Comments on: Camels, Wheels and Martin Ignoramis http://virtualstoa.net/2007/11/05/camels-wheels-and-martin-ignoramis/ Chris Brooke's Weblog Wed, 16 May 2012 21:32:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Crooked Timber » » Standing up to Martin Amis http://virtualstoa.net/2007/11/05/camels-wheels-and-martin-ignoramis/comment-page-1/#comment-132069 Crooked Timber » » Standing up to Martin Amis Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:06:26 +0000 http://virtualstoa.net/2007/11/05/camels-wheels-and-martin-ignoramis/#comment-132069 [...] I’m just back from Arizona (big thanks to Kieran and Laurie btw), where I had a great time. My purpose in going there was to deliver a paper on “public reason and immigration” and a couple of conversations I had on the trip concerned how some Americans see the European issue. In both of them (one with a grad student, one with the guy next to me on a plane) my interlocutor referred, in almost identical terms, to Europe’s problem with immigration by “fundamentalist Muslims”, and seemed to believe that this was an accurate depiction of the Islamic population of Europe. Meanwhile, back home, my partner had arranged for a Muslim colleague to accompany her to watch Bristol thump Stade Francais in the Heineken cup. Needless to say, the woman in question is about as distant as it is possible to be from the Muslims who feature in the imagination of my two conversation partners. At Heathrow, I bought a copy of the Guardian to read on the bus, and was reminded by Ronan Bennett’s excellent article, that such blanket stereotyping is also practised by many people here in the UK, who don’t have the excuse of lack of familiarity. When the stereotyping is done by a major British cultural and literary figure and is mixed with a strong dose of sadistic revenge fantasty, it is all the more deplorable. But as Bennett points out, Martin Amis has largely got away with it and a lot of the commentary has been more critical of Terry Eagleton for calling him the bigot that he is. (Chris Brooke at the Virtual Stoa also linked the other day to some more on-the-money kicking of Amis, in which the great writer’s grasp of the history of technology is examined.) posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 3:06 pm Post a comment [...] [...] I’m just back from Arizona (big thanks to Kieran and Laurie btw), where I had a great time. My purpose in going there was to deliver a paper on “public reason and immigration” and a couple of conversations I had on the trip concerned how some Americans see the European issue. In both of them (one with a grad student, one with the guy next to me on a plane) my interlocutor referred, in almost identical terms, to Europe’s problem with immigration by “fundamentalist Muslims”, and seemed to believe that this was an accurate depiction of the Islamic population of Europe. Meanwhile, back home, my partner had arranged for a Muslim colleague to accompany her to watch Bristol thump Stade Francais in the Heineken cup. Needless to say, the woman in question is about as distant as it is possible to be from the Muslims who feature in the imagination of my two conversation partners. At Heathrow, I bought a copy of the Guardian to read on the bus, and was reminded by Ronan Bennett’s excellent article, that such blanket stereotyping is also practised by many people here in the UK, who don’t have the excuse of lack of familiarity. When the stereotyping is done by a major British cultural and literary figure and is mixed with a strong dose of sadistic revenge fantasty, it is all the more deplorable. But as Bennett points out, Martin Amis has largely got away with it and a lot of the commentary has been more critical of Terry Eagleton for calling him the bigot that he is. (Chris Brooke at the Virtual Stoa also linked the other day to some more on-the-money kicking of Amis, in which the great writer’s grasp of the history of technology is examined.) posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 3:06 pm Post a comment [...]

]]> By: dsquared http://virtualstoa.net/2007/11/05/camels-wheels-and-martin-ignoramis/comment-page-1/#comment-126477 dsquared Tue, 06 Nov 2007 11:13:37 +0000 http://virtualstoa.net/2007/11/05/camels-wheels-and-martin-ignoramis/#comment-126477 Wow, I missed this one. I think that Amis ought to be sentenced to ride a bicycle over some sand dunes for grade 3 "not thinking it through". Wow, I missed this one. I think that Amis ought to be sentenced to ride a bicycle over some sand dunes for grade 3 “not thinking it through”.

]]> By: Chris Brooke http://virtualstoa.net/2007/11/05/camels-wheels-and-martin-ignoramis/comment-page-1/#comment-126471 Chris Brooke Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:11:08 +0000 http://virtualstoa.net/2007/11/05/camels-wheels-and-martin-ignoramis/#comment-126471 I agree. I agree.

]]> By: Darius Jedburgh http://virtualstoa.net/2007/11/05/camels-wheels-and-martin-ignoramis/comment-page-1/#comment-126470 Darius Jedburgh Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:05:55 +0000 http://virtualstoa.net/2007/11/05/camels-wheels-and-martin-ignoramis/#comment-126470 "Amis has “the freshly fortified suspicion that there exists on our planet a kind of human being who will become a Muslim in order to pursue suicide-mass murder”. Translation: no one other than someone for a bent for mass-murder (i.e. bloodthirsty psychopaths) would want to become a Muslim." Not to defend Amis or anything, but that's either a screaming fallacy or a totally unwarranted attribution. People should be going after Mart for what he said, not what he would have said if he'd been trying to validate their outrage. “Amis has “the freshly fortified suspicion that there exists on our planet a kind of human being who will become a Muslim in order to pursue suicide-mass murder”. Translation: no one other than someone for a bent for mass-murder (i.e. bloodthirsty psychopaths) would want to become a Muslim.”

Not to defend Amis or anything, but that’s either a screaming fallacy or a totally unwarranted attribution. People should be going after Mart for what he said, not what he would have said if he’d been trying to validate their outrage.

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