Blame and Boilerplate
I’ve previously remarked on the Guardianista tradition of sliding one’s ass over any unattended blame and incubating it as one’s own. So far as I can make out, this is done for some kind of autoerotic purpose. Documenting each and every instance of the phenomenon is, alas, a task too far for any sane being, but a couple of recent examples caught my eye.
First, Dmitri Vitaliev informs readers of Comment is Free:
With the world’s spotlight on China and widespread criticism of its repressive actions, one should not forget that the knowledge and technology used to create the world’s most prominent Big Brother society was designed in the west, often by the very same corporations whose advertisements on TV take up the time between the relay race and the javelin competition.
By much the same logic, Guardian readers will no doubt be happy to blame China for half the wars of the last thousand years on grounds that the Chinese invented gunpowder. No?
Meanwhile, associate editor Seumas Milne looks to events in Georgia and offers the following, er, analysis:
By any sensible reckoning, this is not a story of Russian aggression, but of US imperial expansion and ever tighter encirclement of Russia by a potentially hostile power.
As Tim Worstall points out, Milne also seems to think that reducing Russia’s control over fuel movements from other independent states is some kind of NeoCon provocation. Such is the logic of MilneWorld™.
“By any sensible reckoning, this is not a story of Russian aggression, but of US imperial expansion and ever tighter encirclement of Russia by a potentially hostile power.”
Yeah, I’m sure U.S. tanks are going to be rolling into Poland, Hungary and Moscow any day now. Hegemony!
So according to Vitaliev, China was less totalitarian, more free under Mao since they didn’t have the “knowledge and technology used to create the world’s most prominent Big Brother society” at that time.
What a tool.
Lovernios,
Towards the end of the article Vitaliev concedes,
“It is futile to argue whether western corporations are directly responsible for the uses to which China puts their technologies. Following basic free-trade principles, products are most likely sold ‘as is’ to (rather than customised for) the Chinese government or third-party resellers.”
Yet the insinuation of everything preceding that sentence is precisely the opposite. And Vitaliev does seem to be much more interested in the alleged “complicity” of law-abiding businesses, whose lawful products were acquired lawfully, usually via third parties overseas, than in the political ideology that finds totalitarian censorship an obvious, indeed necessary, course of action. Displacement, perhaps?
Anna,
Ah, but Milne is keen to flaunt his revolutionary credentials. Though he’s yet to surpass his article blaming the U.S. for 9/11 – published while the dust was, quite literally, still settling.
From Olly’s Onions: http://ollysonions.blogspot.com/2008/08/western-imperialism-blamed-for-new.html
I should have read that article, but that’s better left to experts such as yourself. But it is hilarious to consider that the author spends a lot of pixels arguing futilely.
Being an actual Communist, Milne was always going to support Russia and somehow blame America. Russia is the ageing Marxist pin-up on Milne’s bedroom wall. She may not be Communist anymore, but old habits die hard.
Incidentally, while people laugh at Flat Earthers, why aren’t Communists treated similarly? After all, it is an ideology which has been shown as an utter, comprehensive disaster for nearly a century. To continue to believe in it requires quite a denial of reality.
BTW, “Axis of Hand-Wringing”, class.
From that tool’s article:
“It is futile to argue whether western corporations are directly responsible for the uses to which China puts their technologies.”. Nice – set up a ludicrous argument and then say it is futile to contradict it.
Still, the leftist argument that it is all our fault is just another variant on the racist theme that only us, white westerners, are responsible for our actions. The Chinese, apparently, buy software and electronics but are not responsible for what they do with it. Personally, I think Chinese people are as capable of making responsible choices as pious western Guardianistas, but then I am obviously a bit weird.
We have been here so, so many times:
Muslims who burn down schools because of completely inoffensive (by any reasonable yardstick) cartoons – our fault.
Violently homophobic black West Indian males – our fault.
The Chinese repression of their population – our fault.
I’m sure there are lots and lots of other examples.
How do they get away with this patronising, racist crap?
No, blame Israel!
“Once again Israel starts a war that others will have to clean up. Only a year ago I was speculating that Israel’s real agenda might be to trick the US and Russia into a mutually destructive war, leaving Israel and its nuclear weapons in control of the Middle East and its oil.”
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/405945.html
Rob,
“We have been here so, so many times.”
There is, it seems, a pattern. My impression is that the writers start with a self-loathing disposition and an urge to disdain the society and values from which they benefit (often more than most). Above and beyond all else, the West and its innovations must be depicted as corrupting an otherwise benign and pristine world – which is, of course, innocent by default. Whatever they can scrape together by way of an argument, it must arrive at this conclusion. How it gets there doesn’t seem to matter very much.
The first two sentences of this post nearly inspired my beverage to contact a rather expensive laptop that doesn’t belong to me. Well played.
I sympathize with their self-loathing disposition. I loathe them as well.
Franklin,
Milne is pathologically immune to refutation. He’s a believer. Regardless of what the issue is on any given day, Milne will, practically by default, blame Western “imperialism,” Israel and/or “the NeoCons” (a term which now denotes pretty much anyone who dares to disagree).
You could, I suppose, argue that a paranoid Russian leadership is in part reacting to the spread of EU and NATO membership and the decline of its own ugly influence. (Or should that be “hegemony”?) But if so, this doesn’t exactly demonstrate “US imperial expansion” or “a potentially hostile power.” And let’s not forget that paranoia is an all but inevitable consequence of Russia’s historical social model and its monstrous consequences. And of the fact that, given the opportunity, people will generally try to escape from its influence. Such details aren’t mentioned by Milne and most likely never will be, groupie for atrocity that he is. Indeed, Comrade Milne can be counted on to label the West, erroneously, with precisely the vices he excuses or denies when it comes to the sad saga of Communism. MilneWorld™ is built on inversion and denial, which possibly accounts for the chap’s mad stare and charmless disposition.
First, it was middle-class self-loathing.
Then it moved onto English self-loathing, the belief that we were responsible for all the evils in the world.
From there, it moved onto race – the white race were at fault for everything.
Now it is the species, Mankind. Note that each does not preclude the former – it is perfectly possible, indeed compulsory, to view Man as a threat which must be destroyed AND also think that white people are to blame when a million are butchered in Africa.
Any guesses where we go next? Loathing of our solar system? Did our Galaxy, on creation, abuse the resources of the Universe and deny other Galaxies? If there are an infinite number of Universes, isn’t it selfish of ours to continue to exist, if by doing so other Universes can have their chance?