Farewell Guardian

 I've read the Guardian newspaper since I went to university in 1994. I've followed and read the newspaper loyally since then, through their weird phases and their eternal quest for... something. I don't really know, because, on the one hand, they come across as very "woke", while on the other they're so bourgeois it hurts. Currently, it feels as if they are very busy chasing fashions, not setting them and it's been frustrating to see.  Basically, it's a weird paper, at once progressive on a large number of fronts but regressive on others. For example, it styles itself as feminist but happily refers to men as betas if they don't fit the largely imaginary status of being "an alpha". I don't know who that helps, as it seems to shame men who don't fit into the patriarchy... at the same time as the paper attacks the patriarchy. "Don't be a sexist arsehole... but at the same time if you're not an alpha male, you're not a man at all!" In addition, it appears that making jokes about men being cucks is acceptable, while on the other the paper appears to strive to condemn extra-marital relationships. 

It makes for an uneasy balance and often offers very little in the way of synthesis - you know that idea that you have a thesis, countered by an antithesis and then a synthesis arises where ideas come together into a whole? Yeah, the Grauniad doesn't do that at all. Instead, they seem content to sit and rabbit on about their latest obsessions in the form of TV shows (White Lotus, Succession) which has also been vexing because honestly, it feels like they've shoehorned them into everything recently! Honestly, there was a column on parenting recently and it felt like the commentator had been told to make sure that there was a Succession reference just so the paper could link to articles about the show. It's sickening. 

One thing I loathe is that the paper seems to delight in white liberal guilt. If there's a cause that they can beat themselves, and other Westerners up over, it's like gold to them, and while I'm more than willing to admit that there are areas, both historically and in the present, where the UK has dropped the ball (and in some cases that was a cannonball). However, I think there's something perverse about the pleasure the Guardian seems to take in assuming the burden of white guilt instead of being willing to apportion blame to the people who are actually responsible. The other thing and this is where being a follower of fashion makes itself felt, is that where history is concerned, they're caught up in the American cultural hegemony we've witnessed over the recent Netflix Cleopatra "documentary". For example, a few months ago, they discovered that their founder had been involved in the slave trade, and set about "examining" their links to the Transatlantic trade. However, there was no mention of the practices their founder used at his Manchester factories, the child labour that was commonly used in the Victorian cotton mills, nor of the fact that mill workers were often paid in their employers' own scrip which meant they could only purchase items from the employers' shops. They were unable to save in order to better themselves or to look to move to another employer who might be offering more advantageous circumstances. How is that not a form of slavery? 

There's also been no mention of the death toll of the Irish in the Empire or how they were treated - of the indentured servants that were transported from Ireland and Scotland to labour in the fields. While I concede that their circumstances were better than the West Africans who were sold into a lifetime of chattel slavery I feel it is intellectually dishonest to maintain slavery was an issue only affecting the latter group: indentured servitude was only slavery wearing a slightly better hat. 

We must of course expect the past to be less humane towards the poor, and we must expect historical people to have different standards to today. However, unless we start to frame the discussion around this as the rich and powerful exploiting the poor and weak and seeking out common ground across the groups who have traditionally been penalised, we will make no progress. 

For a newspaper that claims that facts are sacred, it seems bizarre that they don't consider the holistic picture. Certainly, where History is concerned, they seem to be only interested in facts that fit their pre-existing narrative. 

Back to the Guardian. These issues had been making me unhappy for a few months - and that's before we consider the commenters "below the line". Yes, I went there... foolish, foolish me. Today I read something about the way British writers are concerned about the implications of AI on their jobs, and the lack of concern and the rampant, blinkered, classism that was evident took me aback. Not to mention the number of people who appear to hate television no matter what's on... which confuses me. I mean, I don't like television very much, but I also don't torture myself by trying to watch it. Why not watch something you do like, read a book, or build a model train set? Fuck, just sell your telly and buy lots of Lego. At least you'll be doing something that's not entirely passive. 

I realised that these weren't people I wanted to be associated with and that the paper's values and my own have diverged. Perhaps I've grown more rightwing... I don't think I have, I'm just tired of a paper peddling a narrative that seems purely designed to promote guilt.  

So, I guess I'm giving up on UK newspapers and news sites and defaulting to Associated Press and Reuters... Beyond that, I'm going to start reading newspapers from elsewhere in the world.