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LEFT CAN’T WRITE

Theodore Dalrymple:

Marxist writers were not famed for their clarity or elegance of exposition. Indeed, clarity was rather looked down upon by them ...

Chris Sheil:

The contingency of the moment may matter. Between the conception and the act falls the shadow of the public response.

UPDATE. Urbs notes: “The wanker is paraphrasing T. S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men.” Seemingly so; and dreadfully.

Posted by Tim B. on 05/05/2007 at 03:59 AM
  1. The contingency of the moment may matter. Between the conception and the act falls the shadow of the public response.

    Translation: He was caught wanking in a public toilet. Received a 12 month good behaviour bond and George Michael’s phone number.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 05 05 at 04:08 AM • permalink

  2. The density of the prose is directly proportional to the contempt of the writer for the reader - discuss.

    Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2007 05 05 at 04:14 AM • permalink

  3. There is no rightiness, or wronginess. There is, however, truthiness. We will tell you when our innaccuracies and warped argument bespeak truthiness. Death to those who rat on the Movement!

    Posted by blogstrop on 2007 05 05 at 04:20 AM • permalink

  4. So, Chris crawls out from Rudd’s buttock crevice every once in a while eh? Too bad ‘his boy’ is going down.

    Posted by Nic on 2007 05 05 at 04:23 AM • permalink

  5. Good Lord. Reminds me of some equally obtuse and waffly High Court judgments I had to wade through in law school…

    Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2007 05 05 at 04:24 AM • permalink

  6. By the way, when Sheil is acting as a commentator, giving an overview of the current political situation, shouldn’t he be disclosing his affiliations so the reader can best judge the veracity of the comments made?

    The link is worth reading alone to see C.L take up the good fight once again.

    Posted by Nic on 2007 05 05 at 04:30 AM • permalink

  7. What a cretanous twit. I’ve got 50 that says he’ll be in therapy by mid November after another impending ALP implosion.

    Posted by CB on 2007 05 05 at 05:01 AM • permalink

  8. I’ve read spam e-mails that make more sense than half the lefty twaddle.

    Posted by Dminor on 2007 05 05 at 05:02 AM • permalink

  9. But once the shadow of the public response falls, should he use just the one square of paper?

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 05 05 at 05:10 AM • permalink

  10. #9, Margos Maid,

    I had a pithy retort all set in my mind until I read your comment.  Blew it away.

    Beautiful.

    Posted by saltydog on 2007 05 05 at 05:53 AM • permalink

  11. You can almost freely rearrange these words without making the sentence any less coherent:

    “The conception of the act may matter.  Between the contingency and the public shadow falls the moment of the response.”

    Posted by TimShell on 2007 05 05 at 05:58 AM • permalink

  12. The contrast between the Dalrymple and Sheil articles?  Chalk and cheese doesn’t seem descriptive enough.

    Posted by LaoHuLi on 2007 05 05 at 06:30 AM • permalink

  13. There’s the conception, which is the light; and the act and/or public response, which is the thing illuminated.  In between is the shadow, or umbrella.  I don’t see what’s not clear.

    Posted by rhhardin on 2007 05 05 at 06:30 AM • permalink

  14. “The public shadow of the act may matter.  Between the response and the contingency falls the conception of the moment.”

    Good Lord, you’re right, Mr Shell.

    Now which smarta….lec is going to write a PERL script to deliver an HTML page with a random Shielism.

    Posted by Zoe Brain on 2007 05 05 at 06:34 AM • permalink

  15. Right wing, candy-snatchin’ warpigs just wanna stomp the gas, drop the clutch and leave a smokin’ trail of wheel ruts across the pages of history.

    Nuance. Yeah, that’s it. We just aint got no nuance.

    Posted by splice on 2007 05 05 at 07:12 AM • permalink

  16. Panty Shield and his hand-moisturising working class heroes at Club Troppo really should try to share their wages more fairly with the proletariat they have so eagerly enshrined. The day I see Panty Shield hand over some of the money he earns for doing around four hours of actual work per day, I’ll believe that he cares for anyone other himself. I’d recommend a day with this wanker for anyone who believes his wankery; a first class prick to behold!

