The Usual Abuse - Number One in a Series
Ah well. I know that a number of people will accuse me of ‘complaining’ and having a ‘thin skin’ simply for writing what follows. There is nothing that can be done about them, except to advise them not to bother, and to say once again that all I am trying to do is to set down the facts, and explain to my readers how the modern world works. I am used to it. I am not surprised by it. I am not specially wounded or bothered by it. But I continue to think that it is fundamentally wrong, even so. By describing it carefully and justly, I hope to make it less likely in future.
In this case, we have yet another example of the closed minds of much of the media, and the difficulty of getting any sort of dissenting ideas even discussed, let alone accepted.
When I finished my new book on drugs, ‘The war We Never Fought’, I ended the preface by saying: ‘I can only hope that this book manages to open a few generous minds to the truth, while preparing myself for the usual abuse’. I was remembering in particular an intemperately hostile review of my book ‘A Brief History of Crime’ in the ‘Observer’, about 10 years ago, whose author has subsequently apologised to me.
Now, in today’s ‘Observer’ I find the following review here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/14/narcomania-review-war-never-fought
It is by Nicholas Lezard, an entertaining writer whose articles in the New Statesman I quite enjoy. I have never knowingly met him, have never reviewed any of his books (if he has written any) nor have I run over his cat on my bicycle, or in any other way given him cause to lower me into a vat of slime. Yet his ‘review’, if it can be granted this status, is, how shall i say? Not necessarily intended to be helpful?.
