A salutary reminder.
The letter home that he quotes is chilling, and a plain example of where politically correct euphemism can lead. So, please, say what you mean, mean what you say, and criticise others for the views they hold - not the manner in which they express themselves.
No-one seems bothered by the denormalisation of smokers ... along with the constant stream of insults and abuse. Never mind eh? .. it's only smokers, only 20-25% of the population. lt won't happen to any other group. Yeah, right.
ReplyDeleteI watched Stephen Fry online speaking at the Intelligence Squared debate about Catholicism. It was immediately apparent to me as a Catholic that he was doing exactly what he is here saying we should not do. His points were hopelessly inaccurate, lacking in context and comparison, filled with vitriol and clearly designed to dehumanise a group of people he does not like. I turned it off after only a few minutes, because even in that short time, he seemed to me to have crossed the lines of decency and fairness.
ReplyDeleteSo when I listened to Fry saying this kind of stuff you've posted here, I thought of that. What's he really trying to achieve?
SH - I don't smoke, and I find it a (frankly) disgusting habit. But I do agree with you; if you wish to smoke and know the risks, you should be free to do so.
ReplyDeleteAlbert - I thought I might hear from you on this subject! My thought was that Fry has thus managed to demonstrate both how important it is not to do this, and how easy it is to do so.
My thought was that Fry has thus managed to demonstrate both how important it is not to do this, and how easy it is to do so.
ReplyDeleteI think it's more sophisticated than that. People saying the kind of thing Fry is saying here sound both reasonable and generous. I think he uses liberalism to make himself appear reasonable and those he disagrees with appear less reasonable, so that he can then justify his illiberalism towards the latter. There's none so illiberal as a liberal, as the saying goes.
"I think he uses liberalism to make himself appear reasonable and those he disagrees with appear less reasonable, so that he can then justify his illiberalism towards the latter. There's none so illiberal as a liberal, as the saying goes."
ReplyDeleteAhhh, but what is liberalism, Albert? It seems to be one of those words that means at least half a dozen things which don't really seem to be related to each other.
There's none so illiberal as a liberal, as the saying goes.
ReplyDeleteQuite. We must support your right to free speech, so long as you always use it in ways that we approve of. Barbara Hewson might agree.
I haven't yet watched the video but on the subject of smokers I support the freedom of anyone and everyone to do whatever damage they like to themselves. However as someone who was chronically asthmatic until the day I left the parental home and as someone who walks around London in the vicinity of people blowing their smoke into my lungs and clothes, find somewhere to do it that doesn't affect other people!
ReplyDeleteI don't fart on the tube, why should you blow your smoke at me as I happen to walk past?
Mr B,
ReplyDeleteWell quite. Fry seems to me represent secular fundamentalist posing as reasonableness. It's only because most people are terribly ignorant of religion that he can get away with saying such silly things.
Indeed, Albert.
ReplyDeleteWe live in an age ignorance.
And worse still, in an age in which most people are completely ignorant of their ignorance.
Fry seems to me represent secular fundamentalist . . .
Now there's another slippery word . . .
:-)
Probably two slippery words!
ReplyDeleteI think the gap is caused by the institutions of (many) churches having moved away from their base principles. Nobody can argue that the various abuse of positions that are found in many religious institutions have anything to do with the faiths that are espoused by those religions. I'm not an expert, but I'm fairly sure there isn't a parable of the taking advantage of choir-boys.
ReplyDeleteAlso, many atheists believe that once there isn't a God there are no morals either. I am not a Goddist but I find all sorts of comfort and guidance in Christian attitudes.
You are absolutely right Blue Eyes, but there is another problem of balance. Take child abuse in the Catholic Church. The John Jay report in the US (an independent criminologists organsiation) thoroughly examined child abuse in the Catholic Church - it is the most thorough report on abuse in any single institution in the world (I believe) and it was partly paid for by the US government.
ReplyDeleteWhat it found was that child abuse rose throughout American society from the 60s onwards. Disgracefully, abuse in the Church also rose as it is part of the same overall culture. However, they found that it did not rise as much in the Church and that it declined quicker, so that child abuse rates in the Church are tiny by comparison with society.
Now of course, none of this defends the Church, and we rightly expect better from the Church anyway. But my point was about fairness. Hitting the Church on child abuse (fair enough in my view) but without observing that this was a society wide crisis and that the crisis was numerically less bad in the Church is unjust.
As a father, I also observe that it puts children at risk in other institutions. The CofE admitted last Autumn that its child protection policies are still not up to scratch (they didn't even include the paramouncy principle) and this had, in part, enabled on going abuse in the Diocese of Chichester, right up to last year:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10036297/Church-of-England-urged-to-take-urgent-action-on-child-abuse.html
I suspect it has been possible for child protect to be so inadequate in the CofE because everyone associates abuse with Catholicism.
Now my point is not to excuse the Catholic Church by accusing the CofE. It's just to say that it is unfair to make this out to be a Catholic problem and it puts children at risk. But for Fry and others like him, that seems a fair price to pay, for the rhetoric advantage of making it appear that child abuse is a particularly Catholic problem.
I could talk about Galileo (he wasn't tortured BTW) or Thomas More or any of the others. Context is everything, not explain away, but to understand how the Church compares.
As GK Chesterton said:
When people impute special vices to the Christian Church, they seem entirely to forget that the world (which is the only other thing there is) has these vices much more. The Church has been cruel; but the world has been much more cruel. The Church has plotted; but the world has plotted much more. The Church has been superstitious; but it has never been so superstitious as the world is when left to itself.
And I think that means we have to compare the Church with the world in order to discover which vices belong to the Church and which simply to sinful humanity. But that's not a comparison your average secularist wants to make, because he suspects the world may be far worse.