    Posted by Hanyu on 2007 05 05 at 07:25 AM • permalink

  17. “Between the conception and the act falls the shadow of the public response.”

    The wanker is paraphrasing T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”:

    Between the conception
    And the creation
    Between the emotion
    And the response
    Falls the Shadow

    So, not only is he a twit: he a plagarist as well. But “The Hollow Men” sums up Sheil and his ilk well.

    Posted by Urbs in Horto on 2007 05 05 at 07:25 AM • permalink

  18. Ouch! Awesome sleuthing, Urbs.

    Posted by splice on 2007 05 05 at 07:35 AM • permalink

  19. Cue the multifloreate roses!

    Posted by blogstrop on 2007 05 05 at 07:42 AM • permalink

  20. Found the full quote:
    The eyes are not here
    There are no eyes here
    In this valley of dying stars
    In this hollow valley
    This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms


    In this last of meeting places
    We grope together
    And avoid speech
    Gathered on this beach of the tumid river


    Sightless, unless
    The eyes reappear
    As the perpetual star
    Multifoliate rose
    Of death’s twilight kingdom
    The hope only
    Of empty men.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2007 05 05 at 07:48 AM • permalink

  21. Oh, well done, Urbs!  Hoisted him on his own petard real good. 

    The brain of a deconstructed Marxist writer is a terribly wasteful thing.

    Posted by saltydog on 2007 05 05 at 07:52 AM • permalink

  22. T.S. Eliot desribing Hollywood?

    Posted by blogstrop on 2007 05 05 at 07:53 AM • permalink

  23. Between the brain and the page falls the shadow of the redundant ideology

    Posted by JonathanH on 2007 05 05 at 08:01 AM • permalink

  24. Beautifully done, Urbs (#17). Caught him with his hand in the bikky jar.

    Sheil pinches some T.S. Eliot quote, tarts it up with a couple of meaningless words, and thinks himself an intellectual giant dazzling all and sundry with his erudition.

    What a pillock.

    Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 05 05 at 08:19 AM • permalink

  25. “Indeed, clarity was rather looked down upon by them…”

    That’s actually a weak sentence: Passive voice, etc. From Dalrymple better is expected.

    But yeah, at least it means something in English.

    Posted by Don't Bogart that Midget, Comrade! on 2007 05 05 at 08:52 AM • permalink

  26. It’s a definitive Prufrock moment for Chris Sheil… take the shame!

    Ugh. The creep will probably see it as a flattering probe into the influences behind his rock star-status as a deep and insightful intellectual.

    Posted by splice on 2007 05 05 at 09:09 AM • permalink

  27. Okay, Theordore Dalrymple and Christopher Hitchens I could understand.  But Theodore Dalrymple and Chris Shiel in the same post?  Fie!

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 05 05 at 09:19 AM • permalink

  28. Well done Urbs, not that a purloiner like Maxi Sheil will be embarrassed in the slightest.

    Posted by Nic on 2007 05 05 at 09:50 AM • permalink

  29. The wanker is paraphrasing T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”

    Chris, here’s a writing tip. When you make a literary allusion, the sentence still has to make sense to the reader who doesn’t ‘get it.’
    That’s the difference between a master and a hack.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2007 05 05 at 10:02 AM • permalink

  30. #2. Bravissima!

    The number of syllables in portentous pomposities is rivalled only by the number of molecules in a dust-mite’s mouth.

    Disinfect, then discuss.

    Posted by carpefraise on 2007 05 05 at 10:03 AM • permalink

  31. I think that the left can’t write because the left has nothing of substance to say.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 05 05 at 10:51 AM • permalink

  32. Leave those condoms in the sock drawer.  Mr Sheil believes opinion polls can prevent conceptions.

    Posted by Inurbanus on 2007 05 05 at 11:04 AM • permalink

  33. #14 Zoe

    Now which smarta….lec is going to write a PERL script to deliver an HTML page with a random Shielism.

