Things which are back ON!
1. The Sharpener - multiple cheers for the boy Band.
2. The Bloggertarians versus Blarxists Blogwars!
Recommending viewing, a sequel to our previous feature. The story so far... our hero is Paulie, a contributor to the website Drink-Soaked Trotskyist Popinjays For WAR, a blog renowned for such pieces as:
Liberal Cuntspiracy ("What a fucking cock-end.")
Marko Attila Whore ("I fucking hate that cunt. I would like to shoot him in the fucking head. Bang bang.")
Thick cunts and their playing around with stuff and shit like that like ("Stupid fucking twats... I would shoot them. With blunt bullets. And shit like that.")
Matan Vilnai ("Pigfaced little dozy cunt... should resign immediately and fuck off. Then he should come back and fuck off again")
Fuckwit spotted…needs gutting ("Mike Hulme is a cunt... Hulme can fuck off and then come back and fuck off again")
and endless identical others; So, yes, Paulie from that website has decided that it's a good idea to restart his campaign against other blogs whose writing is "incoherent" and "tends towards the misanthropic", who replace argument with personal abuse, and who he accuses of "poisoning public debate", etc.
The sequel mostly consists of him being called a cunt, violently objecting while secretly finding it terribly exciting, and then vanishing under an avalanche of accusations of double-standards.
3. This blog. No - ha ha - just joking and cuntshit like that shit.
23 Comments:
Are you going to finish this thread saying "... please fuck off. You've said you're not going to bother with me, and I've no further interest in bothering with you" again?
Just wondering, oh troll-with-a-blog.
You got me Paulie. I told you to fuck off, and now here I am talking about you again. What a hypocrite I am.
I just worried that you might get upset again if I explain something to you, or refer to something I've said elsewhere by way of explanation.
You see, if I do that, I know that your creative little mind will be so busy dreaming up new hyperbole that it will get in the way of you reading or understanding what I'm saying.
We'll then argue again and I'll tell you that I think you're a bit thick and there'll be more swearing.
It's just that what happened last time can provide a good guide to how the next little exchange is going to go.
Well don't bother then.
I admit that it looks to me that your non-stop boo-hooing that the Devil's Kitchen insulted you doesn't sit too comfortably with your status as a regular contributor and fan of DSTPFW.
But I'll accept that the two must really be perfectly compatible, and that I'm just too thick to understand how.
Maybe if DK had said "I fucking hate that cunt Paulie. I would like to shoot him in the fucking head. Bang bang.", then that would have been all right.
When I've gone on about 'poisoning public debate', that isn't the same thing as saying "I wish bloggers weren't rude to each other."
They always will be, and it's no problem because blogging doesn't really matter in that respect.
As far as I'm concerned, I'll normally deal with people civilly unless I think that they are trolling, if they've half-read something and then left a snarky comment anyway, or if they've actually been rude to me.
In DK and Ian's case, I *really* object to being called stupid by someone who is plainly quite thick (DK cost £25k a year to educate!!!).
When someone you think is wrong about everything, and thick to boot, writes an insulting post about you, then they give you the very liberating opportunity to punctuate basic arguments with personal insults.
I *do* think that they way the blogosphere discusses politics is damaging though. It exacerbates the way that the media disporportionatly targets elected politicians against their rivals. That was my 'defence of Guido' point which - like most of the points I make in response to yours, you don't acknowledge.
So when someone personalises a political issue on a politican, I'm going to argue with them.
*That's* what I mean about poisoning public debate.
What Will does is his own business. He makes me laugh sometimes, and he's managed to get three of four of the best bloggers I've seen anywhere to write for his site. And he is plainly cleverer than most bloggers that I come across - I say that even though his position is quite different to mine on lots of things.
He also often offers very good insights every now and then, but I suspect that they would challenge your attention span.
If he's rude to you, and you don't like it, ignore it. He hardly acts as a censor. I doubt if anyone hesitates to say what they were going to say for fear that Will is going to call them a cunt.
On the other hand, memebots and trolls *do* make me less willing to bother writing about anything these days. If I do a post on the price of fish, some twat will appear in my comments box and bang on about education vouchers.
That never happens offline.
