It’s not actually necessary to put logic aside in order to write for The Guardian. I’ve written for them and I didn’t for example. Yet it does seem to be one of those things that is done, often enough, people using opposite logic dependent upon the subject under discussion. To have different views dependent upon circumstance is just fine of course, it’s having different logic which worries.
But this is what Dawn Foster seems to be doing here with this story about a statue to Margaret Thatcher. Or of St Maggie perhaps:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Creative critics of Thatcher’s legacy have already proposed workarounds: paintball target practice, hammer-throwing competitions, and the simple but trusty ladder. The depth of antipathy to the former prime minister means no matter what is built in her honour, it will draw vandals and dissenters. Knowing in advance that a statue commemorating her is likely to be defaced immediately, it is mystifying to insist on erecting it at all.[/perfectpullquote]A statue of Margaret Thatcher will tempt people into illegal acts. Therefore don’t put up a statue of Margaret Thatcher.
‘K.
Now let us apply the same logic elsewhere. A young woman being scantily clad and leglessly drunk in some back alley at 3 am is more likely to be sexually assaulted than the same woman not leglessly drunk in an alley etc. We might indeed say that leglessness in alleys is a precursor to illegal acts. We should thus be advising young women not to alley at 3 am, no?
That is the same logic. But that’s exactly what we don’t say. For if we do we are condoning the criminal by blaming the victim.
Then again this insistence of mine on not using contradictory logic might be why I’ve not written for The Guardian for years now.
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I suspect that disagreeing with the party line is why you are not asked to write for "The Guardian".
It is occasonally possible to write a piece for The Guardian that does not involve contradicting oneself if one believes in their alternative universe. Just not too often as the range of subjects within which one is self-consistent only occasionally fit in with their daily list of topics to pursue (like not deporting foreign violent criminals).