I have recently spent more time than is healthy flicking through the suggestions proposed to Your Country, Your Call, Ireland’s latest doomed exercise in Magical Thinking. They are hilarious, of course, but there’s a desperate edge to much of my laughter. Because the ideas are not just stupid. They are often illegal, and sometimes dangerous.

One of the most common suggestions has been that the unemployed be made to work, in various ways, for the benefit of the nation. The top two suggestions, last I checked, were variations on this theme. The idea is very much in the air these days, being regularly aired on current affairs and discussion programs as a way of killing two birds with one stone – getting people back to work, and putting all hands to the pump in the cause of saving the nation’s economy. It is so current, that I think it needs to be pointed out that it cannot bear scrutiny for more than a number of seconds without its hopelessly impractical and socially and economically damaging nature becoming apparent.

The notion of forcing people to work for their social welfare payments is not new, and is known as “workfare”. It has been tried in some countries, with limited success. But whereas the old call was for this work to be of a socially useful nature, it is more often suggested now that this be for the good of “the economy”, in other words, that private, for-profit businesses receive the benefit of forced labour, paid for by the state. It was probably inevitable that after years of taking credit for apparently selflessly “creating jobs”, the private sector would come to regard itself as primarily charitable in nature. The proposition is simple: Companies are having a hard time meeting costs, and people are having a hard time finding jobs. Make people work for free and both problems are solved.

The primary obstacle to this is that it is, in all likelihood, illegal under EU law. It is State Aid, the subsidisation by the state of private industry, and contrary to competition laws in that it gives Irish business an unfair advantage over businesses in other member states. But even if it were not illegal, such a scheme would be profoundly damaging to the economy. It cannot, even in the short term, be economically wise to prop up unprofitable companies on such a scale. With “wages” so low, demand for the products and services provided by these business will also be low, at exactly the same time as they go into overproduction due to their extra new staff. The glut of products on the market will drive prices down, furthering the cycle of deflation. Further, prices and wages will stay low, because the entire economy will have been artificially stabilised.

Further again, how long is such a scheme proposed to last? Even if it did succeed in bringing companies back into profitability, at what time is it proposed that the social welfare recipients thus employed will take the step up to full employment? Why, and when, would a company who are getting staff for free suddenly decide to start paying one of them? And if they did, which of their previously unpaid workers would get the real job?

So much for the private sector. Public or community-based work, though not blocked by the same European Law problems as private sector work, is not without it’s drawbacks. Firstly, it is of no direct benefit to the economy. It might be nice, socially and aesthetically, to have litter-free streets, or well pruned hedgerows, but sending the unemployed to do such work has no bearing on the economy. Indeed, in the case of any serious work, it denies the private sector a possible contract, thus putting pressure on companies previously reliant on such work, perhaps ultimately putting them out of business.

As with the private sector version, there arises the question of demand. How much of the work to which people will be put is actually necessary? There’s only so much litter to pick up, so many hedges to trim. In any case, all but the most basic of tasks will require equipment and supervision. Even with free labour, this scheme would constitute a massive increase in public sector spending, at a time when the common view is that a reduction in same is required.

Demand, in fact, is the key here. The economy is not in trouble because labour cost too much. If demand is sufficiently high, it will be worthwhile for businesses to pay whatever the market demands that labour should cost. An artificial reduction (or in fact abolition) of wages does not solve the demand problem, indeed it worsens it. But that is not the real motivation of the scheme. The real motivation is the same as that which was behind the Victorian Poor Law. It is the furious certainty that somewhere out there, people are getting something for nothing. Being on Social Welfare must then be made so unpleasant that recipients finally decide they’d rather work. This, of course, assumes that there are jobs to be had.

There will always be people who are eaten up by the idea that money is being given away for nothing. These are the people who propose stringent and thorough means tests for all state benefits. Tell them that means testing often costs so much to perform that it makes the programs more expensive, and they will reply that a principle is at stake. They would rather cost the state more than give anything to people they consider layabouts.

This is the primary philosophical objection to workfare: it assumes everyone is abusing the system. If the primary purpose of unemployment benefit is to keep people going while they search for work, then workfare is of no use. It deprives people of the time needed to search for employment, and where necessary to retrain.

A few years ago, Ireland was as close to full employment as it is possible to get. At one point, in Dublin, less than 1% were in receipt of Unemployment Benefit. Indeed, we had a labour shortage (demand, you see) that we filled with migrant workers. Now, unemployment is, according to the latest figures, at 12.6%. Perhaps the extra unemployed, previously in gainful employement, all decided to become lazy leeches off state largesse. But it seems like a remarkable coincidence that they did so at exactly the same time as the economy contracted. Maybe, just maybe, they’re not working because the jobs aren’t there.

Finally, (and I leave this point to last, because, though I believe it wholeheartedly, it is the sort of thing that sounds hopelessly quaint these days), there is such a thing as the dignity of work. Many of those unemployed worked in areas in which there is simply no work now. Having them out tending flower beds outside the local parish church, for payment that barely covers the essentials, is detrimental to the morale, the spirit we are repeatedly told is needed to overcome our current economic problems. Camus wrote that “there is dignity in work only if it is work freely accepted”. If it came to it, many would rather tend a bar in Australia by choice than be forced to work against their will in Ireland. If they left, they might think themselves betrayed by their country. They would be right.

