And so we come, with a heavy heart and a profound sense of futility, to one of the recent efforts of the anonymous editorialist at The Australian, scribbling Rational argument is the only response to Norway, and most particularly to this line:
Uh huh. Let's run a variety of flags up that particular pole, and see who salutes it:
Whatever his political habits, it is wrong to smear Communists generally with this appalling crime. It is people, not politics, who are to blame for evil acts.
How about this variant?
Whatever his environmental habits, it is wrong to smear greenies generally with this appalling crime. It is people, not environmentalism, who are to blame for evil acts.
Or this?
Whatever his churchgoing habits, it is wrong to smear Muslims generally with this appalling crime. It is people, not religion, who are to blame for evil acts.
Uh huh. Why that sounds just like the anon edit him or herself:
In the shock of Islamist-inspired terrorist acts, the faith of Islam has been served a grievous injustice. Terrorists who claimed to act in the name of Allah have damaged the reputation of a noble religion. But that does not justify a similar denigration of Christianity in this case. News reports, including in this newspaper, have claimed Breivik is a fundamentalist Christian.
Denialism takes many forms, but this form of denialism is the most pathetic.
Breivik was a fundamentalist Christian, just as 9/11 was carried out by fundamentalist Islamics. There, done and dusted, in much the same way as it's possible to say that the Oklahoma bombing was carried out by a fervent anti-government militia sympathiser.
So here's how The Australian should have written that line:
Whatever his churchgoing habits, it is wrong to smear Christians generally with this appalling crime. It is people acting on distorted theological, ideological or political impulses who are to blame for criminal acts, and The Australian deeply regrets in the past having generally and illiberally smeared Muslims, greenies, socialists, communists and anyone else blessed with an alternative way of thinking, by tagging them with the crimes of unbalanced individuals.
Yes, let's drop the the notion of 'evil', and let's get down with secular notions of criminality, and let's acknowledge that the words and ideas of extremists, in all their forms, can have an impact on people and the world, and that embedded within certain texts (the Bible, the Koran, Mao's little red book) sit all kinds of tantalising extremist possibilities.
Let's in particular forget the futile war on terrorism that has cost way more lives than were lost in 9/11, and concentrate on criminal actions.
Sorry, the anon editorialist still can't let go:
The organised nature of Islamist terrorism, the scale of the atrocities, the preparedness of rogue nation-states to bankroll their operations and their ability to exploit the anti-modern fears of hundreds of millions of people puts the Islamists in an entirely different league from the lone operator in Norway.
Let's give that one a make-over too:
The organised nature of western military industrial terrorism, the scale of the atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the preparedness of the rogue George Bush and Tony Blair to bankroll their military operations and their ability to exploit the anti-Islamic fears of hundreds of millions of people puts the western alliance in an entirely different league from the lone operator in Norway.
Why, that's a shocking heresy.
So let's not give rogue Christians a free pass to get by "Go" with a handsome five hundred bucks, while all the other ideological and theological zealots cop a pasting from the right, and from the minions of Murdoch.
Let's also not give the media a free pass, though here's how the anon edit would like to do it:
The disintegration of our national conversation into a blogging, tweeting, cacophony is an unfortunate development in a civil democracy. Yet it is pouring fuel upon the fire to respond to the illiberalism of one's cultural opponents with equal intolerance. An ad-hominem tweet, or inflammatory invective on talkback radio, will never win the argument, but that is not what their authors intend. It takes effort to assemble a rational, logically sound argument; it is easier to intimidate and shame your opponent into silence and thereby, in the manner of Steven Bradbury, triumph by being the last man standing.
By the sound of that, you'd think it was a cacophony of illiberal bloggers that had done down the national conversation.
By the sound of that, you'd think it was a cacophony of illiberal bloggers that had done down the national conversation.
Yet I can't think of any places on the tubes where you'd be more likely to find fuel being poured on fire than in the blogs hanging off News Corp mastheads - to name a few, and in no particular illiberal order, since on any given day they're packed to the ceiling with fiery rhetoric and ratbaggery, Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair, Piers 'Akker Dakker' Akerman, and The Punch.
It's even got to the point where The Punch has punched out Andrew Bolt by publishing Even the worst nightmares can't keep Bolt upright, and scored over four hundred comments, most of the raving ratbag kind.
So let's do some more handwringing:
We have seen in this country in recent months the development of a febrile atmosphere in which people at extremes of the ideological spectrum feel empowered to attack their opponents or even their questioners, with scant regard for civility or rational argument. It is difficult to pursue genuine public debate about important social, political and cultural issues without being accused of running an agenda. Yet rational debate has never been more necessary at a time where virtually everyone has access to free, unfiltered publication of their views.
What, like the Murdoch press? Or Tony Abbott standing under a sign saying 'Ditch the witch' or Alan Jones suggesting Gillard be drowned at sea?
