Was Orwell "Homophobic"?????
Stephen Bradley
article that Orwell was "homophobic, ultra-leftist" and "bad-tempered".
Is this objective truth or the ramblings of scared right-winger??
--
Stephen Bradley
Turnpike evaluation. For information, see http://www.turnpike.com/
John Rennie
standards. I can assure you that in his time Orwell was regarded as a
progressive. In the last 10 years of his life Orwell suffered extreme
bad health aggravated by a severe bullet wound in the neck which he received
in the Spanish Civil War - enough to make most people'bad-tempered'! but
most people who met him seemed to be struck by his caring kindly nature.
Alan Allport
<p1I$gGAIAu...@wjbradley.freeserve.co.uk>...
> I just read in the 'Chestnut tree cafe' site in a 'New Statesman'
> article that Orwell was "homophobic, ultra-leftist" and "bad-tempered".
> Is this objective truth or the ramblings of scared right-winger??
Well, 'The New Statesman' is a fairly left-of-centre magazine so I doubt
that conservative terror can be blamed. Was Orwell the things you mention?
Respectively, in my humble opinion; slightly, yes, and not especially.
Alan.
Deepti901
>most people who met him seemed to be struck by his caring kindly nature.
And yes, he certainly was homophobic.
Graeme Burk
Stephen Bradley <ste...@culmore.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I just read in the 'Chestnut tree cafe' site in a 'New Statesman'
> article that Orwell was "homophobic, ultra-leftist" and "bad-tempered".
> Is this objective truth or the ramblings of scared right-winger??
Homophobic is probably a fair charge. Although it's not cut and dried either
His writings certainly showed homophobic views (although no more homophobic
than the common English society Orwell loved) and yet he had gay friends like
Spender (and, I think, Connolly).
Bad-tempered is a matter of opinion. I don't think of Orwell that way, but you
can't read his biographies and not note that with some people he was deeply
unpleasant.
Ultra-leftist, though is problematic. Orwell was of course an avid supporter
of democratic socialism and fought against fascism both at home and abroad,
and was very definitely on the left. But he despised the flakiness attached
to so much socialism (at least he felt that way in Wigan Pier) and so much of
his outlook was rooted in an almost sentimental, certainly not doctrinnaire,
view of things. I don't associate that with "Ultra-leftishness"--
"Ultra-leftist" implies a certain amount of extremistness, and while I
concede that anyone who thought the Home Guard could potentially be used as a
revolutionary army of the people certainly had a touch of extremism about
him, Orwell in the main doesn't seem that extremist. This is a man who said
he went to Spain to fight for "common decency", after all...
Graeme Burk
another leftist in love with common decency
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Alan Allport
<snip some good stuff>
>Ultra-leftist, though is problematic.
True. I think, though, that some of his economic ideas would - rightly or
wrongly - strike people today as extremely, erm, extreme. There's the
proposal in _The Lion and Unicorn_, for example, to set a compulsory 10:1
ratio ceiling on private incomes (ie. the highest paid person must earn no
more than ten times the lowest paid) - and that scheme was intended as a
temporary salve before the introduction of complete income equality.
Alan.
--
*********************************************
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~allport/
*********************************************
Paul S & Joy E
Alan Allport wrote:
>
>
> True. I think, though, that some of his economic ideas would - rightly or
> wrongly - strike people today as extremely, erm, extreme. There's the
> proposal in _The Lion and Unicorn_, for example, to set a compulsory 10:1
> ratio ceiling on private incomes (ie. the highest paid person must earn no
> more than ten times the lowest paid) - and that scheme was intended as a
> temporary salve before the introduction of complete income equality.
If that's extreme then I'm a banana. I would imagine that 65% or 70% of
people would be quite happy to earn 10% of the the richest person's salary.
Paul
Paul S & Joy E
Stephen Bradley wrote:
> I just read in the 'Chestnut tree cafe' site in a 'New Statesman'
> article that Orwell was "homophobic, ultra-leftist" and "bad-tempered".
> Is this objective truth or the ramblings of scared right-winger??
