Re: Kevin Myers
I don't mind being offended. Getting offended from time to time is reasonably healthy. It forces us to defend positions that we may have become complacent about, and often while we disagree with how a point is made, we discover in arguing about it that we agree with the point being made.
I do mind being treated like an idiot.
If Mr Myers expected to be able to use the word Bastard, and Mother of Bastard repeatedly and gratuitously in his column and then hide behind the excuse that he was simply using "Proper English" then that's treating the public like idiots.
It reminds me of Deputy De Rossa apologising to the dail in Irish so that noone would understand what he said.
If I were to talk over and over about Mr Myers being Gay. And mention that I'd seen him socialising with lots of other Gay People, and that I'd seen him going into a Bar usually frequented by Gay people. And if I published this in the Irish Times. I doubt that Mr Myers would accept my excuse that of course I meant he and his friends were Happy, Jovial etc, and I was using Gay in it's original context.
He's not a stupid man, his goal was to cause controversy, I suspect sales of the Irish Times were higher than usual today for the apology. I didn't buy it, but I'm sure many did.
I happen to agree that some of our Social welfare structures mitigate against two parent families living together, and others mitigate against getting off the dole and into work.
But I don't have to set out to hurt people to make my point.
I have a large enough vocabulary that I don't have to keep using words that have long since had their meaning overridden with more offensive common use.
Clearly Mr Myers education didn't serve him as well as my Vocational School days served me. Perhaps someone should sent him some dictionary toilet paper. Or perhaps they could just send him some copies of the Irish Times.
This reflects badly on Kevin Myers, but it reflects far more badly on the Irish Times. I would stoutly defend their right to publish this column. But I also stoutly defend our right to have far less respect for the paper as a result.
I haven't read the apololgy because the Irish times saw fit to hide it behind the need to register on their website or buy their rag. Neither of which I have any motivation to do today.
Particularly given that the apology will do nothing to restore the esteem that I once held the paper in.
Incidently Dictionary.com contains 6 definitions of Bastard, 4 of which are offensive if directed at a person, particularly a child.
1. A child born out of wedlock.
2. Something that is of irregular, inferior, or dubious origin.
3. A person, especially one who is held to be mean or disagreeable.
adj.
4. Born of unwed parents; illegitimate.
5. Not genuine; spurious: a bastard style of architecture.
6. Resembling a known kind or species but not truly such.
I think the above makes Mr Myers a Bastard Journalist does it not?
-Rd