Thought Experiments : The Blog

Monday, December 07, 2009

Politics and Madness

It has long been my view that if you spend too much time in political - in the narrow sense - circles you go mad. I now fear for the stability of uber-blogger Iain Dale and David Davis. Commenting on Copenhagen etc, Iain quotes an article by Davis in The Independent. Davis says some blandly sane things in the paragraph in question, but also this: 'It is simply unacceptable for one side to describe the other as deniers, with its deliberate holocaust connotations....' Oh dear, poor DD. I've call them deniers without ever once thinking of the Holocaust. In fact, I don't believe anybody in their right mind would. 'I hope everyone can agree on that,' says Iain. Well, er, no.

# posted by Bryan Appleyard : 2:56 PM  

13 Comments:

  • At December 07, 2009 3:34 PM, Anonymous Willard said…

    Please give me more warning when linking to the blog of that particular 'uber' blogger. I've given him a page hit and feel like I dirtied myself whilst doing so.

     

  • At December 07, 2009 4:16 PM, Blogger Brit said…

    Perhaps I'm not in my right mind then - it's perfectly possible - but holocaust-deniers immediately came to mind when this 'deniers' business appeared, in climate change but also in evolution debates, where Dawkins has started using it.

    It's not like there are lots of other kinds of deniers, is it?

     

  • At December 07, 2009 4:30 PM, Anonymous Willard said…

    I suppose you're positioning yourself as a denier denier, Brit?

     

  • At December 07, 2009 4:36 PM, Blogger Gaw said…

    Brit is correct: 'denier' is a deliberate and commonly understood smear. (But perhaps not that commonly).

     

  • At December 07, 2009 4:40 PM, Blogger Gaw said…

    Willard: I actually wrote a post on denial deniers:

    http://gawragbag.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-ruin-word.html

     

  • At December 07, 2009 4:58 PM, Blogger malty said…

    Let's keep holocaust deniers and create 'denyerists' for all others, clarifies the matter, saves re-branding the Iranian wally and Irving.

    The new world order will be clarifiers v denyerists, book your seats now.

    D.Davis fell off his trolley last year when he resigned/reinstated himself, he became a reinstatist, after a short period of resignist behaviour.
    Behaviourologists would argue that this is indicitive of resignist/reinstatist behaviour, post trolley fall.

    His excuse was 'eroding liberties', the perfect prelude to trolley falling.

    DD could therefore legitimately be described as a post erodist, reinstatist-resignist.

    Dale...well, who cares.

     

  • At December 07, 2009 5:13 PM, Anonymous Vern said…

    Fear you're being either disingenuous or a tad naive here, B.A.

     

  • At December 07, 2009 10:50 PM, Anonymous Ade said…

    I am quite haapy to be called a 'denier' so long as the other side are happy to be called 'frauds'

     

  • At December 08, 2009 8:20 AM, Blogger ian russell said…

    Well obviously he thinks a lot further, but probably too far for reason to find its way home.

    it makes me think of stockings... (but not christmas).

     

  • At December 08, 2009 6:17 PM, Blogger Tom P. said…

    So calling someone a "denier" means they are denying the holocaust? That is the first time I have ever heard of that. I had thought that a denier was a person who denies something. Like an evolution denier denies the science of evolution. A Pastafarianism denier is someone who denies that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the supreme being that created all things.

     

  • At December 08, 2009 7:32 PM, Blogger Hey Skipper said…

    What Brit and Gaw said. The original use of this term was clearly to tar with a very wide brush.

     

  • At December 09, 2009 9:04 AM, Blogger Brit said…

    One day, Tom P, you and I are going to agree on something. I know it seems unlikely now, but then I never thought I'd see the day when the Yard was beaten on a point of linguistic nuance by David Davis and Iain Dale, so anything's possible.

    "Sceptic"/"critic" - suggests objections are based on reason and critical thinking; allows for degrees and therefore shades of opinion/degrees of scepticism; allows that person may still be willing to change their mind in the light of strong arguments; suggests the issue is still open for rational debate, ie. not settled.

    "Denier" - suggests objections are based on irrational opinions/prejudices; is an absolutist term so lumps all shades of critical opinion together; suggests person is unwilling to change mind whatever the evidence - fingers in ears lalalal position; suggests the issue is settled, ie. no longer open to reasonable doubt.

    We don't call Holocaust-deniers "Holocaust-sceptics" for the above reasons - they're a special case. As Malty suggests, if you start using "denier" for every critic, we're going to need a new word for Holocaust-deniers, to keep them special.

    This is all to leave aside the moral implications of "denier". But because we've reserved the word for Holocaust-deniers for so long, it is inextricably linked, so we can't.

     

  • At December 09, 2009 2:30 PM, Blogger David said…

    Just as a point of clarification, isn't Brian disagreeing with Iain ("Well, er, no") and thus agreeing with Davis that "denier" necessarily and deliberately equates one's opponents with Holocaust deniers (while we're at it, that's an important capital H, unless you are more of a pessimist than I), and for that reason should be avoided?

     

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