Worst white man on the cover of the New Statesman's 'Great White Male' issue

I suspect that the New Statesman has trolled their contributors by not giving them a good steer on what was needed (ensuring some pretty random and trivial responses) - and then trolled their readership by printing them.

xp Yeah that must be what it is. You caught me red-handed. Perceptive as ever.

Good grief.

Was rereading first two volumes of Clive James' memoirs over the summer and was pleased to discover how rich and luminous they remain - the one about his youth in Australia like stories told from another planet, just glowing with how different the world of his youth was from the world he know existed within, the second volume conjuring an almost physical sense of how grotty and damp and sepia-toned pre-Beatles Britain was, both volumes full of hilarious tales well told, and characterised by an impressive and moving sense of regret at how much of a fool he'd been when young, how much of a fool he doubtless remains. was also very much moved by his recent poem about the plant at his daughter's house, the one about death. as mentioned above, i think some of his TV shows could be smug and condescending in places, but I also think he's quite insightful elsewhere, about other things, and also very droll - perhaps that's just his writers, but...

everyone else is terrible, I guess, though I don't really get what Robert Webb's done that's so very wrong, tbh, though I only really know him from Peep Show.

I just put every dude on the poll for the sake of completeness, some of these people are basically fine and deserving of better company than this.

Yeah, that's what I figured, Matt - was more referring to the hate he's stirred in this thread, and was genuinely curious how he'd gotten so many goats so much.

Robert Webb, his pal slightly annoys me.

Good grief indeed.

It's really kind of predictable at this point.

Alex comes in and says something kinda over the top and funny about something he finds irritating, because that's what Alex does to vent his frustration. And without fail, RM/RM turns up a bit later and instead of just rolling his eyes and going "Oh, it's Alex being typically over the top, but his irritation on this subject might have some justification" he insists on going on like it's his ~personal burden~ to school Alex in How To Behave Online.

And maybe I haven't learned when not to say something, and maybe I'm too loyal to people I consider friends (who often stick up for me). But apparently if I notice this pattern of behaviour, and instead of just quietly thinking "oh god it's just RM/RM beefing on Lex again" to myself, I say something: that's because I'm an inherently malevolent, evil person who also has a personal agenda against RM/Rm specifically - not because I'm sticking up for a friend, not because I understand the justification behind Alex's frustration and irritation, not because RM/RM started beefing again. It's because I'm a ~bad person~. Yup.

I could just say "Hey, you know what, let's just not do this again." But apparently, even if I say that, apparently that is ~me forbidding RM/RM to ever speak to him again~ rather than me admitting "this is a pointless and frustrating exercise for all of us, let's not go there."

I will regret it if I hit submit post; I will regret it if I don't hit submit post.

If I'm a ~bad person~ either way, I might as well do the thing.

Who knows which is worse? All those white men on the cover of New Statesman look alike to me.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Moby_Dick_final_chase.jpg

isn't the idea of a poll like this to rile up white men by making them realize how much they hate being lumped in with other people who share only superficial traits with them and by so doing forcing them to acknowledge that it has been their luxury, as white men, to not have had this happen to them all along? that privilege has allowed them to have their multidimensionality remain unquestioned to a degree minorities could only dream of? if that was the idea, it's a good exercise, but you can't be surprised when people react as expected, by bristling at the possibility that they too could be subject to crude generalizations. i honestly can't help but be suspicious of white men who would feel totally cool about this and join in the chorus of people describing all members of the white male literary establishment as shits due to their white maleness. if you're into social justice you want to extend to privilege to not be objectified to everyone, not just strip it away from certain people, right? unless the latter is tactically important to the struggle... i tend to not think it is, but then again of course i would because i am a white male.

if this is just about venting about the ubiquity of male voices in a way that is cathartically unrestrained i get it and i would never resent someone for indulging in that kind of activity. but again, the fact that white males might pipe in to say "hey wait a second, this isn't fair!' is to be expected, if the thread concept is supposed to be unfair, rather for rhetorical or cathartic effect. right?

Treeship, I've got a great song for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPTXVqETBM4

Why would you deny the simple unadulterated joy of scientifically determining whether Tony Parsons is a greater cockfarmer than Martin Amis?

was waiting for this thread to get good

Basically the magazine we're talking about is not a very serious, and not a very successful, attempt to talk about the social issue of white men's dominance in the world - this thread seems like it's good for lots of stray observations, but not sure if it can support a proper discussion about the white men's dominance because we're all riffing off a fairly weak starting point, i.e. the special issue of a magazine.

For this reason I think you lot shouldn't all start falling out with each other in this thread.

ITT

Treeship, get some new fucking software you insufferable, smug boring prick.

the chorus of people describing all members of the white male literary establishment as shits due to their white maleness

where is this chorus because it isn't itt

guys this was a woeful clusterfuck in which nothing actually truly objectionable* was posited from sj cru nor the side of cool logical reason mansplainers and all was certainly well within limits of previous clusterfucks on same topic except maybe this one was p well justified by excellent trolling from new statesman (also lol new wasteman) so tip of cap to the cru but idk what the fuck the fuss on other threads was about this hasn't delivered. c+

*xelab doesnt count ffs

xelab isn't half the poster treesh is. he doesn't even reply to his own ask thread!

all excellent points

Relentless roffling at DJP's tune for Treesh tbf

fwiw my post wasnt intended to be some kind of defense of amis or james as human beings, just meant that was the extent of my limited contact w/ either—i was more curious what the story was as far as them sucking or w/e just bc i am not familiar

google is mostly ppl discussing their literary merits or whatever from what i cd tell

I am a self confessed shit poster, that is why I don't entertain a vanity thread Mordy. I am just responding to that felling whiff of flurry that comes off so many posts on this thread.

