Wednesday, April 02, 2008
This is what's left
Following the shameful news that Nick Cohen and Johann Hari are both finalists for the Orwell prize for journalism, it's gratifying to learn that our finest political blogger and tireless opponent of the cruise-missile left is to publish his first book this summer.
Richard Seymour's The Liberal Defense of Murder (sic) from Verso Books "traces the journey of [figures such as Cohen and Hari] from left to right and explores their critical role in the creation of the new American empire. With wide-ranging testimony from many key figures on the left, this is a crucial account of the emergence of the 'pro-war left,' and its shaping of our post-9/11 world." But why does the cover use the US spelling of Defence?
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Nick C for the Orwell Prize for Journalism?! I spose in future times- if there are future times beyond the immediate perilous future- this era will be seen as when irony was forced into hiding by disappearing up its own arsehole, waiting till it was safe to re-enter the light of day.
ReplyDeleteThough it's probably fitting that as a perfect symptom of Orwell's predictions of falsehood's ascension to the throne to truth, that such lackeys be acclaimed in Orwell's name. Fuck all chance Orwell wasn't going to be claimed by the hordes of unreality.
An inchoate thought I'm not sure I can flesh out about irony... that it's a kind of revelation of truth through the use of a shadow world of inversion. But if everything is intentionally in shadow, mass deception, there's nowhere for the darkness of irony to inhabit. In such a world of untruth, the role of ironic illumination is returned to truth truthfully told. Truth has become the shadow-world, more shocking than the blackest satire simply by being real.
Not sure how successful that was, but too late to go looking over it now.
Hari and Cohen had a big falling out actually, Hari is much better
ReplyDeleteCheck out Hari's reveiew of Cohen's book
http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1157
Cohen's mad response is linked at the end
But why does the cover use the US spelling of Defence?
ReplyDeleteEven my book is a victim of American imperialism.
But seriously, why is Cohen's truly awful book (a compendium of out-dated gossip, shrill denunciations and missed points) nominated for the Orwell Prize? It would take a real bastard to point out that three of the judges have connections to The Guardian Media Group, but then someone has to.
andrew k wrote:
ReplyDelete"this era will be seen as when irony was forced into hiding by disappearing up its own arsehole, waiting till it was safe to re-enter the light of day."
As Tom Lehrer said, political satire became obsolete on the day Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Good old Henry "Kiss Me I'm a Mass Murderer" Kissinger.
ReplyDelete