Last week, a Judge in Louisiana refused a marriage license to a mixed race couple. In the ensuing furore, he was careful to make clear that “I’m not a racist, I just don’t believe in mixing the races”. To which one can really only respond, “But that’s what racism is, Jackass!” What Judge Bardwell was saying was that he wasn’t in the KKK, had never lynched anybody, and didn’t keep slaves. Ergo, he was not a racist.

Similarly, I once heard a co-worker explain that she wasn’t a racist, she just didn’t like black people. It was a matter of taste, that was all, “I don’t like Guinness either” (I swear to God, she actually said that.) When we have reached the stage where people can hold and express such views and yet deny being racist, I think it’s fair to say that there is no such thing as a racist.

Certainly, there are very few who will admit to being one, and ultimately, you can’t prove it one way or another. In any case, we very rarely these days attack people for being bigots. Rather, we attack their words or their actions as bigoted ones. To turn around and say “How dare you call me a bigot?” is to change the subject (see Jan Moir for details of the versatility of this gambit). We can’t know if you are a bigot or not, because we can’t look into your heart and mind and discern the contents thereof. But we can quite easily look at your words and actions and call them what they are. The accused can’t defend what he said, so switches the argument to one about his character. Friends and colleagues are trotted forward as witnesses to his not-a-bigot-ness and before you know it, he is the victim. Often, flushed with this success, he decides he is a hero of Free Speech too, but that is over-reaching. But still, you can’t call a person a racist, a sexist, or a homophobe and expect to be allowed to make your argument, so perhaps we should come up with some new language to emphasise the difference between a person’s non-bigoted essence and their bigoted words and deeds.

While we’re at it, it might be no harm to come up with a new synonym for “fascist”. It is almost proverbial that calling someone a fascist is a sure fire way to lose credibility in an argument. This is a real shame, as fascism is not simply a matter of goose-stepping and genocide, and alas did not come to an end in 1945. As with racism, you’ll find nobody who’s not offended to be called one, but plenty of people who hold what are, literally, fascist opinions. To demonstrate this, I need to say a little bit about the origins of fascism. There was a time when it wasn’t an insult, but a mainstream strand of political opinion. It arose in the midst of a huge economic and financial crisis. Politics were radicalized, as left and right wings became more extreme, with their disagreement sometimes being played out in violence on the street. But for every person who had drifted to one of these two wings, there were more who had no great interest in political ideology and just wanted a government to actually be in charge. We now associate fascism with the right wing, but at the time of its emergence, it was something very new, a Third Way between capitalism and socialism. It was not, like traditional conservatism, exclusively focused on the past, but was a forward-looking, consciously modernist movement. Pragmatism, innovation and industry were valued. The innate power and energy of the People was praised. Fascism didn’t over-think things. Fascism got it done. (the title of Triumph of the Will is perhaps the most succinct summation of the fascist ethos). In place of ideology, the flag was inserted. Neither left nor right, but [insert nationality here] was the basic position. Great emphasis was placed on “The People”, who allegedly had no time for the partisan bickering that made up politics. There was less respect for the will of the people as expressed through elections, when they voted for said partisan bickerers. Leadership was all-important. The question of whether the leader knew what he was doing was not so much unimportant as put to one side in case it led to “disunity”. Unity, banding together for the good of the nation was a key element. Just as the socialists, communists and some liberals banded together for the good of the left into a “Popular Front”, patriots of all stripes banded together into a National Front. Put like that, it sounds almost noble.

Of course there was more to it than that. From the very beginning, a powerful element of aggression towards outsiders was involved. Some have argued that in the case of Nazism, it was only ever about the anti-Semitism, and everything else was only the scaffolding for the holocaust which was the movement’s raison d’etre. Certainly, the hatred was always a driving force. But strip away the more garish elements, the salutes and militarism, and you are left with something which is worryingly attractive to a lot of people.

In the past year (also a time of huge economic and financial crisis) I have heard, on many occasions, the need to abandon ideology in favour of pulling together and wearing the green jersey. It is not entirely clear how this abandonment of difference is to be effected. If we’re all pulling together, who exactly decides what principles we’re pulling together behind? Some arguments don’t allow for compromise. This is not simply agreeing to disagree. If these differences are to be put aside it can only be by one side being forced to capitulate to the other. People don’t like to be accused of advocating the crushing of dissent, but there it is.

I have read in newspapers that our Government, who have a majority and can pass any measure they want, are being hampered by the Opposition in their attempts to Get Things Done. If this state of affairs is allowed to continue, respected commentators have written, the very survival of the state is threatened. People think it’s rude to accuse them of advocating the abolition of parliamentary opposition, but I can’t think of any other way of putting it.

I have read in the same papers that a national government (that government-without-opposition idea again) is favorable to holding a general election, even though any such election would represent an overdue adjustment of the make-up of the Dáil to reflect a change in public opinion. People get narky when you point out that they think the people can’t be trusted to exercise their franchise responsibly, but that’s what they’re saying.

I have heard it suggested that “we” should “get rid” of the politicians, who have failed us, and “put” people who can get things done “in charge”. Michael O’Leary is often mentioned as a candidate. What scares me is not the fact that that if O’Leary was in charge of our hospitals the corpses would be piled up in the corridors. It is the notion, so blithely floated, of installing non-elected leaders. Michael O’Leary is too smart to run for office, and wouldn’t get elected anyway. So “putting” him or anyone else “in charge” would in fact be a coup d’etat. People take offense when you accuse them of advocating coups, but go look the word up in a dictionary, that is what it means.

