British Right-Wing Pundits

hitchens is a long-estranged marxist, from the salad-of-all-the-UK-trots wing

as was his older brother (added psychodramatic dimension: older brother certainly bullied PH as a kid, and was a sleb quasi-marxist for maybe a decade more, prior to his er protracted declension, as they wd both probably call it)

spiked, etc. are obvious grifters with a clear nefarious agenda, who will say or do anything, peter otoh is a true believer (albeit in absolutely insane bullshit) and would never have anything to do with them

does Hitch ever stan for anyone in this era without making withering criticisms? From memory I once heard him stanning for Tooze, well more his book "The Deluge".

he's quite complimentary about gorgeous george upthread

There's an element of this, but I think its overstated, the delineation between grifter and believer I think is a lot more fluid than it might appear

as Calz mentions above all these people are paid, in one way or another, to air their appalling views

think the difference is that if it turned out to be more personally lucrative to have different views, most of them would be just fine with that.

Never be surprised at how many billionaires are out there funding wingnut welfare.

I used to think this more than I do, but I no longer think there is such a clear demarcation.

There's also a weird subtext, which is 'well obviously they dont actually hold those views". Well, why not? Lots of people do, wouldn't it make sense to pay one of those instead?

And it depends what is meant by grifting. There are many motivations besides Money or Ideology.

As an example if Russell Brand becoming born again a grift? and he doesn't really believe it?

I don't think it is a grift. I think his conversion is genuine. But he hasn't converted to Catholicism, Catholicism has converted to Brand. It has been shaped into the form he prefers and he is a genuine believer in that.

I don't think too deeply about the definition of grifter. To me it's not a completely literal term (although in a lot of cases I believe they are grifters, especially Russell Brand) like when you call someone a wanker, it doesn't strictly mean you are labelling them a frequent maturbator!

I don't think it works on the whole to pay someone who genuinely believes these things and is inflexible with it, they do not fit in to the media ecosystem we have in the UK, when the wind changes on something due to events they do not know how to shut up, for a while.

Ultimately I think ego and narcissism are bigger drivers than either

I am not saying the grifters have not convinced themselves that they believe whatever they believe, just that deep down they are complicit with politics being in essence a sport or a game

I think its true in both directions, the ideologues are a lot more entrepreneurial than we might think, and the grifters believe more than we might think, and the boundary isn't clear

And also that beliefs can change on a dime for ideologues too, as they're interested in the bigger picture, and can change side on any issue at any given time if they think it suits their bigger picture better

When I go to the football usually there's one guy who's always runnning to the barrier and screaming his head off about what he thinks is an unfair refereeing decision while everyone else has moved on already. that's what these people think we are.

if someone's job brief is to normalise hard right opinions/crank shit/bigotry and it's in the interests of whoever pays them or it benefits their youtube income to do this. Then to me it's immaterial whether they believe this shit or not, they are grifters.

I think think the issue with that is it shifts the topic away from whether someone is right or wrong about something, and to whether they're on the take, which is often more difficult ("well they're all on the take anyway")

If they are normalising it to a family member or friend, this means we're now attempting to convince them of two things a) they are wrong, and b) they are paid to be wrong, instead of just one thing a) they got this one wrong

the thing is that if people are not arguing from their own genuinely beliefs then it is impossible to engage with any of their "ideas" in good faith, it's simply a waste of energy.

*genuinely held

I agree with this conceptually, but who is doing the delineating between "good faith"/ genuine and "bad faith" / grifting? These aren't black and white categories, people have all kinds of reasons for thinking and saying the things they do.

I think this bad faith thing is a mistake. It's in danger of being a catch all for "someone I disagree with". People don't have different opinions, those opinions aren't even real, so whats the point. I don't think this is a good route to go down

I don't think it's good by any means, but when so many are clearly operating in bad faith, what's the alternate? pretend it isn't happening?

Either don't engage at all (people are busy, there's no obligation to), or act as though they are in "good faith" regardless

that does sound quite like "pretend it isn't happening"

Not every thought needs to be munition for Debate Club - realising some ppl in the UK media are opportunistic grifters is helpful in parsing what happens, it doesn't have to them be used as something to convince their followers of.

