I see the Zero Craic Brigade was out in force again last weekend. Do they ever give themselves a day off, I wonder? The target of their indignation on this occasion was ‘The Late Late Show’ special tribute to Shane MacGowan. It was a public health hazard, according to these self-elected hall monitors who seek to uphold order in Irish public life.
They got worked up by the mock pub set, created specially to celebrate The Pogues frontman’s work and life — which, like it or not, found its creative expression through pubs and drink. Craic alert! Stamp that out! The whole country will go off the rails if they see a pint and a barstool. And poor Shane himself — as a «struggling alcoholic» — should have blinkers on every time he passes a pub. How condescending.Log In
New to Independent.ie? Create an account
It’s the same mentality as the «down with this sort of thing» protesters from ‘Father Ted’ — but the hilarious part is these grievance-seekers think they’re ‘liberal’. They’re so busy out-virtue-signalling each other that they don’t realise they’ve come full circle and are now on the side of Mary Whitehouse. After finding something to tut-tut about on Twitter, they’ll couch it in compassionate language, using words like «problematic» and «questionable» and «troubling».
They don’t see themselves as censors, because — they hand-wringingly insist — it’s for our own good. But censorship has always been carried out under the flag of being ‘for the safety of society’.
Who gets to decide what people need protection from? When does safetyism cross over into control?
Do we want to be a mollycoddled state, looking to authorities to act in loco parentis?It’s also massively patronising — you’ve a superiority complex if you think grown adults are so fragile they’re in need of your protection. Let them handle situations themselves. It’s naive and neurotic to believe people can be saved from all possible risks.
We can’t become so in thrall to the culture of safetyism that we make personal responsibility a dirty word. Maintaining an internal locus of control is freeing and empowering; it means citizens have agency — can take ownership when things go wrong and learn from it, as well as take credit for achievements they’ve worked for.
Not one alcoholic I know had a problem with ‘The Late Late Show’. Nobody with alcoholism in their family was upset by it. Because they understand it. Those professing «concern» hadn’t a clue.
Alcoholism is a complex disease, and shutting down all references to pubs or wiping out all memory of drink on telly is not going to make a bit of difference to whether an alcoholic goes back on the booze or not. If only it were that simple.
Of course, in the era of victimhood, it’s important to stand up for those you’ve decided are victims of something — whether they are or not — if you can’t be a victim of it yourself.
So the Zero Craic Brigade frequently takes offence on behalf of other people who themselves are not offended.
Shane MacGowan is a regular target — because his sex ‘n’ drink and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle appals these former convent school prefect types, who are horrified by liberty and libertines. A puritanism lurks behind the overt concern.
They tried to get a mob rolling to take down his Christmas classic ‘Fairytale of New York’, by trying to say his use of the word «faggot» in the narrative was insulting. Again, it’s a stance that patronisingly assumes grown adults don’t understand fictional storylines and need to be protected from bad words.
Amid the outrage, no one noticed that gay people themselves weren’t bothered about it. Functioning adults across all walks of society don’t tend to be so silly and sensitive that they want a song banned or bleeped.
And why should they take it personally, anyway? It’s arguably bad-minded to even see it as an offence to the gay community, in the context of the song’s story. As Shane said on ‘The Late Late Show’: «I’ve been told it’s insulting to gays. I don’t know how that works.»
It’s interesting how MacGowan remains controversial, now getting under the skin of the modern-day Pharisees. An uncontrollable, real, raw genius, he does not need shielding from life itself, or to have his own history sanitised, by any of us.
He is as free to never touch a drop again or drink his head off, as we all are. Strangers on social media deciding for him that his «life was ruined by drink» is massively presumptuous. He’ll be 62 on Christmas Day and he’s doing better than most chronic drinkers his age — many are dead. We know it’s not a glamorous life path.
The Zero Craic Brigade are censors, in a new, repackaged form. It’s an authoritarian movement that is ahistorical, anti-intellectual, anti-culture and anti-freedom.
People are sick to the back teeth of them.
True liberals will always choose to live in a free society and be deemed able to handle the risks involved, rather than a police state where it is decided for us what we need protection from.
Свежие комментарии