Sam Tanenhaus discusses his book The Death of Conservatism, dissecting the problems of the contemporary American Right. Essential viewing HERE.

Hat-tip: Little Green Footballs.

Guido has an interesting story about the station:

Here is something that should worry the mullahs putting up the money for the station – the young hip, producers hate you. According to Guido’s intern/spy who was sitting in the production gallery they were genuinely laughing about the launch of a televised tirade against Iranian tyranny on their station. Not sure if it got censored for broadcast. Should say that the chat show host Nick Ferrari didn’t blink either, suspect he was amused as well.

Guido got the impression that the young producers who control the station had basically blagged the money off the regime using family connections to set up a station. They weren’t that interested in pumping out propaganda – though no doubt they have to make efforts to keep the paymasters happy.

That may be true, but they are still spewing some vile propaganda and acting as cheerleaders for the régime. That they are ambivalent about it shouldn’t detract from that fact.

Nonetheless, it is rather interesting to see that even the rank-and-file at one of the régime’s mouthpieces are less-than-fervent supporters.

The BBC’s style guide warns of bad copy:

Writing which is second-hand is second-rate, and offers no pleasure to the listener.

Maybe, but when was the last time you heard the written word?

European Election results notwithstanding, today is the 60th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four .  Given its influence on much of the writing in the political blogosphere, it seems only appropriate that a meme be started today.  Link to the person who tagged you in this, answer the following questions, and then tag three to five other people.  Feel free to create additional questions

When and where did you first read Nineteen Eighty-Four?

When I was twelve.  I was on holiday with little else to do.  My mum had bought the book for me to read, and bet me that I wouldn’t finish it before the end of the week.  Stubbornness soon gave way to the power of the prose, and I was rapidly drawn into Orwell’s world.

How many times have you read it?

Thrice.

Have you read any other works by Orwell?  If so, which ones?

• Animal Farm
• Politics and the English Language
• Books v Cigarettes
• How the Poor Die
• A Nice Cup of Tea
• My Country, Right or Left
• Prevention of Literature

How much of an influence has the book had on you?

At first reading, not that much.  It grew on me.  Upon a subsequent reading it became my dominant perspective, until such time as it was tempered by reading other works.  Orwell’s writing tends to stay at the back of my mind and crop up, like some form of conscience, over what I think or write.

Do you use Orwellian terminology in your writing?

Every now and again, although I try to do so sparingly.  Politics and the English Language has had far more of an influence on my writing style.

To get things started, I am tagging Wes Streeting, Tory Bear and The Right Student.

UPDATE: Feel free to start these off yourself.

Anyone who has ever had a serious or sustained discussion about the Arab-Israeli conflict will know of its almost singular ability to make otherwise reasonable people engage in the most sweeping generalisations possible.  It is a conflict that is all-too-rapidly divided into a Manichaean division between “good” Israelis and “bad” Palestinians or vice-versa.  One side is entirely to blame, the other wholly innocent.  One side engages in “terrorism”, the other is responding legitimately in the only way they know how.  One side is genocidal, the other strictly defensive.  Such narratives are, of course, completely and utterly bogus.  They ignore the complexity of Israeli and Palestinian society and its various groups, interests and factions.  They reduce a multi-polar and complex conflict of diverse societies into a crude binary narrative that bears little resemblance to the reality.  “Good Israelis” and “Bad Palestinians”, as well as its opposite, needs to be replaced with an acknowledgement that there are Good Israelis, Bad Israelis; Good Palestinians, Bad Palestinians.  Supporting the national aspirations of one side need not come at the expense of the national aspirations of the other.  The “with-us-against-us” mentality is a massive barrier to peace and understanding the conflict.

I’m not trying to get into advocating a particular position on the conflict here, but what is particularly interesting is how the very people who engage in such sweeping generalisations suddenly become pedants of the highest order when one suggests that they are perhaps engaging in stereotyping.  Earlier this year I had the dubious honour of having to organise a demonstration against a very noisy and unpleasant campus occupation whose participants had at various points crossed the line into outright anti-Semitism.  When confronted over this, they suddenly shifted from the rhetoric of bogus grand narratives into a most bizarre form of myopic detail-quibbling.  Rather than explain how, for example, a poster repeating the “blood libel” was not anti-Semitic, they decided to do everything possible to wrongfoot and evade.  Some particularly inventive examples were:

• re-defining “anti-Semitism” to exclude Jews from it;
• stating that focusing on the abuses suffered by Jews was not universalist, and therefore not properly anti-racist;
• claiming that Jews weren’t a race so they couldn’t be victims of racism;
• suggesting that the stories had all been made up.

