Beware, says Howard Jacobson, the fanatic who has read only one book.
Maybe, before pondering the education of a jihadist, we should ask a prior question: what makes a fanatic?
We were given some insight into this on Newsnight earlier this week when Evan Davis, growing nicely into his job, interviewed the lawyer, journalist and associate of Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald – a man strikingly deficient in the musculature necessary to essay a smile. The subject was surveillance and David Cameron’s call for more of it. There are, I accept, differing views on this. I, for example, am for having every member of the human family watched day and night by every possible means because the human family is currently dysfunctional and can’t be trusted. But I understand why others don’t think as I do. This puts me in a different category of person from Greenwald, who allows no beliefs that conflict with his and attributes those that do to a cowardly subservience to authority.
Oh my, that’s some good writing there.
Leading Greenwald with expert gentleness into the gated hell that is his mind, Davis put the case for differing viewpoints.
*falls over in awe at that sentence*
Nothing could have been more instructive than Greenwald’s dead expression – his mouth fixed in the rigor mortis of absolute conviction, his eyes unanimated by the pleasure of conversation or the excitement of controversy. Doubt honours a man, but this was the face of someone whom no ghost of a second thought dares visit.
So, beware of monomania. Avoid at all costs having eyes unanimated by the pleasure of conversation or the excitement of controversy.
We rightly shy from holding communities to immediate and unambiguous account for what their most errant children do, but is it wise, is it honest – reader, does it make the world a better place for any of us – to raise the charge of Islamophobia the moment someone questions the communal atmosphere such errancy might have breathed? At the heart of every narrative of belief is a weak spot of exclusivism and dogma waiting to be exploited by its wilder adherents. Monotheism is a grand conceit, but can we really say that it is innocent of the millions of killings in its name? Danger lurks in the tales we all tell.
That guy can do things with words.
Beautifully put.
James Carse (The Religious Case Against Belief) says religious ‘belief’ is necesarily ‘belief against’, against the beliefs of ‘others’.
Billy Connolly has quite a different facility with language in performance giving his analysis of the root causes that it’s because “thair’s noo sex an’ they’ve only got one book ta’ read”.
I have to admit two personal biases:
1. I’m a fan of Glenn Greenwald, so… you know… not impressed with this.
2. Fanaticism is why I’m studying Anthropology. I want to answer the very question “what makes a fanatic”. Of course, it’s a hell of a lot more complicated than that because of one very simple thing:
Consider the fact that the word “fan”, as in “I am a fan of [person/band/film/game/show/thing]”, is, in fact, short for “fanatic”. Since the vast majority of the people alive (if not all 7+billion of us) consider ourselves fans of things and people and such, we all declare our fanaticism quite regularly.
So distinctions must be made, of course. Over all, however, fanaticism is quite complicated, and not well studied. So here’s my angle: why does it exist in the first place? If human behaviors largely have evolutionary/biological origins, which evolutionary/biological behaviors can fanaticism be traced to, and does this mean we can find expressions of fanaticism in non-human animals? Why does fanaticism manifest in so many different ways, from peaceful ways to fun ways to scary ways to violent ways to deadly ways?
And how do we stop it?
On Howard Jacobson… he may have a way with words, but having a way with words doesn’t mean those words are right. He can take his “watch the human family” crap and shove it. I like my privacy, thanks.
Can’t he just? The power of the skilled propagandist. Since I am aware, like most people, that Greenwald’s suspicious nature is based on hard, cold, experience, I find that I am doubtful about Jacobson’s ethical commitment to use his powers for good.
I might also mention that Greenwald has been pretty much forced into his dead serious persona by those who are ever-anxious to discount his reporting as crazy, over-the-top, paranoid, fantastical, etc., regardless of documentation. Damned if he does or doesn’t — gosh, it reminds me of something, can’t think what…
Meh, way too pompous for my taste.
And Greenwald is the one whose mind is a “gated hell”?
It’s rare to find someone who thinks Oceania was a utopia.
[OT]
screechymonkey: that Oceania having every member of the human family watched day and night by every possible means because the human family is currently dysfunctional and can’t be trusted doesn’t entail that every society having every member of the human family watched day and night by every possible means because the human family is currently dysfunctional and can’t be trusted will be similar to Oceania.
(You ever read any of Banks’ Culture novels?)
Strange, I got soemthing very different from this author: he’s a pompous arse. Writing “…a man strikingly deficient in the musculature necessary to essay a smile” to say that he doesn’t smile much is bordering on purple and drips with arch disdain.
Who gives a fuck about how he uses proze, when the contents of his writings is so abhorrent?
First of all, he is advocating a state of surveillance that would make Orwell blush.
Second of all he draws a direct line between Greenwald and actual terrorists. Dispicable and dishonest.
