Andvari - 01.01.1990, Page 139

andvari
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137
PAPERBACKS
KOWTOWI by Wllllam Shawcross
(Chatto Counter Blasts, E2.99).
DIRTY WATER, by Judith Cook
(Unwin, £4.99).
MANUFACTURING CONSENT:
THE POUTICAL ECONOMY OF
THE MASS MEDIA. by Edward.S.
Herman and Noam Chomsky
(Pantheon New York, $14.95).
HOW TO SHIT IN THE WOODS:
AN ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND
APPROACH TO A LOST ART, by
Kathleen Meyer (Ten Speed
Press, UK dlstributor: Alrlift Book
Company, £4.95).
TWO psychiatrists are in a lift.
One is relaxed, the other
disheveUed. The dishevelled one
says: “How can you look so com-
fortable, after all the grief our
patients give us?” And the first one
answers, surprised: “Who listens?”
Polemicists do not like this joke.
Wlliam Shawcross says clearly,
with simple words in only 57 pages
of fairly large print, why Britain
should take Hong Kong refugees
after the Chinese takeover if need-
ed. It would be good for the Hong
Kong citizens, and it would be
inconsistent for Thatcher not to do
this, since she has said, for the
Falklands, that a people Bhould be
able to choose their own govern-
ment, and we shouldn’t give in to
dictatorships.
Although I’m persuaded,
Thatcher’s govemment is probably
not going to listen; nor will most
Britons. Where is it written that
Thatcher has to be consistent? She
used big general terms about the
Falklands, but all she reaUy
meant was: Argies aren’t going to
mess white Britons about.
The problem is one that most
pamphleteers face. They want to
appeal to people's better nature,
but to do that they can’t point out
what shmucks most of us are, most
of the time. The complacent citizen
looks up and sees a distant jet’s
contrails, whooshing along in im-
pressive white streams. He might
even say: “My, how crisp and
impressive is Shawcross’s argu-
ment up there.” But it’s not
touching what that citizen really
feels, and so is unhkely to change
him. None of this means
Shawcross should stop — the cause
is too important — but it can make
for a frustrating life.
Judith Cook should have had an
easier job in her pamphlet against
By David Bodanis
water privatisation, for it’s British
people themselves, in the near
future, who will sufTer. What they
already owned wiU be taken from
them, and they will pay higher
biUs to feed cash to shareholders
who’ve done nothing. Once again
Uús is wrong. _cleariv_ po; “It is a
scam’ on such a scale it takes the
breath away.”
But why must I worry about
those future citizens, today’s citi-
zen-slob might reason, even if they
are likely to include me? Th'e me of
1989 exists and can gain money
from the shares. The me of 1999
doesn’t yet exist. I would feel bad if
I knew for certain that someone
was going to cosh me with a lead
pipe on January 15 of that year. I
might even give money to The
Campaign for Heavier Helmets
today. But otherwise, without this
exact knowledge, that future me is
just someone vague, no more worth
acting for . . . than the poor Hong
Kong Chinese today.
The question is one of how to
extend human empathy. Televi-
sion is excellent for this, and
Chomsky for long has had that
great domain in which to show
how govemments and the big
businesses Unked to most televi-
sion powers are very, very careful
to be sure that few views are
presented which violate the cur-
rently useful consensus. Working
with Edward Herman, a business
school professor, he’s especially
good on showing how the compan-
ies create acceptable experts when
ordinary ones — simple academics
who’ve spent lifetimes studying
some area — can’t be trusted not to
point out inconvenient facts.
The best solution is for a pam-
phleteer to show people how much
fun it is to do good. Working with
what might appear an impossible
topic, Kathleen Meyer shows what
a master can achieve. First she
disarms us: “Several seasons of
guiding city folks down white
water rivers both sharpened my
squatting skills and assured me I
wasn’t alone in the klutz depart-
ment.”
Then she shows how much fun
the proper outdoor technique is for
her — “The ideal occasion for
communing with nature . . . is
while you’re peacefully sitting
still.” There are even special joys
for women: the pride in leaming a
guaranteed way to keep the boots