There is a kind of low-level noise that sections of the left-liberal intelligentsia have been emitting for the last three or four years. I call it noise because it is so deficient of sense as far as intellectual content goes. It can be a form of rage, as in the example to be displayed here, but in any case its most essential feature lies in articulating something which it is hard to credit its proponent actually believes; it is at least charitable to assume that he or she does not. Step up Colin McCabe, writing about the Labour Party conference:
Last week a woman broke down in tears at one of the fringe meetings when she recounted how she couldn't talk about Iraq in her constituency. Looking at Wolfgang being manhandled from the hall, I was reminded of that chilling footage when Saddam staged his coup in the Baath party at a meeting of the central committee and pointed out the individuals who were to be frogmarched from the room. This is Britain, so what awaited Walter Wolfgang outside the conference doors was not a bullet in the head. The lady's tears were caused by her fear of expulsion, not of imprisonment. If the method is soft, however, the totalitarian desire to crush debate is hard. If Nazi Germany was fascism by radio, New Labour is the corporate state by television. The determination to control the party's image on television is incompatible with a democratic party and, indeed, with democracy.The ejection of Wolfgang for heckling was, indeed, disgraceful. But the comparison with the notorious Baath party episode is grotesque, and so McCabe immediately gives himself a bit of distance from it with 'This is Britain'. But the thing is then reasserted by way of 'totalitarian desire to crush debate' and the facile equivalence: Nazi Germany/fascism by radio, New Labour/corporate state by television. No even slightly-educated person can take this stuff seriously, and Colin McCabe is more than slightly-educated. The charitable course is to conclude that he doesn't fully believe in what he says: the 'Britain' bit is to tell you that the 'Saddam' and 'Nazi Germany' bits are to be taken... somehow else.
Words are free. You can use them exorbitantly and to have a tantrum, or you can use them to make a measured argument. But words also do damage. (Thanks: LS.)