Thoughts on #Clarksongate
As a preacher I am all too aware that my words will be weighed and judged by both people and God. For this reason, the Bible warns, few should rush to preach or teach. (James 3 v.1) To open one’s mouth to any kind of audience is a privilege, and should never be taken as licence to ride roughshod over those who hear. These rules apply in any exchange, even a private conversation between two individuals. However, the greater the audience the greater the responsibility of the one who addresses it, surely?
For this reason public personalities bear particular responsibility. This is why a prominent footballer is under police investigation here in the UK for an alleged racial slur. This is why Sepp Blatter, head of FIFA was censured for suggesting that such a thing was unimportant. This is also why ‘laddish’ TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson should be brought to book for his indefensible and outrageous comments on national television. In a discussion of a strike by public sector workers in the UK yesterday he said that ‘I’d have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families.’ No matter that this is not the first time he has said such outrageous things. No matter that the BBC has apologised on his behalf. The viewing public should express their revulsion at such talk by denying such a presenter the one thing he most needs – an audience.
Previous outbursts from this presenter which have included sexist slurs and derisions of disability have been glossed over by broadcasters and audience alike. ‘That’s just the way he is’ appears to be the justification. Would we say that about a preacher who preached hatred and incited discord, I wonder? At the height of the News of the World’s fall from grace thousands of tweets per minute were pouring into the twittersphere urging those whose advertising kept the newspaper afloat to withdraw their business. They did exactly that, and the newspaper was no more.
Is it time for those who pay their licence fee for such broadcasts as Clarkson’s to declare that their money should not license hateful and destructive television, I wonder?
interesting. what is the way forward? i’m very hesitant that legislation or criminal sanctions are the answer. your post doesn’t make clear exactly what it is that you’re proposing. Should we be petitioning the BBC, the government? and what would/should the government do. Bottom line is these were stupid things to say, but giving them further oxygen, in the case of Clarkson, and the case of the unions who threatened to sue him (though on what basis they think they have cause i haven’t a clue), only serves to give the story currency. How do we move productively forward.
Ps: Seb Blatter has long, well always, been out of touch with anything resembling ethical conduct, why is there any surprise…the surprise is that they can’t seem to vote him out.
Ann – you raise a valid point, as ever. How do we express disquiet about such a thing without pouring petrol on the flames of publicity?
It could be worse. He could have talked about throwing them into the sea with a millstone tied around their necks. Or called them whitewashed tombs.
Journalists and politicians in Britain have been talking about “stringing up” minor criminals for as long as I can remember, but I don’t ever recall one of them being asked to resign. Some of Clarkson’s comments are offensive, especially the ones involving racial sterotypes and some appalling interviews with women. But in this case his comments were demonstrably mocking the request for “balance” and, frankly, I think his point was not only right but important. Universal blandness is actually quite dangerous.
My psychology professor used to say that the world needs more one-handed psychologists. In other words, he was sick of “on the other hand…” And I think he’d feel the same way about much church-friendly rhetoric. I wish we could just stop trying to be nicer than God.
Mark. I am sure you are right that blandness doesn’t help anyone…or any cause. However, there is quite a lot of ground between anodine blandness…and this kind of noxious offence, in my view.
According to Prime Minister David Cameron Jeremy Clarkson was “just being silly” : http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/01/jeremy-clarkson-david-cameron-strikes
Such belittling at the highest level does nothing to moderate offensive and inflammatory speech.
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Richard, my problem with this and most discussion about “we must stop offensive” is that it never considers what point the speaker was trying to make at the time.
I’ve just tried, and failed, to find a youtube clip of the heinous remarks in their context. How interesting – can you do better? Even on the massively clipped versions, his comments are immediately preceded by something like “We must be balanced, because after all this is the BBC”. So he’s talking about balance. Not strikers. Balance.
He then proceeds to demonstrate why “balance” is an absurd thing to aim for systematically in an opinion piece, by offering two extreme but opposite opinions that, together, might achieve some sort of geometric balance. And his point, in context, is that the demand for this sort of balance in the media in all cases is ridiculous. Two opposite but equally stupid statements don’t add up to one good one.
To make that point rhetorically, the statements needed to be extreme. Maybe he went further than he needed to go. But, in the context, which was the BBC’s obsession with balance, inferring that Clarkson wants strikers to be executed simply displays poor comprehension skills.
I’m not even sure that Clarkson does actually oppose the strikers. Because he was talking about something else. Something that was important. Something that actually has implications far more important than whether or not everyone supported yesterday’s strike.
And this sort of thing happens time and time again, in many areas. If, as a man, you try to engage with a discussion involving anything even tangentially connected to women’s issues, and if you once use one of quite a long list of words like “oversensitive” or, God forbid, “hysterical”, that’s it. You hate women, and nothing you ever say again will ever be heard again. This is true even if, in this specific case, the person in question is being oversensitive or is behaving hysterically in the common usage sense. (And it would be very odd if women never did either of these things, since the term could often describe men – for the record, most of the oversensitivity I’ve seen in online communities comes from men.)
The upshot of all this is that anyone who has not grasped all the trigger words and all the agendas, and who has both the ability and the inclination to play quite sophisticated word games, is disqualified from taking part in the debate almost as soon as they express an off-message opinion. That’s why I really hope Clarkson will continue to offend people for a long time to come. He isn’t always right, but he tackles topics in mass media that almost no-one without his commercial success could risk tackling without being put on a media black list.
The rhetoric of the strikers towards the government has not exactly been charitable. But that’s ok, because they are on-message. I’m sorry, but calls for Clarkson to be sacked make me think of nothing more than the language games in 1984.
Mark
You can find a verbatim account from the link above, or here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15993558
My problem is that after his previous outburst of sexism, offensive remarks about disability, and cavalier encouragement of people to ignore speed limits – I can’t take anything he might have to say about balance seriously
> “The viewing public should express their revulsion at such talk by denying such a presenter the one thing he most needs – an audience.”
There’s always a touch of irony when somebody makes a statement like this is a blog post about the person. When it comes to Clarkson the only thing I tend to do is mostly ignore what he says. I’d say that’s the best thing anyone can do.
This situation has horrendous echoes of the Ross/Brand/Sachs debacle a few years back. Once again we have thousands of people being told they should be offended , finding the relevant quote (often ignoring any context given) and being duly offended.
As you said in your next post there are some things about which we must make a decision not to let them get to us. You have wisely chosen not to let the Virgin calendar upset you. For the sake of your sanity i’d suggest you put Clarkson in the same box – labelled “meh”.
I should qualify that had Clarkson suggested “somebody should take them out and shoot them” or said “it would be good if…” then I would have found his remarks more offensive than I did. Right now my opinion is more like “sigh – are they still giving this idiot airtime?”
I’m sure you have a point, and I certainly don’t intend to lose (any more) of my hair over him! However, I also don’t want to dismiss him as harmless. Lots of people (incredibly) look up to him…
I never said he was harmless – he’s too visible for that – and yes sadly some people do appear to take their cue from him but me? I just don’t find him worth the brain time any longer. I enjoy Top Gear it’s fairly innocuous and stupid and will fill a gap if I am desperate but mostly I don’t bother.