There. I've been quite nice to you, haven't I?
Thing is Paulie, I do actually think you make some interesting points. But the last time I tried to discuss them with you sensibly, I ended up sincerely wishing I hadn't bothered.
I will mull it over and see if I fancy another go.
But irrespective of that, I do absolutely think you cannot expect people to take seriously any criticism of bloggers who behave as if "argument can be replaced with personal abuse" when that case is being made at the Drunken Trots blog. It's that whole having and eating of cake thing, it irks people, even if the cakes are very slightly different colours.
Anyway two of Rubbish's posts that I linked to above were abuse directed at politicians, if that's your current criterion. Though no doubt he'll get a let-off because he wasn't "personalis[ing] historical processes", but merely ranting at politicians for something bad they'd done... The problem is that distinction, if that's the one you want to make, is finer than you'd like, and is rather in the eye of the beholder.
He also often offers very good insights every now and then, but I suspect that they would challenge your attention span.
Go on, link to something original he's written which is remotely intellectually challenging. Tell you what, I'll lower the bar, something which isn't utterly cretinous will do.
Oh, don't get me wrong - I don't 'fancy another go' - what's in it for me? I get cross-examined without anything coming back, that's what.
You say that I make interesting points. Which ones? You've never said. And do YOU make any? I've never seen you write anything - any original observation, anything that is a bit thought-provoking - anything that dozens of other people aren't saying already.
Oh, Will does though. I'm not going to do the linking for you.
You keep saying how you've been 'thinking about' what I've said and 'tried to engage' with it, and so on.
But probably the only thing that you say you and I have had *any* exchanges on have been this 'negativism' schtick.
And you've read and understood what I mean by the term so much that you actually think that getting involved in a fashionable left-liberal single-issue campaign proves that you (and Justin McK) don't qualify for my definition of negativists?
A rudimentary attempt to understand anything other than the superficials of what I've been saying would tell you that this is 180 away from what I mean by the term. It's exactly what I'm against.
*That's* the high quality of dialogue I can expect with you, is it?
Y'know, like I said in the footnote, the "rude" attitude I displayed in the 'Paulie Translated' post really is not like the usual me. In fact, I've maintained a blog (Question That) for coming up to 7 months in which I have never called another blogger or a politician a "cunt" or similar, because that's not what Question That's about. Like I say, it's not my usual style. There's just 3 bloggers who piss me off to this extent: You, Will Rubbish, and Labour ultra-tribalist Neil Harding. The guest-blogging slot at DK's place has given me an opportunity to vent my irritation.
The Devil's Kitchen blog is as it is described on Technorati, i.e. a rant-space. DK is, as Chris himself explains here (and that is not the first time he has said so), to a large extent a persona. When I post at DK's, I am adopting a (slightly toned-down) version of that persona - surely you've realised that?
At that rant-space, all sorts of people get excoriated, including journalists, organisations, and politicians - such as, recently, Tories Boris Johnson, Nadine Dorries, and Robert Atkins. So when you imply that DK is some kind of Tory in disguise, you rightly get some pretty strongly-worded comebacks.
Chris certainly isn't stupid, or thick. Like I say, DK is a persona. If you really need proof, this video shows the man behind the Devil's Kitchen blog, debating with Dave Osler and Melanie Hampton. Of course he doesn't see eye to eye with Osler, but he certainly isn't a 'demented ranting wreck'.
I admit myself, I had my preconceptions about Devil's Kitchen, but they were put to rest once I saw that video (this was before I first met him in person and before LPUK formed).
As for Will, I'll let the challenge Larry has put up continue without input from me, but I do feel the need to comment on your assertion that Will "hardly acts as a censor", because from first-hand experience (that I linked to in the post at DK's place) I know that he, well, does.
Which ones?
Well, the stuff about endlessly calling individual politicians cunts being counter-productive, and that. I get it - it's true... up to a point.
At the same time, there is a converse: that *individual policies* can make major differences to people's lives and liberties. And to that extent, when a government is planning something bad, and planning on doing it soon, it really doesn't matter whether it's because they're cunts (as DK would have it), or because they're angels struggling to operate in impossible circumstances (as you believe). The fact is some government proposals simply do need to be stopped, if possible.
