Kieran Healy

Brainstorm in a Teacup

There is a genre of stupid, very nearly content-free stories that get far more attention than they deserve. Here’s a prime example from The Telegraph: Talk of brainstorming ‘may offend epileptics’. The first two paragraphs feed the PC “anti-PC” impulse in us all. They say that the word “brainstorming” has “become the latest target of political correctness, according to a charity. Trainee teachers are being told to avoid the word for fear of offending pupils with epilepsy. Instead they are being advised to use ‘word storm’ or ‘thought shower’.”

Shocking, eh, yet another example of misguided left-wing nanny-statism why can’t we just call a spade a spade (if you know what I mean) honestly where has common sense gone I ask you doesn’t it just drive you nuts bet that’s the next one on their hitlist just you wait and you can’t even get a glass of Watney’s Red Barrel because you’re still in England the kids are crying and vomiting and breaking the plastic ashtrays and when you finally get to Malaga airport, everybody’s queueing for the bloody toilet.

Ahem.

The problem is that the remainder of the story is devoted to sawing off the legs the first two paragraphs stand on. First, the report says “charities working with epilepsy say “brainstorming” is not offensive.” They checked, with a survey. Next, the Teacher Training Agency is quoted saying “it was not responsible for the suggestion that students avoid the word.” They point out that they are “responsible for overseeing the general quality of the courses provided by universities and colleges and we don’t get involved in the minutiae of what they teach.”

So, what are we left with? Nada. Nothing. No source for what trainee teachers where were being told this, or by whom. No quotes from the trainees involved or their instructors. Instead, each official agency contacted said “this is not a problem” or “this is not our policy”. So where, I ask myself, is the damn story here? Why bother making this stuff up when there are so many great examples of genuinely offensive and wholly stupid commentary from actual, quotable important people?

For about a hundred good examples of similar crap reporting, look at John K. Wilson’s book “The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education.”

I want to say more about this whole phenomenon, but it just pisses me off too much to be coherent, so I’ll just say “amen” to the final question posed here.

There was something similar a couple of weeks ago about hot cross buns being banned (offensive to Muslims). It got reported, but then every single person they talked to said “Nope, not us. Sounds pretty silly.” So where did it come from?

Oh, come on, the journo had a tight deadline and had to write something.

Its actually quite an old technique – make up a story (and this one is quite imaginative) then fill your space with denials of the story. The only thing that went wrong was the headline – it should have been something like ‘Government agency denies responsibility for brainwashing directive’.

Perhaps you could host a little competition here to see who can do the best short par (complete with misleading headline) using this technique.

Actually, reading it again I think the journo’s ‘survey’ of charities consisted of a few phone calls in the hope of finding somone who could be tricked into agreeing with the non-existent ‘instruction’.

Well, you did open the Daily Telegraph.

Exactly. The entire raison d’etre of the Telegraph, and the Daily Mail too, is to rail against the ever-increasing tyranny of left-wing, welfare-dependent, PC, liberal, asylum-loving, immoral behaviour on behalf of it’s beseiged readers. And if there aren’t enough examples of
such pernicious behaviour to be observed, they just do a bit of stirring themselves.

The Mail had a classic last week. It expressed outrage at a Spanish play that opened in London last week. Called XXXX, it features nudity, simulated sex and swearing. Worse still, it is performed by a bunch of Johnny Foreigners(or should that be Janes?). Mind you, it didn’t have that much space to express outrage, since most of the page was taken up with two very large colour photos (from the production) of rather comely lasses in their birthday suits.

Yes, but, damn it, the story is a lot more entertaining if you just read the first two paragraphs.

PC RUN AMOK

John Hudock of Common Sense and Wonder has this gem: The latest victim of PC idiocy, use of the word ‘brainstorming’ for fear of offending…

Someone I know works for London Underground and was indeed told recently in a training seminar to avoid using the word “brainstorm” so as not to offend epilepsy sufferers. So, someone, somewhere, is peddling this nonsense.

I’ve no brief for the Telegraph in particular, or journos in general, but I don’t see the contradictions in the article that others so caustically pinpoint. The story and the NSE response are clear enough. The shame is that the reporter didn’t try a bit harder to find a real example of a culprit or victim – without that it is just another urban myth.

Trouble is, it’s very easy to disseminate an idea these days, no matter how daft it is, and the oxygen of public debate may only make things worse. Mail, Telegraph, etc may not be the most reliable vehicles for initiating such debate, but the language fascists need to be exposed, particularly if they are teaching new teachers to pass this pernicious rubbish on to new generations.