These startling arguments are trickier to counter than one might think, partly because you are fighting with one arm tied behind your back. You can’t express yourself entirely freely, because it sounds over the top to use the f-word. To call these arguments by their terminologically and historically accurate name is to cross a line that we prefer not to cross. Once you’ve called someone a fascist, there’s really no going back. You sound hysterical, and they are personally offended. It might be a good idea then, to find a way to talk about these ideas that doesn’t involve the f-word. We pretty much define a fascist as a racist, jew-obsessed sadist, and by that definition there are thankfully few fascists around. But it sets the bar awfully high and lets a lot of objectionable stuff off the hook.

Fascism didn’t become popular without having a genuine appeal. It spoke to the baser elements of human nature. Those elements, the impatience with the delays, fudges and compromises that are an inevitable by-product of democracy; the frustration at rules that serve abstract principles rather than immediately practical benefits, the wish that someone would “take on” whatever group of people are the current object of your ire, and “just get the job done”, all are still present in humanity. They didn’t disappear in 1945, and they aren’t limited to any one country. The racism, cruelty and mania are what everyone remembers, but they weren’t what made fascism attractive.

In contemporary Ireland, when one beer-sponsored festival has barely ended than another begins, to the extent that one is barely aware of their existence, it is easy to remember that these things used to be a big deal. While a Heineken Green Energy or a Murphy’s Comedy Festival will barely merit a mention in the “What’s On” round-up, there was a time when festivals would be endlessly trailed in advance, covered breathlessly while in progress and recorded for posterity.

The daddy of all these was the Galway 500 festival of 1984, the 500th anniversary of the granting of a town charter in 1484. Cork, of course, couldn’t let this pass, and the following year we were treated to Cork 800. Then silence. But the pride of the capital was undoubtedly stung. It was one thing to let Galway have a bit of a jamboree. But Dublin was damned if Cork was going to be allowed to hog the limelight. And so, in 1988, Dublin went for the Grand. The futuristic-sounding Millennium left behind many artefacts; milk bottles, dust-bins, a 50p piece, but none was as long-lasting or as corrosive to the national spirit as the tradition of the humorous rhyming nickname.

When Eamonn O’Doherty’s (actually quite attractive) sculpture “Anna Livia” was installed in a fountain in O’Connell St. it pleased someone to give her the nickname “the Floozie in the Jacuzzi”. Really, it wasn’t a bad joke. She was entirely unclad, and there was something not-quite-right about the fountain in which she reclined. Upon hearing the nick-name, one suddenly realised what it was: yes, she looked like she was sitting in a Jacuzzi. A small joke, not in the league of Myles’ “Tomb of the unknown gurrier” but not bad. Alas, it was held up to be a jewel of “Dub wit”.

Then, the deluge. Two women sitting on a bench with their shopping? “The hags with the bags”. Molly Malone, wheeling her wheel-barrow, through streets broad and narrow? “The tart with the cart”. A former colleague of mine, a Dubliner of many generation’s standing, would go into a rage when such nicknames were mentioned. Patronising “Dublin Character” nonsense, he’d spit, condescending pseudo-working-class guff from the same sort of people who brought us Ould Mr. Brennan. But worse was to come.

Nothing much happened in the way of Dublin public art for a while. When the money started rolling in, and Dublin Corporation resumed their always-dubious beautification of the city, it was decided by our media (“The hacks with the facts”? No, of course not) that every new work must, must, be given a rhyming nickname, however tenuous or tortured its logic. It often seemed that no sooner was the artist’s impression of a proposed piece made available, than the press were racking their brains and their rhyming dictionaries for a nickname, to be used by themselves and absolutely nobody else. The Millennium Clock? “The Time in the Slime”. Because the Liffey is dirty. And it’s a clock, like. Gas. The Millennium Spire? “The Stiletto in the Ghetto”. Because it’s on the northside, see?

Clearly, taste was no consideration here, or at least not one that ranked above getting a rhyme. Why else would a statue of Oscar Wilde, a genuine genius, a proper, no-messing, actual Great Man, be called “The Fag on the Crag”. “The Fag”: someone decided that he was somehow qualified to dismiss one of the greatest minds the world, let alone Ireland, has ever known as “the Fag”. Not that the nicknames were ever claimed by those using them. Despite never being used by the citizenry, they were always presented as the coinage of the simple but charming Dublin people. Though in fact entirely journalistic creations, the pretense was maintained that our correspondent was only reporting to us what was said by “one wag”, or “a local wit”. A cartoon vision of a jolly, ballad-singing, “Arthur”-swilling rare-oul-timer springs to mind.

The nadir was reached some weeks ago, when Orna Mulcahy (of whom more later) wrote her column about the Dublin Bike scheme. Ms. Mulcahy has an almost autistic-savant talent for parodying her own class, a talent which I suspect she remains unaware of. Having let us know that she decided to start cycling only after she saw it in a Woody Allen film, she sallies forth, with the customary attribution to “one Dublin wit”, with “The Yokes on the Spokes”. Let us remember that we’re not dealing with art here. These are bicycles. We all know what a bike looks like. The potential for a joke about the appearance of an item so familiar to us is close to nil. We know too, that bikes have spokes. But even here, humour may achieved. These bikes, they are the what with the spokes? The yokes? Seriously? Ms. Mulcahy is telling us only that bicycles are things that have spokes and expecting a laugh, just because it rhymes? That is the kind of thing that can get a journalist a nickname*.

