Being narsty to carnts

[imomus]

I think I was probably the narstiest person in my family, but it wasn't major stuff. I nicknamed my sister "Little White Pig" just in case my mother's affectionate name for her, "Little White Pet", went to her head. It was for her own good, you understand. Apart from that, everyone in my family was gentle and supportive and civilized to each other. We grew up in an atmosphere of mutual support and kindness which only broke down into mildly sarcastic recrimination when my parents divorced.



Where I really learned about narstiness, though, was at boarding school. Between the ages of 9 and 13 I received a full crash-course in it. I was physically and mentally tortured, and I learned the extreme difference between running with an in-group and being an out-group of one. (Clue: It was mainly that you didn't get beaten up daily.) Now, although my ultraviolent public school was particularly British (think Lindsay Anderson's "if..."), I won't argue here that narstiness is an entirely British pursuit. There are massacres, torture, cursings and stonings all over the world. But I do find that a certain kind of low-level narstiness is considered acceptable and even amusing in the UK. Narstiness (rather than outright brutality, let's say) seems inherently British.

I don't just see this in Britain's notoriously narsty tabloids, although I think an unholy alliance between Rupert Murdoch and British class hatred has a lot to answer for. It's all over the blogs and bulletin boards I read, the ones frequented by British people, anyway. You can't read far without being forced to agree or disagree with the proposition that someone is a "carnt". One friend's recent blog entries ("friends only", so I won't link them here) have identified several.

There's the woman who exaggerated the damage to her Collier's Wood home caused by a recent freak tornado. She's a carnt, apparently, because she said, in an article for the Standard, things like "My home has always been my sanctuary, a place of exquisite beauty and calm." I'm not quite sure, but I think Caroline Phillips is supposed to be an acceptable target because she's precious, hysterical and bourgeois. Perhaps also because her house really is nicer than ours, or was before the freak tornado struck. Anyway, she had to close the comments thread on her LiveJournal because so many people were dropping in to call her a carnt.

Next there's Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik, who split from his TV weather presenter girlfriend in order to date one half of East European novelty pop outfit The Cheeky Girls, known in the UK for their saucy seaside postcard pop hit "Touch My Bum". My friend links to the BBC article about this earth-shaking event (and I'm rather surprised the BBC -- still, I think, a public service broadcaster and not a tabloid newspaper -- covered it, unless their agenda is being set by the tabloids) with the terse comment "What a twat". Again, I'm not quite sure what this man's error is. Dating a pretty Romanian novelty singer? Splitting up with a weather presenter to do so? Exchanging a partner close to his own age for a younger one, or a British partner for a foreign one? Whatever it is, the comments thread more or less agreed that Tornado Lady and Cheeky Man have rendered all satire irrelevant.

Things get truly narsty, though, when the news story involves an alleged serial killer. When the police arrested their first suspect in the Suffolk Strangler case this week, the British press made a big deal of the fact that the man was called Tom and had a MySpace page. Despite stern warnings from Suffolk police that the man's name not be released, the Mirror published an article about him on Sunday, and the whole British media then set about discovering everything they could about the Tesco manager, including publishing links to his MySpace page. One of his seven friends was a woman, and this woman's MySpace page quickly filled up with abusive comments. She too was apparently a "carnt" for having friended the suspect. I suppose it's the internet-age equivalent of being stoned in the market square. Anyway, the following day the police found a new suspect.

Personally, I blame Rupert Murdoch for the virulent state of British narstiness, and the large number of carnts per square metre -- sorry, foot -- in the UK. Of course, by pointing the finger at a narsty carnt myself, I'm playing the national sport. But, don't you see, if we all agree that there's just one gigantic narsty carnt in the world, we can all love each other unconditionally. If not forever, at least until Rupert pops his clogs. As those Dutch carnts would put it.

Comments

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

One of his seven friends was a woman, and this woman's MySpace page quickly filled up with abusive comments. She too was apparently a "carnt" for having friended the suspect. I suppose it's the internet-age equivalent of being stoned in the market square.