> --
> Stephen Bradley
>
> Turnpike evaluation. For information, see http://www.turnpike.com/
From Burmese Days:
"Nasty old bladder of lard! he (Flory) thought, watching Mr Maacgregor up
the road. How his bottom did stick out in those tight khaki shorts. Like
one of those beastly middle-aged scoutmasters, homosexual almost to a man,
that you see photographs of in the illustrated papers. Dressing himself up
in those ridiculous clothes and exposing his pudgy, dimpled knees, because
it is the pukka sahib thing to take exercise before breakfast -
disgusting."
Perhaps it was actually scoutmasters he objected to!
While on the subject of prejudice also from Burmese Days -Flory speaking to
Dr Veraswami:
"The British Empire is simply a device for giving trade monopolies to the
English - or rather to gangs of Jews and Scotchmen."
So he was anti Semitic and ...well what's the word for being anti Scot?
Paul
Alan Allport
>If that's extreme then I'm a banana. I would imagine that 65% or 70% of
>people would be quite happy to earn 10% of the the richest person's salary.
10 per cent of Mr. Gates' hoard? Yes, I could live with that too.
Unfortunately, the idea was to calibrate from the lowest-paid end of the
spectrum...
Graeme Burk
psa...@netvigator.com wrote:
> Perhaps it was actually scoutmasters he objected to!
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it Orwell who also said that Scoutmasters
were either Tobacconists or Homosexuals...?
Graeme Burk
son of a scoutmaster who was, to his knowledge, neither...
Joseph C Fineman
>Paul S & Joy E wrote in message <36E92223...@netvigator.com>...
>>If that's extreme then I'm a banana. I would imagine that 65% or
>>70% of people would be quite happy to earn 10% of the the richest
>>person's salary.
During W.W. II, someone in Roosevelt's administration proposed to
limit U.S. incomes to $10,000 (quite a decent living in those days)
for the duration. The proposal was rejected on the grounds that the
wheels of industry could not turn on incentives like that.
>10 per cent of Mr. Gates' hoard? Yes, I could live with that too.
>Unfortunately, the idea was to calibrate from the lowest-paid end of
>the spectrum...
Mr. Gates, in an interview, said he meant to give away "90%" of his
money before he died, in order to avoid spoiling his children.
Perhaps he means to have a lot of them.
--- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
||: Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, :||
||: but not for love. :||
Henry Cohen
knew Orwell say, respectively, that he "expressed distaste for
homosexuality" (p. 97), and that "[h]omosexuality was something for which
George always felt a particular revulsion, curious in one so liberal . . ."
(p. 130). As for his being "ultra-leftist," if you read THE ROAD TO WIGAN
PIER, you will learn that he was a socialist in the sense that he favored
liberty and
justice, but opposed the Communist party line. This, of course, is also
obvious from his later works, such as HOMAGE TO CATALONIA, ANIMAL FARM, and
1984. Finally, as to "bad-tempered," from what I have read (e.g., Michael
Shelden's biography), he seems to have been quite a likable man.
Henry Cohen
Stephen Bradley wrote in message ...
Henry Cohen
a character in a novel to the author of the novel.
Paul S & Joy E wrote in message <36E927B9...@netvigator.com>...
>From Burmese Days:
>
>"Nasty old bladder of lard! he (Flory) thought, watching Mr Maacgregor up
>the road. How his bottom did stick out in those tight khaki shorts. Like
>one of those beastly middle-aged scoutmasters, homosexual almost to a man,
>that you see photographs of in the illustrated papers. Dressing himself up
>in those ridiculous clothes and exposing his pudgy, dimpled knees, because
>it is the pukka sahib thing to take exercise before breakfast -
>disgusting."
>
>Perhaps it was actually scoutmasters he objected to!
>
Alan Allport
<7cccv5$fg9$1...@winter.news.rcn.net>...
>he was a socialist in the sense that he favored
> liberty and justice
He was a Socialist in the sense that he favoured the comprehensive public
control of the means of production, and went on the record as saying this
many, many times. Even if one's own personal economic mores don't match
Orwell's (and mine don't, particularly) we must always be careful not to
try to reinvent him in cosier form. GO was a fairly hard-line Left-winger
from about 1936 onwards.
Alan.
Paul Sebastianelli
That' refreshing to read .