*Suggestions for which are gratefully received in the comments

Some years ago, American writer Joan Didion wrote a memoir called The Year of Magical Thinking. It detailed a year of her life in which her husband died suddenly, and her daughter developed an ultimately fatal illness. For months after her husband died, Didion refused to throw out any of his clothes, did whatever she could to keep her life and living arrangements identical to what they had been when her husband was alive. This, she came to realise, was magical thinking. At some level she thought that her husband would return, but that in order for this to happen she needed to have constant faith. Throwing away his clothes would signify bad faith, and thus ensure that he never came back. Only when she accepted the reality and permanence of her situation was she able to leave behind the magical thinking, the sense that reality could be altered simply by wishing.

Magical Thinking, or wish thinking, is a comforting, basically childish way of thinking about the world. It comes about in times of stress. And it is everywhere these days. We are a year into the worst recession in living memory and still people are in denial. Even as they call for drastic cuts in public services, many of us, especially those who at first denied the recession was even happening, are acting like we can simply wish ourselves out of recession.

“”If you believe,” he shouted to them, “clap your hands; don’t let Tink die.”

The clapping stopped suddenly; as if countless mothers had rushed to their nurseries to see what on earth was happening; but already Tink was saved. First her voice grew strong, then she popped out of bed, then she was flashing through the room more merry and impudent than ever”

- J. M Barrie, Peter Pan.

Substitute the Celtic Tiger for Tinkerbell, and you will have some idea of what I am talking about. Yes, consumer confidence is essential to an economy. Yes, you need a can-do attitude to get anywhere as an entrepreneur. But you also need a good product, a line of credit, skill, connections and many other things, many of which are in the shortest of supply these days. Confidence can only bring you so far, and if unaccompanied by any of the other requirements of a successful business, it will bring you to financial ruin. Sure, every success story involves people taking risks and defying the odds. But so does every one of the far more common, but less often heard stories of failure.

One of the new clichés bequeathed to us by the Celtic Tiger is that “Our Greatest Natural Resource is our People”. This has its origin in the rhetoric of Mary Robinson’s Presidency. Robinson came to office at a time when Ireland was still drab, depressed, and exporting many of its young people abroad. Audaciously, Robinson began telling us that we were young, dynamic and energetic. It wasn’t true. But it became true. Confidence increased in Ireland throughout the 1990’s and 2000’s, until we became the insufferable boors of today. For decades we thought of ourselves as lovable losers. We weren’t rich, but we were charming, quaint and artistic. Now we think we are lovable winners. Even now that we’re not winning, we seem to have to decided that if we act as if we are, things will soon work out.

Magical thinking in its current form is fixated on the notion that the problems we find ourselves in are simply fixed. All that is needed is goodwill and collective effort. A key motif is that the resources are “out there”, they need only to be “harnessed”. Hence, the preponderance of people starting a website and simply waiting for the problem to be solved by wishing it so. This tendency is demonstrated by a range of initiatives launched by public and private sectors, as well as by concerned citizens. The recurring thought that comes to me upon reading the content of all of these sites is “As if it were that simple”. Nothing much will come of any of these projects. I would lay money on it. But let’s look at a few of them:

Let’s look, for example, at Amhrán Nua. It announces itself a new political movement. Their website ticks all the usual magical thinking boxes. It calls for patriotism, an end to partisan bickering, a general pulling together of the nation. As with the name, visually, it harks back to the fresh, hopeful style of the early days of the Celtic Tiger. Celtic mysticism with a modern hi-tech sheen. Blue skies, green fields, a fresh breeze blowing from off the Atlantic. It is somewhere between a mid-90’s Bord Fáilte ad and a Corrs video. The policy pages have nothing controversial to say. Cut public spending, increase revenue, slim down the public sector, the usual. It is interesting to note that the recession has turned Fine Gael economic policy into the new, unquestioned conventional wisdom.

There is no evidence that I can find on the site that Amhrán Nua has any members beyond those involved in setting up the website. I can also find no evidence that they have registered themselves as a political party. Indeed, I strongly suspect that those involved are not aware of the requirement to do so. Schemes like this are hatched in great enthusiasm, often in the pub. Following through is not really the point. Other than talking vaguely of fresh starts and pulling together, what are Amhrán Nua actually doing? Their “Events and Activities” page is blank.

Here’s a post on Politics.ie, also proposing a new party. You can read the ten point plan if you like, but the first sentence sets the tone:

“Have a political system where the government is made up off (sic) top experts in their field, not TDs.”

OK, an unelected government. Thanks for your suggestion. We’ll get back to you. This guy suggests that his movement will have great appeal to the intelligentsia, by the way.

Reclaim Ireland: A cheaper looking site, with slightly more edgy, combative language. “Reclaim” suggests that Ireland is in the hands of others, and must be taken back. The slogan meanwhile, urges us to “Vote for Revolt”. It is not made clear whether Reclaim Ireland are a party for whom we can vote. They state they are not allied to any existing parties. Anyone on the way to the polls to “vote for revolt” could be forgiven some confusion as to how to go about it. Inevitably, a cut on wasteful spending is recommended. But as Bord Snip makes clear, answering the question of what is wasteful is not straightforward. The Agenda page commences by calling for a national government, and then goes on to call for universal education and healthcare. Fair enough, but what about the sizeable chunk of the national government, and indeed the electorate, that is dead set against such lefty policies? That difficulty can apparently be wished away, because

a power shared government might just get the job done if we are all on the same side

Hmm, one-party government. I see a theme developing here. Again, no actual activities have been undertaken.

