There is the classic science fiction plot involving time travel, and what would happen if professor XYZ doesn’t get to the conference on time, and thus not give that important lecture about the Gizomotron that will inspire our hero to save the world.
This is not that story. This is just a post about an unpleasant guy who likes tits. It doesn’t really matter an iota to anybody that Toby Young has resigned from his future position on a new education panel. It certainly doesn’t matter to Mr Young, who can now continue his admiration of breasts in relative peace. It is unclear whether it might matter to education in the future. The Office for Students has claimed for itself some high moral standards, which is lovely — but one should note they don’t actually exist yet. No one will come from the future to change these fairly silly events.
Indeed, this has been explained away as another battle in the continuous ‘culture war’. But that American term is now ringing a bit hollow. Britain’s largest current cultural crises is quite novel, and not truly a continuation of anything. And there are, after all, perfectly real wars happening right now due to differences in what would otherwise be seen as culture. More to the point, real people die and are killed for the things that they have said. Or even might have said. Mr Young’s views, such as they are, do not appear to inspire people to do anything other than stop reading the Spectator.
This leaves one interesting question. What is the connection between who you are, and what you say?
Because Toby Young has the accepted position of ‘controversialist’, it was always considered that his offensive articles and tweets were part of his role in life. I don’t really want to waste space repeating Mr Young’s wide oeuvre of offence — it is documented to excess elsewhere. He reflects the very British recognition of the joker, the boy who shouts that the King is naked etc. But in fairy tales, the joker usually doesn’t end up with government preferment.
The new model seems to be that being successfully offensive is in itself meritorious. In the past, even the most sharp tongued critic still needed to have a real job beyond entertainment. People still remember what Brian Sewell said about art he didn’t much like, but his real value to everyone else was to put what new art he saw into perspective.
One of the interesting things noted about Mr Young was that he couldn’t put his errors down to youthful indiscretion, because he made many in his forties. This was the first attempt, as far as I could ascertain, to suggest that Mr Young must actually believe the things he said. The converse being that to be given a formal position by government surely implies you say what you believe.
But why would you consider putting someone in a serious position who has shown no inclination to take himself seriously?
“I am a passionate supporter of inclusion and helping the most disadvantaged, as I hope my track record of setting up and supporting new schools demonstrates.”
He definitely was the figurehead associated with opening new schools close to where I live. It is this lived experience that led the education department to consider him. And as was often stated, he would not have been directly in charge of anything. And boards usually have a wide variety of people on them.
But the largest portion of his adult life has been given over to making the privileged feel better about themselves by belittling everyone else. His values may well have changed as he has ‘matured’, but the people he offended on the way may still care. And these people or their children may not want him making decisions about their education.
It is quite likely that ulterior reasons prompted the politician to give Mr Young the position he has now resigned from. But whatever they were, the underlying problem was that Joe Johnson, the education minister, still felt that the preferment was a cogent and acceptable thing.
Is it the case that because much of his rudeness was on Twitter, it doesn’t ‘count’ so much? I remember the very controversial TV show “Brass Eye” was heavily censored for talking loosely about “Paedogeddon”. Oddly, in more or less the same week a less talked about cartoon show (“South Park”) featured a child showing off all his new adult ‘friends’ he had made because he joined something called NAMBLA. At the time, it was felt that a cartoon show didn’t have the same effect as real people pretending. Maybe in the same way, offensive tweets are seen as a level less ‘real’ than printed offence. More cartoonish.
I certainly have nothing against insulting people. But that is (in my mind) in the service of improving things. The last few years have undoubtedly proved that a strong anti-intellectualism is taking a prominent place in society. I think what has happened to Mr Young is a twist on that. His career has amplified his baser side, and an attempt was made to capitalise on this. His recent change of attention has not been a change of heart, or a religious conversion, or a sentence commuted by a parole board.
While we still need language to successfully record ideas, we have no option but to define adults by what they say as well as what they do. Where they say it matters little if it was said in public. When they say it is only important for a forensic time line. Otherwise we have no means of predicting what people might do next, or even the reasons behind their current actions. It is OK to fear that someone who lies all the time may be unreliable. Or that someone who spends their time talking about something is also thinking about it.
