I have a fundamental and growing distrust of newspaper columnists. OK, I'll let writers about gardening, food or health  take their leave, so long as they go quietly. But the ones who spout on national or international affairs with a philosophical, moral or political bent? Theirs is surely an ersatz profession.

However well informed they are, can they really know enough to churn out their word count on a diversity of subjects on a weekly basis? I've done plenty journalism to recognise that most hacks are mostly winging it. And, back then, I mostly wrote about what I knew most. The typical columnist, therefore, is typically faking it; their knowledge borrowed, stolen, or simply made up.

Worse still, the nature of their job is to take a position, to care passionately. True, I don't care about much. Nonetheless, I struggle to believe that the average columnist can care so much so widely. I figure columnists are liars: news junkies who mistake their own ambition for empathy.

For my part, I have a semi-original idea about once every two years. The latest came listening to a bunch of frenemies discuss the situatio in Gaza with rising fury. My idea was this: it is immoral to profess to care about something over which you not only have no influence, but have no genuine (i.e. active) desire to change.

Now, I confess I'm not surely I've adequately thought this through. After all, I later tried it out on French (generally an arbiter of good sense) and we agreed that it sounded  a tad judgemental. Nonetheless, I increasingly despise the intelligent blah blah blah.

If you profess to care about something, but your caring has no possibility of effecting change, what's it for? Is it any more than an idle stretch of over-developed ego? If you really think the Iraq war is illegal, the third runway immoral or celebrity culture a vacuous blight on contemporary society, you can do something about it ... even if it only involves turning off the TV. But, if you're not prepared to march, write letters or turn off the TV, then best keep your trap shut. And don't give me the 'democratic defence', for I fear that democracy in a society that knows nothing else can be the last refuge of the apathetic.

Personally, therefore, I now plan to care only about my right not to care. But I won't care too much about that either, for fear of accusations of hypocrisy.