*ammunition, sorry, went a bit PT there

Perhaps, but also - what if it isn't actually happening? It feels like the category of 'bad faith' has grown too much so that it is starting to include "person I disagree with", at which point the person isn't someone I disagree with on this thing but an example of a category of person I don't like, holding an opinion they don't actually believe.

Look at how quickly arguments escalate online, they tend to skip right past the subject straight to the character of the participants, the subject matter is left behind fairly quickly.

hitchens also thinks that all of new labour were secret marxists too

Not every thought needs to be munition for Debate Club - realising some ppl in the UK media are opportunistic grifters is helpful in parsing what happens, it doesn't have to them be used as something to convince their followers of.

Perhaps, but also - what if it isn't actually happening? It feels like the category of 'bad faith' has grown too much so that it is starting to include "person I disagree with", at which point the person isn't someone I disagree with on this thing but an example of a category of person I don't like, holding an opinion they don't actually believe.

Well but this thread was ppl agreeing that Hitchens - a Person We Disagree With - is in fact not arguing in bad faith!

those Cambridge students who blanked Braverman made her game look as transparently vacuous as it is, no debate would have done that - it would have just made more slanted GB news content.

As an example if Russell Brand becoming born again a grift? and he doesn't really believe it?

I don't think it is a grift. I think his conversion is genuine. But he hasn't converted to Catholicism, Catholicism has converted to Brand. It has been shaped into the form he prefers and he is a genuine believer in that.

― anvil, Friday, 24 May 2024 bookmarkflaglink

I want to pray for you, anvil

^that's that good faith

finally a lol!

I don't think it is a grift. I think his conversion is genuine. But he hasn't converted to Catholicism, Catholicism has converted to Brand. It has been shaped into the form he prefers and he is a genuine believer in that.

― anvil, Friday, 24 May 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Please stop posting.

has that ever worked?

No but it’s always worth a try.

If Bear Grylls was baptising that fucker it’s a dead cert he’s doing the Alpha course.

The mad thing is believing this anything about anything other than Brand trying to deflect attention and court religious right sympathy (and funds) after that article the Times published about him. The worse thing is imagining that fundamentalists are the only true believers of any religion, as though the lunatic holdouts who don’t believe in Vatican 2 were closer to the word of God than the rest of us. Church traumatised generations of parents for literal centuries by telling them their babies were going to hell, before they changed course on that belief and now something that my parents were taught as fact in school was something I learned as a relic of the backward past. It is fucking nonsense to be a fundamentalist. It’s fucking absurd to believe in the sincere fanaticism of someone who is a bone-deep cynic.

I wonder if Andrew Tate's conversion to Islam is entirely sincere too?

We could leave arguments about ad hom out of the discussion altogether, I still think debating bad arguments simply lends them undeserved power, debate has been a poison word for a long time now

you can't just dismiss Toby Young's thought provoking pitch for progressive eugenics, you've got to debate him throw the cunt out of the nearest top storey window after beating him senseless with a lump hammer!

debate has been a poison word for a long time now

Debate is too strong a word, and I think here we're talking about interactions and conversations we might have, either in person or online, not public figures as such which is more unlikely (though not impossible I suppose)

I think we're increasingly seeing the writing off of non public figures as being bad faith, which is where I think the mistake is, mostly, as though nothing can be done, everything is a fait accompli. The good arguments don't argue for themselves, they need transmitters and advocates the same as any other arguments. If we collectively lose the ability to do this, I think thats a net negative

Once again, the people stanning for eugenics being exactly the sort of derp who’d fall foul of their own bullshit standards.

The students keeping silent as someone like Braverman goes around asking about Hamas have it right.

No conversations with vermin, let them rot.

Otm

Talking to friends and acquaintances is different, I agree with you there anvil, but I don't "debate" my friends no matter how shitty their thoughts might be. I'll say what I believe if asked, I'm not in the conversion business

the actual relevant situation here is that your friend/relative is sharing approvingly an article by a British Right-Wing Pundit

roll your eyes, tell them to get tae fuck, talk about something else. avoid interaction if the habit gets unbearable

From that video I'd say the lessons the younger crowd are learning is to simply cut contact with friends and family who turn into bigots.

My kind of people.