycamore Gap, and it was just that - a gap – denuded of its tree, it is now just like any other depression in the escarpment over which Hadrian's Wall runs. Only you couldn't avoid the memory of the distinctive tree silhouetted against the sky which was no longer there, like an awkward smile with a tooth missing. 

The story of Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers is a pretty unsavoury one. Two fairly low life characters without a great deal of purpose seem to have thought of this as a clever stunt which would somehow impress people. The video would go viral, they hoped, and they would be famous - maybe for 15 minutes - basking in the global coverage of their daring action. They seem to have totally miscalculated the affection with which the tree was held and the outrage this stupid act generated. They got their notoriety but not in a good way. Today they wait anxiously to see whether this mindless act of vandalism will lead to a prison sentence. 

It is perhaps another symptom of our culture’s desperate desire for fame. Social media is full of influencers who are famous for not much more than being famous. Similar stunts, one more outrageous than the other are performed daily, recorded on YouTube and put out there to gain attention. We are addicted to fame. 

The hapless pair were desperate for their moment of fame and got it in a particularly nasty form.

On the same Northumberland trip, not very far away, a very different approach to fame caught my eye. Cuthbert, a seventh century hermit was one of those hardy Christian monks and missionaries who spread the faith in these islands in the wake of the fall of the Roman Empire. He was known for his piety, astonishing miracles and sympathy with nature. His biographer, the Venerable Bede, tells us he would walk into the cold North Sea, standing up to his neck in water to pray, in order to increase his ability to focus on God, the object of his prayers, not the yearnings of his body. On coming out of the water, sea otters would come and warm his feet, sensing that this man was in tune with the heart of the universe and should be cared for and protected.  

As his fame grew, Cuthbert tried to find more and more ways to run away from it. He was given permission to leave his monastery in Lindisfarne to go out alone to live on the remote Farne islands, far from prying eyes, giving him the freedom to focus on the one object of his desire - to know God through a deep life of prayer and meditation. People would try to come to see him, fellow monks bringing supplies, or pilgrims looking for a word of wisdom from the holy man, yet his focus was ruthless. Eventually, says Bede, “he shut himself away from sight within the hermitage, rarely talking to visitors even from the inside, and then only through the window… in the end he blocked it up and opened it only to give a blessing or for some definite need”. 

The difference between Graham / Carruthers and Cuthbert could hardly be more stark. The hapless pair were desperate for their moment of fame and got it in a particularly nasty form - fame that turns out to be more like shame. Cuthbert fled from fame, longing for the attention not of other people but of his Maker and Redeemer.

Cuthbert’s relentless pursuit of God, and its results in a remarkable life - weird in a different and more nourishing way than the stunts on YouTube - fascinated people. After he died, his bones were transferred to Durham Cathedral where they still lie today. You find the name of St Cuthbert everywhere in the North East – on schools, road signs, coffee shops and fishing boats. It’s a name that will endure after the destroyers of the sycamore tree are long forgotten. We're still talking about Cuthbert 1,400 years later. 

Fame is an elusive and dangerous thing. Tom Holland once called it “a beast that you can't control or be prepared for.” If you chase it, it rarely turns out well. More often than not you get the wrong kind of (unwelcome) fame. The best kind comes when you’re not making fame itself the thing you’re looking for. If you ignore it, and seek something more satisfying, something really worth attention – which for Cuthbert was God, the source of all beauty, truth and goodness - you won’t be worried whether you’re famous or not, because your heart will be full of something much more lasting and worthwhile.

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5 min read

Our public discourse needs responsible rhetoric before it is too late

The right turn of phrase can turn a nation, the wrong one can destroy

Tom has a PhD in Theology and works as a hospital physician.

A crowd of people stand in the side steps of the Lincoln Memorial
Easter services, Lincoln Memorial.
George Pflueger, via Unspash.

When was the last time a brilliant piece of rhetoric made the headlines? 

“Empty rhetoric.”  

“Form over function.”  

“Sloganeering.” 

These—and other accolades—are stock trade when it comes to the art of denouncing public discourse. Red flags are rightly waved in the face of baseless claims and insincere promises. Scroll through a news reel; open a newspaper: language far stronger in style than in substance is not hard to find. 

