And Another Thing
Posted on February 22, 2007
Filed Under What's New, For Argument's Sake |
I got myself tied up in a debate over at Sarah Carey’s blog a few days back. Subject: should Gillian McKeith be allowed to sell snake oil. McKeith has a mix of legitimate and hooey ideas about how to be healthy through diet and supplements and she’s been under sustained attack from Guardian writer Ben Goldacre, a doctor, for some time.
My argument is she’s no worse than your average Cornflake manufacturer or those Special Ks which make claims that should be held up to scrutiny by journalists. It is all too easy for the Guardian to attack individuals. They did it with Jeffrey Archer and the Aitkin man, two politicians who were later convicted of perjury and whom the Guardian refers to as “disgraced”.
To understand the Guardian I think you need to understand the British class system. The Guardian is run by people from the public schools, the extremely well heeled, and I suspect they regard yer Archers, McKeiths etc as interlopers and either a challenge to their own role to set the tone of English public life or just as people who don’t know how to hold the fork. That’s my amateur observation anyway. I’ve long been disturbed by the way some English people see others arriving as outsiders. I’ve experienced it and it is unpleasant.
I take the view if someone has served a sentence then in most cases they are no longer disgraced. They’ve paid a price and have moved into a different status: something like, forgiven. It is unseemly to continue heaping shame on people. Thank Gawd for Ireland’s more forgiving attitudes.
Likewise I believe it is unseemly for Goldacre to go in pursuit of McKeith. Write the article, have your say, move on. Move on maybe to bigger fry and harder targets, the ones who advertise in your supplements (oops).
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