What these all had in common, apart from a pusillanimous desire to avoid a charge, was the attempt to avoid answering a difficult question by picking up on some tiny detail.  This was less motivated by an attempt to seek clarity in terminology (everyone knows anti-Semitism means a hatred of Jews, regardless of the linguistic origins of the word “Semite”), than a desire to avoid answering the difficult question.  If you’re unfortunate enough to come across a “critic” of Israel who offers racism in place of criticism, as opposed to the genuine critics, then you too will witness this bizarre sight of the prejudiced generaliser suddenly paying an attention to detail that he or she has hitherto studiously avoided.

I bring this up because it has reared its annoying head again in the last few days over the UN’s Conference Against Racism, in particular the walkout of delegates over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech.  The criticism is being levelled that this was a cynical political ploy to avoid discussion of Israel.

For example, read Adrian Hamilton’s piece in the Independent:

Just how you can accuse a man of anti-Semitisim [sic] when you haven’t stayed to hear him talk is one of those questions which the Foreign Office no doubt trains its diplomats to explain. But what basically was our representative trying to say here? That any mention of the word Israel is barred from international discussions? That the mere mention of it is enough to have the Western governments combine to still it? In fact, Ahmadinejad’s speech was not anti-Semitic, not in the strict sense of the word. Nowhere in his speech did he mention his oft-quoted suggestion that Israel be expunged from the map of the world. At no point did he mention the word “Jews”, only “Zionists”, and then specifically in an Israeli context. Nor did he repeat his infamous Holocaust denials, although he did reportedly refer to it slightingly as “ambiguous” in its evidence.

Read it again: he states that a man he admits is a holocaust-denier is not anti-Semitic because in that particular speech he didn’t explicitly re-state his well-known views.  In other words, a politician shouldn’t be judged by his record, his past statements that he has never recanted, and the company he keeps, but by whatever he happens to be saying at that particular moment in time.  A politician is whatever his speech says he is, and criticism based on previous statements is churlish.  This would be the charitable interpretation.  Reading a little further in, one can infer that Mr. Hamilton sees absolutely nothing wrong with having a holocaust-denier give a speech at an anti-racism conference.

Which ties in nicely to my point about the quibbling over details to ignore the bigger picture.  The truth is that it didn’t matter what Mr. Ahmadinejad said in his speech, short of him disavowing his previous denials of the Holocaust.  It is an undisputed fact that he has denied the holocaust, and hosted a conference to this effect in which he shared a platform with former KKK leader David Duke.  Surely it would be reasonable to assume that anyone who hosts a conference on holocaust denial with racists might themself be a racist?  Apparently not if it might prevent you from bashing Israel.  Just because he watered down a speech does not stop him being an egregious racist.  Focusing on the speech ignores the elephant in the room.  An open racist has no right to speak at a conference against racism, and it doesn’t matter what his speech explicitly says.  Hitler was known to give the occasional speech in which he didn’t talk about Jews.

The only people being cynical in this whole affair are the partisans defending Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Less than two weeks until the dissertation is due puts this blog on the backburner once again.

In the meantime enjoy the following:

Elemental – Cup Of Brown Joy from Moog on Vimeo.

A few weeks ago the New York Post got itself in trouble for printing a cartoon that made an unwitting comparison of President Obama to a monkey. Understandably, groups like the NAACP were outraged and demanded an apology, which they duly got.

Rather than apologising properly, however, it claimed the inference was unintentional and apologised that others took offence.

For many this may seem enough: no explicit racist intent, clear up and move on. Stop crying. This is a position I would have subscribed to were it not for an event a few years ago where an acquaintance described me as living in a “Jewish palace”. This, ignoring the fact that the residence in question was owned by a Presbyterian and had been decorated by an assortment of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Roman Catholics. It wasn’t even in North London.