So I accept with single-issue campaigns, there is a trade-off between short and long term interests.
You don't accept that, and you dodge this whole question by standing aloof from individual policies, and always crapping on about "broader issues". But isn't it rather a key question: *when* is negativism worth it?
So, yes, I think the negativism schtick has the seeds of a good idea in it. But in your hands it becomes an open-ended demand to meekly put up with whatever the government chucks at us, without protest.
Another one: you say of bloggertarians "They are often keen to personalise historical processes and attempt to identify particular prominent public figures with those processes. Once this is done, argument can be replaced with personal abuse for those individuals."
I think this is a good point. But, again, it has an equal opposite. What you do is dress up government policy as "historical processes", thereby exonerating individuals of responsibility for their actions.
You may be right that centralization happens for the broader sociological reasons you give. Yes, a rabid media probably provides unhelpful incentives for politicians. But centralization also happens, Paulie, because the government passes bad, centralizing legislation. There shouldn't be a contradiction here, and your constant harping on about the former would be more convincing if it didn't look suspiciously like an attempt to whitewash the latter. Don't believe me? Ask Shuggy.
As for the rest... whatever. You've argued that I still don't understand your position based on something you've made up, which makes it difficult to follow - luckily I don't propose to try.
"What you do is dress up government policy as "historical processes", thereby exonerating individuals of responsibility for their actions."
Nope. Most people try and pin *all* (or most of) the blame on politicians. I'm happy to share it fairly among everyone who deserves it. Not least the voters, journalists, civil servants, businessmen, charities, Unions, pressure groups, god botherers and Derby County fans.
All I see everywhere else is suppine acceptance of whatever gets thrown at us.
But, you know, carry on convincing yourself that you're *really* making a difference by getting involved in your fashionable campaigns and making court politics the focus of your ire.
Nope.
Yup. Your whole philosophy is an exercise in excuse-making for why the Labour government has so disappointed you. So even when they behave disgracefully, your response is always the same: you go on the counterattack on their behalf. That's not how you see it, but that's what it is. You attack their critics: you're negativists... you should be looking at broader issues... this is counterproductive ... you're stupid... you're too thick to understand the root sociological causes like I do... I'm not joining your fashionable campaigns (these Iraqi employees don't match my shirt).
You never acknowledge that incessantly looking at broader issues and root causes involves taking your eye off the ball with respect to individual policies. But some of these may be important enough to be worth tackling in their own right, on their own terms. A shocking thought isn't it?
I've said, several times, that your constant generalising and root-causing does lead to interesting observations along the way. But that's by the bye - the really important thing is for you to find convincing-sounding verbiage to hide behind, and build rhetorical weapons to attack government critics. Anything but join justified vocal criticism of the government for bad choices they've made. And even when campaigning against these produces a positive outcome in the real world, all you do is sneer.
"...these Iraqi employees don't match my shirt"
You're back to being a twat now.
"You never acknowledge that incessantly looking at broader issues and root causes involves taking your eye off the ball with respect to individual policies."
This thread is the first time it's been put to me that this is what I do.
I'm a Labour Party member, so I do sometimes defend the government's position on some things - as the 'least worst' position on offer (partly because I urged people to vote for this lot in the first place). But not always, and only when I think that someone has a better, fleshed out position. And I'm pretty far from agreeing with Labour's current (or recent) leadership on almost anything to do with the direction of the party or of policy.
I'm against pressure group politics and in favour of policymaking by elected representatives. I make this case at excruciating length - to a degree that even *I* find embarrassing.
So, there you are. I set out my position fully. I have no idea what yours is on anything. So I allow myself to get into arguments that I have to fight (as it were) with one hand tied behind my back, and I never see anyone writing a post about why pressure groups should be taken more seriously at the expense of elected politicians.
Why don't you write one instead of dreaming up stupid shrill metaphors about what you think my position is?
Go on Larry. Show us you knackers. I'm not going to be cross examined by you any more. Tell me what YOU think. You keep twatting on about *my* evasions and inconsistancies.
I've constantly asked you to say what you think and you've constantly failed to do so.
I'm against pressure group politics and in favour of policymaking by elected representatives. I make this case at excruciating length...
