Rant Corner #2: CiF plumbs new depths
Reading over various articles and commentary, catching up from the last few days, I came across this excremental article at the Guardian, containing the following quote:
Personally, the thought of walking into a polling station, tattooed up to my neck, piercings all over my face and wearing my comfortable-yet-dreaded-by-the-government “hoody” to be judged and looked down upon is cringeworthy. Well, I assume that’s what happens – I’ve never voted before. And it’s one of the reasons I probably won’t vote. That and the fact that, half of the time, I can’t even understand what politicians are going on about.
Well then fucking well open a book on politics, or a newspaper, seeing as how you write political commentary for one, and read it, you whiny self-indulgent maggot.
Seriously, it’s shit like this which just gets down on its knees and begs to be satirized by the Right.
Those of us who have pulled our thumb out and are involved in politics understand fully the reasons why young people aren’t involved. Most of the people I know of my generation went through school being the odd ones out because of their political interest.
It’s easy not to be interested because nothing ever seems to change and no one sees a connection between themselves and where power gets wielded. And the fault for that belongs to politicians – the elected ones and the party, union and think-tank hacks which march behind them.
Yet it’s just a tad disin-fucking-genuous to go about wailing that you won’t vote because someone might sneer at you, and you don’t really know what politicians are on about “half of the time”, and then to nark on about an intensely political issue. Fuck right off, please.
Yep, that was a beaut, all right – the thing is, there was something in it, but the tone was just too infantile. She sounded just like your teenage kids do when you tell them they can’t have the car for the night – tantrum.
I think the Guardian was right to want to try and protect her by putting Natalie Hamman in there, though. It’s good that these young kids are getting involved, but sometimes, the comments are really harsh. Some of the stuff I’ve seen under Laurie’s pieces is really hard work and personal.It must put some young writers off.
Fucking well said. I couldn’t for a second work out why on earth cif gave her a column. Then I realised that this shit is degenerate wnough for guardianistas to believe that it is the authentic voice of the young inner city.
I went back to have a look, turns out she is 19. For me, it wouldn’t matter if she was a forty year old he of twenty years’ journalism experience – this sort of stuff is just plain piffle.
I rarely, if ever, delve into CiF comments pages – though I did for Laurie’s last piece, the one on our generation – I must admit I thought some of the abuse of the article was justified.
I don’t think there’s a problem abusing an article – it’s more the personal stuff. Laurie takes an absolutely pounding for having gone to Oxford and it just gets incredibly boring. I mean – how often can you observe that someone’s gone to Oxford? Who gives a shit? You can’t un-go to Oxford. Move on.
The thing Sian wrote was just not very good – it was the drop in literary and technical standards that was offputting, rather than the sentiment in it. It was just silly, like slapping some boy with your schoolbag when you’re 16.
God help me if I ever write for CiF then – former Oxford student and president of a college common room *psycho music*
Yep, you’d be stuffed. Me – hey, I’m barely human. I’m from the colonies
Reading on down through the comments, Sian just confirms my opinion of the way she’s written this article.
This is ironic…
…because a fair number of commenters are pretty young. I’m only 25 myself and I remember keenly the battles I went through in a Catholic Grammar School. She’s simply dismissive of everyone else who thinks ‘der yoof’ should get off their fat, PSP-playing arses.
Or this…
…which simply generalises from her sense of being under attack for expressing an opinion to the view that all young people’s opinions are disrespected. They are no more disrespected than older people, if they make an effort to be suitably informed.
Whether that translates into national influence is another matter, and totally unrelated to age. Ultimately the good points in the article (and they are few) are completely blunted by the self-pity on display.
And if that’s personal, Sian made it so by conflating herself and young people.
And Natalie Hanman is just being passive-aggressive, which is pathetic:
I think Natalie was doing a bit of disaster control.
A lot of these young writers are doing this conflating themselves with their whole generation thing – that makes me think they’re actually being encouraged to do that, as though the editorial boards around the country are requesting that type of ‘this is what Generation Z thinks’ article. With a view to marketing to it
Kate, Laurie did just this with a Cif piece she wrote recently about how her generation (and mine) were too passive and boring. Laurie is neither passive nor boring. The generation Sian claims to represent, if she indeed represents them at all, does in fact seem both passive and boring.
Saying that you don’t want to vote because you think you might be judged on your appearance if you go into the polling station – that has got to be the stupidest thing someone has ever said on Cif. That is passive.