It seems to me that GO is constantly being reinvented to suit
particular views, esp. right wing views. His anti-Communtist
views seem to get him into this trouble. We all know that it
was Totalitarianism that he was against, not the redistribution
of wealth, which he was very much in favour of, not to mention
public control of the means of production. It is unfortunate that
some have spun his anti-Soviet views into evidence that he was
some sort of market loving Liberal. The Norman Podhoretz*
articles at your website are good examplews. Am I the only one
who finds this frustrating?
paul.
* a nice, scathing review of Podhoretz's latest book can be found
in the winter issue of Dissent magazine, or here-
www.igc.org/dissent/current/winter99/packer
--
--------------------------
http://www.tao.ca/~fallout
--------------------------
Tom Deveson
<hco...@erols.com> writes
>In THE WORLD OF GEORGE ORWELL (1971), a collection of essays, two men who
>knew Orwell say, respectively, that he "expressed distaste for
>homosexuality" (p. 97), and that "[h]omosexuality was something for which
>George always felt a particular revulsion, curious in one so liberal . . ."
>(p. 130).
I guess another ambiguous clue would be among the notes at the end of
"Hop-Picking" where GO speaks in a briskly neutral social-observer tone
about youths earning a shilling by making a rendezvous at Charing Cross
underground station, but heads the note "Homosexual vice in London."
And earlier in the piece he puts "Poof" into quotation marks but not
Nancy Boy.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Henry Cohen
Paul S & Joy E wrote in message <36EA91E6...@netvigator.com>...
>Have you read Burmese Days? If so I would be quite happy to discuss to
discuss
>to what extent Flory represents Orwell's views.
>
>Paul
>
Yes, I read Burmese Days recently, and would welcome your views on to what
extent Flory represents Orwell's views. Though Flory no doubt is, to a
large degree, Orwell's alter ego, Orwell, unlike Flory, was able to get out,
suggesting that Flory is a "darker" version of Orwell. I liked the novel,
but was bothered by the fact that Orwell gave Flory the birthmark. This
seemed to me too easy a way to account for Flory's sense of alienation. The
more mature Orwell, in, for example, "Such, Such Were the Joys," was able to
account for his alienation without an artificial device like a birthmark.
By the way, I have only recently discovered Orwell (beyond 1984 and Animal
Farm, of course), and have read no secondary literature, so I don't know if
my point is common criticism.
Henry Cohen
Please explain "gwei por." You have a real treat to look forward to in
"Such, Such Were the Joys"; I can't think of a better essay that I've ever
read. Orwell did not allow it to be published in his lifetime because it
was so critical of his prep school. The title, I've read, is from Blake.
Henry
Paul S & Joy E wrote in message <36EB3653...@netvigator.com>...
>> >Henry
>> >I think you are a bit too dogmatic here, although I take the general
point.
>> >Have you read Burmese Days? If so I would be quite happy to discuss to
>> discuss
>> >to what extent Flory represents Orwell's views.
>> >
>> >Paul
>> >
>> Yes, I read Burmese Days recently, and would welcome your views on to
what
>> extent Flory represents Orwell's views. Though Flory no doubt is, to a
>> large degree, Orwell's alter ego, Orwell, unlike Flory, was able to get
out,
>> suggesting that Flory is a "darker" version of Orwell. I liked the
novel,
>> but was bothered by the fact that Orwell gave Flory the birthmark. This
>> seemed to me too easy a way to account for Flory's sense of alienation.
The
>> more mature Orwell, in, for example, "Such, Such Were the Joys," was able
to
>> account for his alienation without an artificial device like a birthmark.
>> By the way, I have only recently discovered Orwell (beyond 1984 and
Animal
>> Farm, of course), and have read no secondary literature, so I don't know
if
>> my point is common criticism.
>
>Yes I agree with your views on Flory. Flory is perhaps what Orwell fears he
>would have become had he stayed in Burma. Point taken about the birthmark
but
>the book is so full of caricature - Ellis the racist, Mr Lackersteen the
drunken
>philanderer, Mrs Lackersteen the shrew of a gwei por, Westfield the hanging
>flogging policeman, that I suppose one more doesn't make much difference.
>
>I have little doubt that Flory's views on homosexuals relate pretty closely
to
>Orwell's, others in the group have provided the external evidence which you
>seek.
>
>As for his views on Jews and Scotsmen I think there is some other evidence
that
>Orwell was at least suspicious of Jews, the more learned members of the
group
>should be able to supply you with chapter and verse. On Scotsmen he is
>historically accurate, certainly the former British Colony where I live
(Hong
>Kong) has many Scottish businesses some still semi-monopolistic- Jardines,
Hong
>Kong Shanghai Bank to name but 2.