You certainly do, Paulie. We discussed this on my blog, didn't we? If I recall, I presented my experience of pressure groups and their influence on policy making, i.e. exactly as much influence as politicians wish them to have, and no more.
Having checked, you agreed with that assertion and fell back on the position that pressure groups still have the ability to sometimes dictate the weather.
This is a prime example of why I'd cheerfully stamp you with the Decent label, despite your differences with them on policy... Because what matters to you is not the actual, practical effect of, say, pressure groups on politicians. What matters is the ostentatious adoption of a highly-principled anti-pressure group stance and the condemnation of anyone who disagrees, regardless of the reality of pressure group politics.
Apply this Screw reality, I've got a high-horse to mount principle to the broader Decent tendency and you'll see what I mean. A firm and principled stance against communalist politics appears to be no bar against noisily cheering for the Iraqi and Lebanese political systems, despite both being based entirely upon ethnic and confessional politics, deliberately so in the latter case.
See also, fundamental support for human rights blending seamlessly with vicious bombing campaigns. What matters to the Decents - i.e., you and your mates, Paulie - is not the actual, practical effect. The most important thing is the declaration of purity, followed by denunciation of the betrayers and evil ones who disagree.
Anyway, I think Larry's point is pretty simple here, and you're discharging much squid ink into the water in an attempt to obscure it. You've vehemently condemned the bloggertarians for their ideological reductionism and bovine, foul-mouthed ranting, but you're a contributor to the sodding Drink Soaked Trots.
Now I'm a big fan of Shuggy's, but this is the limit of stubborn hypocrisy. Your man Will is a foul-mouthed, dictatorial cretin whose idea of "political debate" is replacing any comments by anyone outside his tiny clique with nasty smears. The man is a total cunt with no redeeming qualities, and his tendency to spew piss-poor, undergraduate-quality Marxist theory when anyone points this out doesn't mark him out as an interesting commentator. It makes him a total cunt with a tiresome line in piss-poor undergraduate-quality Marxist theory.
So you can command Larry to expound upon his worldview all you like, but he's got you bang to rights here. What's sauce for the goose - either moronic cursing and brainless reductionism is acceptable, or it's not, and no amount of diversionary weeaboo about single-issue campaigning is going to get you off the hook.
I remember saying that "pressure groups still have the ability to sometimes dictate the weather" but I didn't regard it as any climbdown from my original assertion that pressure groups are much too powerful - quite the reverse.
Here's an example:
Imagine that there were a popular proposal. Popular in that most people preferred it, but none with any noticeable level of passion.
Then there is a rival proposal - much less support, but those supporters feel very strongly and shout about it.
So the volume of 'mild support' (measured in numbers TIMES strength of feeling and willingness to trade-off other things) is higher that the rival proposal with a small number of loudmouths.
But the fanatics get their way because of The Way Things Are. And that's bad.
At the risk of making this too concrete, lots of people could be attracted to the view that small investment quotas could be levied on broadcasters to ensure that they *make* programmes instead of just screening repeats. They do it in France and - as a result - Canal + (their largest pay-TV company) actually make quite good TV programmes (I'm told). Lots of people *quite* like the idea and few people really object to it. It would reduce the monopsony in broadcasting and increase diversity of programming, reduce the reality TV 'race to the bottom' in cheap programming. It would be a very minor imposition. However, a handful of people *really* object to it (BSkyB mainly) and no-one cares about it enough to do the modeling that you'd need to turn it into a concrete proposal.
So - assuming you accept that the proposal is a good one (and for teh sake of this argument, please do - we can argue whether it's right to another time) you can make the case that a sub-optimal policy outcome will be the result unless OFCOM pay someone to do the modeling on this. At the moment, they are only considering fully developed proposals - and only pressure groups with something significant to gain make those.
So we get poorer policies - arguably the best one goes entirely unconsidered - that please loud lobbies rather than ones that have high levels of quiet support.
This is the subject of a very good book called 'The Logic Of Collective Action' by Mancur Olsen - it's really worth a read if you're interested in the whole argument about pressure groups.
And I'll trump your agreement with me that I go in at inordinate (perhaps even slightly obsessive) lengths about this with one about your little fetish about 'decents'.
