davidthompson

Elsewhere (4)

Mick Hartley on Freud, Marx and Hegel - and being antiquated. 

Freud didn’t cure anyone, or come to his conclusions through the hard work of trial and error. The analytic situation was merely the backdrop for what was really going on: myth-making on a grand scale… To use [Freud’s theorising] to explain Western literature, as generations of academics have done, following Freud’s example, is to hold up a mirror and believe you’re seeing through a window.

Thomas Sowell on some economic fallacies. (h/t, Lattenomics.) 

If it was really true that you could hire a woman for three quarters of what you could hire a man with exactly the same qualifications, then employers would be crazy not to hire all women. It would be insane to hire men. Not only would it be insane, it would probably put them out of the business because the ones that were smart enough to hire women would have such a cost advantage that it would be really hard for the others to compete.

Norman Geras on Seumas Milne’s latest apologia for Hamas.

Milne tactfully passes over what Hamas’s charter reveals about it: that it is a programmatically anti-Semitic organization which quotes from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and promises the killing of Jews. How is it thinkable that a Guardian journalist doesn’t notice this or, if he does, discounts it? It’s thinkable. In fact, it’s getting to be an old story. [There] was a time when it was kind of shocking.

Yet now it’s a routine pathology among a large part of the left, perhaps the larger part, and its mainstream British publication.

Comedy of Manners

Thank God for the Guardian. No, really. I mean, where else would you turn to find a socialist named Jemima lecturing us on snobbery and the evils of the word “chav”? Yesterday, Tom Hampson and Jemima Olchawski, both pillars of the Fabian Society, urged Guardian readers to fret about their language:

We have to stop using the word “chav”… It is deeply offensive to a largely voiceless group and - especially when used in normal middle-class conversation or on national TV - it betrays a deep and revealing level of class hatred.

It’s interesting to note how readily vulnerability is assigned to “a largely voiceless group” that isn’t actually defined anywhere in the article. Apparently, it’s no longer necessary to specify who or what is vulnerable, or how; one can merely assert that something, somewhere is. But which “group” are we talking about? Poor people? Criminals? Antisocial youths? Or some subset thereof? 

We have heard it increasingly used in conversation over the last year, invariably to casually describe people “not like us” and very often used by people who are otherwise rather progressive in their politics.

Doesn’t that say something about the company being kept by the scrupulously leftwing authors, rather than, necessarily, the population as a whole?

You cannot consider yourself of the left and use the word. It is sneering and patronising

And that would be unheard of. Especially among those who hold in such esteem that thing called “middle England”.

The Thrill of Costume

Steve Schofield photographs British science fiction fans who like to dress up.

I rather like the images, the discomfort and the hint of tragicomedy. But I’m less convinced by the predictable spiel about “globalisation and America’s ongoing ability to infiltrate all cultures via various channels of media.” Are we supposed to believe that these people are in some way being oppressed by international mass culture? Why don’t artists fret quite so much about the globalisation of, say, Chinese restaurants? Or doesn’t that count? And why does no-one want to dress up as Naomi Klein?

Via Coudal.

Second Childhood

Some time ago, in discussing multicultural ideology and its effects, I wrote: 

During a conversation about the ‘cartoon jihad’ uproar, I used the phrase “emotional incontinence.” This did not go down well. I was promptly told, in no uncertain terms, that I mustn’t “impose” my own cultural values. Apparently, to do so would be a form of “cultural imperialism,” an archaic colonial hangover, and therefore unspeakably evil. I was, apparently, being “arrogantly ethnocentric” in considering Western secular society broadly preferable to a culture in which rioting, murder and genocidal threats can be prompted by the publication of a cartoon.

I was informed that to regard one set of cultural values as preferable to another was “racist” and “oppressive”. Indeed, even the attempt to make any such determination was itself a heinous act. I was further assailed with a list of examples of “Western arrogance, decadence, irreverence, and downright nastiness.” And I was reminded that, above all, I “must respect deeply held beliefs.” When I asked if this respect for deeply held beliefs extended to white supremacists, cannibals and ultra-conservative Republicans, a deafening silence ensued.