Nowadays we are sensitive to these kinds of abuses of public platforms. When Donald Trump speaks of the ‘Great Big Beautiful Bill’ or Elon Musk of the ‘Big Ugly Bill’ we know the cogs at BBC Verify are likely to be turning. Fact-checking is an established trade.  

Sometimes political turns of phrase are just careless, inadequately thought through. Granted, a politician’s public address is often put together at a pace. Time is so remarkably tight that phrasing and formulations are not interrogated as fully as they might be. (Krish Kandiah recently picked up the Prime Minister’s “island of strangers” line and its unfortunate resonance) 

But of course, the critiques I’ve listed above are themselves sharply rhetorical. They are punchy. Not drawn-out logical deductions. They aim to make us sit upright and win us over. Or move us to a course of action. 

So: is rhetoric the problem? No. Its misuse is the problem. This isn’t always clear. And it’s the reason why simply decrying “rhetoric” won’t get us very far.  

I am sympathetic to the suspicion. When efficiency and pragmatism tower high among the canons of public discourse, it is easier to trade in polarising x versus y expressions. Being guarded in the face of such potent idiom is understandable.  

And yet the most remarkable public discourses in human history have been rich in rhetoric.  

Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial: “I have a dream.”  

Churchill in the House of Commons: “we shall fight them on the beaches.”  

Lincoln’s Gettysburg address: “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”  

All these speakers knew that bare understanding doesn’t typically move people to action. An impassioned speech, a plea to respond, or beautifully woven prose often serve as the tipping point for social engagement. 

Which leads me to wonder, what if a suspicion of smart speech-making ends up stunting social engagement, rather than fostering it? Perhaps political discourse today has gone too far; perhaps rhetoric is beyond repair. And yet: abuse doesn’t mean there isn’t proper use. There is a better way.

When persuasive powers are uncoupled from sound argument, then rhetoric obscures understanding and has become irresponsible. 

In the classical era, training in rhetoric was a prominent feature of an education. You might say it was the way to avoid the charge: “All substance, no style”. It was about turning a sound argument into an art form. For Aristotle, rhetoric was about making use of the tools of persuasion—substance with style. But skill in persuasion was not a virtue of itself; it never stood alone. As Roger Standing has reminded us, “the function of rhetorical skills was not to persuade in and of themselves.” Indeed, training in rhetoric was training in responsibility.  

In his classic 1950s text Ethics of Rhetoric, Richard Weaver put his finger on this. He highlighted that “rhetoric passes from mere scientific demonstration of an idea to its relation to prudential conduct.” True rhetoric, then, is this: the art of lighting up the path that leads from sound logic to good action

Today, it seems that when it comes to the rules of rhetoric, communicators are answerable to polls and popularity. These ends justify the means, which makes fancy formulations fair game. If style secures votes, then it’s a good job done. But this means the communicator has no real accountability for his or her language. Pragmatism is in the driving seat. In a sense, responsibility has been handed over to the hearer.  

This is problematic. When persuasive powers are uncoupled from sound argument, then rhetoric obscures understanding and has become irresponsible. Language is no longer illuminating, but misleading. It is trading on falsehood, or perhaps half-truths, instead of magnifying what is true for the sake of what is good. 

Take an example. In the recent parliamentary debate over amendments to the assisted dying bill, the proceedings opened with the claim that “if we do not vote to change the law, we are essentially saying that the status quo is acceptable.” I don’t for a moment doubt the good intent in this claim—securing the most compassionate care possible for terminally ill adults. But let it be said: no, those who do not advocate assisted dying are not “essentially” saying this. This claim is a non sequitur: the conclusion does not follow the premise. It is logically unsound. 

Like many tools, the art of persuasion can be wielded carelessly; sometimes maliciously. But rhetoric-free public discourse would make for a colourless and lifeless thing indeed. What we need now is rhetoric that is responsible—responsible to what is true and responsible to good outcomes. These should not be split; as soon as they are, speech-making becomes sterile or hollow. I recently heard the neat phrase: “Some people reach your mind by going through the heart, and some people reach your heart by going through your mind.” Yes, as the Christian faith has always maintained: mind and heart belong together. Give us words that awaken both, like those once spoken by that obscure wandering rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, in one of the most studied and penetrating speeches in human history:  

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 

I pray for public discourse brimming with both substance and style. It might help lead us to better things. 

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