>
>Now I shall go and check out "Such Such were the Joys" to read the more
mature
>Orwell.
>
Paul S & Joy E
Henry Cohen wrote:
> It is a mistake, without extrinsic evidence, to attribute views expressed by
> a character in a novel to the author of the novel.
>
> Paul S & Joy E wrote in message <36E927B9...@netvigator.com>...
> >From Burmese Days:
> >
> >"Nasty old bladder of lard! he (Flory) thought, watching Mr Maacgregor up
> >the road. How his bottom did stick out in those tight khaki shorts. Like
> >one of those beastly middle-aged scoutmasters, homosexual almost to a man,
> >that you see photographs of in the illustrated papers. Dressing himself up
> >in those ridiculous clothes and exposing his pudgy, dimpled knees, because
> >it is the pukka sahib thing to take exercise before breakfast -
> >disgusting."
> >
> >Perhaps it was actually scoutmasters he objected to!
> >
> >While on the subject of prejudice also from Burmese Days -Flory speaking to
> >Dr Veraswami:
> >
> >"The British Empire is simply a device for giving trade monopolies to the
> >English - or rather to gangs of Jews and Scotchmen."
> >
> >So he was anti Semitic and ...well what's the word for being anti Scot?
> >
> >Paul
> >
I think you are a bit too dogmatic here, although I take the general point.
Paul S & Joy E
> >I think you are a bit too dogmatic here, although I take the general point.
> >Have you read Burmese Days? If so I would be quite happy to discuss to
> discuss
> >to what extent Flory represents Orwell's views.
> >
> >Paul
> >
Alan Allport
> Please explain "gwei por." You have a real treat to look forward to in
> "Such, Such Were the Joys"; I can't think of a better essay that I've
ever
> read. Orwell did not allow it to be published in his lifetime because it
> was so critical of his prep school. The title, I've read, is from Blake.
Small point: It was not that Orwell 'did not allow' it to be published in
his lifetime, but that he did not formally submit it for publication on the
(correct) grounds that neither Secker and Warburg nor anyone else would
touch it without substantial and unwanted editing. Orwell also suspected
that his posthumous literary executors would quail at the thought of
publishing SSWTJ, which is why he passed on the manuscript to Fred Warburg
for safekeeping in 1947.
By the way, although a fine piece of pyschological writing, 'Such, Such'
should be treated with caution as a straightforward biographical essay
since several childhood contemporaries of Orwell have suggested, plausibly,
that much of its detail is exaggerated or imaginary.
Alan.
Alex Ball
wrote:
> The title, I've read, is from Blake.
It is, the poem is "The Echoing Green" from 'Songs of Innocence'
The relavant stanza is hte second (of three)
"Old John with white hair
Does laugh away care
Sitting under the oak
Among the old folk.
They laugh at our play.
And soon they all say:
'Such, such were the joys
When we all, girls and boys,
In our youth-time were seen
On the echoing green.'"
This is one of my favourite pieces of Blake and gives a good insight
into the nature of SSWTJ. The 'echoing green' is to me the key
phrase. Echos both reflect *and distort* and thus I think that Orwell
is trying to tell us that SSWTJ is not truth but polemic *from* truth.
Does Orwell mention Blake in any other places in his writing?
--
Alex Ball
alex...@clara.net
http://come.to/alexs_site
ICQ : 17821675
Tom Deveson
<hco...@erols.com> writes
>You have a real treat to look forward to in
>"Such, Such Were the Joys"; I can't think of a better essay that I've ever
>read. Orwell did not allow it to be published in his lifetime because it
From "The Ecchoing [sic] Green" in Blake's *Songs of Innocence*
..Old John with white hair,
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk.
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say:
"Such, such were the joys
When we all, girls & boys,
In our youth time were seen
On the Ecchoing Green."
Orwell's allusion makes it into a sharp irony. But also, as Crick says,
he's drawing attention to the fact that "the author was creator not
remembrancer. Echoes both repeat and distort."
--
Tom Deveson
Tom Deveson
THIS.clara.net> writes
>Does Orwell mention Blake in any other places in his writing?