So much for politics. How about the private sector? First, the now rather celebrated Spirit of Ireland project. The website again is decked out in circa-1997 imagery of fluffy clouds against blue skies, waves frothing off the Cliffs of Moher and emerald green fields. This is apparently Riverdance: The Energy Company. Spirit of Ireland’s plan is all about renewable energy. I will leave it to the experts to demonstrate that the entire plan is guff and limit myself to the magical aspects. Spirit of Ireland announce

Ireland has some the very best wind resources in Europe – an enormous natural asset with revenue potential of tens of billions of Euros per year.

Wind, previously just a meteorological phenomenon and means of drying clothes, is now an asset. Billions of Euros a year have been brought into existence, simply by saying so. Renewable energy is the perfect magical thinking project. It has no actual tangible products. Rather it is a matter of “harnessing” something that is already there. As my researches for this post have shown, Ireland is not short of wind.

The Ideas Campaign is the government’s own approved harnessing exercise. There is, it seems, a genius for innovation and initiative residing every one of us. Never mind that it didn’t make its self shown for centuries, it exists, and is quintessentially Irish. The Ideas Campaign set out to tap that genius, which, like wind, is just lying around, being wasted. We were sitting on a goldmine all this time, and we didn’t even know it! Having harvested the sweet, sweet ideas from the brains of the nation, the Ideas Campaign produced a report. The other day, they announced that they were immediately implementing 17 of the ideas produced by their brain-farming. I will confess, even I was nonplussed at 17 ideas. I’ve come up with more than that myself on a night on the pub. But who knows, maybe they are all pure gold, sure-fire recession-busters:

Facilitate career breaks and shorter working week in public sector

This has been happening for, literally, decades.

Encourage schools to organise transition year trips within Ireland to assist tourism

I imagine the recession will take care of most parent’s urges to send their kids away on expensive school trips abroad.

Develop a coherent ‘Ireland’ brand for education in order to draw more international students to our third-level institutions

I’m not sure I even know what this means, but it smells like an excuse for a big PR spend.

It is clear that is happening here is that the government, having vocally supported the campaign, are now humouring it by officially adopting some of the ideas that require no change from current practices. Well done all. I hope you didn’t spend too much on that. Oh, and the “no whinging” sign on your site? I’d hide that if someone who’s lost his job comes around. It might come off as a little insensitive.

Some will no doubt take offence to this post, or say “At least they’re doing something instead of complaining”. But my point is that these projects aren’t doing anything either. If you are starting a company or other venture, I genuinely wish you luck. All of the projects I’ve outlined above were launched with greater or lesser degrees of ballyhoo before petering out, because underneath the enthusiasm, there was nothing there. If these projects have any success whatsoever, it will be on their merits. If they fail, it will also be on their merits. My criticisms will not have any effect on them either way. To think otherwise is to think, like Peter Pan, that the Celtic Tiger can be brought back to life simply by believing and clapping your hands.

I was an audience member for RTE’s Questions & Answers on two occasions. I can remember almost nothing about either program. The first time, I think Mary O’Rourke was a panelist. The second, Joe Higgins and Michael McDowell were on. They probably had a row. I can’t remember.

What I do remember is the hour or so before the show. We milled around in a too-small reception room and ate hors d’oeurves and drank wine. A producer arrived in and silenced the room. She thanked us for coming, and told us that she wanted questions on a small number of topics. The economy, the north, the health service, the “funny” one, the usual. All of these topics were to do with what was in the newspapers that week. We wrote out the questions we had been told to ask and went back to our prawn sandwiches. The producer returned and told a few of us that our version of the questions they had told us to ask was chosen to be put to the panel.

We were herded into the studio. John Bowman came out and welcomed us, and then introduced the panel to us. He asked us to bear with him as each panelist was asked to speak for a moment or two so that the sound crew could get the microphone levels right. I vaguely recall that Michael McDowell spoke about the weather. Joe Higgins talked about the traffic out to Montrose. He may have used the term “neo-liberal”.

The filming commenced. The chosen guests asked the questions they had been told to ask. Most framed their questions in cute, pun-based terms. Given that the producers and researchers plucked the topics from the week’s news coverage, it is no surprise that they chose questions that most resembled the language of political correspondant’s columns. The panelists responded in more or less the terms they might have been expected to respond in. The audience participants gave away their political allegiances by clapping a little too loudly at unremarkable contributionss from their representatives. Contributions from the floor were mostly openly partisan. The filming ended. We left, none the wiser.

I have watched Q & A maybe a half a dozen times in the past half-dozen years. The rehearsed and unreal nature of the program made it a largely irrelevant ritual. Panelists might as well have shown up and responded to each question with a link to the relevant policy page of their organisation’s website. Each was clearly present as a representative of an interest, a mouthpiece whose job it was to repeat certain positions rather than to respond to questions or to engage in debate. The panel would usually be made of a member each of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, a Labour member or Union or NGO rep, a journalist or lawyer, and a mystery guest. The mystery guest could be anything from a businessman to the head of a lobby group to a Director of one of the dizzying number of quangos which sprang up in the Ahern era. The important thing for the viewer to know was that the mystery guest was a second Fianna Fail panelist, flying under neutral colours. Everyone would say their piece in exactly the terms that we expected of them, Pat Rabbitte would make one of those jokes of his, and we could all have a chuckle and go home. Nothing ever got debated. No minds were changed, no ideas developed. Wherever possible, John Bowman would steer discussion away from the issue at hand to how that issue might affect opinion polls and political alliances. The stakes could not have been lower. The National Conversation could not have been more badly served.