At some point, I made reference to migration and the marked tendency of families to move from Islamic societies to secular ones, and not the other way round. “This seems rather important,” I suggested. “If you want to evaluate which society is preferred to another by any given group, migration patterns are an obvious yardstick to use. Broadly speaking, people don’t relocate their families to cultures they find wholly inferior to their own.” Alas, this fairly self-evident suggestion did not meet with approval. No rebuttal was forthcoming, but the litany of Western wickedness resumed, more loudly than before.

[…]

In terms of leftist political rhetoric, cultural equivalence has broadly come to mean than no objective judgment should be made as to whether [a given set of] practices and beliefs are better or worse than any other, or have consequences that are measurably detrimental given certain criteria. The actual moral and practical content of a given worldview is, of course, to be studiously ignored, as this would imply some kind of judgment might be made. In common usage, this assumption reduces analysis to mere opinion and is corrosive to critical thought for fairly obvious reasons. In order to maintain a pretence of ‘fairness’ and non-judgmental equivalence, there are any number of things one simply cannot allow oneself to think about, at least in certain ways.

Diana West, author of The Death of the Grown-Up, was recently interviewed by the National Review. The following extract seems relevant to the above:

I would describe PC life in a multiculti world as being marked in part by self-censorship based in fear - fear of professional failure, opprobrium or social ostracism. I would also describe this same self-censorship as a form of childishness… The fact is, buying into multiculturalism - the outlook that sees all cultures as being of equal value (except the West, which is essentially vile) - requires us to repress our faculties of logic, and this in itself is an infantilising act. I mean, it’s patently illogical to accept and teach our children the notion that a culture that has brought liberty and penicillin to the masses is of no greater value than others that haven’t. In accepting the multicultural worldview, we deceive ourselves into inhabiting a world of pretend where certain truths are out of bounds and remain unspoken - even verboten.

More.

Elsewhere (3)

Keith Windshuttle on adversarial culture.   

The moral rationale of cultural relativism is a plea for tolerance and respect of other cultures, no matter how uncomfortable we might be with their beliefs and practices. However, there is one culture conspicuous by its absence from all this. The plea for acceptance and open-mindedness does not extend to Western culture itself, whose history is regarded as little more than a crime against the rest of humanity. The West cannot judge other cultures but must condemn its own.

Peter Risdon on the cruelty of Polly Toynbee.

One thing, and one thing only, keeps people trapped in the kind of poverty of mind where they don’t feed their children properly even when they could, and shit in their own stairwells. It’s a lack of ownership; a lack of self-reliance. It’s a lack of the very concept of self-reliance. It’s an idea that the mere thought that they should be self-reliant is immoral, evil, callous and cruel.

Elaine McArdle on men, women and work.

An important part of the explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else. One study of information technology workers found that women’s own preferences are the single most important factor in that field’s dramatic gender imbalance. A certain amount of gender gap might be a natural artifact of a free society.

And, via Stephen Hicks, some heinous cultural imperialism. 

There are about 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., more than the number of McDonald’s, Burger Kings, and KFCs combined. 

It’s oppression, I tell you.

Vintage Wheels

Plan 59 has a fine collection of photographs and artwork featuring mid-twentieth century cars and trucks.

Some pretty good station wagons, too.

Novelty, Tights and Beer

On Radio 4 this morning, Quentin Letts asked, not unreasonably, What’s the Point of the Arts Council?

The reason Arts Council officials demand “challenging and contemporary” work is not that the new is necessarily better; it’s because the new gives them an edge. They can be its arbiters and make sure it follows approved creeds.

To hear a glittering cast opine, along with the notion of subsidised beer and what may be the first broadcast use of the term “tickboxery”, click here.

Inclinations

If you haven’t been already, you may enjoy a visit to the, fairly self-explanatory, Stuff White People Like.

Entries of note include Hating Corporations, Arts Degrees, Having Gay Friends, White People in the News and, mentioned here previously, Knowing What’s Best for Poor People. 