It’s pure laziness – she doesn’t want to risk being judged, boo hoo hoo, because being judged by some anonymous officials in a polling station sounds like such a terrible fate – so she gives up her democratic right to vote. That is stupid.
And to say she has no idea what politicians are on about – ffs, she can use a computer, why not find out? This kind of lazy idiocy isn’t limited to young ‘uns, though – my boss said the other day that she thought political party manifestos should be available INSIDE the polling station so people could read them when they get there to decide how to vote. Her justification was that parties don’t often deliver their leaflets to all households. Epic fail.
Is this a serious article? Good grief.
The old ladies at the polling station really intimidate me.
I can’t remember the last time I heard a politician give a “fancy speech.”
50 Cent is, of course, a great (corporate) role model. Yeah, let’s get celebrities to tell us who to vote for. That always works so well. Someone could probably make a TV show out of it. I for one would be swayed by Ms Dynamite’s views on the budget deficit, higher education, and inheritance tax.
Whereas I can write for CiF because my uni rips off foreigners and is the epicentre for Islamic terrorist cell planning, screw you poshos. On a serious note, what is probably worse is that the article’s author was lying, but appealing to apathy rather than expressing, although I haven’t read it because why would I.
That was a truly atrocious article. She claims to be part of a ‘movement for justice’ but is unconcerned by what the Government does or how to change that.
Idiot.
‘Suppose I can just make up for it by making chains of clichéd statements about young people…’
Mmm. I think I disagree with you all, which feels a bit odd.
I think an editorial decision to publish the article at CiF was perfectly justified, and I thought the article, while it seems incoherent and, yes, even whiney, and offers what sounds to political sophisticates like an absurd solution to the ‘engagement’ problem, is not too far off the mark as a reflection of the alienated incoherence (and incoherent because of the alienation) I hear from some of the young people I meet. The fact that’s it all sounds ridiculous to the likes of us doesn’t mean it’s any less real for the likes of the author and her friends, and no less of a challenge to the politicised minority.
I feel an anti-rant coming on. May post on this later.
Steady on there, Bickers – I would never say the article should not have been published, or that the views in it should not have been expressed. Au contraire (sp?). I just think that girl was set up a bit because the standard of the writing and the standard of the argument was poor, and it made her sound silly, which I suspect she is not. I think it’s good that CiF is trying different things out though – that article wasn’t up to much, but it might generate others that are (Natalie H commissioned someone to write something else even as that thread unfolded). I am the queen of liberal publication, my friend – I can’t think of a single article that I would say shouldn’t be considered for publication. I often fall out with comrades on the left for holding that view (See Rod Liddle).
And yeah – incoherence in itself can be a story in itself. Can’t stop people commenting on it, though. That’s freedom.
Ah, that’s fair enough. I agree with you again then, which is nice. I admit to having only skated the responses and hadn’t fully ascertained your line on this. The challenge for socialist is to help channel incoherent anger into more coherent anger, and I’ll address this in a further post maybe.
Didn’t follow the CiF comments – be interesting to see what’s commissioned.
I think your view would be justified Paul if it weren’t for the fact that she’d been so avowed about her decision not to vote. Now, if she had said I haven’t voted before and politicians themselves have a further part to play in curbing youth nonchalance, then all would be well, but she didn’t, she didn’t inspire the youth vote which I’d bet a sum on that that was the point; a young person addressing apathy. Although politicans do have a part to play, it is reciprocal, and the article has done nothing to inspire the voters part to play, and although his anger might obscure this point, Dave is right in saying that a direction of important issues, literature should be what these articles should do, in a way that is not patronising or jargon-laden (probably shouldn’t be in the guardian at all, but anyway). His other point I agree with, too, that this could fall into the right’s lap; for what is worse than voter apathy is voting for the sake of voting, which is why it must be a reciprocal act. We don’t want to play into the Nietzschean myth that some people really don’t deserve the vote based on intelligence.
I think it’s an important point you’ve raised, though – the shades of censorship. I keep getting into big trouble with some comrades because of my views that most things should be published – one does not change things one does not like simply by banning them, or trying to quash them, and I think the left sometimes tries too hard just to ban. I was one of the only people I know, for example, who thought that Griffin should have appeared on Question Time. I disliked – as another example – the move to throw a CiF commentator who admitted he was a paedophile off a comments thread. I love the left, but not that aspect of it.
It’s not a very good article – but I’ve certainly come across people who don’t vote in part because they feel intimidated about going into a polling station.
I remember campaigning in one council by-election outside the local primary school. One, older, parent said that she would definitely be voting for us, and turned to her friend to ask if she would be. Her friend replied, ‘I’d like to vote, but I don’t know how‘.