I watched last night’s final edition of the show. Fittingly, the show featured no questions, finally achieving balance with the dearth of answers in all previous episodes. About five minutes of interesting comment could be distilled from the three panels RTE wheeled out for our delectation. Moments from the past were replayed. There was a montage of questions being asked by audience members who are now public figures, which suggests that Q & A even now thinks its greatest weakness – the exclusion of ordinary citizens in favour of party hacks – was some kind of strength. There was a look at the episode during the 1990 presidential election that lead to Brian Lenihan’s downfall. That moment was rehearsed too, a fact that was acknowledged, but not commented on in terms of what it said about the program itself.

This is the notional conversation. A small group of politicians, journalists, lobbyists, press officers, lawyers and businessmen talk to and about each other. PR people brief the papers. Broadcasters follow up the story by interviewing Politicians. Sometimes they even interview the journalists. Occasionally, journalists interview broadcasters. The media moments thereby created are fed back into the system, and the papers will write entire articles about the reaction to such moments. This is usually a matter of talking to a few backbenchers and some other journalists. The citizen remains unconsulted. Thus is the mood of Doheny & Nesbitt’s confused for the mood of the nation.

There was an election a while ago. You may remember it. The country appears more than usually schizophrenic during election campaigns. On the one hand party leaders travel the length and breadth of the country getting stupid photographs taken of themselves for the benefit of the media who tag along. At the end of each day, journalists decide whether each party had a good day or a bad day. One can only imagine this is done either on a hunch basis, or by a collaborative process whereby the entire press corps comes to a consensus on the matter.

Meanwhile, the actual National Conversation is going on at doorsteps on summer evenings. That conversation is of no interest to the closed circle who conduct the notional conversation on TV and Radio and in print. Journalists love campaigns, not elections. That is why the notional conversation took no account of the looming defeat of the Lisbon Treaty at referendum. That is why it is making the same mistake now, and may be similarly surprised. That is why Eoghan Harris of the Sunday Independent wrote the following, a mere week after the Local and European elections:

“By punishing Fianna Fail and rewarding Labour, the voters have done another Lisbon, that is, done something they are already regretting.”

One ought not to expect sanity from Harris, but the patrician arrogance of this sentence is breath-taking. Here we have a man who, offered the evidence of his own eyes, an actual election of actual citizens who cast actual votes, prefers to ignore it. He knows what we think, and he doesn’t need any vulgar elections to figure it out, anymore than he needed one to get into the Senate. The column, by the end, sounds a bit like the impromptu speeches insane dictators make to their underlings:

“Since I amplified my early Sunday Independent position on Newstalk, some of the pundits seem to be shifting their positions .In short, I am helping to set a new agenda, one that puts the results in a more realistic perspective.”

The voters were wrong. The pundits must put things in perspective. The ugly interruption by the citizenry will soon be forgotten about. It’s not like they count anyway. Why, some of them don’t even appear on Questions and Answers.

Ah yes, Questions and Answers. The distaste of the media establishment for the rude interruption of reality into their circular narrative was displayed in last night’s final edition. Some months ago now, a man named Michael O’Brian made a passionate, eloquent and upsetting contribution to the program following the release of the Ryan Report. He burned through the screen, and through the rehearsed, Carr Communications-tested verbiage that made up most of the program. It was compelling because it summed up the fury felt by the Irish people at the contents of the report. For a brief, intense moment, the National Conversation and the notional conversation intersected.

Last night, having run various greatest hits and dissected them in studio, Q & A replayed Mr. O’Brien’s short speech. They went to the panel for reaction. The talking heads spoke of it as a powerful moment of television. One described where she was when she saw it. I cannot tell you how nauseated I was by this treatment. This poor man’s cry of hurt and anger was being turned into a TV moment. It was being treated like Ray Houghton’s goal against England in 1988.

The notional conversation was having its revenge. When real people intervene in the notional conversation, they need very quickly to be made less real, to be turned into a media talking point. Susie Long has had her name degraded by being constantly used as a catchphrase. Mr. O’Brien, who has surely suffered enough, is going through the same process.

Nothing real can survive for long in the notional conversation. Election results are discounted. Ideas are ridiculed. Moments of feeling and reality are cheapened and degraded. This is done by people who consider themselves in tune with the nation, who write and talk about the mood of the people for their living.

Eamonn De Valera used to say that when he wanted to know what the Irish people wanted, he needed only to look into his heart. In the notional conversation, the same approach is adopted. Though in today’s less deferential times, it might more vulgarly be said that it is less a matter of looking into one’s heart than of pulling it out of your arse.

One of the things that distinguish “internet natives” from mere n00bz is that the natives have developed certain skills in the business of arguing on the internet. The most important of these attributes is a sense of proportion, a certain ironic distance that ensures one will not be sitting, furious, at one’s computer, refreshing a page over and over and responding with expressions of all-caps outrage to one’s adversary. Nothing advertises that one is not an experienced flame-warrior more than an absence of this detachment. You type out your self-important, irony-free comments in haste, and regret them at leisure, when, next day, you realise how ridiculous you look. For those who are new to the game, I offer some tips.