I've seen your decentipedia (or whatever it's called). You spend days and weeks writing all of that and you'll never get them back. And most of it's bollocks.
Me, Shuggy, Pootergeek, Will, Norm, Nick Cohen, Harry's Place, Oliver Kamm etc - we disagree on far more than we agree. I don't have to answer for Will any more than Shuggy does, and dealing with my arguments by going "ooo look - you don't like MY type of trolling, but you don't get upset about a different type of trolling, so you're a hypocrite" is a very good way for Larry to avoid the question that I keep asking him - over and over again:
"What is your view on practically anything at all?"
To illustrate why your obsession with Decents is a bit weird when you use it in an argument with me, you say:
"A firm and principled stance against communalist politics appears to be no bar against noisily cheering for the Iraqi and Lebanese political systems, despite both being based entirely upon ethnic and confessional politics, deliberately so in the latter case."
Really? Have I noisily cheered for those systems? Has Shuggy? Do show me where, won't you?
On the 'communalist' question, in that thread that we were in a few weeks ago, you came out with this one:
"As for the stuff about how certain positions make the Left look bad in the tabloids, I say - fuck the tabloids.
A Left that perpetually censors itself so it doesn't offend a wingnut zombie like Rupert Murdoch is not a Left I want any part of."
I think that this shows the weakness in your objection to 'the decents' (that word again) 'declarations of purity'.
I've been in the Labour Party since my teens, and we had to put up with years of Tory government because we all wanted to be the kind of left that you MAY want to have been a part of. It's not some narcissistic posturing; It's a view that a democrat's politics must be shaped to allow you to build a wide coalition.
You may think I'm a bit sneery about 'fashionable' positions - it's partly because they got us sneered at on doorsteps that we needed to get out voting for us for too long. Declarations of purity be buggered. Livingstone's pissing around with Gerry Adams damaged Labour AND it was wrong and stupid at the time - for the reasons I outlined in that thread.
And "fundamental support for human rights blending seamlessly with vicious bombing campaigns."
Again, my memory is just so bad these days that I don't remember stuff that I've obviously said. Help an old man out, will you?
Also, you comment on...
"...the ostentatious adoption of a highly-principled anti-pressure group stance and the condemnation of anyone who disagrees, regardless of the reality of pressure group politics."
It's not really *that* highly principled. It's an argument. It's one that NO-ONE else is making in places like this as far as I know.
Argue against it if you want? And I don't condemn anyone who disagrees. I argue with them when I can find them. It's different.
Sorry - that thread I referred to was here:
http://flyingrodent.blogspot.com/2008/04/liberal-but-not-that-bloody-liberal.html
I allow myself to get into arguments that I have to fight (as it were) with one hand tied behind my back
You really should stop saying things like this - it's such self-pitying balls.
Let me make this simple. If someone identifies a glaring inconsistency in your position, then there is an inconsistency in your position.
And [stupid shrill metaphor alert] it really doesn't matter whether the person who spots it is Mao Zedong or Mahatma Gandhi.
I'm just the messenger here, Paulie. Here is the message: there is a glaring inconsistency in your position. Namely that you have outraged kittens when bloggertarians fire sweary vitriol in your direction, and when they substitute profanity for argument. And yet you uncritically contribute to a website which does *exactly* the same thing.
No you don't have to answer for Will's behaviour. But my complaint isn't against him. It's against you: you do have to explain why his brand of mindless swearing in place of argument is, uniquely, entitled to a free pass.
And if you think my position (or absence of it) on single-issue campaigns or anything else is of the slightest relevance to this observation, then it's not me who's "a bit thick".
Paulie, I'm sympathetic to your arguments about pressure groups and I think the process you describe is relatively common. I've already said my piece on that subject in the comments thread you link, however, and I don't have anything to add to that beyond restating that pressure groups are simply an unfortunate fact of life. I would prefer it if they all went away, since they're unpleasant and monomaniacal, but I can't think of any way to make them. Ultimately, it's up to politicians to exercise their judgement, is it not?
