I’m going to start off this week at Pure Poison with a quick look at Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair’s recent highly amusing columns about the other side on the climate control debate CALLING THEM NAMES.
Immeasurably hurt
[Jill Singer's] abuse is representative – of a form of argument now typically unleashed in all our most value-loaded political debates. Some examples?
If you point out the world has in fact cooled since 2001, you are to be called a “denier”, which warming believer Prof Robert Manne admitted in September he meant as a slur to liken you to those who “claimed that the Holocaust was a fraud”.
Now, Bolt preceded the remark about Singer with, as is his style, a technical disclaimer that is pretty much contradicted by everything else in his piece: “It’s true, Jill represents no one but herself. But…” But… “Jill and her kind don’t so much “rejoice” in suffering as simply ignore the terrible consequences of their noble ideology, so better to keep parading their loudly beating heart.” But… “The fact is Jill’s abuse, employed so often by the Left, is a way to dismiss arguments she can’t fight with reason.” You get the point. (His commenters certainly did.)
Where Bolt continued with a list of recent insults (from Pollytics, Bob Ellis etc), Blair focused on Manne’s “denialist” label, and suggested returning the favour by linking advocates for tackling climate change with homicidal maniac Charles Manson. You called me a name, “in return, please allow us denialists to come up with our own slur”. Because of course, it took the other side being mean before Tim Blair was forced to join them at their own level…
Obviously readers will be more than aware of the rather forthright manner of debate championed by these two News Ltd keyboard warriors, so the hypocrisy of complaining about polemics from the other side is so unbelievably overt that it requires little further comment. The “but they did it first” line run by Tim is pretty much at the debating level of a five year old.
But in terms of intellectual dishonesty, I wanted to raise the issue – how can any polemicist ever think they could have the remotest credibility in purporting to sum up a debate in terms of who’s gone the most overboard? Say you had a strict line you wouldn’t cross – and, having been a personal target, via my unrelated professional life, of both Andrew and Tim in the past, I’m not sure what those lines are for them – would you be entitled to criticise those who crossed it? Or use a failure by one advocate to abide by your arbitrarily-decided standards to smear everyone who agrees with their position?
And, more importantly, isn’t it a complete waste of your readers’ time? What does it prove? If you’re seriously trying to argue that those on one side of a political divide are innately more vicious or evil than those on yours, that extreme rhetoric by a right-wing warrior proves all lefties are virtuous (in Bolt’s fatuous strawman, “By simply denouncing someone as sociopathic or racist, they imply that they, on the other hand, are angels”), then you are clearly no longer a serious participant in that debate, and nothing more than a cheerleader.
Isn’t the real truth that there are nutcases and lunatics on all sides of a debate, regardless of which side (if either) is actually right, and that even reasonable people, passionately involved in a debate, occasionally resort to the sorts of comparisons and language that wouldn’t exactly be appropriate at the dinner table? I know I have.
As for Bolt’s complaint that people are calling him names instead of actually addressing his flimsy “arguments” on the subject of climate change or refugees – you’re not looking very hard, Andrew. Try a Google search.
13 Comments
… resort to the sorts of comparisons and language that wouldn’t exactly be appropriate at the dinner table? I have too.
It’s my belief that this results from arguing with idiots. They simply drag you down to their own level and then defeat you with experience. Unfortunately there are soooo many of them
Every time someone blogs about Bolt, god kills a kitten.
I loved it when Bolt provided evidence that Jill actually does rejoice in the suffering of others by referring to her thoughts on the defeat of the Howard government. Talk about immeasurable hurt. Ouch! That poor, poor Bolt!
And Sheehan’s column today on asylum seekers and devine’s ion Saturday about complaints following her cyclists column demonstrates once again that none of us should ever respond to their crap. Deny them oxygen responding only gives them another column to write in which they wave the complaints as some sort of justification for their views.
Ignore ignore ignore
thewetmale@3
Yes, I laughed out loud at that as well. That he could equate what a poverty-stricken, terrified group of refugees are going through with the endless suffering of the inordinately wealthy Right……says it all about the mentality on display there.
Twobob, you are so right. The practice of arguing with idiots is rife on the internet. Sometimes it seems to be all there is. I used to look at Bolt’s blog occasionally, but once I realised there was NEVER going to be a serious debate there about ANYTHING, I stopped. Much of what passes for debate here is pretty trivial too, it’s just not as bad as Bolt. Notice how the biggest threads are always the ones where some idiot troll has decided to put up some provocative rubbish. On the whole, people are much more interested in fighting than debating. Remember school debates? Who turned up to watch them? Remember school fights? They never failed to attract a crowd.
“Every time someone blogs about Bolt, god kills a kitten.”
- and bolta has kittens, {snipped – play the ball. Dave}
And I still rembember (a typo to keep tim on his toes) bolta’s silly intervention into ‘pandagate’ wherein he made a complete goose of himself.
So Andrew is upset about someone calling him names, what like suggesting he has a mental illness and should have his column withdrawn (Catherine Deveny) or suggested his actions have lead to the death of asylum seekers (Kevin Rudd), and he want’s us to feel sorry for him. I have only named two of his most recent name calling exersizes, we have all seen the others, so no crocodile tears here.
Bolt had a personal go at Singer over her claims that conservatives are revelling in the asylum seeker issue. Alexander Downer has seemingly confirmed Singer’s claims:
“So, I admit it. As Mr Rudd flails around trying to craft a new boat-people policy I have a sense of schadenfreude. ”
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26290362-2682,00.html
Was playing the ball Dave.
The reference was to the Therese/Kevin footage tossing/kicking the cat on Sunday’s ‘Insiders.’
(No biggy though.)
{Sorry Sisyphis – I completely missed the joke. As penance I’ll watch re-runs of Insiders on iView – Dave}
By the way – have a look at the comments in relation to Singer’s article at:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/we-need-a-real-policy-on-refugees/story-e6frfhqf-1225792226362
Compare how Jill tolerates very personally directed criticism of her to be published in the commentary whilst Andrew Bolt moderates any suggestion of similar levels of criticism of himself. Fragile.
Dave!
Don’t do it!
You’ll do blind!
(And as far as I know there are no seeing eye cats to guide you on the path of righteousness.)
It’s the same with tim blair.
I’ve often looked at some of the comments left here that personally have a go at jeremy, toby etc and wondered if those posting them actually realise that similar comments personally attacking andy or timmy would never be published by them.