Venting thread

[alice]

Prince Philip has died. How long before the BBC is carpeted for not having enough black on its website?

[Ares Land]

And sadly, less than an hour before an article pointing out he was a racist reactionary.
(And in Le Monde -- supposedly a serious newspaper -- no less.)

[Linguoboy]

What’s sad about that? It’s what he was.

Frankly I wonder if anyone I know would care if he hadn’t been played by Matt Smith on The Crown. He could make any old asshole sympathetic.

[Ares Land]

Well, it's just pretty crass. The man just died, after all.

[Linguoboy]

It's pretty crass.

He was crass. Why should I be expected to show more decorum towards him than he had for others who weren't titled male millionaires?

I mean now is not really the best time, is it?

When is the best time then? Exactly how many hours do we have to wait after his corpse is cold before we can start talking honestly about who he was and what he represents? Now is when he's making headlines.

Here, for your enjoyment, a list of Racist Royal Grampa's Greatest Hits:
https://mashable.com/2017/05/04/prince- ... ffes-list/

[alice]

Here's the definitive story a characteristically sensitive and nuanced reaction from the hard Left.

[Ares Land]

It's pretty crass.

He was crass. Why should I be expected to show more decorum towards him than he had for others who weren't titled male millionaires?

I mean now is not really the best time, is it?

When is the best time then? Exactly how many hours do we have to wait after his corpse is cold before we can start talking honestly about who he was and what he represents? Now is when he's making headlines.

Here, for your enjoyment, a list of Racist Royal Grampa's Greatest Hits:
https://mashable.com/2017/05/04/prince- ... ffes-list/

I disagree with that, and it took me some time to figure out exactly why.

First I should make clear that my beef is with that Le Monde article, not you. (that's because I respect and value your opinion; I don't respect the work of the sorry hack who committed that piece.)

The thing is, that article was not talking honestly about who he was and what he represents. What it did was offer us the reassuring glow of righteous indignation: at least we, enlightened Le Monde readers, would never make jokes about slanted eyes and throwing spears. We are better than that!

But you know, I don't think that we enlightened French people, deserve or need to feel the warm glow of moral superiority over a very sheltered man, born to royalty at a time when racial superiority was taught as scientific fact, when British superiority was an unquestioned given and who was raised in the company of Nazis.

I think what we deserved is a good kick in the pants, and to be told to have a good look at what we are doing, instead of gossiping about the sins of a dead man. Prince Philip was making inappropriate comments. We are kicking immigrants out of their shelters in the middle of a cold wave and letting refugees drown in the Mediterranean.
His generation fought Nazis, and ended colonialism. I do know they had to be dragged kicking and screaming, but they did it. Whereas my own generation in spite of our best intentions, seems doomed to put fascists in power next year. (And we will all have a share of responsability in what Le Pen will do once in power.)

So yeah, the very privileged, very sheltered social circle that reads le Monde (and I do include myself in there!) does not deserve to gawk at the mote in the dead man's eye. We have a big fucking beam of our own to attend to.

One of Philip's comments gave me pause by the way. He once quipped that Beijing was 'ghastly'. We, on the other hand, are saying something way, way worse: we say Beijing is wonderful. We careful avoid telling the hard truth: Beijing is ghastly, in the exact same way that 1936 Berlin was ghastly.

So at least Philip had the redeeming virtue of honesty, whereas I'm afraid our own good manners and sensitivity are little more than hypocrisy.

(All of that is an exclusive 'we' by the way. I mean the privileged, enlightened, and a little intellectually inbred circles that read Le Monde, to which I very much belong, I'm afraid. I don't include any of you in there.)

[Linguoboy]

I don't read Le Monde, but I read comparable publications (The Guardian, the WaPo, The Atlantic, etc.). I'll have to have a look at the article in question to see if I agree with your assessment. While I think it's possible to pivot from an evaluation of the life of a notoriously privileged figure to a more general condemnation of how relatively privileged people comport themselves, it's not necessary, particularly for an article written so soon after the fact. (I expect more nuanced opinions to appear in the Sunday editions.)

ETA: Assuming you mean the obituary by Marc Roche, I don't get the same impression at all. It seems a frank accounting of his virtues ("son sens du devoir, son dévouement à la fonction et l’intelligence de son rôle", his support for conservationism, his urging the queen to make more public appearances) and his flaws ("autoritaire, cruel et brutal", "un homme incontrôlable, borné, habitué à n’en faire qu’à sa tête", etc.). That's what I think is called for here, not a whitewashing of his character out of some misplaced sense of respect for the dead. Leave that to his friends and the royalist British tabloid press.

[Ares Land]

They're actually doing a whole series; I think the whole portrayal is probably more nuanced. (I, of course, dived straight into the most outrageous one!)

Le Monde has a very good reputation, but these days it's nowhere near as good as The Guardian or the WaPo.
(I still read it of course, and complain loudly about it, but that's because I'm an old fart now, I'm afraid.)

As an unrepentant pagan, it pains me to say so, but the best French paper these days is La Croix, a Catholic rag, but an amazingly liberal and nuanced one.

EDIT: No, I was thinking of this one: https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/art ... _3382.html
(I think they changed the title? In the afternoon it wasn't about 'blunders', but about 'aristocratic condescension' and 'imperial racism'.)