Third of all, how the hell is Greenwald a fanatic? In this day and age when every action taken by the government decreases privacy for some sence of extra security, he is one of the only vocal journalists advocating for the opposite. He goes against the status quo and against the majority view, but since when does that make someone a fanatic?
Also, Howard Jacobson fancies himself a mindreader apparently.
Beware the fence sitter who advocates an everyone is right point of view and accuses his opponents of fanaticism…
It’s true. Being humourless is the worst thing, after all, and excellent reason to dismiss what someone has to say. What, they take the issue seriously and are more concerned about the consequences of what’s being discussed than the fun of discussing it? Obviously a fanatic!
Yes, you should always smile and laugh uproariously when discussing matters like torture and government spying on its own citizens.
“Whoever lusts after coherence lusts after lies.”?
Yes, we should never be certain of anything, least we be vicious fanatics, except for things like totalitarian surveillance which certainly is necessary.
“The invasion of Iraq, however botched, had a past we falsify if we see it only as a story of Western skulduggery. It is a false tale, falsely told, that Israelis wantonly butcher children in Gaza. It is a false tale, falsely told, that the West is waging war against Islam. ”
So the West is, in their own way, worse than any other regime, since they can just get it in their head to invade a country and mass murder people on flimsy pretexts (I guess they are following mr New-Marat’s dictum to be incoherent). Nobody has been put on trial for the Iraq wars. What conclusion do you think people in the Middle East will draw when they can plainly see the Iraqi and Palestinian lives are worth nothing?
His writing is overwrought garbage, and we should not really wish for people who are good at lying.
Perhaps, but most of them are outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
I have seen atheists attacked for having no sense of humour.
I have seen anti-racists attacked for having no sense of humour.
I have seen feminists attacked for having no sense of humour.
I have seen gay rights activists attacked for having no sense of humour.
Every time I see that attack, it makes me think the argument is going to be all gravy and no meat.
I don’t much like Greenwald, and I can see issues with the left on Islam, but I prefer more substance with my style.
Yeah! Damn, humourless, fanatics! Just read this quote:
“I must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but I must take it because it is right.”
Good thing whoever said that is gone!
Y’all seriously think he meant that line about having every member of the human family watched day and night literally? Sheesh.
It’s always annoyed me that many people in the UK – probably including Howard Jacobson – like to say that Americans don’t do irony. Hmm; maybe those people are right.
It’s hard to tell, Ophelia. Honestly, I’m inclined, based just on what you posted here, to think this guy is an authoritarian of the worst sort…that has a way with words.
Maybe we just need to go read the whole article? Or is there more to this that all of us ignorant Americans clearly are not getting. And I notice, of course, that while probably a larger percentage of your readers are usians, you are quick to stereotype all of us as being so, with the implied uneducated, ignorant bit to go with it.
One thing we like to say around here is : If pretty much everyone reading your posts think you’re saying horrible things, maybe it’s not the audience that needs to re-evaluate. 😉
He can do things with words, yes, but I am not keen on the particular words he chooses, nor the order in which he elects to place them.
There was obviously some measure of exaggeration, because cost considerations alone would make it impractical to watch every single human all the time. But in giving us this rough caricature of his own views, the implication is that he really is pretty far on the pro-surveillance spectrum.
If someone wrote, “I, for example, am the sort of atheist who would like to see every church dismantled brick by brick and each brick used to bash in the skull of a priest,” I would assume that (1) this person is exaggerating and does not literally advocate that specific program; and (2) that this person is still a pretty violent and disturbing individual.
Or, to use a real-life example: I don’t imagine that any significant proportion of the idiots who have appeared on college campuses bearing the slogan “No Means Yes! Yes Means Anal!” actually literally believe that “no” constitutes consent to sex, or that “yes” to one sex act means consent to all sex acts…. but I still think anyone willing to march under that slogan is an incredible douchebag. I don’t think that means I’m an ignorant Yank who doesn’t get irony.
Maybe, if Jacobson’s column is a regular feature, he can assume some familiarity with his views on the part of his readers that would not be obvious to those of us presented with these alleged bon mots out of context.
Well, I for one did and do not think he meant it literally My point still stands.
@2 NateH, I suspect that the root of fanaticism lies in social behavior. All groups of social organisms have their leaders who wield disproportionate influence over the others, for a variety of reasons. But the dominant [fill in the species here] plays a large part in not only directing the group, but also as to the social standing of other members. For example, when a dominant male selects a female favorite, that female’s status relative to the rest of the females rises accordingly.
So the fact that the dominant whatever, the leader, has the power to affect our own social standing, that suggests an avenue of inquiry into the phenomenon of fanaticism. For example, a lot of men and women “bond” over a shared love for a certain sports personality – although the celebrity does not know them and thus can’t bestow any personal favor onto any of the individuals in question, they regard their choice of sports personality as a marker of social standing anyhow, and they flock together.
