Saturday, December 09, 2006
Bluff!
I always thought that Melvyn Bragg bluffs his way through "In our Time" and isn't quite the polymath he tries to seem to be. This week there was a programme on something I know about and my suspicions were confirmed. It was still a good programme on Anarchism with nice contributions from Peter Marshall and Ruth Kinna. There was nothing about the Individualists though, a sad omission from Anarchist history that I am trying to correct at the moment.
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4 comments:
I think you are being unfair about the Lord Barg. He is a vain and frequently pompous man, but he usually comes across as an interested layman on "IOT", quizzing the experts in order to satisfy his curiosities. You also have to remember that the show is driven by the research specialisms of whatever experts appear on it, and therefore its claims to be "An Idiot's Guide To...." are often compromised.
Perhaps I am, anonymous, but he does sometimes question the guests with a tone that suggests superior knowledge, even if it is of his research assistants. It is still a good programme.
Nice to see a comment on here that isn't offering me viagra! Thanks.
Were there any active anarchists interviewed on the programme or was it just a talking heads type programme?
I seem to remember that Donald Rooum's Wildcat cartoon used to do a decent piss take of academic anarchism.
Talking heads Darren, but the focus was very much on the history of Classical Anarchism. Ruth Kinna is an academic and Peter Marshall and independent and sympathetic historical writer.
I come at it too as an historian, but I won't apologise for it as I think that there is much to be learnt from the past. I will follow up your comments in a new post once I have escaped for Christmas.
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