At the Library of Law and Liberty, Dalrymple criticizes the new book by Gene Kerrigan, The Big Lie: Who Profits from Ireland’s Austerity?
In his book, Mr Kerrigan, an avowed socialist, is anxious to absolve ordinary people from any part of the blame for the crisis…
No, the Irish population participated all right in the dance of the millions (as a previous bubble in Latin America in the first third of the twentieth century was called), and it re-elected the government that conducted the music of the dance. The difference between the greed of ordinary people (or of some ordinary people, a substantial number of them in fact) and that of the bankers was that of scale, not type or quality.
Oh God! It’s enough to make me order a copy of http://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-All-Good-Delicious-Recipes/dp/0349400830/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369937926&sr=8-1&keywords=it%27s+all+good
mind you her boobies aren’t as big as Nigella Lawson’s …
but alas speaking of austerity.. a recent Roger Scruton article in the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/19/high-culture-fake
To quote Comment 116
“Finally, truth is not dispensed with by all of these writers, and it is still possible to read post structuralists like Foucault as demanding a more complex understanding of the term thanks to his genealogical projects that aim to outline abuses of truth talk, that is to say, dominant ideologies which have sought to play a power game and employ truth talk to give a seal of approval to ultimately unjustifiable claims to knowledge. Rejecting these writers without engaging with what they do just reinstates forms of knowledge that are unjustifiable, and simply work on (disguised) pragmatic grounds. In the current political climate, the challenge these thinkers pose needs to be addressed, rather than shirked, especially when economic measures for austerity, that impinge upon the welfare state and workers rights, have no justification on the pragmatic and/or empirical grounds that political powers seek to justify them on. In these cases it is best to see the plans that are being made as selfish, as propping up the power of those in power at the expense of the the weak in society.”
a bit earlier he (I assume it’s a he) said
“…Now the problem with writing an argument structured in this way is that the writer himself sets himself an undeliverable task – to express nothing but the truth. It’s also manipulative, because the writer, by pointing and hectoring towards the things which he claims are false, places himself on the podium of truth without really justifying it.”
and a bit earlier he said
“Philosophy, like optometry, pediatrics, theoretical physics and mathematics, has a specialist vocab and axioms which require effort and dedication to learn, comprehend and master. These works frustrate former psueds because they refuse to be broken down into easily digestible chunks, consumables, like this [Scruton’s] article.”
“at the expense of the weak in society..” nothing manipulative about that… the weak… I suppose being weak has been too much fun for too many for too long.