May 24, 2010
Summer Break
It’s going to be a bit quiet around here for at least the next three weeks. For the next week there might be a few odd posts, but I’m busy and a bit out of ideas. After that I’m in France for two weeks, when there should probably be no posts at all.
Normal service to resume sometime in June. Enjoy the sunshine.
April 15, 2010
Disappointed Googlers
Just looking at the search terms people have used to find this blog.
“www.cambodianporn.com”
No, really. It’s on the second page of Google hits.
And I can’t repeat some of the search terms that have led members of Teh Internet Communitie to this post. They must be so disappointed when they get there. Unless biting analytic commentary about prevailing social attitudes is what really, really floats their boats.
You never know. This is the internet, after all.
April 12, 2010
Blogged Out
Apologies for lack of updates.
I’ve just got nothing to say.
In particular the election is, frankly, tedious. It’s politics at its most fake, and little else of interest gets a look in. I’m also pretty tired, and am currently bashing my head into a Leviathan-shaped wall.
I know that Phil at A Very Public Sociologist is blogged out too – but Left Outside seems to be posting more regularly than ever.
So rather than writing a post, I thought I’d have a straw poll: who feels more motivated to think and write about politics now that the election campaign is on, and who less?
Personally, I can’t wait for it to be over.
April 7, 2010
PSA
This month Bad Conscience is now officially listed as the 99th most popular politics blog in the UK and Ireland. It’s certainly nice to break into the top 100 – though the fact I’m ranked only one place above a now retired (due to amusing minor political scandal) blog written by a man who can only be described as a reactionary idiot expressing idiotic reactionary views, dampens celebrations somewhat.
I think this breakthrough was largely due to an unprecedented number of incoming links in March, as well as a higher-than-normal number of Liberal Conspiracy cross-posts. Which may well have had something to do with Dan Paskins being in charge. However I do think my writing was actually of a higher quality last month (more interesting things to write in short blogs about than usual) and so it might have been the same even if Sunny had been around.
Anyway, a big thanks to everyone who has linked (especially Giles, Chris Dillow, Though Cowards Flinch and Left Outside, who are my biggest sources of link-juice). But also a big thanks to reader and commenters, who make the site worth writing. I had a 50% increase in readership last month, pulling in just shy of 9,000 hits. Not bad for one over-intellectualising loser holed-up in a dank East London bedsit.
Today, the blogosphere. Tomorrow, a self-important column of jaded and rightwing bile in Standpoint magazine and drunken run-ins with Peter Hitchens, no doubt. I mean, if it’s good enough for Nick Cohen…
March 24, 2010
Priceless
I should probably write something highfalutin’ about the budget.
But I’m exhausted. Listen to this instead.
March 14, 2010
Slightly Worrying
Not to distract too much attention away from the mammoth essay below, but I was googling my name (to find out what stupid shit I’ve left out there and what horrible things people are saying about me)* and I found a website which claims to host pictures of me. Unfortunately, only one picture is actually of me. The rest are of some awesome Dirt Bike Dude. Oh, and, erm, Nick Griffin.
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*Reminds me of the Thick of It:
Terri: When everyone went out of the office he just Googled his name.
Malcolm: Yeah, that’s always fun. Although I find it quicker just to poke needles in my eyes.
March 3, 2010
Elsewhere
Neil and the mysterious Left Outside have established a potentially great new blog: Heaven is Whenever.
The idea is for political bloggers to write about music, whilst leaving the party cards at the door. I’m already hooked. My old post about Billy Bragg is up there now. In due course expect enlightened discourses, including “On Springsteen” and discussions of the class messages in Arctic Monkeys songs, and the morality of listening to the Rolling Stones if you’re on the left.
Sorry there’s been nothing more substantive today. I was hoping to have a piece up at The Guardian, but it hasn’t quite worked out. Maybe tomorrow.
October 16, 2009
Truth in Politics
In an elliptical sort of way, this blog periodically touches on the question of truth in politics. Well it’s my birthday today, and i’m going away so won’t be blogging for a few days. Given those two things, I thought it would be fitting for me to let everyone in on a little secret i’ve been keeping under my hat. For as it turns out, the question of truth in politics – nay, in Civilization – has long been settled. Here is French “Utopian Socialist” Charles Fourier on the hieroglyph of truth: the Giraffe…
“I shall not say much about the peacock here, since this hieroglyph is difficult to interpret without knowing the laws of Social Movement. Let us turn instead to a figure which is easier to understand, that of truth and its effects in Civilisation. Let us examine whether God has faithfully depicted the sad fate of truth in our social state.
The hieroglyph of truth in the animal kingdom is the giraffe. Since the characteristic of truth is to surmount error, the animal that represents it must be able to raise his head higher than all the others: this the giraffe can do, as it browses on branches 18 feet above the ground. It is, in the words of one ancient author, a most fine animal, gentle and agreeable to the eye. Truth is also most fine, but as it is incapable of harmonising with our customs, its hieroglyph, the giraffe, must be incapable of helping humans in their work; thus God has reduced it to insignificance by giving it an irregular gait which shakes up and damages any burden it might be called upon to bear.
