Fintan O'Toole: Classic or Dud?

cant be doubted that bj dgaf about the drooling animals that want brexit but throwing any framework of intent on it beyond his being entitled rich prince anointed and them being beneath his contempt is a reach imo

lol in case anyone thought i wz exaggerating ("chapeau!")

I think this is possibly the best piece of political writing I have ever read - certainly the best analysis of a single politician. Sharp, funny, meticulously researched, beautifully written, and dead right. Chapeau, @fotoole.. https://t.co/UKoCB0cCf8

— joycemcmillan (@joycemcm) July 20, 2019

I can't get past the title.

i reviewed this for sight and sound (it was very bad):

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51m4kjLgF3L.jpg

ok i read it

on one hand he does the homework so we don't have to: closereading bojo's novel and his biography of churchill for clues -- of course he's hunting for what he wants so he finds it, a stray use of a greek word from aristotle in the first*, a passage or two on the way our Great Wartime etc converted a lifetime's comical bungling, via very conscious performance, into a longlasting personal success (which many also take to be the rescue of the nation from the brink of doom). it also makes the usual dog's breakfast of plumbing all this into the poshboy milieu BJ is sorta-kinda from (eton etc), before obscurely finessing this with something like "the paradox being these posh guys are actually all globalists when the brexit masses are extremely narrow ultra-nationalists". treating this as merely a symptom of a currently very visible social set is a way of sidestepping how we got here and how we will get away from here (the name murdoch -- also in some sense a "globalist" -- is at no point mentioned)**

so tl;dr: bj is knowingly (even learnedly) pitching for a Great Man of History in Our Moment of Need, working his very specific learnt skills (clownishness and plus also being an extremely deft tabloid-style liar (and highly paid for exactly this talent) to wobble his way thru into the history books. aha but! cries FoT at this point, what if not tragedy this time but farce! and iris out complacently

*the word is akratic: which is indeed an unexpected word to find in a j.archer-type political novel: its root being akrasia, as discussed in the nicomachean ethics = literally “not being in command of oneself” viz exhibiting “weakness of will” and/or “incontinence”***
**also unaddressed: the fact that "globalist" has become -- certainly on the far right -- a shorthand for "global jewish conspiracy", and thus not really a word you want to be tossing around lightly and vaguely?
**here is a much better version of the akrasia argument (i also linked it on the brexit thread).i'm not really a fan of the neologism "stuplime" (tbh i think it's the main reason the essay doesn't quite land) and it feels dated in its immediate concerns (it's from 2017, just after the election and is now scattered with too much abt the anti-corbyn specifics of that campaign). but i like its rage and its will to step back and think structurally -- despite his (not awful) preparedness to dig into the literature, FoT at no point steps back to consider the deeper politics, of course, which is why the piece comes across so smugly (and why it appeals to those who don't feel in any sense responsible or in the direct firing line).

Don't know this piece, but don't agree that FOT in general is bad. He did a lot of real journalism in the past on beef scandals etc. He's been very strong on the history of Irish theatre - was just thinking today I'd like to read his book on Shaw. I've seen him give a very good public lecture on Flann O'Brien. His political writing on C21 Ireland was substantial enough to get a proper respectful critique in the NLR:

https://newleftreview.org/issues/II90/articles/daniel-finn-rethinking-the-republic

- that's probably the most substantial work I've read on him.

its abroad aul world and good different opinions are good

i should probably advance a point of view that the NLR would possibly be properly respectful of a front-line paper-of-record star name who presumably very much follows their preferred broad thrust of ideology, ireland a very interesting case study for political/social analysis given our compacted and extreme economic/social history over the scope of living adult memory.

and ofc from outside that is going to read as a strong case for merit in and of itself.

also ofc its all a matter of personal ideology and taste but put fintans pieces up against in the first instance the wildman ravings of a morgan kelly and over a longer, more measured term of reference the expert reassurance of a john fitzgerald (showing my own pref for v assured economist/theoreticians obv) and he starts to look a lot like what in the opinion of the thread he is- the egon spengler to david mcwilliams walter peck, except they dont disagree so much as never meet

who presumably very much follows their preferred broad thrust of ideology

not really: NLR is (broad thrust anyway)full-spectrum internationalist marxist -- tho i think yr right that it's a little too easily swayed by fancypants cultural credentials

Having mastered the form over Brexit (Heroic Failure), O'Toole is now going to churn out an "X has exposed the myth of British exceptionalism" piece for the liberal press till he dies.

2030: "The arrival of the Tralfamadorians has exposed the myth ..."https://t.co/UKCn8c90BO

— David Timoney (@fromarsetoelbow) April 11, 2020

https://thebaffler.com/latest/ireland-we-hardly-knew-ye-sheehan

Loved and learnt quite a bit from that piece.

I have been putting off this piece all day for when I’ve time but just starting it now. You know when you know a piece will be good because of some perfectly chosen reference? That’s the Reeling in the Years mention early on. Here’s a flavour of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y65eSi0RnY

"what happens to the boy in the bubble when the bubble bursts? he falls from a great height."

me yelling "im so sorry the correct answer is the MOOPS" at fintan

lads

When my son was 2, I heard him mumbling to himself as he was going to sleep, 'Mikhail Gorbachev'. It sounded like a promise that the world he would grow up in would be less fearful and more hopeful.

— Fintan O'Toole (@fotoole) August 30, 2022

:)

i had just abt persuaded myself that fintan was in fact in on the joek when here comes stephen b to complicate the story lol

Surprised at the number of people suggesting this wouldn't happen - toddler repeats name that is often on the radio, more on this story as we get it. Have people on Twitter never sworn in front of a toddler? https://t.co/7rgo3qXO0w

— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) August 31, 2022

oh no it's broken Bush. If it was a joke then it's a decent attempt at this genre of shitposting.

i mean obviously i dont want to admit FoT into the affiliated guild of acceptable shitposting fellows but

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FbeEaVfWYAArs1K?format=jpg&name=medium

there was this photograb gem in the replies. Even Bush might put it in the "so didn't happen" category.

This a week or so after Alexander Dugin claimed his daughter's first words were "Russia" and "our great country". Is this something wankers do now?

it's a long-running* twitter symptom

*for weeks now and possibly even months

In about July 1988 Bobby Charlton, live on BBC TV, referred to the USSR as 'that great country'. I was touched.