Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

ts: characterizing yokels as incestuous vs zoophiliac

for an allegedly leftist newspaper the guardian in its coverage of scottish politics really has only paid lip-service to the reality that the majority of yes voters were young, urban, leftist internationalists. they mainly point and laugh at the provincials for their perceived petty, small-minded nationalism.

a lot of new labourite content where the columnist tries to explain why labour is the much better choice for the left-wing scot but cannot have recourse to mentioning the policies of the two parties to justify this because obv labour is really awful.

snp prob quite populist and opportunist in a lot of its choices, but the yes movement, and the glut of young people who joined the party post-referendum are going to irrevocably move the party to the left for good.

chose the wrong time to emigrate :/

this wd be the same Graun that backed the Lib Dems at the last election anyway

also lol Mordy gotta be a poll

i had actually forgotten that about the lib dems, fuck me.

clegg did a photo-opportunity outside my old office for the lib dem pledge not to raise VAT (lol). then he performed well in one debate and the press were talking about a 3 party election for a couple seconds. heady days.

and if anything the Lib Dems' trad vote was as rural as SNP iirc?

tbf Steve Bell is probly still on some SWP steez or something

He's riffing on that well-worn Erich Fromm quote, "nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity".

lol the Tim Lott CiF piece is so perfect for the Guardian ------> bin

It's perfectly pitched to provoke. It's good to see that his writing skills haven't completely atrophied from writing those 'man about the house' family life articles.

literally listing your boring reactionary beliefs in a rewrite of the same column you've been writing for a decade ≠ writing skills

good to know that if you self-identify as a Good Lefty you can pretty much believe whatever shit you want though

Lol at the Owen Jones/Julie Bindel spat

I think that Tim Lott piece is pretty good tbqh, had me nodding in agreement throughout

it didn't really have much more of a point beyond 'i self-identify as left-leaning but a lot of people disagree with me', which is a bit 'so what' in my book, whereas it could potentially have been a much more thorough and interesting piece.

Lex otm. It is something that comes up again and again - comfortable centre-leftists who still dominate practically every sphere of liberal journalism getting shook and defensive when their assumptions are challenged on Twitter. Either stand your ground and engage or ignore it, don't whine because someone thinks you're less right-on than you believe you are.

This is just Chait redux. Yes it's another centre-left middle-aged white man whining but you'd have to be in complete denial not to realise that purity tests, dogma and groupthink are a problem. It's easy to avoid that issue by clowning Lott.

I preferred this less whiny piece by an activist, which identifies similar problems:

http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2014/11/everything-problematic/

That's a really good article.

hands up itt who self identifies as a good lefty, hands up now

Either stand your ground and engage or ignore it, don't whine because someone thinks you're less right-on than you believe you are

I was under the impression he was engaging by writing this article in a mass circulation broadsheet newspaper/website. Does every debate have to be conducted on Twitter nowadays?

literally listing your boring reactionary beliefs in a rewrite of the same column you've been writing for a decade ≠ writing skills

see you're falling squarely into the trap identified by the piece there, those are not reactionary beliefs

xxp i self-identify as a bad lefty

Xp, he's not engaging substantively on any issue, he's highlighting the fact that he no longer feels comfortable talking about things because people disagree with him and might think badly of him.

He seems very comfortable in talking about things, especially if one of those things his himself

I have made a typo, some may consider my point undermined, I would like to pre-emptively bring this up before anybody else does and suggest it is an attempt to derail my argument

Amused by the idea that engaging with people you disagree with on Twitter is wise or even possible. I try it and it's worthwhile maybe 20% of the time.

So ignore it.

i liked that mcgilldaily piece

So ignore it.

― Rainbow DAESH (ShariVari),

wise

i try only engage with people if they are in a listening mode.... and, more importantly, if I am in a listening mode, though sometimes I get tricked, or forget

on twitter? lol

on twitter? oh no, i dont respond to anyone!

phew

SV talking sense

I like the McGill piece too - it has empathy and intelligence - although it fails to acknowledge the stranglehold that nuance-free dogma has over all areas of the political discourse, and the consequent doom of any intellectual approach that doesn't appropriate cultural (and therefore commercial) methodology. Would like to see it reposted to Hoos' activism thread

one of its strengths imo is that she was writing about the specific community she had experience w/ + not drawing conclusions to "all areas of the political discourse"

Fair. I wonder if there are areas of political discourse that escape the trappings of dogma, though. Hers is a very widely-applicable cautionary tale. I'd like to see how she attempts to effect sociocultural change going forward

yes, very good article; personally relate to a lot in it

magill piece is ok I dont have much time for the personal/confessional "let my experience teach u about the woooorlllld" type of piece even when it would suit my argument

But the personal/confessional angle is what rhetorically enables her to make her critique (e.g. "I will not mention a single sin that I have not been fully and damnably guilty of in my time"). All those disclaimers & qualifications & acknowledgments-- deftly done & rhetorically necessary for her addressees (within the radical left) to hear her.

her whole point may be that it soecifically does not. being right makes you right and anyone can make any point.

well maybe more rhetorically clever than entirely ideologically self-consistent but i think you can say "experience can be very valuable" w/out reducing it to "experience is the only thing of value"

idk maybe who cares

yeah, that's one of the interesting things about the essay. She deploys her personal ideological bona fides ("I was/am one of you") to render her argument persuasive; but one of the things she argues is that personal/group ID (like a shibboleth) is not determinative of political rationality or truth. (She uses a ladder in order to dispose of the ladder at the end.)

fair analysis, you could argue it a dozen or ways I guess

I relate because I'm very familiar with that rhetorical situation-- having to very carefully navigate political discussion, hedging and qualifying, maintaining your bona fides and walking on eggshells (I'm not, by temperament, an egg-crusher— though that sure seems like fun sometimes).

i wonder if being "right" or speaking "truth" is an important part of politics

one v other, or either

either

getting made and getting paid are the two main components iirc