Money talks, bullshit walks, twas ever thus
I don't think I've ever seen an editorial piece where the writer so transparently didn't understand what he was talking about.
Update via John in comments, I am pleased to see that the quality of humanities academia is so high that apparently nothing remotely objectionable has been written in the fourteen years since Judith Butler's Diacritics article.
Update: of course, I've just remembered why the MTBW phrase was wandering through my mind - it's Davos season! Felix's point is well made, but I think the thing about Davos these days is not so much that it's irrelevant, but that it's so terribly dated. Coverage "LIVE FROM DAVOS" in 2011, after all that's happened? You might as well be breathlessly "LIVE - BACKSTAGE AT LOLLAPALOOZA WITH BILLY CORGAN!!", saying "oh my god! I just met Tom Cruise!".
I know you're being hyperbolic, but counterexample, with particular reference to Dominic Sandbrook.
ReplyDeleteI feel remarkably proud that I guessed the post's subject, even before clicking on the link.
ReplyDeleteI've save myself time on the train in the mornings by just skipping past any article by him.
This is incredible:
ReplyDeleteAfter many phone calls, several cups of coffee and a return visit to a factory in Sheffield it almost made sense. The two divergent themes tugging at the coalition – "get government off our backs" against "get the government here to help" – swam into a sort of alignment. I decided the coalition's growth strategy exists, that it might even work, but that, unfortunately, no one will ever grasp it. A jumble of apparently unconnected things, it lacks any single idea to string them together. The two single ideas available – step in, or step back – are not easily braided. The resulting tangle is useless in the face of assault by Ed Balls, who was tricksy as ever on the BBC today.
To put it another way, it didn't make sense at all, but once you'd been vigorously lobbied, buttered up, feted, and possibly threatened (see first sentence), you were temporarily willing to let them off. But by the time you set down to write the damn thing the Betonspritze was wearing off.
Deadlines (as someone said in comments) are deadlines, though, and therefore you ran off and hid in the verbiage.
Also, complaining about someone else being "tricksy" after that par is really shameful.
John, yeah but at least Cohen knows what argument he's trying to make.
ReplyDeleteGlover's piece is on the fence about something, though he's not sure what, and its all quite difficult, and anyway things are quite hard for the Tories, and Labour (well Darling) wouldn't have been that different, except for the details (and who sweats the details), and gosh isn't Sheffield Forgemaster's inspiring, shame about the loan, but it probably doesn't matter , something about paternity rights. Will that do?
He doesn't seem to have the slightest notion that waiting a year for a loan decision might be impractical, either. I wonder how long his bank took to grant him a mortgage, and what % of his net worth it was compared to the £80m for Forgemasters?
ReplyDeleteThe thing about Julian Glover (and quite a few newspaper writers like him) is that he seems very gifted at the school/university essay form. Opening paragraph. Thesis. Counter thesis. Ah, but. Conclusion. I've no doubt that this sort of thing with references present and all names correctly spelled shines like a beacon to examination markers. It's no guarantee of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteBut I've got to admit to a real prejudice against generalist columnists these days.