Choose your opening position carefully. Beware exaggeration, generalisation, or factual inaccuracy. Someone will crucify you for this later, and it will undermine the rest of the argument. (Corollary: Never pass up the opportunity to crucify your adversary for exaggeration, generalisation or factual inaccuracy)

If you have not been sufficiently careful in defining your opening position, admit it, and move on. Never waste time defending the indefensible. (Corollary: Where possible, force your opponent to defend the indefensible)

Never, and this is key, be the last person to comment. This is where arguing on the Internet differs from other kinds of argument. The goal here is not to get the last word, but to make sure the other guy does. This is because you need at all times to convey the notion that you aren’t really that bothered by all this.

However, you must never actually say this explicitly. If you really weren’t that bothered, you wouldn’t be arguing at all, would you? (Corollary: If your adversary declares him self not bothered, immediately ask him why he’s been arguing all night)

Similarly, never tell your adversary to “get a life”. (Corollary: Always point out to an adversary that if you are a loser, then he, by arguing with you, is worse)

Always double check your comments before posting them. Failing to do so leaves you open to responses like “You spelled “stupid” wrong”

Never forget that you’re just a blogger. Self-importance makes bloggers look ridiculous. This is a trap that journalists often fall into. If you are blogging or commenting you’re just a dude expressing an opinion, even if you happen to work for a newspaper.

Never mention Hitler. (Corollary: Always mention Godwin’s Law) Advanced: Dispute the utility of Godwin’s Law as a principle of argumentation

Never talk about fancy logical fallacies. You look like a tool.

Never tell people what you did in college, as if this clinches the argument. Worse, never say “I have an honours degree in…” (Corollary: If someone says they have an honours degree, you should be safe enough chancing your arm and saying “second class, yeah?” If he’d got a First he would have said so.)

Never use sarcasm. It reads angry and humourless on the screen, for example…

Never begin a comment with “I find it amusing that….” (Corollary: If your adversary uses this phrase, point out that he doesn’t sound amused at all. He sounds fucking furious)

Never commit the Ultimate Arguing On The Internet FAIL (UAIF): leaving two posts in a row, especially when these are the last two posts in a thread. This is like storming out of a room and then coming back in because you forgot your coat.

If your adversary commits UAIF, do not engage with him, as this will breathe new life into the argument. He’s dead. Resist the urge to poke him with a stick.

Sir or Madam,

I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about your craven apology to the Taoiseach for a report which was entirely accurate and newsworthy. While there are countries that have laws governing disrespect to the state and its offices, these are not countries in which any Irish person would like to live, and their laws are not mirrored here. Our constitution guarantees freedom of speech and includes in this freedom the right to criticise the government, a criticism which was the aim of the satirical paintings. That this apology came in response to political pressure is all the more shameful.

Sincerely,

Fergal Crehan

The Reply:

Dear Mr. Crehan,

Thank you for your e-mail in regard to our story about the hoax paintings of the Taoiseach which was broadcast on Monday’s
9.00 pm News and our subsequent apology yesterday evening. RTÉ News made the decision independently that the item
as transmitted was both in bad taste and inappropriate and made our own decision that we would not broadcast it on the News
on Two later that night and that it would be taken down from the RTÉ website.

We also received complaints following the item from various sources, including one from the Government Press Secretary.
RTE News informed him that we had already made the decision that the item was inappropriate. We also decided ourselves
that the broadcast of the item deserved an apology.

I hope this helps to clarify the matter.

Your comments will be included in our Audience Log of calls and e-mails which is circulated for information
to senior RTÉ programme management and is reviewed by the Editorial Board at its weekly meeting.

Your e-mail will also be brought to the attention of the Managing Editor of TV News.

Kind regards.
Bernie Fitzpatrick – RTÉ Information Officer.

My Response:

Ms. Fitzpatrick,

Contrary to your piously expressed hope, the below letter does not even begin to clarify the matter complained of, and I shall be taking this matter to the BCC, as will, I suspect, many other license-payers and citizens. My letter was not in response, as your reply suggests, to the orignal news feature, but rather to your apology, broadcast the next day. I would be grateful to know by what measure RTE decided this accurate report of an incident of public interest was both in “bad taste and inappropriate” and look forward to reading the guidelines whereby RTE decide which facts are and are not sufficiently tasteful to be revealed to those it purports to serve.

Regards,

Fergal Crehan

Some time ago I posted about a survey by an outfit called Peninsula Ireland. The alleged findings of the survey were so absurd that they could be seen to be untrue after a split second’s reflection. Two broadhseet newspapers either failed to invest this split second, or else, having done so, were happy to print commercially-motivated untruths as fact.

Today, Peninisula are back with more “findings“. This time, it appears that employees are spending an average of 2 hours 20 minutes per day on personal email and surfing the web. Not only that, but more than two-thirds of employers have disciplined staff for such exessive use. As is the case every time I read a Peninsula “finding” (Peninsula never seem to release the actual results of the surveys they claim to carry out, only press releases containing hack-friendly factoids), I am quite confident when I say that I don’t believe a word of this.

The newspapers on the other hand are only too happy to present unverified and highly questionable claims of a private enterprise to their readers. In the case of the Irish Times, they are more than willing to throw in a little fabrication of their own. “Workers twittering away more than two hours a day online” goes the headline in the Irish Times, despite there being no mention of Twitter elsewhere in the story. But twitter is all the rage these days, so let’s throw in a gratuitous mention, and to hell with whether the reader is misled or not.

I should be clear that I don’t blame Peninsula for any of this. They are only doing their job by exploiting the gullibility of the press. Their suveys may insult the intelligence of the average person, but clearly they don’t insult that of our print media, who time and again swallow this nonsense and pass it off on us as news.