[Travis B.]

They're actually doing a whole series; I think the whole portrayal is probably more nuanced. (I, of course, dived straight into the most outrageous one!)

Le Monde has a very good reputation, but these days it's nowhere near as good as The Guardian or the WaPo.
(I still read it of course, and complain loudly about it, but that's because I'm an old fart now, I'm afraid.)

As an unrepentant pagan, it pains me to say so, but the best French paper these days is La Croix, a Catholic rag, but an amazingly liberal and nuanced one.

EDIT: No, I was thinking of this one: https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/art ... _3382.html
(I think they changed the title? In the afternoon it wasn't about 'blunders', but about 'aristocratic condescension' and 'imperial racism'.)

The Marc Roche piece definitely was more nuanced than what I could read of that piece before I ran into the paywall...

[Vijay]

I did used to read Le Monde myself, not because I was enlightened or whatever but simply because I have Teach Yourself Business French and it recommended it despite saying something about the writing style being dry. I guess it's pretty good for improving your French vocabulary, at least if you're a non-native speaker.

Is it only the clearly shitty white people that get so much attention when they die? Do white people who were not known to be so shitty get this much attention from the media? Did Gandhi? MLK? Other people of color?

[Ares Land]

Yes, Le Monde is still a pretty good resource.

My point is, I don't think he qualified as 'clearly shitty'. He was no angel, sure, but then again, few of us are.
(Even Gandhi had his very shitty moments!)

There is, I'm afraid, very little relation between the size of the media circus and the deceased's worth of a human being.

[alice]

To reduce the man to a series of offensive outbursts is probably not being entirely fair, and is also lazy and predictable.

Anyway, I was interested to notice that today's Daily Mail is a Special 144-page Commemerative Edition (only 128 pages in Scotland for some reason), whereas the Daily Express has only a disrespectful 24-page pullout. And, of course, nothing else which was worth reporting on the main evening news happened in the country yesterday.

[Linguoboy]

To reduce the man to a series of offensive outbursts is probably not being entirely fair, and is also lazy and predictable.

Your Ma’am.

[alice]

To reduce the man to a series of offensive outbursts is probably not being entirely fair, and is also lazy and predictable.

Your Ma’am.

ERROR: Undeclared identifier

[Travis B.]

My thought on the matter is what does an appraisal of the man based selectively on his faults get us other than enabling us to feel good about ourselves and see the British monarchy as an imperialist anachronism because we obviously are better than that, we would never have the occasional racist outburst, and like. A more nuanced appraisal allows us to see the man as a whole, both positively and negatively, while not being so self-congratulatory.

[Linguoboy]

My thought on the matter is what does an appraisal of the man based selectively on his faults get us other than enabling us to feel good about ourselves and see the British monarchy as an imperialist anachronism because we obviously are better than that, we would never have the occasional racist outburst, and like. A more nuanced appraisal allows us to see the man as a whole, both positively and negatively, while not being so self-congratulatory.

By all means, let's engage in a nuanced appraisal of the virtues of a man who compared marriage to prostitution in order to defend his love of sport killing. That sounds like a tremendous good use of everyone's time. How about we start by naming the things we all most admire about him? I'll go first: I thought it was very progressive that he broke with family tradition by being the first of his siblings not to marry a Nazi aristocrat.

Okay, Travis, your turn!

[Ares Land]

I find the man inspirational myself. I mean it'd be great to live to 100 and I'd be overjoyed to be seen as an embarrassing cringe worthy reactionary then!

[Linguoboy]

I find the man inspirational myself. I mean it'd be great to live to 100 and I'd be overjoyed to be seen as an embarrassing cringe worthy reactionary then!

I don't think there's anything particularly inspirational about living a long time when you've got access to the best health care money can buy. If that's what you're into, I'd be more impressed by Sarah Knauss who not only had the man beat by two decades but did so while living within modest means and being remembered as a kind and friendly person. Unfortunately, unless I make some drastic changes to my personality sooner rather than later, that's one aspiration that's probably out of reach.

[Travis B.]

My thought on the matter is what does an appraisal of the man based selectively on his faults get us other than enabling us to feel good about ourselves and see the British monarchy as an imperialist anachronism because we obviously are better than that, we would never have the occasional racist outburst, and like. A more nuanced appraisal allows us to see the man as a whole, both positively and negatively, while not being so self-congratulatory.

By all means, let's engage in a nuanced appraisal of the virtues of a man who compared marriage to prostitution in order to defend his love of sport killing. That sounds like a tremendous good use of everyone's time. How about we start by naming the things we all most admire about him? I'll go first: I thought it was very progressive that he broke with family tradition by being the first of his siblings not to marry a Nazi aristocrat.

Okay, Travis, your turn!

I do not deny that Prince Philip was a racist elitist, a nuanced assessment of him does not mean to deny his faults. What it does mean is first, to see him as a whole man and not a series of outbursts, and second, to recognize that, for his very many faults, relatively speaking he still was far from as bad as public figures get. I personally think the Marc Roche piece, by the way, was a reasonable assessment of the man, whereas the other Le Monde piece, of what I did get to read of it, was not.