Cheaper Than Zero

Writing in today’s Comment is Free, Tim Watkin ponders the shift in readership from newsprint to web.

By reading this article online, are you complicit in the slow death of printed newspapers and magazines? …For all of us on CiF, it’s surely a question we should be wrestling with… I’m sure many of you, like me, still buy print. But if you and I are spending more and more time on sites such as this instead of buying other newspapers and magazines where we live, we’ve got our hands on the knife. Haven’t we?

Setting aside Watkin’s urge to feel and inflict guilt - and the fact his article isn’t available in the Guardian’s print edition - I’m reminded of a recent telephone exchange on much the same subject. A few weeks ago I received a call from a very polite woman who was trying, heroically, to sell me a subscription to a certain broadsheet newspaper. It went something like this:

“And, Mr Thompson, we’re now offering a 60% discount.”

[ Expectant pause. ]

“Hm. But I read the papers online, for free. I haven’t bought a printed newspaper in months.”

“Yes, but we’re offering 60% off…”

“Yes, 60% is a big discount, I see that. But I’m currently paying nothing. What’s 60% off nothing?”

“Um… But not all of our content is available online.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, not at all, there are crosswords… and, er, supplements…”

[ Pause. ]

“I don’t do crosswords and the supplements are, well, just packing material. When I used to buy newspapers, the supplements were always the first things to go in the bin. Why should I start paying for something I don’t even unwrap and immediately throw away?”

[ Long pause. ]

“Oh. Well, er… thank you for your time, Mr Thompson…”

Displacement

In today’s Guardian, Tanya Gold recounts her experience of alcoholism as a middle-class teenager.

I know why I tried to drink myself to death. I was lonely and angry, and I felt worthless. Nobody knows exactly what causes alcoholism. I believe it is genetic, but triggered by trauma.

The details of Ms Gold’s “trauma” aren’t made clear, but what happens next is interesting, insofar as it follows much the same pattern favoured by, among others, Madeleine Bunting and Oliver James, whereby a particular unhappiness is assumed to be shared by all sentient beings and is then blamed on… capitalism.

Alcohol has never been so cheap. The supermarkets and the happy hours and the clubs can’t stuff it down our throats cheaply enough or fast enough or long enough; some supermarkets sell it at less than cost, to draw the shoppers in. They don’t treat it as a dangerous drug, but as a commodity that is great for business.

The fact that most people use alcohol in moderation passes oddly unremarked. As does the fact that, generally speaking, one ultimately chooses whether or not to get hammered into unconsciousness on an all but daily basis. Even the most decadent of nightclubs don’t yet strap their customers into chairs then funnel booze and pharmaceuticals down their throats. And inexpensive drinks still require time and inclination to be consumed in sufficient quantities. As Gold says,

To develop alcoholism you have to drink heavily. You have to put the hours in at the pub.

Well, quite.

After fingering supermarkets and nightclubs as the cause of human misery, we leap, erratically, to this:

There are wonderful new ways to make young women feel worthless. Sparkling advertisements and whispering editorials encourage them to aspire to an ever-receding fantasy. You can never be beautiful or thin enough for the fashion magazines of 2008. You can never be sexy enough for MTV, or pornography. You can never be famous enough for Heat.

Well, again, there is an element of choice here, and responsibility. My own exposure to Heat magazine is, it’s true, somewhat limited. I occasionally register the cover with bewilderment while waiting at the checkout of my local supermarket. Like many other men and women, I manage to find its influence remarkably easy to resist. It’s simply not of interest, and surely that’s the point. Even if a copy were taped to my face with a subsequent quiz on its contents, I doubt I’d feel inclined to emulate the people photographed within. But maybe that’s just me.

Ms Gold goes on to say,

Denial is the best friend of alcoholism,

Which, given the above, may well be true. And, 

Now we all collude.

Which, I think, is not.

When not preoccupied by alcohol and “society’s constant assault on female self-esteem,” Tanya Gold is also a “recovering dieter” and has issues with her smoking.