The problem is that at the heart of the matter the most damaging sorts of racism are precisely those that are unintentional.

Most people are relatively aware that the man shouting “nigger” or “kike” is not to be listened to. We recognise and rightly abhor his prejudices and hatred. It’s easy to spot and thus to ignore. The difficulty comes in that when a respectable person says something with a racial overtone without any particularly hostile motive, the damage is greater as their words will be listened to and absorbed. That will go on to form others’ perceptions and prejudices, and do far more damage in the long term, albeit at a low level.

The musical Avenue Q manages to raise the issue in a rather amusing way with the song Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist. Humans are inherently prejudiced. We have to make assumptions in order to act in a world of limited cognitive capability. The problem comes when it factors in the matter of racial prejudice. It may even come from the most benevolent of motives. The problem is that any such assumptions on the basis of race rob people of their individuality and skew the distortion of them. It’s one thing to make a snap judgement about an individual, quite another to do so for a group of human beings lumped together on largely arbitrary criteria.

This may sound like a PC whinge but it’s not. In fact, much of what we dismiss as “PC gone mad” is precisely the sort of thing I am talking about. Banning christmas decorations and other Christian symbols is based not on a genuine sensitivity to the situation and sensibilities of minorities, but a prejudiced view of what they want, usually based off poor stereotypes. Racism does not need to be intentional or hostile. That does not stop it from being malign: the more a stereotype is perpetuated, the more people conform with it and match align their expectations with it.

The biggest problem with unintentional racism is, for reasons similar to those outlined above, that it has racist effect without enough awareness to effectively deal with it. The originator ducks responsibility for his actions by taking the logically false position that they are not responsible for their actions when their intentions are pure. Though this may be true to some extent, after warning it ceases to be the case. Such warnings, however, are difficult. “Racism” is such a serious accusation that it’s difficult for people to accept that they might be just a little bit themselves. The problem is thus left to fester and all the little cases of minor racism aggregate into a problem far greater than its constituent parts.

The very fact that the New York Post did not believe it had have any racist intention is precisely why it needs to apologise fully. The cartoon was racist in effect, and perpetuated a negative stereotype. It didn’t matter that there was no explcit or hostile racism. The absence of such made it all the worse because it sneaks under the mainstream’s anti-racist radar. The New York Post should have apologised fully to remind people of this.

Following up on my last post, it seems I was uncharitable  to Jeni Barnett.

She had decided to respond to what is becoming a veritable onslaught against her ignorance, even spilling over into the mainstream media.  In so doing she claimed she was interested in “debate”.  I was uncharitable insofar as I had at the back of my mind the suspicion that this might have been the case.

However, it is clear that her true colours are now to be shown: the post on her blog (which I didn’t originally link to), has since been removed, along with hundreds of comments critical of her in the process.

Fortunately, a transcript was once again saved, and it can be found HERE.

UPDATE: Having got so angry as to try and vent my annoyances over this matter on Facebook, I came across this group in support of Dr. Goldacre.  Please join it.

When examining the merits of a scientific argument, facts are vital.

That may sound like a truism, but it seems to be lost on a vast swathe of people with little scientific background or understanding, who nonetheless feel that they have the right to gob off about the merits of a vaccine they barely understand.

So let’s take a few facts:

• The principal author of the paper that accused MMR of having a link with autism has been charged with professional misconduct by the General Medical Council for his behaviour;
• Said author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, was funded by anti-MMR campaigners to conduct his “research“;
  
• Ten of the other authors of the paper have since gone on record saying there is no causal link between MMR and Autism, and retracting the claims made in their original paper;
• There is no scientific evidence of a causative link between MMR and autism
• The bowel condition Dr. Wakefield claims causes autism is not triggered by the MMR triple vaccine, existed before MMR was even licensed and has no evidence of having any link to autism.

Nevertheless, the mainstream media felt it appropriate to continue to promote such nonsense even though it has as much validity as the Dihidrogen Monoxide Hoax.

The effects of giving these cranks a platform has potentially devastating consequences. Measles infection rates are at a thirteen-year high, herd immunity is below acceptable levels, and there are warnings of a potential epidemic. Measles is not just a few red spots on the skin; it is a serious disease with extremely unpleasant complications.

