I haven’t read O’Brien’s book, so my comments are based on his talk-radio persona, not his literary work.
O’Brien feels like a bruiser. He's like a Nigel Farage (or maybe a Piers Morgan) style populist for the other side. His book may quote-mine Noam Chomsky, but it’s hard to imagine O’Brien having a productive conversation with Slavoj Žižek or David Harvey, for instance. He doesn’t strike me as one of those leftists who’s into theory, who can happily discuss the ideas of Foucault, Lyotard, or Deleuze and Guattari.
That might just be his gig. Douglas Murray writes for lowbrow papers like the New York Post, but I’ve heard him mention Jürgen Habermas’s "An Awareness of What is Missing”, and he’d obviously engaged with it at a serious level. Could O'Brien be secretly like that? I don't think so.
You’re right about the partisan selectivity of not mentioning Alastair Campbell, who famously brow-beat Dr David Kelly into lying about WMDs for a government dossier, causing the scientist to take his own life when he realised what horrors Campbell had used the dossier to justify.
Isn’t there also a problem of perspective when you only focus on your own country’s political class and decide they’re uniquely bad? Four of the previous five French Presidents have had serious corruption scandals (Giscard - the Bokassa diamond; Mitterrand - illegal wiretapping, personally authorising the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior; Chirac - found guilty of corruption; Sarkozy - found guilty of corruption, influence trading, wiretapping, sentenced to jail). The only apparently non-corrupt recent President - Hollande - is generally considered the least effective. Italy has given us Giulio Andreotti (who hired the Mafia to murder a journalist about to expose his corruption); Bettino Craxi (whose Tangentopoli crimes led him to flee to Tunisia); and, of course, Silvio Berlusconi. Ireland had the incredible Charles Haughey, who famously stole the money from a charity fundraiser for a colleague’s cancer operation.
Then again, some politicians can be both very corrupt and yet apparently do good for their countries. Robert Walpole and David Lloyd George were arguably like that.
Agreed, particularly so on attitudes towards one's own country. The attitude that Britain is uniquely bad is almost as parochial as the attitude that Britain is uniquely good! As you say, it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
To be fair, "he hasn't read theory" is not, to my mind, a criticism. "Theory" is most often ivory-tower gobbledygook anyway. In theory, we have been living under late capitalism for far longer than the adjective "late" could possibly be applicable.
JOB is a prime example of audience capture. He knows that self-righteous anger sells better than open-minded nuance, so that's what he's selling.
Perhaps all political movements need their "attack dogs". Still, it's a style I find distinctly unappealing. One weakness of JOB'S style is that he is never allowed to lose an argument. As a result, he will only ever talk to callers who make the dumbest defences of positions he opposes. I remember one incident a while back when he cut off a caller prematurely when he found out he worked for one of those evil Tufton Street think tanks - you'd think, given how much he goes on about their pernicious influence elsewhere, he'd revel in the opportunity to take one down a peg or two, but I think the subtext was "oh crap, this guy's actually clever, he knows his stuff, I can't possibly risk him making me look foolish, best cut and run."
With its roots in comfortable ignorance (Remainers like me had no idea how the other half lived, felt or thought) low liberalism is an incurious ideology. It's entirely groupish rather than interested in any kind of middle way. I wouldn't read this book because I've stopped reading things, the sentiment and claims of which I can predict ahead of each sentence.
It's a good business model, though. Look at Led By Donkeys and Jonathan Pye. There's always a market for angry sneering.
Is it novel? The Left has always hated Thatcher with a totally irrational level of fervor. They hate Trump in the same way. It's a very standard way for such people to think. It's the right that tends to explain outcomes in terms of incentives and systems.
I haven’t read O’Brien’s book, so my comments are based on his talk-radio persona, not his literary work.
O’Brien feels like a bruiser. He's like a Nigel Farage (or maybe a Piers Morgan) style populist for the other side. His book may quote-mine Noam Chomsky, but it’s hard to imagine O’Brien having a productive conversation with Slavoj Žižek or David Harvey, for instance. He doesn’t strike me as one of those leftists who’s into theory, who can happily discuss the ideas of Foucault, Lyotard, or Deleuze and Guattari.
That might just be his gig. Douglas Murray writes for lowbrow papers like the New York Post, but I’ve heard him mention Jürgen Habermas’s "An Awareness of What is Missing”, and he’d obviously engaged with it at a serious level. Could O'Brien be secretly like that? I don't think so.
You’re right about the partisan selectivity of not mentioning Alastair Campbell, who famously brow-beat Dr David Kelly into lying about WMDs for a government dossier, causing the scientist to take his own life when he realised what horrors Campbell had used the dossier to justify.
Isn’t there also a problem of perspective when you only focus on your own country’s political class and decide they’re uniquely bad? Four of the previous five French Presidents have had serious corruption scandals (Giscard - the Bokassa diamond; Mitterrand - illegal wiretapping, personally authorising the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior; Chirac - found guilty of corruption; Sarkozy - found guilty of corruption, influence trading, wiretapping, sentenced to jail). The only apparently non-corrupt recent President - Hollande - is generally considered the least effective. Italy has given us Giulio Andreotti (who hired the Mafia to murder a journalist about to expose his corruption); Bettino Craxi (whose Tangentopoli crimes led him to flee to Tunisia); and, of course, Silvio Berlusconi. Ireland had the incredible Charles Haughey, who famously stole the money from a charity fundraiser for a colleague’s cancer operation.
Then again, some politicians can be both very corrupt and yet apparently do good for their countries. Robert Walpole and David Lloyd George were arguably like that.
Agreed, particularly so on attitudes towards one's own country. The attitude that Britain is uniquely bad is almost as parochial as the attitude that Britain is uniquely good! As you say, it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
To be fair, "he hasn't read theory" is not, to my mind, a criticism. "Theory" is most often ivory-tower gobbledygook anyway. In theory, we have been living under late capitalism for far longer than the adjective "late" could possibly be applicable.
JOB is a prime example of audience capture. He knows that self-righteous anger sells better than open-minded nuance, so that's what he's selling.
Perhaps all political movements need their "attack dogs". Still, it's a style I find distinctly unappealing. One weakness of JOB'S style is that he is never allowed to lose an argument. As a result, he will only ever talk to callers who make the dumbest defences of positions he opposes. I remember one incident a while back when he cut off a caller prematurely when he found out he worked for one of those evil Tufton Street think tanks - you'd think, given how much he goes on about their pernicious influence elsewhere, he'd revel in the opportunity to take one down a peg or two, but I think the subtext was "oh crap, this guy's actually clever, he knows his stuff, I can't possibly risk him making me look foolish, best cut and run."
Yes agreed - his case is depressing. And for someone who puts so much emphasis on facts and 'being right', he can be pretty hypocritical.
The people who are most right (or rather, least wrong) are not people who are as certain and unchangeable in their beliefs as James O'Brien.
With its roots in comfortable ignorance (Remainers like me had no idea how the other half lived, felt or thought) low liberalism is an incurious ideology. It's entirely groupish rather than interested in any kind of middle way. I wouldn't read this book because I've stopped reading things, the sentiment and claims of which I can predict ahead of each sentence.
It's a good business model, though. Look at Led By Donkeys and Jonathan Pye. There's always a market for angry sneering.
Is it novel? The Left has always hated Thatcher with a totally irrational level of fervor. They hate Trump in the same way. It's a very standard way for such people to think. It's the right that tends to explain outcomes in terms of incentives and systems.