Postings have been a bit thin today. That means (a) that the Samizdata team mostly have lives and in particular lives at the weekend, and (b) that another Perry de Havilland blockbuster is probably due. I look forward to it. Ah, the joy of writing when you know that your editor will accept your stuff, on account of your editor being you. I know exactly the feeling. In the meantime, to keep the blog rolling, here’s another quicky from me, on the same theme as that of my exchange with David Carr about multi- and monoculturalism, melting pots, etc., that of finding or not finding the right word for what you want to say.
Some months back I gave an illustrated talk about politics – libertarian politics in particular and politics generally – in the movies. You will not be astonished to learn that one of the movies I played a bit from was Wall Street and nor will you be shocked to learn that the bit I played was that speech. However, it may surprise you that in that speech Michael Douglas does not say: “Greed is good.” What he actually says is: “Greed, for want of a better word, is good.” Maybe you knew that. I didn’t until I was preparing my talk and I strongly suspect I’m not the only one. And even if you did already know this, I hope you agree that this extra little phrase makes quite a difference.
Plain “greed is good” is a brazen, screw-you-Jack, in-your-face announcement that vice is virtue, or to put it another way, that virtue doesn’t matter. “Greed, for want of a better word, is good” is no such thing. It’s a genuine attempt at moral debate. It’s a morally sincere attempt to challenge existing moral assumptions, of the sort now bundled up in the word “greed”, which is explicitly identified as an unsatisfactory word for what is really being talked about. Which of course is why the enemies of “greed, for want of a better word” took out the “for want of a better word” bit.
The job of middlebrow propagandists like ourselves is, among many other things, to supply our ideological comrades and customers with better words, so that when they are making speeches about what they believe in, they don’t have to use phrases like “for want of a better word”.
I’m off to France shortly for a holiday. When I return I will get a fixed-price internet connection sorted. I will then include lots of interesting blue bits charging off in all directions in my postings, like a real blogger. In the meantime, assuming I can get my hands on an emailing device of some kind, there may be a few further blueless postings from me about whatever holiday excitements I encounter, and about my views on the state of France. And then again there may not.
