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This Finkelstein article gets at a kind of broke/woke/bespoke thing which I think is very important to our political culture but which I can't express pithily (at least not yet).
So essentially there are three levels of politico/journo...
So essentially there are three levels of politico/journo...
Level 1 is your basic broadsheet journalist or columnist who see events as results of the personal characteristics of the characters involved. So Windrush happened because Amber Rudd was not "across the detail" in the same way TM had been...
Despite the fact much of it actually happened under TM. There are more upmarket versions based for ideology ("the wave of populism sweeping the western world") or int'l affairs ("Ah, seems the Germans have been too efficient for their own good this time.")
This is like 95% of our current intellectual discourse and it's what you grew up sort of aspiring to if you are 30+ and like current affairs. There's a group of people on here who very cleverly and amusingly skewer this worldview. This is deserved - it is pretty much worthless.
Above this level are wise people people like Finkelstein, who as they are intelligent notice that the normal broadsheet view of the world doesn't actually make any sense. Starmer is a strategic mastermind one month and timid non-entity the next. One strategy triumphs, another...
very similar approach fails. So they (see also Parris, Ganesh etc.) come to the conclusion that politics and public policy is pretty much random.
(Despite this, rather than retiring and tending their geraniums they continue writing columns and advising political parties.)
(Despite this, rather than retiring and tending their geraniums they continue writing columns and advising political parties.)
But they come to this nihilistic view precisely because they cannot conceive of understanding anything at any more than the most superficial level. Just not part of the culture. And everything looks the same from 20,000 feet up. So it is a mystery to Finkelstein why the EU's...
vaccine procurement went badly whilst their Brexit strategy went well. They are both "negotiations" after all!
It is a mystery why UK PPE was a "disaster", but the UK vaccination program was a "triumph". After all, they both involved bringing in the private sector!
It is a mystery why UK PPE was a "disaster", but the UK vaccination program was a "triumph". After all, they both involved bringing in the private sector!
Both are somehow instantiations of the fundamental quantum randomness of nature...
Of course there are like a thousands reasons why a vaccine development and manufacture and a trade negotiation are not the same thing.
Of course there are like a thousands reasons why a vaccine development and manufacture and a trade negotiation are not the same thing.
Your "woke" level would involve noticing this (like any normal person) and then actually trying to work out the specifics of what is going on in as much detail as is necessary to e.g. distinguish the roles of luck and skill.
There are barely any examples of this.
There are barely any examples of this.
At least in normal political coverage. Doing this would require people like Finkelstein to give up their pretense of omniscience and not writing a column on *googles* Biden one week and vaccines the next.
Part of the reason some of us found Cummings' blogs refreshing is because he made some attempts to do this. E.g. he'd write 1000s of words on school exam standards or the particular characteristics of ARPA at a level of detail not found anywhere in the media.
And was widely mocked for just this by the media.
(The approved high-status "Long Read" format of course needs to start with a 800 word anecdote and get on to the basics of a subject about 2000 words in.)
(The approved high-status "Long Read" format of course needs to start with a 800 word anecdote and get on to the basics of a subject about 2000 words in.)
Whatever you think of Cummings's views actual level of ability, I think we need more of this kind of thing. https://dominiccummings.com/2015/01/26/standards-in-english-schools-part-0-introduction/
E.g. haven't seen anything anywhere near as good as this on climate change by the late physicist David McKay.
Who will write the equivalent for, say, the organisation of the NHS?
Probably no one.
https://www.withouthotair.com/
Who will write the equivalent for, say, the organisation of the NHS?
Probably no one.
https://www.withouthotair.com/