Rly felt like the Jon Snow jpg was the highlight here.

xp Last post itt from me but the context of my interactions with Lex on ILX is that we're friends IRL. I like him a lot but we disagree on a few things. So if we go back and forth on here sometimes it's not beef. I hope it doesn't piss him off and if it does then I hope he'll tell me.

i honestly can't help but be suspicious of white men who would feel totally cool about this and join in the chorus of people describing all members of the white male literary establishment as shits due to their white maleness.

http://funnytoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Trust-nobody.jpg

Can forgive overseas posters for not fully comprehending quite how awful most members of this rogues gallery are.

heh

you refer to the brit posters ITT of course

this was clive james' column on global warming, and it's all basically a really long-winded exercise in reiterating the two fundamental claims of climate skepticism: (1) there is no scientific consensus, and (2) the world is not actually getting hotter anyway so what's all the fuss about. how much importance you place on where someone stands on climate change is going to vary, but for me at the time it seemed to be a pretty good indicator of that person's general stance on issues of social justice on a global level, bearing in my mind that it's likely to be the poorest people that suffer the worst consequences. maybe that's an immature or superficial reason for writing someone off - i'd probably take that criticism on the chin. that aside, as a piece of writing it's not especially entertaining or enlightening, and does that whole smugly dismissive thing to demonstrate his vast erudition on a subject that frankly he doesn't actually seem to grasp the basics of.

bearing in my mind

so that was my gripe with him, but there are far worse men on this horrible list

Can forgive overseas posters for not fully comprehending quite how awful most members of this rogues gallery are.

― Wristy Hurlington (ShariVari), Tuesday, October 14, 2014 4:58 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm willing to concede it. my post was overlabored and concern-trolling and motivated mostly by reading a beautiful poem written by dying writer clive james last week. it seemed dehumanizing to put him, and possibly the other writers here whom i haven't read, among the likes of right wing tabloid journalists as instances of the "great white male." i realize it is no more dehumanizing than myriad other things that lump women or minorities together in a way that irons out the differences among them, and i said that this poll might be good if the goal of it was just to make that very point.

Ugh, that's pretty ick and disappointing.

xp

That poem Treeship mentions is remarkable.

James has written, presented etc. scores of amazing things and is allowed a crank moment or several

1.Parsons
2.Amis
3.de Botton
4.Jones,D
5.Gill
6.Baddiel
7.Bragg
8.James
9.Parris
10.Marr
11.Fry
12.Webb
13.Parr
14.Williams
15.Perry
16.Self
17.Snow
18.Jones,O

dunno who Shone and Barr are, a scan of their wikipedia entries indicates they wouldn't trouble the top ten here, they'd likely slot in somewhere between Parr and Self.

That poem Treeship mentions is remarkable.

yeah, i will try and read that

it is short!

feel like most days we're all somewhere between par and self nest pas

Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain. Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable.
You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:

Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?

Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there, Beyond my time, but now I take my share.

My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new. Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame. What I must do Is live to see that.
That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:

Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.

thanks, rm/rm

clive james rap sheet = mocking foreign tv

With no little irony, British TV (best in the world, like the Premiership) ended up copying many of the programmes Clive used to snigger at weekly and, tbh, I sniggered along with him. Seem to remember some Islamophobic harrumphing from him too, to sit alongside the climate change denial, but I would dismiss that as old geezer talk.

I think James' defining political characteristic is a complete distrust of ideology which, effectively, reverts back to conservatism but he's outside of the Europa League placings in this company.

His book-length ode to Prince Charles, and his subsequent 'friendship' with Diana, was pretty cringey

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Charles-Charmings-Challenges-Pathway-Throne/dp/0224019546

I might quibble about individual placements in BB's list but the top two are right and everyone is broadly in the right part of the list. Matthew Parris is too low though.

i've always just found clive james pompous, boring, fake-erudite...very fitting that even in this list he's bang in the middle of the road. obv far from the least defensible, but tbh if you're looking at this list in this context and your reaction is to find the "least defensible" you're doing it wrong. (if i wanted to defend anyone: owen jones (albeit probably only cuz i know him & the first chapter of chavs (is it worth reading his new one??)), will self, jon snow.) i think what gets me about this list isn't so much the outright objectionable cunts like gill and parsons but the relentless AVERAGENESS of the bulk of these dudes: they're masters of the Great White Male tone of voice/writing/expression and of using it to disguise innately mediocre levels of talent and insight.

(i mean, in terms of writing style, aa gill is probably one of the most gifted people here. he's a terrible person but i can see why he's been successful. alain de botton? david baddiel? dylan jones? robert webb? AVERAGE)

(would also be interesting to chart the careers of all of these people and see how much they owe to the usual Great White Male connections but i guess that would've been too radical for the staggers)