Did the anon edit happen to see the front page of the Daily Terror on Friday last, which for sheer malicious inventiveness and concocting nonsense without regard to civility or rational argument, surely took the cake. Come on down Gemma Jones, still reeling from the carbon tax, to spruik another wave of green-induced financial pain, as if items in a discussion paper were about to be implemented by close of business that Friday. (Relax, I picked up a copy kindly left on a train seat, here no cash for Murdoch, no Murdoch paper getting cash here).
And then of course there's the "yes but" routine, which sees robust Pontius Pilate hand washing:
This newspaper has always supported Australia's open-migration policies.
Now for "yes but":
Now that's how to dog whistle. And to dress it up in fine sounding, hypocritical humbuggery:
They are concerned that we are surrendering the values implicit in our succinct but effective de facto bill of rights: the fair go. To hold these opinions may be unfashionable in some circles, but they are not a crime, and the correct response is to reason, not to censor.
The correct response is to reason?
But wait, we already know that difference is bad, and we should all be troubled by the influx, and hide under the bed. The Oz has told us that all our fears are valid, and things are bad for the nation.
Oh the humbuggery makes for a rich dessert indeed, from the empire that brings you everything from criminality in journalism to the random right wing excessive musings of Janet Albrechtsen and Miranda the Devine ...
No wonder the anon editorialist wants to let Alan Jones off lightly when he got his carbon figures wrong, and inanely defended himself as a broadcaster rather than a journalist:
lan Jones, was wrong on this occasion and his rhetoric sometimes crosses the boundary between strident and offensive. But we respect his right to say what he thinks and note that he gives voice to many Australians excluded from the debate by many other media outlets.
Uh huh. So blogs are an offending, fuel on fire cacophony, but Alan Jones is merely saying what he thinks and giving a voice to others to say what they think?
Really if any teacher wanted to give a student an exercise in illogical thinking, they'd do well to hand the student this exercise in piety. And then worst of all, the anon edit offers up this final bit of humbuggery:
The man who joined in the war in Iraq, helped set the killing fields in motion, in a country where a dozen people a day still get killed by mayhem? And now he talks about interfaith dialogue?
Oh dear, time out. There's a feeling of nausea welling in the pond.
Meanwhile, Guy Rundle had already nailed this kind of double think to the wall, and no doubt could have nailed the anon edit as well:
A prism will split a single beam of light into a full colour field. No surprise then that the Right’s reaction to Anders Breivik’s act of terror/assassination should undergo such a process, for Breivik’s act is such a crystal, though a dark one to be sure. His act was completely transparent and self-knowing; he understood the magnitude of what he was doing, and the reaction it would provoke. The only honest analysis is that it ranks as one of the more clear-eyed political atrocities of recent times. Thus it is inevitable that attempts to find another way of explaining it will end up scattered across the spectrum. (here).
Rundle is particularly good on the way that members of the right wing commentariat have attempted to turn a mass killing into their own victimisation.
By golly a few have made that kind of chutzpah into an art form as handsome as the anon edit thinking that Breivik's crimes were just a random act of violence, and nothing to do with his theological inclinations. Take it away Daniel Pipes:
"Beyond massacring innocent Norwegians, Behring Breivik damaged conservatism, the counterjihad, and (in particular) those authors he cited in his writings, including myself. A close reading of his manifesto suggests this may have been purposeful" - Daniel Pipes.
Talk about from The Annals of Chutzpah.
And as always, Jon Stewart nailed it too:
Yes, it takes real chutzpah to explain how the Murdoch press in this country is leading the way in calm, measured, rational discourse, or perhaps a special kind of self-justifying, hypocritical blindness.
What self-restraint, not to mention the Oz's call for the Greens to be destroyed because "their flakey economics should have no place in the national debate" as an example of that journal's commitment to civility and rational argument over intolerance and intimidation.
ReplyDeleteThat "victims" effort has to be Stewart's best montage ever. Of course, our mob have been at it for years; who could forget the pack rape of Janet Albrechtsen?
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/images/media_packrape.jpg
Nearly eight years ago now! Doesn't time fly.
Careful, Deepee, you almost had Rupert, Iraq and Oil on the same page.
ReplyDeleteYes EA, I'm looking forward to Mr Murdoch's predicted US$20 a barrel oil price from the Iraq adventure.
ReplyDeleteWhen contemplating the intellectual and moral superiority of the world's financial giants I am often struck at how they are able to avoid measure of the most fundamental historical facts as they career through this planet. I consulted my Ayn Rand, but it doesn't explain why our betters seem to be immune from any tabulation of their intellectual veracity or consistency - the sort of reproach reserved for those wont to dissent from the current calumny.
What has amazed me is the rationalisation by some Christians since the Norway attack. It seems a line has been drawn in the sand to distinguish Christians from the likes of Breivik by using the label cultural Christian... and this comes from Christians who seek to influence society's values ie protesting same-sex marriage, telling women to proceed with a pregnancy in unreasonable circumstances, getting involved in climate change issues without scientific evidence, and claiming that Christian standards in a multicultural society are the right set of values. So the Fundamentalist Christian, who really believes in Jesus Christ, is not like the cultural Christian, who is actually acting upon these fundamentalist Christian principals
ReplyDelete