Blogs: Yeay, Sneer Quotes: Boo
Published April 15, 2003
Alan Jacobs' essay on war reportage has the twin virtues of acknowledging the vital role in war coverage of blogs (Command Post, Glenn Reynolds, Andrew Sullivan), and of shining a spotlight on the passive aggressive journalistic habit of using "scare" or "sneer" quotes:
- reading Fisk's account, I noticed something else, which may be evident in the quotations below:
The Americans "liberated" Baghdad yesterday. . . .
Forgetting, too, that the "liberators" were a new and alien and all-powerful occupying force with neither culture nor language nor race nor religion to unite them with Iraq. . .
But tanks come in two forms: the dangerous, deadly kind and the "liberating" kind. . . .
Nor did the Americans look happy "liberators." . . .
Of course, the Americans knew they would get a good press by "liberating" the foreign journalists at the Palestine Hotel. . . .
President Bush will come here and there will be new "friends" of America to open a new relationship with the world, new economic fortunes for those who "liberated" them.
All this (and more!) in an article of less than 2,000 words. I don't know--is it just me, or do you think maybe Fisk doubts that what has happened in Baghdad is really and truly liberation?
Reflecting on this attack of punctuational Tourette's Syndrome, I started looking back through recent magazines and websites, and I discovered that among opponents of the war use of scare quotes (or "sneer quotes," as they are sometimes and with equal justice called) has become epidemic. What could be the cause of such an outbreak?
....It would be interesting to discover what would happen to some of these writers if they were denied the use of this device. I'm afraid Fisk could be reduced to spit-flecked stammers (as, so often, is Krusty) when I look at another April 7 piece in which he writes of the "coalition forces," of "embedded" journalists, of the "securing" of the city of Basra, even of "war in Iraq"--each phrase senselessly scare-quoted. ("This is an invasion, not a mere war," he insists, making a claim I cannot for the life of me see the point of. All I know is that if he had heard George W. Bush call it an invasion Fisk would roundly proclaim "This is a war, not a mere invasion.") Our intrepid reporters might have to start actually thinking about the events they describe, instead of merely reacting against anything said by Bush or Blair or CENTCOM. And surely such thinking is a task well within the capacity of "journalists" given, by some of the world's leading newspapers and magazines, the job of "reporting" on this war. [Weekly Standard]
- Blogs: Yeay, Sneer Quotes: Boo
- Published: April 15, 2003
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- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Internet, Culture: Media
- Writer: Eric Olsen
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Brian, your research and examples of pro-war sneer quotes is perfectly appropriate balance and criticism of the critique. Defending Fisk by allowing that 2003 is somehow not a "liberation" in any remotely meaningful use of the word is preposterous. Is a single Iraqi who is not a Baathist or dead NOT going to be better off in the new Iraq?
And re 1917, ultimately the British were "liberators" - it isn't their fault the Arabs couldn't handle self-government for camel shit.
Eric,
Defending Fisk by allowing that 2003 is somehow not a "liberation" in any remotely meaningful use of the word is preposterous.
I agree. Who said this?
Use of ironic quotes (a technique, I would point out, that is used by writers everywhere on the political spectrum--an obvious fact that renders Jacobs' criticism worthy of ridicule; what serious person would make the implicit claim he does?) doesn't necessarily mean the writer claims that the word in quotes is totally inappropriate. For example, "collateral damage." Putting that word in quotes doesn't mean the writer disagrees that the damage in question is both "collateral" and "damage." The use of ironic quotes is a critique of euphemism. Or in the case of "liberation," it is a critique of the incomplete nature of that phrase.
To offer just one critique: If these Iraqis weren't sitting on top of our oil, no serious person disputes that we wouldn't be "liberating" them, which means "liberation" is a tad incomplete as a description of what we're doing.
If, instead of "liberation," we said we are "securing access to oil," that would similarly not be "untrue." But I imagine you would consider it incomplete. And conveniently so.
And re 1917, ultimately the British were "liberators" - it isn't their fault the Arabs couldn't handle self-government for camel shit.
Do you think they are capable of it now? If so, what has changed? If not, why do you support the war?
Jacobs' point is that there has been a disproportionate usage of sneer quotes INSTEAD OF CONCRETE SOLUTIONS offered by many anti-war writers, who seem to want to deny ANY positive ramification of the war via this manner of writing. He didn't say no one else uses sneer quotes. I think he is correct in this regard.
Re self-rule: when people have had an unbroken record of autocratic rule, you can't just toss them in the water and expect them to swim. The West eased into democracy over hundreds of years and saw itself as the inheritor of the Greek tradition.
Any people are capable of democratic self-rule if they are eased into it with a program that keeps a keen eye out for the almost universal potholes along the way: that is our responsibility now and I call it liberation sans punctuation.
Eric,
The West eased into democracy over hundreds of years and saw itself as the inheritor of the Greek tradition.
Have you just given the U.S. permission to occupy Iraq for "hundreds of years"?
Jacobs' point is that there has been a disproportionate usage of sneer quotes INSTEAD OF CONCRETE SOLUTIONS offered by many anti-war writers...
A bit of a stretch, Eric. That may be YOUR point, but I just re-read Jacobs' work, and while I don't doubt he'd agree with you, and maybe an imaginative person could "read" it into the "subtext," that is not the point of his writing.
