Brendan O’Neill asks, “Why is blogging a right-wing thing?” and adds various unflattering remarks about us, our guns and our mid-life crises. As I said to him in a private e-mail, I would dearly love to rend his gobberwarts.* But there’s a problem. I agree with him. He says:
“I have always suspected that the right-wing blogging phenomenon is a result of the right’s increasing isolation from the mainstream – from mainstream politics, mainstream journalism and mainstream debates. Over the past 10 to 15 years, traditional right-wing views have become ever-more unpopular, as Third Way and consensus politics have take centre stage. The Reaganites and Thatcherites who were in the ascendant in the 1980s have found themselves out on a limb in an age where we’re all supposed to be caring, sharing, non-argumentative, environmentally-aware centre-lefties. ”
You can’t say truer than that. It’s like being a sheepdog on a sensitivity training course these days. Pah. But after this strong start the limitations of Mr O’Neill’s mindset soon become clear:
“And rather than build an effective and coherent opposition to the new political orthodoxies, some on the right seem happy to retreat into the ‘Blogosphere’, from where they can throw insults at their enemies without having to challenge them fundamentally.”
Huh? Just what sort of fundamental challenge do you think I was putting up before the blog? Cleaning the toilet in a right-wing way? Non-multicultural clearing up after breakfast? The point about blogging is that it costs next to nothing, anyone from housewives to executives can do it, and you don’t need to go through an editor. Mr O’Neill’s disdain for such low-intensity warfare comes through in his repeated use of the word “challenge”:
“…the very nature of the Blogosphere … means it is best suited to poking fun or poking holes in the mainstream media, rather than actually challenging it at a serious level.”
Er, yes. Such a relief. As I write this post now I know that it is well short of the serious and weighty response that I could be composing were I Gladstone reborn. How nice that I’m not, and it’s just a blog post that I can get done before nipping round the shop for some more milk. For all his romantic attachment to the spirit of 1798, Sir Brendan the Serious has all the attitudes of a nobleman demanding that these oiks put down the longbows and fight properly (with the very important caveat that first they have to buy the horse and the armour i.e. get a journalism degree and a proper job.)
“…it’s safe to say that The Guardian – now the most mainstream, pro-government paper in Britain – won’t be quaking in its boots.”
No, but it’s turning red and shuffling about. Did I ever tell you the story of Matthew Engel’s column that was laughed right out of the Guardian archives?
“…it means that many on the right will end up simply talking to themselves, rather than building a real opposition to the Blairs, Clintons and Schroeders of this world. That is one of the reasons I have a lot of time for Iain Murray. Iain and I disagree on many things, but his Conservative Revival weblog was a good stab are thinking about actual alternatives to New Labour and how such alternatives could be reconstituted as an opposition.”
He means proper politics again. Join a party. Become activists or local councillors or journalists. Get a proper job. (Not that I have the slightest objection to Iain Murray (May his sword arm be ever strong!) or anyone else doing these things. But it all boils down to play nicely! To which I say, “Shan’t!”
“In short, I think blogging is a right-wing thing as a result of the right’s increasing isolation – and as a result of right-wingers’ fancy for short, sharp, pithy attacks on an enemy that, in fact, they don’t feel like they can take on.”
Classic guerilla tactics. And a classic guerilla error is to be tempted before you are ready into full scale battles that you are certain to lose.
Whoah, brakes on. Perhaps I’m in danger of letting my military metaphor push me into conclusions I don’t really believe. Although I do think the right wing three quarters of the blogosphere does indeed do much of its work by pinpricks, it may have its greatest effects through conventional means. As Brian Micklethwait says, ‘Blogging is going to impact seriously on all this, by identifying non-left and libertarian journalistic talent, giving it a start, training it, and then feeding it into the mainstream media.’ So come on Brendan, gis a job.
*As Terry Pratchett fans will know, not as much fun as it sounds.
(Given that Brendan O’Neill threw down two gauntlets in my direction, by sending me duplicate e-mails, one addressed to me alone and one as a member of this mighty Libetarian organ, I feel that I am entitled to scurry out of his way and squeak from the sidelines in duplicate as well. So an almost identical post to this one also appears in my blog.)
