Pat Condell No. 28

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Chock

Well, there are some good points (some bad ones too), but do you think he has spotted the irony of complaining about the Muslim Council of Britain being 'self appointed spokesmen', and then claiming to speak for Britain himself? Probably not.

Chock

He does not rip his argument into worthless pieces by shreddering it all into "me", "British citizen No. 2", "British citizen No.3" and so on - which is a much loved tactic in the time of mass media to cause distraction and making a view, argument, whatever: useless and powerless by breaking it into a myriad of mini-points that only have one purpose: to deflect concentration on the essential and hinder the view towards what the important heart and core of the issue is.

And the heart and core of his issue is that the Muslim Council does not wish for the values that Britain by its European history and trsditon stands for, and has been formed by, and also: that their set of values clearly are more barbaric and inhumane and unacceptable than our ones. the worth of values is not totally arbitrary, it is not totally free for definition. Some things cannot be made an object of consensus or debate without loosing your own ethical credibility. Some things remain to be bad, no matter from what "cultural" perspective you look at it - and often "culture" is just a foul excuse to reap respect although there is no culture and values at all. And Pat Condell obviously - and I think: rightfully - is very much certain of the justification and value of his and our Western and European ethical basis. From that he reserves the right to insist on that people coming to us and not fitting into these valöues and cultural context, should pi$$ off again, instead of trying to impose their primitiveness and medival barbarism onto us. And that includes christian fundamentalism and churches as well as islam.

I will not criticise him for that position - exactly the opposite I do.

[Chock]

And the heart and core of his issue

At the heart and core of his issue is that he likes the sound of his own voice if you ask me.

But whether I agree with his sentiments or not (and a lot of them I do agree with), he has far less call to use statements such as 'we in Britain' (which he does repeatedly) than the politicians he derides. I don't like a lot of them either, but if they were voted in by a democratic process, and have a mandate for a Government by a majority, then they actually can say 'we in Britain' with at least a modicum of assurance that they do represent a lot of people's views. It is arrogant in the extreme of the man to claim some sort of majority mandate for himself.

If the guy thinks he stands for what Joe Public wants, and he wants to make pronouncements on matters, he should stand for election. The site is called YouTube, not WeTube, he ought to remember that.

Chock

Originally Posted by Chock

At the heart and core of his issue is that he likes the sound of his own voice if you ask me.

Chock

Now you know where I'm coming from.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Chock

At the heart and core of his issue is that he likes the sound of his own voice if you ask me.

But whether I agree with his sentiments or not (and a lot of them I do agree with), he has far less call to use statements such as 'we in Britain' (which he does repeatedly) than the politicians he derides. I don't like a lot of them either, but if they were voted in by a democratic process, and have a mandate for a Government by a majority, then they actually can say 'we in Britain' with at least a modicum of assurance that they do represent a lot of people's views. It is arrogant in the extreme of the man to claim some sort of majority mandate for himself.

If the guy thinks he stands for what Joe Public wants, and he wants to make pronouncements on matters, he should stand for election. The site is called YouTube, not WeTube, he ought to remember that.

Chock

And why do you deny him the use of language that all of us, and I am certain you as well, allow ourselves - when talking of our western nations in general as "us", "we" and "over here"? If you look closely, you will see that many people here in the forum do it as well without meaning by that that their personal and specialised opinion on an issue are necessarily that of every single man over "there" down to the smallest detail - well, some people may do it that way, admitted -, but they refer to "themselves" and "us" in a meaning of some basic characteristics that are representative for their nation. It's like saying "WE have social insurance over here", "we think that free democratic elections are something good", "we think Halloween or christmas is nice and a pleasant experience for children". In the same basic way Condell says "We think of ourselves as a tolerant society", "we think of ourselves as a secular state", "we think that wahabism has no place in Britain." I am sure you will find it hard to find too many British - I mean real British, not some foreign immigrants of latest arrival who travelled to Europe the first time in their life when asking for a British passport but still sticking with their hearts and minds inside their own totally different "culture" - who would disagree on these examples, except some British Nazis, and some political vultures eying for the immigrant's vote, no matter their origin of thinking and values.

Again, I think you seek for him to provide you with a target because it is unusual that somebody attacks what is to be criticised in such plain and clear words and dares to disturb the collective fatalism that we mix up as peace these days so often. But Condell differentiates quite a lot, both with regard to Christians and Islamic people, as well as with regard to "them" in Britain, some of them living by the values he outlines, some even exaggerating them and by that making tolerance a tool of submitting and hand yourself over to the enemy. So, even the British he does not see as a featureless, faceless mass. He is aiming at a lower, more basic substantial level of national identity anyway - not at the superficial highly specialised single opinion of a given individual on an issue which this individual is allowed to have only on the basis of freedoms this more basic and substantial level of culture in his nation is allowing him - and enabling him! - to have.

and when he says "we over here" or "you over there", I cannot see him meaning it any different than I do when having used the phrase "we over here in Germany", and "you over there in XYZ" so very often myself, or we ineurope", and "you in the Far East". In the end, these phrases mean nothing mroe and nothing less than the historic tradition and the home-grown identity of the nation and/or people that is adresses that way. And these identities and traditions are not arbitrary, but typical for every single nation.