Excerpt:
- Fisk, for those who have not made his acquaintance, is the famously anti-American correspondent for the Independent of London. The substance of his writing is easy enough to indicate: imagine someone taking simultaneous dictation from Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf and Noam Chomsky. The tone--and tone is what makes Fisk Fisk--is perhaps a trifle more elusive of description, but viewers of "The Simpsons" will perhaps understand when I say that Fisk is the Krusty the Clown of journalism.
Jacobs is obviously a fan of Fallacy #1 (abusive ad hominem), which is very popular when the preacher turns around and preaches to the choir (i.e., Daily Standard). More to the point, Jacobs is obviously setting up an attack on Fisk himself (and that he would have to pre-ridicule Fisk without any evidence is, oh, I would say a hint of how aware he is that directly presenting Fisk's work isn't going to do it).
Is his critique based on Fisk's lack of CONCRETE SOLUTIONS?
Kind of. SOLUTIONS isn't the right word, though. INTERPRETATIONS, however, is. Jacobs criticizes this kind of writing--"sneering"--for being lazy, for not using the word that should be used instead of the sneered-upon word. For example, "occupation." Which is hilarious--Jacobs actually suggests that the anti-war left would not like to see a discussion of the word "occupation" with regard to the, er, liberation of Iraq.
- "Is it occupation? But if so, we would need to have a conversation about the purposes of occupation, some of which can be better than others. This is all too complicated; it's so much simpler to wheel out the trusty old inverted commas."
Actually, it's simpler to robotically use the word "liberation" over and over and over and steadfastly AVOID any discussion of the word "occupation." A word, which, by the way, Fisk has used.
More Jacobs:
- But it is surely a curious understanding of reporting that allows the journalist merely, and just typographically, to cast doubt on the claims of others, without offering any reasons for that doubt or any alternatives to those claims.
Huh? Has Jacobs read Fisk? He almost talks about nothing BUT alternative explanations/reasons for this war. His entire body of work stands in defiance of this ridiculous statement. "Without offering reasons for that doubt"?
Do you take this seriously?
Jacobs' premise that the use of "sneer" quotes indicates a lack of substance in the anti-war arguments can't stand up even to minimal scrutiny. In fact, all the premise does is give him an excuse to quote tiny bits of Fisk and others so as to avoid dealing with the substance that IS there, which he seems to fear.
His argument against Fisk--"this guy's stuff is so ridiculous I don't even need to engage it, I'll just have some fun pointing out how stupid his style is"--is empty when anyone uses it, pro-war or anti-war. And, yes, anti-war people do it, too, often to avoid the hard questions the other side's arguments pose. It's still a dodge, no matter who does it. And worthless abusive ad hominems tend to accompany it.
Presenting "sneer" quotes as an example of the emptiness of the other side's arguments barely qualifies to be called "hilariously unsound reasoning."
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/4625)
Hmm...it seems Jacobs did extensive "research" into the use of "sneer" quotes by Fisk, and then does some research on the writing of "opponents of the war" and finds that the use of sneer quotes is "epidemic."
But wouldn't it be "fair" to look at the writing of pro-warriors, too? Wouldn't that be "balanced." In fact, doesn't it seem "obvious" that a writer would need to do this before drawing a "conclusion" about the anti-war camp?
I "wonder" why Jacobs didn't do that. Or maybe he did. In that case, why does he "neglect" to tell us the results of that research?
It took me twenty seconds to find Andrew Sullivan using a sneer quote on the front page of his site:
THE COMING SPIN: By Sunday, or sooner, you-know-who will probably have a front-page "news analysis" that will describe the joy of liberation being transformed into the nightmare of a Hobbesian quicksand of ever-looming cliches. Speaking of whom ...
Another minute for the latest Bill O'Reilly column:
Pinhead Professors: The reputations of fine colleges such as Columbia and Princeton have been tarnished by the insane rantings of some radical professors. Even some students are getting fed up with so-called "teachers" advocating the deaths of American troops. Would you pay $30,000 a year to hear a professor applaud Mogadishu?
One more minute: today's first listed commentary in Washington Times by Peter Collins:
The next day, I was CNN's reporter on a trip organized by the Ministry of Information to the northern city of Mosul. "Minders" from the ministry accompanied two busloads of news people to an open, plowed field outside Mosul. The purpose was to show us that American warplanes were bombing "innocent Iraqi farmers."
But I'm "sure" the use of "sneer" quotes is "strictly" a habit of the anti-war left. It's a "reasonable" conclusion to draw, and not at all a "red herring" being used by writers who are "desperate" to point the finger at anyone who might "point out" that the conquest of Baghdad has been called a "liberation" before:
"People of Baghdad, remember for 26 generations you have suffered under strange tyrants who have ever endeavoured to set one Arab house against another in order that they might profit by your dissensions. This policy is abhorrent to Great Britain and her Allies for there can be neither peace nor prosperity where there is enmity or misgovernment. Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators."
Far better to "notice" that the technique of "sneer" quotes renders Fisk's argument not worth "considering." After all, how could the "liberation" of Baghdad in 2003 be anything like the "liberation" of Baghdad in 1917? That's just "silly."