Modern Morals: Middle Class Dilemmas

[jack]

The times had a feature called "Modern Morals", since replaced (I think? I may have the paper wrong) with a similar feature, "Middle Class Dilemma". The idea being someone writes in with a dilemma, and there is a response. It is often amusing, or mildly interesting.

It is also often incredibly infuriating. It follows the venerable pattern of:

* Choose a reasonable response to the question
* Explain it
* Patronisingly use rhetorical techniques to mock anyone who disagrees

Unsurprisingly, I often find intensely aggravating the implicit insult to anyone who considered any other nuances of the original question and preferred any of the other reasonable responses. It feels like an example of "Well, I'm not sure my aim's right, so I'm going to hit harder and harder to make up for it."

The question is, why is it annoying to me, when I appreciate some rants whether I think they're comprehensively accurate or not (eg. Ben Yahtzee Croshaw: Zero Punctuation, Maddox: "The Best Page in the Universe")?

Is it that it's less angry (and so less obviously not completely serious)? Or just less funny? Or is it that I might feel targeted by it?

Comments

[liv]

I may be muddling up two very similar columns, but I think what happened was that The Times used to have a really good etiquette column, really short but consistently funny and thought provoking. Then the journalist responsible, who I think is this guy, John Morgan, killed himself. And The Times tried to replace him, they've had various people trying their hand at it over the past several years, notably Philip Howard, but really the guy was inimitable. I think the ill-directed mockery of anyone who disagrees is a really pathetic attempt to copy Morgan's humour; he could do an almost Wildean level of snark of people who asked questions where they were clearly looking for him to give them a justification for behaving in a blatantly unethical way because all that old fashioned courtesy is outdated now.

There is definitely an art to witty takedowns, whether the wit comes from exaggerated ranting or subtle rhetoric. But that doesn't mean every time someone tears a dissenter apart, it is necessarily witty! I do think the main problem with The Times column is that it's quite simply not funny, it's trying to humour by formula, and falls flat more often than not.

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

I think because it takes itself so damn seriously. If it was at all tongue-in-cheek, it would be bearable, but it's so bloody sanctimonious except when it's being wholly patronising. It was the Times, btw.