This reminds me strongly of the plot to the Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, in which an everyday woman is publically reviled for unknowingly hooking up with someone who had committed some act of terrorism earlier that day.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not quite sure why you're so obsessed with Rupert Murdoch and why he should be any worse than your Conrad Blacks, Richard Desmonds or any other media mogul. In fact, unlike them, there's a rather interesting side to Murdoch. Apparently he's something of a culture vulture. I know someone who works on the Murdoch-owned Times Literary Supplement, and he tells me Murdoch will phone up to discuss an article that's been published, or to suggest one. He's also recently set up a sort of Australian version of the TLS, the Australian Literary Review (almost certainly loss-making).

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

I wonder if anyone will accuse you of being essentialist here?

I agree, though. It's a strange mix of moral aggression and something else. I'm not quite sure what the something else is, though. The family I grew up in (my family) are not particularly British (teetotal, no football-supporting etc.) and when I eventually began to make friends and see them socially, it took me a long time to adjust to the fact that banter basically consisted in insulting each other and calling each other, well, carnts. I did get used to it, though, more or less.

As for Rupert Murdoch, well, you know what he is.

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

The saga of Lembit Opik's rock-star love-life cheers me up every time I read about it. I love the idea of this geeky chap with a cockeyed chirpy grin getting all these glamour-pusses, for various reasons of personality that probably won't suffer being discussed in depth.

So far I've only been able to find it consistently heartwarming. I didn't realise that scuttlebutt on Tw@ Your Say was that he's a carnt. I can't say that knowledge has stopped me wanting to go for a drink with him.

(The only bum note in the whole affair is the Popbitch rumour about Sian Lloyd. If you've heard it, you'll know what I mean.)

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard that one, but the Opik one is pretty astonishing, and I had it confirmed to me by a friend of a friend who's a LibDem councillor. Was a LibDem councillor.

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

1. Caroline Phillips received two kinds of rollocking. The first, which was entirely deserved, is because her smug, badly written account of her house being hit by a tornado is full of irrelevant references to her friends' occupations and the exquisite detailing of her home. She didn't even exaggerate the damage! She's just a "lifestyle" journalist thrust unwittingly into the middle of a news story. It's a hilarious read. There was no viciousness intended, but the thing had to be spread around, and the LiveJournal in question was created (not by me, or indeed her) because the article failed to appear online; the comments thread was closed because of the SECOND kind of rollicking she received, which was deep-seated in class war and made for deeply uncomfortable reading.

2. Opik was an idiot long before the Cheeky Girls incident; his shenanigans have been referenced on Popbitch, and I just think he's an unsavoury character. He's always sought out maximum publicity for himself - always an irritating trait in an MP - and is confused enough to be, uh, delighted and surprised at the attention focused on him as a result of having a 2-week relationship with one half of a novelty act. Co-incidentally, in last week's Private Eye, there's a feature about the Cheeky Girls which talks about how they've broken the terms of their immigration agreement by failing to provide proper financial information to the Home Office; the internal HO memo says: "It is likely that the Cheeky Girls may themselves involve the tabloid press to draw attention to their situation and obtain some free publicity."

1 & 2: both fairly good reasons to have a pop at someone. I wouldn't call either of them c#nts, though, as I'm sure you know.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Are you saying we should blame PopBitch instead of Rupert Murdoch for this "open season" mentality? Or do you think it's something inherently British? Or, indeed, human?

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

I agree completely with rhodri on Caroline Phillips. Anyone who uses being hit by a tornado to namedrop friends and brag about her interior design is going to get less sympathy from me. Are you suggesting we go back to being a (one) nation of cap-doffing proles who know our place and don't dare to criticise lower middle class airheads because their floating shelves are American Walnut rather than veneered chipboard?

Maybe the Japanese need to be a bit more 'narsty' - businessmen who pay for sex with 12 year olds are, at the end of the day, 'carnts'.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

Low-level narstiness is one of the things I love about Britain. Alright, my knowledge of US newspapers/music press is pretty limited, but they're so *reverent*.