Yet for some reason the media considers it acceptable to give such charlatans and fraudsters a platform. If they were denying the Holocaust, they’d be sacked, yet when it comes to spreading lies with clearly harmful consequences, they’re seen as legitimate contributors to the debate.

Fortunately, in some instances a platform becomes a scaffold. A recent LBC show did just that. The sheer ignorance of the presenter, Jeni Barnett, is beyond parody. She admits she isn’t a scientist, yet nonetheless lacks the guts to show a bit of humility and stop mouthing off about what she knows so little about.* Worse still, she hides behind the mantle of caring, in some pseudo-postmodern obscenity that elevates her ignorance to a position of equal validity to a doctor and legions of academic research. In this mentality, having the right intentions is all that’s required, regardless of what the outcome might be.

The excellent Ben Goldacre, of the Guardian’s Bad Science fame, took Barrett’s tripe and stuck it up on his blog. This has apparently rattled her and she’s now threatening Dr. Goldacre with legal action simply for rebroadcasting her ignorance. That shows how genuine the “debate” is about MMR. If she can’t deal with a junior doctor picking apart the holes in her argument without recourse to crude legal action, then she’s not got any authority to spout such nonsense about science.

Fortunately, bloggers have rallied around Dr. Goldacre. If you fancy spending a bit of time discovering the depths to which ignorance can sink and egos can rise, you can read the transcript, or listen to the original recording HERE.

I don’t usually like to get this angry, but the MMR hoax is one with potentially fatal consequences. Arrogant bien pensants like Barnett deserve nothing less than contempt for their quackery.

* While I am no scientist either, I have spent long enough arguing with creationists to have a very good knowledge of the scientific method. Some of my best friends are scientists.

At least some good has come from the “cash for laws” scandal: journalists have not appended the word “gate” to its name.

In Politics and the English Language, Orwell wrote of how political writers seized on terms and squeezed every drop of life out of them until there was little left but the haggard husk of a long-dead cliché buried in a pauper’s grave, so despised had it become. The “-gate” suffix is just such a term.

At first, I am sure, it must have been quite witty to use it as a shorthand for scandal. Oh how the reading public must have chuckled, seeing that some otherwise unremarkable journalist had managed to fire up enough neurons to realise that he could brutally cleave the end of the name of a hotel from itself, and crudely sew it on to a relevant noun. Very droll.

There are few more obvious signs that a journalist is over-paid and underworked if the best phrase he can fashion is to take one word and slap “gate” on the end of it. It betrays a severe lack of imagination. If a writer cannot fashion a phrase, slogan or epithet that contains a bit of originality and flair, what is the point in hiring them? There are more people who want to be writers than there are actually opportunities, and those that cannot escape the comfort of their tired phrases should move aside to let those who can have an opportunity.

All the best comedians know that a joke, used too often, becomes as funny as a mortgage in arrears. This became the case with this poor subsitute for wit long ago. In the last few years we have had nannygate, yachtgate, betsygate, and cheriegate, to name but a few. Just typing those last few words was sufficient to plunge my stomach into convulsions of revulsion. What would happen if the US Secretary of Defence gets mired in scandal: will it be “Gatesgate”? What if it involves his gate? Will that be “Gates’gategate”? If we persist in letting our journalists off the hook for this barbarous crime against the language of Shakespeare, then this is the obvious unintelligible absurdity that we will be forced to read.

By way of a genuine example of the stultifying effect of this term’s use, take the business last year between the Shadow Chancellor and Peter Mandelson about some disparaging words and no donation on a yacht. It was widely referred to as “yachtgate”. How many more brain-cells would have been required to work out that since a yacht is something that floats on water, the more amusing alternative would have been on-the-water-gate? If cliché has to be used, it could at least be in a creative manner. Unfortunately, so cliche-addled were the hacks’ brains that they were unable to think beyond the formulaic application of “noun-gate” and coin an original term. The drug of the stock phrase had rendered them incapable of genuine wit.

Orwell reminded us that this corruption and ossification of the English language could be resisted, often with public ridicule. Let us endeavour to banish the “-gate” suffix from our political lexicon. Whenever the ugly term rears its vile head, let us name and shame the imaginationally-challenged, groan-inducing journo who mistook it for wit. Scandals deserve memorable names, not formulaic tripe.