In that instance they both went in together, with the older woman explaining how it all worked as they walked. But most people in that situation don’t have a buddy to go along to vote with – particularly if when they were growing up their parents didn’t vote and no one else in the family is going along to vote.
It is one of the reasons why the electorate is older and more affluent than the overall population, which favours the right and hurts the left.
….I’ve got the opposite problem – I want to vote, but don’t know who for… har har har
I take very much the opposite stance here to what appears to be a pretty strong consensus against her. I don’t agree entirely with what she says, and I certainly will be exercising my right to vote, but she has a much stronger point than the ridiculously negative and condescending responses to her post would suggest.
I’ve outlined my thoughts here. A sort of rant about ranting about what is, after all, only someone’s effort to identify a problem and then identify a solution to said problem.
http://humanistagenda.org/danielrm/2010/03/participation-and-politicos/
And just a thought – if what’s angered you all is that her article is patronising and condescending to young people, then why don’t you target some of the comments as well?
People there are arguing for the disenfranchisement of the young, generalising their thoughts on this one young woman to the entire generation she’s a part of and are generally behaving like complete pricks.
And there’s a hell of a lot more of them than her.
I noticed just now that Sian has come across my blog-post and has responded. You can read a bit of elaboration from her on the article and her feelings in this comment:
http://humanistagenda.org/danielrm/2010/03/participation-and-politicos/comment-page-1/#comment-4
I don’t know whether it’ll help you understand the point of view better or not. I hope so. I certainly hope you’ll stop abusing her as much as you generally have done as a result, though.
Why would I bother targeting the comments, Daniel? They haven’t been commissioned by the Guardian to write an article, and they aren’t bloody reporters who expect to be taken seriously when commenting on political issues, despite admitting only knowing what politicians are on about “half of the time”.
PS: If you think my points are ridiculously negative and condescending, then I suggest you outline why you think so, so I can respond – otherwise it’s just ad hominem nonsense. If that’s all you have to offer, piss off and link troll somewhere else.
So what you’re essentially saying is that it’s OK for your attitude to be misguided and unpleasant as long as you’re not getting paid for it?
And I suspect that most of those comments do in fact expect to be taken seriously; indeed they tend to get quite annoyed if you don’t.
I should probably point out that I wasn’t singling out your points, simply posting my comments on this blog post in particular because Adam White linked me to it. He also suggested that I share the link to my post here to explain my thoughts and reasoning; I genuinely apologise if it came across as link trolling or spamming, and I’d have no objection if you decided to excise them from my comments. Your blog, your rules.
As it is though, whilst I’m not singling you out I do feel that your points are negative and condescending, although scarcely worse than any others I’ve read.
Complaining that she hasn’t ‘pulled her thumb out and becoming involved in politics’ is nonsensical. She has. She quite clearly states one way in which she has. Reading various reports and voting are not the only way of getting involved in politics, though we might prefer the latter especially to take precedence.
And though it’s an irrelevant point as she does participate in the political process and has every right to ‘nark about something intensely political’, it seems a very strange idea that we should abuse and castigate the 40% of the population who don’t vote when they dare express an opinion on political apathy.
And though it’s been overtaken in vitriol on my own part, I’d like to apologise once more for the links. If you’ve taken it in a way that I didn’t intend then I am genuinely sorry.
Thank you for getting back with your comments.
I don’t think claiming she hasn’t pulled her thumb out is nonsense.
I don’t believe voting to be the pinnacle of political engagement – quite the opposite.
But the activities of Ctrl.Alt.Shift are little different; people turn up to an event, then go home, having given a bit of money. Engagement is passing, just like the act of voting.
Even this wasn’t what was at issue with my criticism.
Do you not see the contradiction between someone saying they don’t know much about the political actors, saying that because of this they won’t vote (implying this is important) and then blaming it on the political actors?
In actual fact, there are more means of engagement than I can possibly count – and the first one is talking to your parents, or your teachers, or your friends and so on about issues which you care about. And young people have loads of issues they care about – they’re not apathetic, they just don’t vote. I should know – I teach loads of them, and whether it’s the hoody wearing kid who gets reported for graffiti or the best-behaved, they all care about stuff.
The reason they don’t vote, therefore, are infinitely more complex and more important than this twaddle about how Sian won’t vote because she doesn’t know much about politics makes out. Hence my outrage, because she was selling my generation short.