And there is never anything wrong with slagging off poor journalism.

[hulegu.livejournal.com]

There is, I think, a wonderful irreverence in British life which should never be confused with 'narstiness'. 'Irreverance' means satire, which Britain has produced in wonderful abundance; 'narstiness' means tripe like tabloid journalism and 'Big Brother' which essentially trivialise and cr*p on everyday people. I'm all for irreverence which pricks the pomposity of authority figures and vapid attention-seeking celebrities, but 'narstiness' which ceaselessly persecutes the less well-off or slightly 'different' members of our society? no thanks.

[insomnia.livejournal.com]

Although my mother was British, and I lived in Britain for awhile in my childhood, the thing I least understand about the British isn't their nasty streak, but their Conservative Party streak.

You'd think one dose of Thatcherism would be enough for any country's memory, and that a repudiation of failed "New Labour" would lead to a desire to supporting either a less centrist Labour government, or the LibDems, but no, everyone apparently luurves David Cameron (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/polls/story/0,,1975783,00.html), and the LibDems, who were essentially right about all the big national issues for most of this decade, are slipping again.

I think what it comes down to is that my England was pretty idyllic anyway, tucked away in the Cotswolds, and I didn't have to deal with the development of "carnt culture"... which is, no doubt, directly tied to the success of the Conservatives.

The media behind "carnt culture" thrives on tapping into the perceptions of victimization by its audience -- primarily by well-off white males -- in a way that's always angry and generally a bit racist, albeit in a socially acceptable manner. The goal isn't to provoke a mob to anger, as in soccer hooliganism, but, rather, to provoke a mob to quiet, socially acceptable intolerance and repression, and a gradual erosion of civil liberties. "Carnt culture" proudly promotes patriotic intolerance for other British who are suspect / carnts.

Carnt culture dictates that all British be angry and intolerant about something and someone, all the time. The audience for carnt culture cannot be sated by societal changes that you would think might placate them, because there's always another outrage to complain about that pushes the cultural war that much further towards previously inconceivable levels of socially acceptable repression.

Media pushing carnt culture in Britain works reliably and achieves its objectives in Britain, just like it works wonderfully in the U.S., under the auspices of Fox News. And, surprisingly, it seem to work reliably over a long period of time, because it fills a basic need for a lot of people.

Ultimately, politicians are forced to show obedience to carnt culture, or else they won't get elected, so whether you back Labour or the Conservatives, you can be sure you're supporting someone who will tolerate an ever expanding culture of carntishness.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I didn't have to deal with the development of "carnt culture"... which is, no doubt, directly tied to the success of the Conservatives.

Yes, and the Thatcherite culture of vilification of immigrants, "naming and shaming" and the "short sharp shock" continues under Blair, even if stuff like Section 28 doesn't. It continues because it taps into a public mood very like the one picked up in the US by American Environics (http://imomus.livejournal.com/169070.html) marketers:

"Environics found social values moving away from the authority end of the scale, with its emphasis on responsibility, duty, and tradition, to a more atomized, rage-filled outlook that values consumption, sexual permissiveness, and xenophobia. The trend was toward values in the individuality quadrant."

[(Anonymous)]

To paraphrase something I've just read, America is the "Can do" country, Britain the "Carnt do" and Australia the "Won't do".

[imomus.livejournal.com]

If only Rupert Murdoch were an Australian citizen!

[(Anonymous)]

It's hopeless to blame Murdoch because if you take him down, another one replaces him. Same with any commonly vilified politician. He's not the problem, but a symptom of modernism in general.

I blame it on Protestantism, which killed the authority of the church. Once people stopped focusing on God, and no longer looked up to the clergy as an example of austerity, they started focusing on self-aggrandizing. I'm a non-believer, myself, mind you--but that's my obeservation.

-henryperri

Austerity and churches pre-reformation?

[(Anonymous)]

Does. Not. Compute.

Reformation religions (Lutheranism, Calvinism) were all about the austerity.