As a result we prefer to leave it to inaction, just as nobody will employ a truthful man, whose character runs counter to all accepted customs and desires. Truth is only beautiful in our society when it is inactive, and the giraffe, by analogy, is only admirable when it is at rest: when it walks or runs it provokes jeers, as truth provokes jeers when it takes a practical form. If a man were to go to a party in high society and speak out openly and truthfully about the escapades of the fine ladies there, or about the shady dealings of the businessmen or other men in the salon, there would be an outburst of indignation, and all present would agree in remaining silent about it and reviling the speaker. Matters are much worse in politics, where truth has even less play: thus, to represent the way truth is repressed, God has cut the giraffe’s horns down to their roots, so that they are no more than sprouts, permanently unable to branch up into antlers; God’s chisel has cut them off at their base, in the same way as, in our society, the chisel of authority and public opinion has cut down truth to its mere emergence, forbidding it to develop further. Yet even the most deceitful among us still want to seem truthful, and although we are enemies of truth, we want to deck ourselves out in its dress: by analogy, the only thing we want from the giraffe is its dress, its skin, which is extremely beautiful; so when we catch one we treat it rather as we treat truth. We say to it, Poor beast, you are good for nothing but to remain in the desert, far form the society of man; we may admire you for a little while, but in the end we must kill you and keep only your skin, just as we stifle truth and keep only its outward appearance.
From this explanation we can see that God has created nothing without a purpose, even the giraffe which is supremely useless, but as God was obliged to represent all aspects of our passions, he had to use this animal to depict the complete uselessness of truth in Civilisation. If you wish to know what purposes truth will serve in societies other than Civilisation, study this problem in the counter-giraffe, which we call the reindeer, an animal which provides us with every service imaginable: you will see that God has excluded it from these social climates, from which truth will also be excluded for as long as Civilisation lasts.
And when the societary order has enabled us to become adept at the use of truth and the virtues which are excluded from our lives at present, a new creation will provide us, in the anti-giraffe, with a great and magnificent servant whose qualities will far surpass the good qualities of the reindeer, which so excites our envy and arouses our anger at nature for having deprived us of it.”
- Theory of the Four Movements
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Normal service to resume whenever it does.
October 3, 2009
Change of Plan
Anyone visiting last night will have seen a post about the thought of Thomas Hobbes.
I’ve decided that such posts don’t really belong on the main page, as they are too nerdy and esoteric for this blog’s main function. Accordingly, anyone who wants to read that stuff can now find it in a new section entitled “Nerd Posts“, which is pretty much what it says on the tin. More “nerd posts” will be added if and when I write them.
I don’t really think anybody will be interested in these entries, but I need a place to put my more abstract reflections and at least with having them online, there’s always the chance of critical engagement and constructive criticism.
September 17, 2009
1 BC
Today is Bad Conscience’s first birthday.
The blog has come a long way. From nothing 1 year ago, Bad Conscience is now listed on Wikio as the 201st most read politics blog in the UK. That’s pretty good, I reckon.
But it’s also a bit superflous.
I’m more please with the way this blog has served as a useful focal point for debate and discussion. There have been some lows over the past year – a slightly ill-considered attack on the Tory party and resulting tirades of hate stands out – but mostly it’s been highs of debate and discussion.
Over the past year, this blog (and blogging generally) has forced me to sharpen-up and consider my thoughts and positions across a whole host of theoretical and practical issues, as well as to mature in the way I view and treat other people’s positions. That simply wouldn’t have been possible without the contributions of readers – both regular and passers-by – over the past year.
So thank you.
To mark today’s special occasion, I’m going to do something I’ve not done over the past year: a round-up of other blogs I want to recommend. The following is based very much on what I’ve been reading over the past few months, and represents in my opinion the best of the left:
Liberal Conspiracy, despite an increase in deliberately disruptive rightists and morons over the summer months, remains the best place for constructive left-wing debate and intelligent insight on the web.
Though Cowards Flinch is moving steadily higher in my estimations, with a series of collaborations leading to really high-quality output. The comments threads are also excellent centres of informed debate.
Stumbling and Mumbling is a massive and well-read blog, and remains a great resource for both original articles and also links to some of the best pieces on the web.
Giles Wilkes at the CentreForum FreeThink blog has some of the best economics blogging in the UK at the moment, in terms of clarity and willingness to engage (often on other blogs too) with opponents and lay readers.
Next Left still has some of the best original articles on offer, dealing with the more conceptual side of UK politics.
Left Outside is always worth a read for passionate, and frequently irreverent, analysis and comment.
Consider Phlebas is recommended for anyone with a theoretical inclination on matters political.
Tax Research UK and the Tax Justice Blog remain the essential resources for offshore finance, tax haven and secrecy jurisdiction issues.
Penny Red is a must for feminist, gender and wider leftist issues.
Interns Anonymous are still doing good, important, work.
Right, that’s your lot.
Happy Birthday BC.