We don’t have literacy tests in this country for voting rights precisely because people don’t have to read reams and reams to understand politics, because it’s everywhere. Sian’s comment that she doesn’t know much about what politicians are saying is disingenuous because they’re saying it on every radio station, on every TV channel and in every newspaper…including the one she writes for.
That’s my second problem – the disingenuity of the piece.
I’m not castigating the disengaged for querying their own disengagement – but the irony is by questioning it, you’ve already ended it – and so all the different snipes (like about only Oxford students understanding half of the stuff online) is just posing.
You may be right that with said single events engagement is passing, but perhaps you didn’t notice the rest of her line when she mentioned it?
‘A recent rave thrown to raise money for Haiti raised more than £10,000, with 3,000 clubbers signing up to the website to find out what else they could do to tackle poverty.’
Read the latter half of the sentence. I think that’s pointing towards a bit more than simply that one instance of passing engagement.
And I don’t see a contradiction there, no. She states that the political actors aren’t communicating in a way that she or other young people understand or can be bothered to put the effort in to understand, and therefore of course she knows comparatively little about said political actors. I don’t think you can reasonably argue that when bad communication is at fault then you should blame the person to whom the idea is being communicated.
And I don’t believe she said or even implied that they don’t care about any issues. She seems to me to be arguing simply that the way issues are presented by politicians and the popular media is inadequate to engage young people in such a way that they will vote; she never stated that they wouldn’t engage in any other way.
And forgive me, but I do feel it’s somewhat patronising to state that you ‘should know’ – although I agree with your point, that indeed young people do care about issues (and as I have just said, I don’t really think that’s the issue at debate here), I might point out that I’m 18 years old, currently in further education and preparing now for higher education.
Political participation amongst young people too is a passion of mine, and as a member of a local youth politics organisation I successfully composed and directed a workshop aimed at local secondary school students to try and engage them in politics and illustrate to them exactly how pervasive the subject is.
The workshop received almost unanimous praise from the students who participated.
Whilst I’m not particularly fond of this kind of political dick-waving and I don’t think it proves any particular point, I do wonder whether given this you could not try to play the ‘I know/teach young people so I know what they think’ card? It’s not a valid form of political debate (simply being the old appeal to authority dressed up slightly differently) and it gets quite tedious when all that basically happens is that you end up comparing qualifications.
I likewise will try to avoid it.
I think you’re misrepresenting Sian’s opinions here to be honest.
The article didn’t state that that was the only reason she wouldn’t vote or that any other young person wouldn’t vote; indeed it didn’t state that at all. It stated that she didn’t understand what the politicians are saying, which is an entirely different kettle of fish to not knowing much about politics.
As I keep saying, she’s highlighting an issue of communication, of understanding in one particular context – that of what politicians and the political press say.
As for the fact that politicians are repeating themselves everywhere, on radio, on TVs and in newspapers, I remember one of the early episodes of The Thick of It in which the minister is asked if he knows what a chav is. He clearly doesn’t and his colleagues repeat the word several times in the hopes that he’ll summon the answer up from somewhere. Of course, as he points out, just repeating the same thing at him will not in fact help if he doesn’t understand it.
You’re right in saying that by querying your own disengagement you have in fact then ended the disengagement, but simply because your disengagement is ended it doesn’t follow that you will be engaged in every sense and in every circumstance.
I’m not misrepresenting Sian’s opinion – on the other hand, I think you’re deliberately trying to ignore the most obviously ridiculous sections of the rhetoric, which I have highlighted. Deservedly so, because it illustrates the contradiction that exists between what Sian has said and her actual position as a literate, engaged journalist. And that contradiction offends me, because I’ve dealt with the real disfranchised, and she doesn’t qualify.
As for this appeal to authority nonsense, this isn’t the Oxford Union. I was appealing to evidence and experience. Whether from the point of view of a teacher, or from the point of view of an activist who five months ago marched beside a thousand people under thirty for jobs, or the grown-up version of the student whose life in school witnessed the re-emergence of mass political engagement, through the anti-war movement. Young people aren’t, in my experience, apathetic.
And this creates the problem of understanding the link between politicians and their prospective audience, or lack of link. Sian’s view is that the bar for engagement is set too high – that young people are too stupid to understand things. Apart from being offensive, and I quoted the bit about Oxford students above, it’s rubbish. The disconnection between politicians and young people is much more important than that – but by pushing this dead end, you wind up with the comments over there to the effect that “we don’t want people who won’t consider the issues to vote”.
So on those grounds I find what Sian said to be rubbish.