Sorry for posting the identical *Echoing Green* info -- I was working in
another computer window before seeing yours.
GO refers to Blake, rather inaccurately I would say, as the "high priest
of romanticism in an early (1930) review. In the Dickens essay he
refers to "I wander through each charter'd street" as showing more
understanding of capitalism than most socialist litersture. [By the way,
there's an interesting book by EP Thompson, the late socialist
historian, about Blake's politics, which treats this poem in great
detail, showing how it derives from Blake's involvement with what might
be called "far-left" politics.]
In *The English People* he refers to Blake as being like DH Lawrence and
also "very English" in being a _type_ of individualist. He elsewhere
compares the poet WH Davies to Blake in being disingenuously unafraid of
seeming silly. [That's quite a subtle point for him to have got into a
Sunday review article.]
In an *As I Please* piece he links Blake with Joan of Arc as "a lunatic,
in my opinion" though this doesn't preclude his being a genius.
In other *As I Please* pieces he compares Blake (favourably -well, why
not?) to Edgar Wallace and quotes *Auguries of Innocence* without saying
where the lines come from.
I guess the most intriguing discussion is in *Politics vs Literature*
where GO deliberately (knowing he's being disconcerting) sort of takes
sides with Swift in his anti-woman diatribes as opposed to Blake's
rather swoony celebration of womanhood. GO says, "No doubt Blake is
nearer the truth, and yet who can fail to feel a sort of pleasure in
seeing that fraud, feminine delicacy, exploded for once?" (FR Leavis in
his famous essay on The Irony of Swift took the opposite view -- I've no
idea whether GO knew the piece, though it was discussed in literary
circles in the 1930's and 1940's.)
In other passing references GO seems to see Blake as an example of the
kind of awkward truth-telling eccentric English writer who evokes the
admiration of the free-thinker and the disdain of the systematiser. It's
interesting to watch subsequent critics trying to assimilate GO himself
to radical (Hazlitt, Cobbett etc.) or Tory (Dr Johnson, etc.) or even
religious (Bunyan, Chesterton) variants of this pattern.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Paul S & Joy E
Henry Cohen wrote:
> Paul,
>
> Please explain "gwei por."
Sorry I'm getting my colonial slang mixed up. "gwei por" is derogatory
expression in Cantonese for a white female. I should have written "memsahib" .
Paul
Graeme Burk
Tom Deveson <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Orwell's allusion makes it into a sharp irony. But also, as Crick says,
> he's drawing attention to the fact that "the author was creator not
> remembrancer. Echoes both repeat and distort."
and at another point wrote:
> By the way, although a fine piece of pyschological writing, 'Such, Such'
> should be treated with caution as a straightforward biographical essay
> since several childhood contemporaries of Orwell have suggested, plausibly,
> that much of its detail is exaggerated or imaginary.
Both points are true, but at the same time I'd like to point out that a
simpler explanation of "Such, Such" than Crick's debunking can be found in
Michael Shelden's biography. Shelden points out that Orwell is writing from
the point of view of a child, and thus the portrayal of certain people will
naturally be distorted because a child's perception is naturally distorted.
Crick interviewed most of the people who went to Cyprian's with Blair/Orwell
well into their old age. They have a naturally more equivicol view of things
because they've gotten older and have a context. But Orwell was trying to
give the more immediate impression of experiencing those things as a child.
I suspect we're both saying the same thing, but I think there's subtle
shadings worth mentioning. It's one of the reasons I much prefer Shelden's
biography to Crick's.
Graeme Burk
who, like Shelden, approaches Orwell from a literary, and not a political
science, perspective...
Alan Allport
> Tom Deveson <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> By the way, although a fine piece of psychological writing, 'Such, Such'
>> should be treated with caution as a straightforward biographical essay
>> since several childhood contemporaries of Orwell have suggested,
plausibly,
>> that much of its detail is exaggerated or imaginary.
>
>Both points are true, but at the same time I'd like to point out that a
>simpler explanation of "Such, Such" than Crick's debunking can be found in
>Michael Shelden's biography. Shelden points out that Orwell is writing from
>the point of view of a child, and thus the portrayal of certain people will
>naturally be distorted because a child's perception is naturally distorted.
First of all, Tom should be absolved of all blame for the aforementioned
quote; the buck stops with me.
