Rod Liddle has caused a whirlwind by taking facetiousness a step too far. We generally enjoy his outrageousness, but I have to say that when he occasionally opines on stuff he is evidently quite ill-informed about, it spoils the effect. Examples? Anorexia was one. I forget the others, but I promise you there are some.
On the other hand, has the entire world had a sense of humour - ectomy? Or do I mean ‘otomy’? As in when something offensive is surgically is removed. It’s so obvious (or it should be) that the controversial article in question was Rod Liddle's way of taking everything to the extreme end of its very extremism to demonstrate its absurdity. He does that. Unfortunately, people bypassed the sarcasm and deliberately misconstrued his rant as hate speech. Now he’s in hot water.
One of the things that people found most objectionable was the phrase “the sobbing and oppressed Rosie ‘#MeToo’ Duffield.”
"Is nothing sacred?” they wondered.
I thought the HoC was not a suitable arena for a personal and emotional speech of the kind she gave and the applause and hugging was incongruous too. I do sympathise with her predicament but I have already stuck my neck out by suggesting that her abusive partner obviously had problems of his own and might have needed understanding along with all the condemnation.
The stuff about Muslims was a reference to the fraudulent voting practices that everyone is busy turning a blind eye to. Bring it on, Rod. Someone has to.
If you watched Question Time from Birmingham, you’ll have seen a woman in a hijab - a "teacher of politics" no less - shrieking about Boris’s racist letterbox remark. I have yet to hear anyone ask people who express outrage at that particular remark if they really consider women dragging themselves around wearing the full-face veil to be in any way normal? Is a long black cloak with its mean little slit to look through really a suitable mode of ambulatory attire? What else does it look like, other than a bleeding letterbox?
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| suitably 'flattering' portrait of the offensive one |
Take care. Curb your language and trim your thoughts.
Update:
Brendan O'Neill agrees with me. "Rod Liddle was Joking, you idiots"
Update:
Brendan O'Neill agrees with me. "Rod Liddle was Joking, you idiots"
"has the entire world had a sense of humour - ectomy? Or do I mean ‘otomy’?"
ReplyDeleteNo, just a small segment of it. And the term is likely 'Outrage jab', administered solely to politicians, NGO and charity operatives and Guardian journalists.
And James O'Brien, via suppository.
There's no room in O'Brien's rectum for a pill. It's too full of his head.
DeleteThere used to be a phrase "the humourless left" - you hardly hear it now because the humourlessness has gone mainstream and infected the whole of society.
ReplyDeleteWhich is not to say that humour is dead, only that leftist humour is the only humour allowed. So it is perfectly all right to recommend throwing battery acid in the face of a right wing politician. It's perfectly OK to make jokes about the personal appearance of right wing politicians, or their children, or their spouses. There's no problem with joking about the assassination of right wing politicians, even depiction of their beheading is fine. As ever the boundary between hate and humour is often a fuzzy one.
As for Liddle, I would simply deploy the Voltairian Defence, that you don't have to agree with him or his writings to defend to the death his right to express his opinion. The only caveat for me would be whether he was inciting violence against individuals or communities, which has always been a common law offence.
We have to remember that far worse things are said about unbelievers in Mosques, Churches and Synangogues up and down the land on a daily basis than Rod has ever uttered. Unbelievers are said to be the lowest of the low, like cattle, evil-doers, insincere, hypocritical, harbingers of doom, destined to be tortured for all eternity etc etc. But no one queries the right of religious people make such statements.
I missed this and now I'm glad I did.
ReplyDelete