WRT to carntishness of Britain today I'd call it "envy culture". Media outlets use flourishes like the value of a miscreant's home or similar to capitalise on same. In fact willing to wager that Ipswich murder person, whoever he may be, will have his home and car and whatever describes in fiscal terms, as happens with anyone deemed to be 'undeserving' or somewhere on the evil scale whether relevant to the topic or not. In fact the snidiness of such descriptions usually come from people whose assets far outstrip those they criticise.

Rupert Murdoch is hated with good reason by those who would seek some form of employment protection in being part of a union, by those who think as a US citizen he has no right calling the odds on British politics ("Rupert says you can't be PM and you MUST take face time with Les Hinton to attempt changing this"), and by those who think the tabloids he owns are cynical, LCD manifestations of prole control (likely as not written by the middle classes, who despise their readers) as predicted in Brave New World. Gamma Daily, anyone?

"being the bigger man" is dead

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

To satirize and poke fun is one thing, but I've never understood this vicious "take em down" mentality. To lash out or gang up on someone in such a juvenile way is small, ugly and pathetic, and is just and immediate cause for not associating with someone. It's akin to admitting you have no other faculties at your disposal.

The legacy of the old British class system seems to brutalize from above and below. But you know, people have a choice not to be brutal in turn. Takes strength to doff one's hat in the face of such abuse, to refuse to add to the ugliness in the world. That's why Quentin Crisp was a better man than your grandpa.

Re: "being the bigger man" is dead

[(Anonymous)]

You know, I think the root of this problem lies in childhood. What I hated about schooling in the northeast of the US was the accepted levels of bullying/hazing that went on in elementary and middle schools. It was usually shrugged off by teachers and parents as "boys being boys". Several British friends have concurred that this occurs in the UK as well. I know that when I was moved to the South and entered school there, I noticed that fights and hazing were taken much more seriously, with parents generally getting involved from the beginning and meeting with the other child's parents to reach some sort of resolution.

Today, 15 years later, I can say with some degree of generalization that my schoolmates from Queens are quite brash and willing to put down or brutalize someone at the drop of a dime, while my schoolmates from the South have become the diplomatic, friction-resistant sort that their parents were.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Wow, and here they talk about the "Swedish jealousy". Momus, do you think that this, uh, "behaviour" is based on jealousy?

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

if we all agree that there's just one gigantic narsty carnt in the world, we can all love each other unconditionally

reminds me of grayson perry's thoughts on his
“Print for a Politician” (http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1743692,00.html)

Given that we all come from a not particularly "narsty" "carnt" in the first place, it shouldnt take much to get us back on track once we true our wheels.

When did "carnt" take wings and fly as a meme?
With this entry?
I prefer to see it as a mispronunciation of cannot depending on the position of ones mouth and tongue.

[snosage.livejournal.com]

Tabloid gossip certainly seems to be on the rise in this age of social networking media, but the offset is that perhaps there is now so much gossip fodder available that everyone will, to use the maxim, only be a carnt for fifteen minutes?

I can hope and do expect that this woman who 'friended' the still-only-a-suspect Tom on a website will not be remembered only as 'Tom's friend' in the eyes of others forever. The use of the word 'friend' on networking sites carries a certain weight to it that's always felt a bit uneasy to me.

It's certainly amusing to see how the world might contemplate the absurd banality of Hong Kong Phooey being his apparent 'hero' and attempt to explain this as a cryptic clue to the murder case.

I'm curious and somewhat concerned over what will happen as our future politicans, thinkers and celebrities emerge into the public gaze after having left years of conversations freely available for over-analyzation and vitrolic scrutiny by anyone and anybody across the media spectrum.

Nice post, I really liked this one.

[trini-naenae.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yeah, boarding school is an overall shitty experience. Granted I had the overall being avoided and ignored for most of the time with a touch of mockery from time to time. But that's a more female experience, and I experienced that in high school.

I had one experience where there was going to be a trip that everyone was going on, and I asked practically everyone what to expect, and what to pack, and they never gave me any proper answer. And then when I packed to expect anything, they looked at all my excess luggage and laughed at me.