@Blanche… I’d say that you’re on to something.
We know that individuals within a social species have a desire to fit in. Hence the eternal struggle (and not just in humans) between the “normal” and the “abnormal”. You always have the “outsiders”, and who they are always changes. Within human society, for example, the “counterculture” always inevitably becomes the cultural norm, while the culture they rebelled against becomes the “counterculture”. And there are always different “countercultures” in competition with each other.
It all goes back, as you say, Blanche, to social behavior.
Well, that, plus he’s a Booker-winning novelist. Plus, in my case, there’s the fact that he’s a good friend of Anthony Grayling’s.
I dunno, I just took that remark as a kind of misanthropic aside that feels quite familiar, and that is what I often feel myself while reading about Raif Badawi, or botched electrocutions here in the US, or rapey priests, or [insert atrocity here]. Humans can be so horrible it’s hard to understand. I don’t see that as a novel idea.
Jacobson has a long way to go before he reaches the lit’ry level of Christopher Hitchens – and he seems to have wandered off even further into the political weeds than his apparent role model.
Or maybe he wants to be the next William F. Buckley when he grows up? Lad needs better mentoring…
Yes, he is a good writer. A brilliant writer. Would probably write excellent fiction. But when I read something for information or ideas, I look for substance and despise it when I notice an author putting forward manipulation through words as a substitute. So, substance:
1) Greenwald is a sourpuss so he’s a bit of a turnoff really, isn’t he? Points? Did he make points? What about them?
2) Should we hold the whole of a collectivity responsible for what some of its members do? Just asking questions, right? And certainly not attempting to answer them.
Anne Fenwick “Would probably write excellent fiction.” Are you serious? Howard Jacobson is a well known novelist. Man Booker shortlist etc. His Independent columns cover a multitude topics and are invariably brilliantly written, full of arcane knowledge and obscure references. Not always entirely serious though. Which is perhaps the point.
Well maybe that was the famous irony, which Americans are supposed not to do. If so apologies.
Not just shortlisted for the Booker, he won – The Finkler Question, 2010.
Ophelia @14: It’s easy for this non-American to detect sarcasm in what you refer to here, but it’s not at all clear where that sarcasm’s directed. It reads to me like hyperbole, but the sort that amounts to describing your opponent’s view of you in grossly inflated terms to dismiss their actual criticisms. I don’t see anything to suggest he’s not writing Greenwald off as being a “fanatic” (who’s only read one book…?) because he doesn’t look amused or entertained when discussing very serious issues; he just seems to be impressing himself with the sound of his own voice while he does so.
Sure, but it makes his “gated hell” crack inconsistent as well as nasty. Gated communities are usually the ones with the most surveillance.
But seriously, there’s nothing wrong with coherence. It helps a lot when you’re looking for or trying to judge between competing hypotheses. Clinging to a rigid worldview because its neat and simplistic narratives soothe your existential anxieties, ignoring disconfirming evidence or trying to force it to fit your hypothesis, those are problems.
Problem is, Greenwald has an incandescent hatred of the United States and Israel. Which puts him above critical examination, and attracts his grim-jawed clones whenever his historical perspective or trustworthiness is called into question.
Still:
‘Leading Greenwald with expert gentleness into the gated hell that is his mind,’ Which mind, Greedwald’s or the interviewer’s? Not the clearest prose to my reading.
We live in a word dominated by ‘One Bookers.’ The Koran and Bible have their tribes (for some reason their numbers are hugely extended by True Believes who will never bother to actually READ ‘their’ book. But we also have ‘People of’ Atlas Shrugged, or The Chomsky Reader. Or of Howard Zinn or Dinesh DeSouza.
Bill Maher, and perhaps some others, refer to American Rightists as living in an Information Bubble. Unfortunately, the West seems to lack a ‘bubble free’ body of intellectuals.
Translation:
Greenwald is sometimes critical of the united States and Israel.
@ 29 nichrome
My sentiments exactly. Greenwald has an incandescent hatred of the United States and Israel to about the same extent that feminists have an incandescent hatred of men and heterosexual male sexuality.
Sorry guys, Jacobson is a terrific writer (fiction or opinion) AND spot on here. Glenn Greenwald may be right, in general, about government surveillance, but he’s wrong about a lot of things, including the Paris atrocities. Like many people on the “left” (scare quotes because this is not the left I joined when I reached political maturity) Greenwald’s purblind “anti-imperialism” has led him into a de facto alliance with those lefties who are reluctant – and, these days, afraid – to criticize a certain religion, despite its horrific manifestations around the world, because many of its adherents are seemingly the “downtrodden masses”. Jacobson, in amusingly circuitous prose, is saying that Greenwald is both wrong and boring, a doctrinaire, highly slanted illiberal under all that first amendment hype. — #je ne suis pas Glenn Greenwald