Note: I wrote this last night, but in the end decided not to publish it, figuring the territory had already been covered. Then I got this lovely comment. A comment weirdly similar to one left at Maman Poulet under a different name) Of course, it would be petty and childish to publish the post just to annoy them. But hey, that’s me.

Politics is an unusual game. Not unlike the “blame game”, it is played by pretending that your opponent is playing it but you’re not. When caught red-handed in an act of mendacity, accuse anyone who has the temerity to call you on it of playing the Blame Game. Similarly, when you have just made a mess of the job to which you were elected, a common response is to accuse critics of “playing politics”.

But politics isn’t a game. It is the system whereby we decide how the country is to be governed, and call to account those who govern, or who misgovern. It is, in principle, a noble activity, however ignoble many of its practitioners might be. To denigrate it as a game is a dodge, a way of evading responsibility by people who are only too happy to play the game when they have a chance of winning.

This is not to say that there aren’t plenty of people in politics who do see it as a game. Fianna Fáil, about to join their third European grouping in ten years, are about power, not ideology. For them, it’s all about winning. So its no wonder they dismiss principled opposition as “playing politics” – it has never occurred to them that politics is anything other than playing.

But you expect that kind of thing from Fianna Fáil. It’s more worrying when you start getting it from high-minded, allegedly non-partisan types, and it makes you wonder if you weren’t a little naïve in taking things like a basic belief in democracy for granted.

The other day an experienced correspondent of a major national newspaper mused that it may be time to abandon the parliamentary system unless the opposition stops opposing. When pressed he suggested there was no other option: “What’s your solution?” (My solution, for the record, is incomplete, but it would involve not dismantling the institutions of the Republic)

The assumption here is that everyone knows what must be done, but won’t agree. All that stuff they talk about in the Dail, or even those arguments you yourself have in the pub. It’s all nonsense. You might think yourself sincere, but you don’t mean any of it. You just want to win the argument, not do what’s best for the country. Like Bill Hick’s Marketing Men applauding him for going after “that anti-marketing market”, this view sees all principles as equally phony but useful cards to be played in the game. Oh, pretending to have a concern for the underpriveliged, right, that’s the populist tactic, that’s a great card to play…

And that’s fine, that’s well and good, when things are going well. It gives the papers something to write about and adds to the gaiety of the nation. But now that things are serious we should abandon the charade of pretending to disagree on matters of principle. These days, politics is just petty squabbling while the country goes to rack and ruin. If only they, the politicians, would set aside politics and get to work doing what’s best for the country.

What we need is a new party. One that will put aside the old arguments. It will be quite simple. Decent people will come together and form a party whose policies will be neither left nor right, but simply correct. The government, and opposition, will exclaim “Why, I’d never thought of it that way before” and will all join this new party and we will be forever relieved of having to think about politics because it will have been abandoned in favour of simply doing the right thing. There will be no arguments, because everyone will agree on what the right thing is.

It is worth noting that we heard much of the same from the US in the aftermath to September 11th. This, the logic went, is an existential threat. What good will due process and democratic institutions be to us, it was asked, when we have ceased to exist? Maybe, high-minded and mature people suggested, it’s best to just assume that the president knows what’s best, to put aside the bickering and get out of the Decider’s way. We saw how well that went for them, how men like Sen. Joe Lieberman who posed as bipartisan patriots, putting the country first, soon were exposed as spineless pushovers who lost their heads and abandoned their principles.

This crisis is our 9/11 – not in the intensity of its tragedy, but in it’s forcing of a reckoning. It is worthwhile to pay attention to people’s reactions to it. These are testing times. Some are passing the tests and some are failing. In years to come it will be useful to remember who kept their cool, and stood by our admittedly flawed institutions, and who lost theirs.

(Written 3:30pm Friday 27th February, autopublished 8:30pm 28th February)

Not long ago I wrote about the stubborn resistence of pesky reality to conform with the conventional wisdom of a political media class that only knows how to tell the old stories. Coming off the back of another disasterous poll, it is safe to say that Brian Cowen faces a tough first Ard Fheis as Fianna Fáil leader. One might almost call it, if one was a political journalist, a “make or break” moment. Down in the polls, demoralised, all but written off…what a story it would be if Brian Cowen rose to the occasion, hit it out of the park, answered his detractors, blah blah cliche cliché blah. It would be the kind of story so familiar that I expect many political pundits will be unable to restrain themselves from telling it, irrespective of how it compares to reality.

In that spirit, I offer my advance review of Brian Cowen’s address to the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis 2009:

“An attendee of Fianna Fail’s Ard Fheis who had only known Brian Cowen for the past few months might have been forgiven for asking “Where is the Taoiseach, and what have you done with him?” For it was a different Brian Cowen who addressed the faithful in City West last night. In the speech of his political life, Brian Cowen vowed to take decisive and effective action to deal with the financial crisis which has plunged the country into uncertainty, and his party’s polling numbers into a tailspin. Speaking passionately and from the heart, he rallied the weary Fianna Fail troops last night in the City West hotel, vowing that his party “would not be afraid to take the tough decisions necessary”.

Cowen needed a big speech, an Obama moment, and last night he delivered. Last night’s address was a half time talk to a demoralised team, firing them up with a bang of the hurley on the dressing room table and urging them, daring them almost, to go out and grab the game by the scruff of the neck. And it may just have been enough to make them believe they can go out and win it. Only time, and the voters, will tell if that belief is justified.”

Update: As today’s Sunday Independent indicates, I got the tone right, but should have used a rugby analogy instead of a hurling one.