I raise it because you agreed that they were not a terribly big problem, yet here you are once again banging on as if they were the be-all-and-end-all of British politics. That's why I raised the Decent tag - because you elevate the striking of moral positions above their actual impact on reality. That's why I compare it to the standard HP, Cohen, Aaronovitch line on bombing and middle eastern democracy... The point is not Paulie calls for the obliteration of Shia Beirut, the point is Paulie exhibits the Decent tendency to regard his own pronouncements as significantly more important than reality.
And most of it's bollocks.
Quite likely, but at least it's entertaining and has a few gags, doesn't it? The point being, we choose how and why we write for a reason - I do it because I enjoy entertaining people, like tearing a few strips off those who deserve it and, ultimately, like the form and content of what I produce. You can decide whether that has value, but I'd argue it has significantly more than x million bloggers churning out the same old shite.
Me, Shuggy, Pootergeek, Will, Norm, Nick Cohen, Harry's Place, Oliver Kamm etc - we disagree on far more than we agree.
You don't, you know. From my reading, you all disagree on the trifles and firmly agree on the meat and two veg, i.e. the identification and denunciation of evil ones and the promotion of your own particular style of hectoring political boosterism. The fact you personally favour passive/aggressive criticism rather than the outright nameslinging and red-baiting of the rest of that sect is to your credit, but isn't a massive difference.
Anyway, there's more in your post than I can reasonably respond to on someone else's blog, so let's return to the point of Larry's post, shall we?
I don't have to answer for Will any more than Shuggy does.
Yes, you do, because you constantly bang on about the evils of personal abuse and ideological stupidity at a site brimming with it. If you didn't regularly do this, nobody would raise the issue of the vicious little shit you share a blog with.
This isn't a difficult point to understand - you keep starting pie fights with the Bloggertarians because they're idiotically narrow minded and substitute personal abuse for debate... And say, correctly, that that's inherently childish and damaging.
Yet your own co-blogger at DST is as bad, if not significantly worse, and you either defend him or wave his horrible wanker behaviour away as insignificant or unconnected. This is not only highly hypocritical, it's also the entire point Larry is making. It's not as if it's ambiguous in the post, is it?
You don't need to know what Larry thinks about anything at all to answer. The only lesson I've learned from your daft little squabble is that bloggertarians and Eustonites are two sides of the same coin.
I agree with the last five paragraphs of the Rodent, except for the bit where he says I'm idiotically narrow-minded. Actually, he's probably right about that, as well.
But one quick point:
I don't have to answer for Will any more than Shuggy does.
I, too, think that this is incorrect, for the simple reason that your main gripe against "bloggertarians" is that we are foul-mouthed, abusive, one-dimensional, negativist and exhibit little in the way of original, let alone constructive thinking.
And then, when the example of your co-blogger Will is brought up - time and again, and by people as ideologically diverse as myself, Rodent, Teabag, even Marko Attila Hoare - your response is, basically, "well, I like him, and anyway that's different".
But it's not, is it? It's exactly the same, except that in my opinion, Will displays rather less wit and brio than your average sweary bloggertarian, let alone intellect. And, speaking personally, I don't even think he swears very well.
That doesn't mean to say he isn't a delightful and intelligent human being with whom you could have hours of interesting political discussion in the pub; or that he couldn't trounce me in an argument about Gramsci. It's just that there's scant evidence for it anywhere on DSTFW.
So foul-mouthed, abusive, one-dimensional negativists are to be condemned only if they're the wrong sort of foul-mouthed, abusive, one-dimensional negativist. Do you see why some of us consider that a little hypocritical?
All of which tends to make me think that, rather than mounting a mini-campaign against "bloggertarians", you'd be better served just saying "Christ, Devil's Kitchen is shit, isn't it?" and then leaving it at that; and to accept that different blogs serve different purposes.
Some blogs exist to engage on issues of policy, some to campaign on important issues, and some, like my own, do both these things occasionally, but quite often just like to point out that the government is shit, repeatedly and with whatever humour we are able to muster. If you don't like it, really, then who's forcing you to read it?
Because sites like DK, or mine, write the way we do, we divide opinion. I'm comfortable with that I don't care if people think I'm a narrow-minded idiot; that's the price you pay for calling people cunts five times a week - but unlike Will, at least I don't call other bloggers cunts, let alone delete their comments.
