Sunday, April 10, 2005

Facsimile

There was a program on TV the other night about male escorts. One of the escorts interviewed was asked what he thought his clients got out of the whole transaction. He replied with a rather brilliant image. He said that what his clients wanted was a 'facsimile of intimacy', a facsimile so thin and ephemeral that it could be torn up and forgotten right away.

The journalist’s ‘lack of convictions’, the prostitution of his experiences and beliefs is comprehensible only as the apogee of capitalist reification. (Lukacs)

Apostate Windbag, who has been positing some interesting stuff, asks of the journalist Johann Hari:

'How does someone like him get an £80,000 a year gig at a national newspaper while NUJ members are toiling away in the provinces for Newsquest on literally a tenth of that salary?'

Perhaps the newspaper wants someone who can produce a facsimile of thinking, but a facsimile so thin and ephemeral that it can be torn up and thrown away immediately afterwards.