I really wish Martin Amis would just shut the fuck up. But no, he continues to spew crap. Sample these gems:
And he has always loved this multiracialism, he says. "At that time, I had a Pakistani girlfriend, I had an Iranian girlfriend, I had a South African girlfriend, all of whom were Muslim. It's interesting. The Iranian one – this is 1969 – was into mini skirts and discos because she was not an inhabitant of an Islamic republic but of a decadent monarchy 10 years before the revolution. The Pakistani girl was just beginning to kind of Westernise. You would – I don't know – just look at her and just feel eons between you."
"I know it's a great tradition of the British left to support Palestine, but when you come up against this question, you can feel the intelligence and balance leaving the hall with a shriek, and people getting into this endocrinal state about Israel. I just don't understand it. The Jews have a much, much worse history than the Palestinians, and in living memory. But there's just no impulse of sympathy for that... I know we're supposed to be grown up about it and not fling around accusations of anti-Semitism, but I don't see any other explanation. It's a secularised anti-Semitism. Do you want another drink yet?"
What a fucktard.
And this from Dalrymple's review of Amis' new book The Second Plane -
Amis is at least aware of his weaknesses: “Geopolitics may not be my natural subject,” he writes in the introduction, “but masculinity is.” This is the basis for the most crass of all the arguments made in this book: that bombs are going off because Muslims are not getting enough sex.
God.
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20 comments:
He's getting paid around 3000 pounds per hour for teaching a creative writing course at the University of Manchester. I am sure that will buy him a whole lot of loving.
What amuses me about writers like him and Naipaul and Rushdie and the rest who decry the (admittedly) negative aspects of Islam like the subjugation of women is how badly they themselves have treated the women in their lives. They treat them as objects, as chattel - not much different from the arch conservative Islamists they so despise.
I am speechless. Look at this:
'"but his thesis is that when you allow women to choose [through contraception and abortion], you will face demographic disaster, because they won't choose to have the necessary amount of children. The reason that America is the only First World country with a non-declining birth rate is because of all those things we hate about it, you know – [it's] patriarchal, church-going. I'm going to take this up because I think it's such an enormous question – has feminism cost us Europe?"'
Yes you are speechless, how could that be? Yes you are angry and you attempt to attack the stance and defend the opposite view, this may be because a raw nerve of reality has been exposed. The things we most fear and deny in our deeper selves are those things that we most despise in others, the things we get most defensive( and aggressive) about. The truth is generally too painful to face head on and Western Liberalism (with its mind in liberal idealism for all mode) is now at risk of its own annihalation because it usually takes the conciliatory moderate road in defence, the path of least resistance and daring not to challenge or fully acknowledge the actual threat that is now within instead innocently assimilates and defends its own enemy ,facilitates and potentiates its own self destruction.People like Martin Amis speak for what our collective unconscious senses and fears but dares not face, he feels the threat to our way of life and reacts openly in real questioning defence.It is so painful because it questions the very limits of what is permissible in our liberal society. This is the ultimate modern day taboo, it is not racism it is a cry to realise that we really are at risk of loosing the most treasured of freedoms our way of life. Our free way of life that itself actually permits multiculturalism in the first place is genuinely threatened by a very different mind set. This mind set is playing by ancient and long term game tactics which disguised over several generations would certainly put a stop to conversations like this.Unfortunatley what we are witnesing is cultural competition within multiculturalism. So just what are you defending (and what are you denying)in yourself and what points are you missing by reacting to Martin Amis in this way?
Vive multiculturalism - as long it's simply about me sampling from a sexual smorgasbord!
So wait a minute - the Palestinian question is simply a matter of what religion you choose to sympathize with? I'm sure the Palestinian Christians would be very happy to hear that.
Oh man.
The point is not that there aren't issues in the world, and the assimilation and confluence of cultures and religions is throwing up a lot of problems. There are, undoubtedly, and there aren't any easy answers.
