AC Grayling on “anousics”
Wednesday 25 June 2008 at 17:47 BST
The philosopher AC Grayling is up to his usual polemical tricks in a Comment is Free article published today. It must be months since I last cited that august forum, and today it’s only happening as Norman Geras has taken objection to Grayling’s mode of argument.
In his article, which is ostensibly about “faith schools”, Grayling has a go at religious believers in general. Nothing new there, you may be thinking. But what is original is the author’s use of the neologism “anousics” to denote individuals who believe in ghosts, alien visitations, the dead coming to life, magic, rituals, incantations, strange psychological observances and sexual perversions, weird ancient myths, personified forms of evil and malevolence, and more.
Norm is right to question Grayling’s style and syntax, and his demonisation of all religious believers through an implied association with the stuff and nonsense listed above.
So is this just knockabout stuff, as Norm asks? Actually, it’s Comment is Free, and Grayling is merely adhering to a set of unwritten editorial guidelines understood by all those who write for the Guardian website. Grayling now has this nailed, and I kind of admire him for it.
If he were able to program a computer, Grayling could I’m sure generate code that spews this stuff out to order. And it might then be worth the paltry £75 a pop the Guardian pays those it pays at all (contrary to its freelance agreement with the National Union of Journalists).
Norm refers to honour, truth and logic. But he knows full well that there is little or no honour in Comment is Free, let alone truth. As for its internal logic, this is, shall we say, very special.
Stumble it!
Saturday 28 June 2008 at 13:06 BST
This isn’t a fair characterization of Cif. Look at the Cif imitations on other English newspaper websites, and you see the same cheap contrarianism and fire starting. It goes for pro-blogs on this side of the Atlantic as well. Do you think it would be possible to make and manage a political pro-blog that isn’t like Cif?
Saturday 28 June 2008 at 13:19 BST
Comment is Free was the first such “blog” created by a UK-based mainstream media outlet, and, like it or not, it is the benchmark by which other mass readership political pseudo-blogs are judged.
Ken - you may consider the above to be unfair generalisation, but the point stands. There may be some serious pieces commissioned and published by CiF, but to me these seem no more than padding. The ethos of CiF is one of “cheap contrarianism and fire starting”, as you put it. That is its business model, and it is a very successful business model.
As for whether it would be possible to create a newspaper pseudo-blog that isn’t like CiF, the answer must be yes. Professional editors with the considerable experience held by those who inhabit the offices of the London-based national media could create whatever they want. And they could force it into whatever shape they want with appropriate commissioning practices, editorial guidelines and comment policies. Those editorial guidelines should apply to the newspapers’ star columnists as well as the riff-raff who write only for the online op-ed pages.