    Could be these guys. My first thought upon reading Sheil’s leaden drivel was that he’d cribbed it from the Chomskybot.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 05 05 at 11:10 AM • permalink

  34. Oh crap!

    I can’t write. Does that mean I’m a leftist? I don’t feel particularly leftie but I am left handed, sorta.

    OMG!! Could it be?!? Am I really a dirty commie bastard?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2007 05 05 at 11:33 AM • permalink

  35. Great catch, Urbs! Right about now, I bet Sheil wishes that he were a pair of ragged claws, scuttling along the floors of silent seas.

    Posted by paco on 2007 05 05 at 11:52 AM • permalink

  36. #35 yeah, poor guy. He has to watch the Right reveal the thousand sordid images of which his soul is constituted.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2007 05 05 at 01:55 PM • permalink

  37. daddy dave, Chris Sheil has well and truly his nickname “Cretan”, many times over.  The amazing thing is that he still sees himself as some sort of intellectual.

    Talk about denialism!

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 05 05 at 02:22 PM • permalink

  38. “The contingency of the moment may matter. Between the conception and the act falls the shadow of the public response.”

    Do what?

    The words look like they should be English, but….

    Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2007 05 05 at 02:32 PM • permalink

  39. Sheil and Leunig and that bunch always make me think of Brando in The Wild One:

    Mildred: What’re you rebelling against, Johnny?
    Johnny: Whaddya got?

    They can’t be ‘happy’ unless they’re carping about others.  They remind me of a former sister-in-law.  For her to be happy it wasn’t enough that she be ‘happy’ but that others around her had to be unhappy.

    Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 05 05 at 02:59 PM • permalink

  40. “The contingency of the moment may matter. Between the conception and the act falls the shadow of the public response.”

    I may have this decifered…

    The contingency of the moment may matter.

    Ok, This is about the battlefront of the GWoT in Iraq. This is also about how much everyone hates GW Bush in particular and nasty Americans in general. That’s the contingency of the moment, usually nowadays.

    Between the conception and the act ...

    This is about the DNC finally dropping the pretense and going all out and vocal in their treason and their demand that the US capitulate to the enemy, sounded good on paper, and in their echo chambers, but once they got to the actual podium…

    ...falls the shadow of the public response.

    They noticed the angry stares, murmurs of discontent and hands reaching for flaying knives all over the general public area.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2007 05 05 at 03:02 PM • permalink

  41. #35 and 36.

    Those are the two most profound sentences in the english language to my mind.

    Eliot is the only poet I can read over, and over, and over.

    He even rates a recitation in Project X of all things. (The beginning of
    Prufrock.)

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 05 05 at 07:27 PM • permalink

  42. I think that the left can’t write because the left has nothing of substance to say.

    Actually, they do by the one iron rule of all “progressives:” He who shouts first and loudest is truest…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 05 05 at 10:58 PM • permalink

  43. yeah, I like Eliot too. Studied him in high school. “Preludes” was one of my favorites. That line that I butchered is actually from a verse about a prostitute:

    You tossed a blanket from the bed.
    You lay upon your back, and waited;
    You dozed, and watched the night revealing
    The thousand sordid images
    Of which your soul was constituted;
    They flickered against the ceiling.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2007 05 05 at 10:59 PM • permalink

  44. #43 I considered quoting that here, and decided not to. I’m glad you did, though. I love Preludes more than Prufrock.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 05 06 at 12:58 AM • permalink

  45. Came late to this one, but I couldn’t agree more. 

    Theodore Dalrymple is one of the best English writers today.  He is realist and so much in touch with what’s happening, probably because of his background as a doctor dealing with the offspring of the mean streets of the UK and of its social policies for the past three decades. Christopher Hitchens is another wonderful writer.

    Odd that they both lean to the right.  In Hitchens’ case, a convert from the left.

    Posted by ann j on 2007 05 06 at 04:17 AM • permalink

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