I don't think Crick was 'debunking', exactly, more reacting to a tendency by
some critics to view Orwell's 'biographical' essays as straightforward
reportage. Orwell wrote with purpose; even the most apparently artless
confessional pieces were crafted to deliver a deliberate political message.
This is not to denigrate GO's non-fiction, simply to place it in its proper
context and to remind readers that even this 'straight-talking' author was
capable of improving on reality occasionally to focus his point.
Graeme Burk
"Alan Allport" <all...@ee.upenn.edu> wrote:
> First of all, Tom should be absolved of all blame for the aforementioned
> quote; the buck stops with me.
My apologies. I wasn't keeping close enough track to the thread, obviously.
> I don't think Crick was 'debunking', exactly, more reacting to a tendency by
> some critics to view Orwell's 'biographical' essays as straightforward
> reportage. .
I suppose 'debunking' is a hopelessly subjective term, so I think it's a
case of agreeing to differ.
Part of it is a question of style, and Crick's otherwise very good
autobiography is at its worst in his treatment of "Such, Such" and The
"Shooting Stick" incident. It seemed to illustrate Shelden's critique that
all Crick did was pile on fact after fact in the hope that something
important comes from it. I used the term debunking because, I can't quote
chapter and verse because it's been a couple of years since I re-read Crick,
he just sort of piled on a bunch of interviews with some now much-older
schoolmates and some other records in a way that felt like proving Orwell's
assertions wrong more than making the point which you mention Alan--which in
fairness Crick does say.
> Orwell wrote with purpose; even the most apparently artless
> confessional pieces were crafted to deliver a deliberate political message
> This is not to denigrate GO's non-fiction, simply to place it in its proper
> context and to remind readers that even this 'straight-talking' author was
> capable of improving on reality occasionally to focus his point.
I agree, but I think it's more layered. True, Orwell did say everything
he wrote from the Spanish Civil War onward was written with political
intent, but I don't think, even if he claims differently in "Why I Write"
that desire subsumed his literary and artistic instincts. And I would
agree with Shelden and others that in "improving on" the reality of life at
school in "Such Such", Orwell drew on the gross distortions of childhood
memory for artistic, as much as political effect.
Martha Bridegam
My new friend Michel de Montaigne had something to say about reporting
that might be relevant: that sometimes the best witness is a stupid or
unimaginative one, because such a witness reports only what happened,
whereas witnesses with sophisticated minds (obviously including Orwell)
will tend to alter their accounts subconsciously in order to fit
whatever pattern they wish to impose on events. (Deepti, is that what
they call a "master narrative" these days?)
Also, as I've said before, I think you have to read "Such, Such..." and
"1984" in view of Eileen's psychology degree. GO could have used a bit
of analysis and probably got it from her. When he is discussing
traumatic events dredged up from childhood, he has probably done most of
his adult thinking about them largely in terms of their effect in
creating patterns for his later life.
/MAB
--
http://www.sirius.com/~joma
mailto:jo...@sirius.com
Alan Allport
<36FEC6...@sirius.com>...
> Also, as I've said before, I think you have to read "Such, Such..." and
> "1984" in view of Eileen's psychology degree. GO could have used a bit
> of analysis and probably got it from her. When he is discussing
> traumatic events dredged up from childhood, he has probably done most of
> his adult thinking about them largely in terms of their effect in
> creating patterns for his later life.
This is an intriguing thesis, but you're going to have to buttress it at
some point (perhaps through new material in the Complete Works?) with some
evidence that Mr. and Mrs. Blair discussed the latter's academic background
in any significant depth. What we would need to know most of all, of course
- and would be rather tricky to get at - is Eileen's student syllabi (where
did she take her unfinished MA, London University?) and information on her
own attitudes towards pyschology.
Alan.
Deepti901
>will tend to alter their accounts subconsciously in order to fit
>whatever pattern they wish to impose on events. (Deepti, is that what
>they call a "master narrative" these days?)
Yes. Unfortunaltely there are still a few inflexible French
philosophy-worshipping people who will claim that all narratives reveal
themselves as such if you append sufficient scrutiny and reference to it.
'Don't trust the media' is a really unexciting maxim, because we don't trust
them on principle (or another maxim), we just shrug our shoulders and try to
look attentive.