This and That

I came across a funny remark attributed to Dick Cavett: “Success is not enough. Also, your friends must fail.” How true! I see myself here in the role of the “friend” who has failed, but unfortunately I am not on personal terms with anyone who has succeeded. I mean, Brad, George and Clint, can they truly be said to have succeeded in any meaningful sense of the word? Yes, they may be familiar names, but how much money do they actually earn?

*****

If western society has become more and more aggressive in recent years, it is probably the fault of the phone-in programme. It must have seemed like a stroke of genius at the beginning. Imagine, a radio programme that fills up air time and doesn’t cost a penny! The trouble is, the concept is based on a fatal miscalculation of what motivates people to phone in with their opinions and comments in the first place. The thrill of hearing one’s voice over the radio, or of seeing one’s name in print for that matter, very quickly wears off. What people are really looking for, but never get from the bored, half-demented and probably stoned presenter, is a word of praise or recognition. Something like: “You know, Barnaby, I’ve been presenting this programme for many years and I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a brilliant and original comment. I wonder if you’ve considered a career in radio? We at the BBC are always on the lookout for unusually gifted people like you.” That’s what we really want but of course never get. Hence the resentment and aggression characterising modern life.

*****

A rather incoherent article in the IHT by Geoffrey Wheatcroft on the “Rushdie Affair” twenty years on. Looking at the reaction provoked in the West by the fatwa imposed on Rushdie following the publication of The Satanic Verses, Wheatcroft takes John Le Carre to task for saying or writing "Nobody has a God-given right to insult a great religion." Yet later in the same article he quotes William Pfaff with approval when he says: "Rushdie's potentially fatal error was to apply this modern European standard of discourse [the critical and often derisive questioning of all established beliefs and institutions]to a religion that still believes in itself."

I’m sorry, I’m not being very coherent myself, am I!