"Skintland": Satire?

Skintland

Let me make it clear from the outset that I do not accept that the scurrilous cover image which The Economist chose for its UK edition was ever meant to be a joke as has been claimed. I am firmly persuaded that it was always intended to be precisely what it appears - a crude, casual but quite deliberate insult. Intentional but not calculated, other than to the meagre extent that the target of the insult was only those "uppity Jocks" and so it could safely be assumed that nobody would question it. Everybody would go along with the slur.

Of course, as far as ultra-parochial, London-centric journalists are concerned, "everybody" is a very restricted audience indeed. Few outside their own clique, and then mostly the kind of people who think Alan Cochrane is a knowledgeable and erudite commentator on Scottish affairs.They knew they were publishing a nasty, gratuitous insult, but that didn't matter because the people they were insulting don't matter.

Such is their contempt for Scotland and its people, for anyone outside their conceptual village, that it didn't even occur to them that this facile, intellectually bankrupt vilification compromised their normal editorial standards. Had the object of abuse been almost any other nation - France, Germany, even Greece - alarm bells would have rung somewhere in the offices of The Economist. But no! It's only Scotland, so it's not even worth a thought. The mindset is all too familiar - not only to people in Scotland but to those in the "far-flung" regions of England as well.

Such is my take on it. But some have chosen to try and rationalise this puerile pap by passing it off as satire. So let's indulge the apologists for a moment and judge it in those terms.

What is satire? Satire is a form of social or political criticism characterised by the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, incompetence, corruption or abuse of power. Pretty much anything can be labelled satire. But saying it is doesn't make it so. And it certainly doesn't exempt it from judgement according to the criteria of good satire. If a thing is claimed to be satire we are entitled to ask if it succeeds as satire.

Good satire is witty. Good satire is artful. There is nothing witty or artful about vulgar and laboriously contrived name-calling.

Good satire is honest. Good satire is truthful. Good satire exposes lies and dispels false assumptions. It does not manufacture and reinforce them. Even parody by exaggeration must be built on a kernel of verity in order to be effective. There is no substance to any of The Economist's epithets.They are vacuous. They are asinine.

Perhaps most importantly of all, good satire is righteous. It has a worthy, even an honourable purpose. It is not cheap. It is not frivolous. It does not lash out at targets that are actually or supposedly easy. It challenges established authority and conventional power rather than pandering to it.

On all counts the "Skintland" smear fails as satire. So let's just call it what it is. Lazy, fatuous, gutter journalism of the kind that used to be the preserve of the more lurid and opprobrious "red-top" titles. And should have remained so.