It's that the man doesn't address them at all in a sensible, practical manner. Rhetoric does not a valid argument make.
He has a book to sell. Any publicity is good publicity. Simple.
Still in Delhi?
Skasster: Ya, I was stunned to read how much he’s getting paid… I agree about Rushdie and Naipaul. Actually, Naipaul irritates me no end – I think its unfortunate I read his non fiction first because it killed any appetite for his fiction I might have had.
??!: I usually ignore… which is why I haven’t written about what an ass he is before – and there have been ample opportunities. But sometimes I just need to vent!
space bar: I know. It’s just mind boggling. Actually I skipped portions when he talks about that racist author he supports. So nauseating. And it’s so irritating that all these profiles make him out to be some tortured soul. Call a spade a spade and a bigot a bigot.
anon: Martin Amis does NOT speak for any unconscious sense or fear of mine. The argument you drag out is such a tired old one. No one denies the horrible crimes being committed in the name of the religion (and these deserve to be criticized severely) but to take such a narrow, generalized, un-nuanced and bigoted view of an entire community doesn’t help anyone. Views like Amis’s do not tell us anything insightful or useful. It’s easy isn’t it to make an entire community look like a bunch of fanatics, without realizing that there are so many people within these communities who are fighting for change and improvement, who want more freedom, not less. How easy to deny their struggles! So, to protect ‘our’ free way of life we deny it to others? And in the process become hypocrites and kill the very freedoms we claim to be defending.
T_M: Yep, what would happen to sexually exotic adventures if we didn’t have multiculturalism! Your comment also made me realize how easily most people have forgotten that one of the most vocal voices demanding justice for Palestine was Edward Said – a Palestinian Christian. Were he around now, I bet he’d have totally bitch slapped Amis.
km: True. Doesn’t make him any less of an ass though.
ts: Unfortunately not :( Shall let you know when I’m there next…
just a premature onset of senility IMO. Just like his dad who went crazy too. Terry Eagleton has taken both of them to task... I don't think anyone takes him that seriously anymore.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/10/namis110.xml
I think he's turning into his dad too. Followed eagletons criticism of him too... I think they were supposed to have debated a while back but Eagleton couldn't make it last minute...wasted opportunity that was
*sorely* tempted to quote you back a comment you'd left for me once. regarding *that* word.
:-D
:D I'm surprised you didn't throw that in my face earlier!
i'm not that kind of girl.
Oh, I see. Glad that's been cleared up.. :P
He's such a terrific writer. And such a.... deeply damaged person, to put it politely (only because no one very rude word seems adequate). There are passages from his novels that will linger in my mind forever. Unfortunately they are passages that mostly leave a very unpleasant taste. His recent forays into political polemic and university teaching are much to be regretted. On the other hand, at least he puts his name to his views, unlike your anonymous commenter.
I think everyone has theories about where the world is going and why. The trouble with people like Martin Amis is that they are obsessed with their own theories and 'insight', and never revise/revisit them. There is a perceptible and understandable anger/frustration against fundamentalism in all people who want a free life. But to counter one fundamentalism with another!
Jean: Hi and welcome :) Well, yes, at least with people like him there is some ownership of their (mad) ideas. Though with any sort of extremist polemic its hard to say how much is being said just because of the shock value. It definitely grabs more news space thats for sure.
Madhuri: True. Though quite honestly Amis has changed his position so much and so often its very hard to take him seriously.
how i like fucktard! and it's applicability to amis (as well as your sexists up the page)
i'd further suggest, on the grounds of its popular use here, the term
fuckwit
which can then be extended to amis when he's exhibits
fuckwittedness
or is guilty of
fuckwittery
truly, the man is a tool.i am so glad to find a fellow sympathiser!
it's!
see, only a mention of amis and my ability otpunctuate goesout the window. i do apologise!
Swiss: Hi! Hah...yes we do agree! Fuckwittedness and fuckwittery are both good terms :P
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