And that's my final point. As others have pointed out, your comrade Will deletes perfectly inoffensive comments because he doesn't agree with them or doesn't like the commenter. I have first-hand experience of this ("pissy little ant... spamming cunt"). That very definitely is your business; I don't think any self-respecting blog should do this.
So, here's a constructive suggestion, honestly made; you might persuade your fellow bloggers at DSTFW to institute a comments policy that bans deletion of comments, unless offensive or spam. If you can do that, then something concrete may actually come out of this otherwise slightly pointless spat.
"The only lesson I've learned from your daft little squabble is that bloggertarians and Eustonites are two sides of the same coin."
Oh, I think that your obsession had taken you there a long time before this thread.
It's quite funny that the Euston Manifesto had the strawman canard thrown at it for ages - and then you go and entirely re-invent the whole thing as having a fictional coherence in a multi-page imaginary feat! And just to show I'm not all churlish, it's very well written. Well done!
"...you agreed that they were not a terribly big problem, yet here you are once again banging on as if they were the be-all-and-end-all of British politics."
I really didn't. I agreed with your observation about their direct influence on the way that policy is formed, but that's not the same as saying that they're not a big problem. I think that there is a solution to the problem as well, which is why I don't think that banging on about it is pointless.
"...you all disagree on the trifles and firmly agree on the meat and two veg, i.e. the identification and denunciation of evil ones and the promotion of your own particular style of hectoring political boosterism."
Evil ones? I argue with people I disagree with. I start arguments. I think that starting arguments is a worthwhile thing to do. It helps you think about things. If my 'evil ones' are the IRA in the 1980s or Stalinists in CND, I didn't like them, and I mainly argued that sometimes, a political movement has to clearly distance itself from damaging elements, for their own survival. A common view, I think? I don't think I've ever gone for the competitive holier-than-thou-ness of Harry's Place.
If you think that this is 'hectoring political boosterism' I'd be interested to see how that's different from you taking the positions that you do, and how you defend them. You're hardly averse to this yourself anyway, are you FR? Quite the opposite, I think?
If I was all passive aggressive about people being rude in comments boxes and gave two fucks about little rudenesses, then maybe I'd be getting all flaky about the indignities I suffered at the hands of one Malky Muscular (whoever he is).
On Will, as Larry said earlier:
"Though no doubt he'll get a let-off because he wasn't "personalis[ing] historical processes", but merely ranting at politicians for something bad they'd done... The problem is that distinction, if that's the one you want to make, is finer than you'd like, and is rather in the eye of the beholder."
It IS a fine distinction. I'm keen on fine distinctions. I've spent hours arguing with Larry and his ilk waiting for them to make fine distinctions, and I could almost hear the penny dropping when I read him noticing the "personalising historical processes" bit. It IS in the eye of the beholder. I'd be very surprised if anyone (apart from that Ian bloke, who seems to need everything explaining to him twice) was actually genuinely upset by Will being rude to them. It's his routine.
To repeat: Rudeness and namecalling doesn't really bother me. If it bothers either of you (and it plainly doesn't, by the way - hark at you saying *I'm* passive aggressive), then maybe the Radio Times has a highly moderated forum you can join instead of bothering with sites like these.
Be elaborately rude to someone and then expect a civilised argument afterwards, it it probably indicates that you're a bit stupid. Put an argument that wouldn't get past a GCSE marker, and then call someone a stupid cunt for disagreeing with you, then you can expect a bit of backchat in reply.
Now, seeing as I've been relentlessly cross examined here, how about cutting me some slack here kids? FR: I know that you agree with me that simply being against things without saying what you're in favour of isn't really very good form. How about you ask Larry to explain to you why you're wrong about this. You never know, seeing as you aren't one of these awful 'decents' you might be able to get a straight answer out of him?
Mr E
"That doesn't mean to say he isn't a delightful and intelligent human being with whom you could have hours of interesting political discussion in the pub; or that he couldn't trounce me in an argument about Gramsci."
Not a bad description, though 'delightful' is stretching it a bit. He'd actually give you a very good introduction to the lesser-known bits of Gramsci before he trounced you in the argument.