That was the one thing that really frustrated me with British/European culture. It was always so underhanded, behind your back, I can't believe you didn't just instantaeously know this information kind of treatment.

Americans do it too, but not as often, and with less practice. And Whimsy is right, Southerners really do have being nice to each other down pat. Well, as long as you're the same race, mostly. It's gotten a little better, but obviously, no where near to enough.

[(Anonymous)]

Your triumvirate example of narsty 'tabloid' reportage could- with a little tweak- dovetail nicely into an episode of 'The Day Today'.
It is however disturbing that all three stories brought the mob out to hoot at the burning witch.

[(Anonymous)]

Especially in the case of the latter, the media need hate figures with such immediacy that the old 'innocent until...' maxim is cast aside.
Thomas Scott.

interesting post on an insidious and elusive subject

[peacelovgranola.livejournal.com]

another topic i couldn't help thinking about while reading the post and all of the discussion (and i believe was never mentioned) was the issue of bullying in japan. i've thought a lot about bullying and violence for a while now, but i'm still trying to figure out the origins and dynamics of it in japan, in particular. are there any thoughts on japanese violence or bullying back in the archives of click opera somewhere that i could read?

Carnt say, won't say

[(Anonymous)]

A wise old journalist once told me that there are two kinds of newspaper in Fleet Street: those where your boss, when annoyed with you, will call you a carnt, and those in which he never will. The distinction holds surprisingly true, from what I can tell. The red top tabloids and the Daily Mail are carnt papers, as is the Daily Mail; the Guardian Independent and Times are not. Interestingly, the C-word had never been heard in the Daily Telegraph since its foundation - but just in the last few months that has become a carnt paper.

RLP

PIG

[(Anonymous)]

Is the pig you're posing with the one that lives in Spitalfields City Farm??

懐かしい... x

Re: PIG

[imomus.livejournal.com]

No, that's one of our local pigs at the children's farm in Gorlitzer Park in Berlin.

[eustaceplimsoll.livejournal.com]

aw i dunno, i know loadsa noice british people, and americans. i din even read much of the artcile, put it's patently tosh

Caroline Phillips

[introspectre.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite sure, but I think Caroline Phillips is supposed to be an acceptable target because she's precious, hysterical and bourgeois. Perhaps also because her house really is nicer than ours, or was before the freak tornado struck.

No, I think rather the difference with Caroline Phillips is that she's a part of a cloistered metropolitan elite that can't see further beyond the collective end of their own nose. That's the point, for me. I couldn't help but chuckle when I read the article because, I suspect, like most right-wing commentators that she's lived a cosseted life in which she's always got what she wants and has never been seriously challenged, either personally or professionally. Consider David Cameron's blithe assumption that "we've all got mortgages" for further proof that the mainstream media is either unaware, or simply doesn't care, how the majority of us live. I'm unlikely ever to own my home, let alone worry about the free-floating American walnut shelf.

It's curious to note that those who seek to defend Rupert Murdoch cannot stress enough how benign he actually is and how little influence he wields. All of which is odd, when one considers how politicians fall over themselves to win his favour at election time. Whenever his henchman Trevor Kavanagh appears on the BBC, even the big-hitters like Andrew Neil seem afraid. So much of the debating from public-house blow-hards in this country smells less of Stella Artois than of Zyklon B, and I suspect the tabloid media have a lot to explain.

[georgesdelatour.livejournal.com]

Hmm. It appears the Japanese think the French (or at least the Parisians) are Carnts...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6197921.stm

[imomus.livejournal.com]

But for the Japanese - used to a more polite and helpful society in which voices are rarely raised in anger

I cannot believe the obnoxious essentialism of those BBC writers! Why, a Japanese person raised her voice in anger to me as recently as 1979. Another such incident occurred in 1987.

MySpace

[(Anonymous)]

just to note: recently deceased Turkmenistan strongman Turkenbashi also had a MySpace page
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=55893634
unsure whether he was a carnt...