The 'bloggertarian' was intended to draw a distinction between people who are radical free-marketeers (or other strains of libertarian) and people who are really just very right wing and who are using libertarian as a fig-leaf. It was also intended to showcase my pet obsession - representative democracy - under-rated virtues thereof - and the fact that bloggertarians (unlike libertarians) daftly profess to being in favour of it. Thus the politicians = cunts trope.
The term was partly inspired by your own post that sort-of said (cruelly paraphrasing) "I may say I'm a libertarian but I'm just right wing really."
I still think it was a good post to write - a good meme to set running.
On DSTPFW, I post there only when I want to provoke a spat. And not very often. My own blog is usually fairly mild-mannered and I use that for more long boring thoughtful stuff that few people read. The reason I like DSTPFW is that it is a site that you use when you want to annoy people that you think need annoying. Needlessly deleting people is part of the point of DSTPFW.
It's hardly censorship (you can always post your comments on your own site) and in my case, I usually cross-post on my own site so I can get the best of both worlds.
Anyone would think that DSTPFW was started as a temple to the highest standards of polite debate, and the great institution has somehow been been brought low by the incivility of one Geordie. It really isn't. It's a roustabout bit of provocation. You either get provoked, enjoy it, or regard it as an annoying waste of time and go elsewhere - like every other blog you visit.
It IS a fine distinction.
Fine to the atomic level, apparently.
I'll pick up the rest of your points tomorrow, Paulie, since I'm clearly hi-jacking this thread onto a wild tangent.
For now, let's focus on that fine distinction. So, the bloggertarians are childish and negativist for their blanket, thuggish tirades. They're unoriginal memebots, regurgitating tiresome, pointless dogma.
Yet somehow there's a gossamer-thin line of distinction separating this from your mate's boiling, rancid tirades and his repeated demands to put a bullet in the skulls of everyone he disagrees with, while slackly mouthing queen bee Christopher Hitchens' opinions like a rather slow child reading The Gruffalo.
Look, it's not that I'm failing to understand your personalising the historical process point or clutching my little pearls at the use of bad language. It's that your argument isn't convincing at all, and reeks of special pleading.
Incidentally, this isn't a cross-examination. The average court questioning doesn't usually feature the defence and prosecution showing the court a spade, while the star witness doggedly insists it's a tractor.
Mr E, good luck with your constructive suggestion, but as Paulie's latest post at the Trots said "In future, I may just delete commenters on the grounds that they are memebots.", somehow i don't think you're going to get very far.
Paulie,
I've spent hours arguing with Larry and his ilk waiting for them to make fine distinctions...
See, this is why talking to you is such a pain in the hole. Here's me making a not-especially-fine distinction, and there's you taking no notice at all, content to misrepresent me on your blog.
And as for the "fine distinction" here, it wasn't a case of the penny dropping, just of wondering how tiny a straw you'd clutch at to salvage your position. And the answer is, apparently, infinitesimal. It's pathetic, frankly.
I've often browsed blogs while slightly hungover, as an excuse to avoid getting on with the day; this must be the first thread which is actually making me *feel* hungover.
Says Paulie:
When I've gone on about 'poisoning public debate', that isn't the same thing as saying "I wish bloggers weren't rude to each other."
Twenty-odd comments later, I still don't feel any the wiser about who's right, who's wrong, and who's is bigger...
... but apparently 'negativism' is an instance of poisoning public debate, but humorously abusive swearing isn't. (It's joost a bit of a laff, laike.) Doesn't that invalidate all of St. George's essays (which I, as it happens, am overall a fan of)?
From FR:
This isn't a difficult point to understand - you keep starting pie fights with the Bloggertarians because they're idiotically narrow minded and substitute personal abuse for debate... And say, correctly, that that's inherently childish and damaging.
Yet your own co-blogger at DST is as bad, if not significantly worse, and you either defend him or wave his horrible wanker behaviour away as insignificant or unconnected. This is not only highly hypocritical, it's also the entire point Larry is making. It's not as if it's ambiguous in the post, is it?
Can someone point out to me any place in this thread where this asessment is countered? Only my hangover is now getting so bad that I need to go and find some alcohol...
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