Medievals Of the World, Unite

David Carr, on the "firewall" included in the Murdoch-buying-the-WSJ deal that will prevent Murdoch from meddling with the editorial page (or not):

So how did Mr. Murdoch permit this deal to happen? The editorial page at The Wall Street Journal has always been its own little kingdom, known for a medieval brand of conservatism and a willingness to take on anybody in defense of its version of liberty, including strafing its own news pages.

I understand that Carr is using the word "medieval" pejoratively rather than descriptively here, and I apologize for harping on a pet peeve of mine, but ... if you were looking for the branch of conservatism furthest removed from the actual sympathy-for-the-medievals strain on the American Right, you could do worse than start with the WSJ's editorial page and "its version of liberty." Calling Russell Kirk's conservatism "medieval" is somewhat inaccurate but at least asymptotic to the truth; calling Robert Bartley's conservatism "medieval" is just an abuse of the term, one that's typical but unwarranted, dammit.

Comments

"there shall be no borders." medieval? the left & the right would get along better if both camps engaged in simple semantical courtesies. though, from my somewhat right-of-center perspective at least accusing those who want single payer universal health care of being communists is going in the right direction, even if it is a gross and unfair insult and exaggeration.

Posted by razib | August 8, 2007 1:02 PM

Robert Bartley has been dead for some time. His successor Paul Gigot has destroyed the little intellectual and moral integrity the editorial pages had left when Bartley retired.

Posted by ndm | August 8, 2007 4:04 PM

"Medieval" doesn't make sense. "Tribal," however, in the service of GOP identity group arguments regardless of how they fit in with past stances, would have been accurate.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | August 9, 2007 9:31 AM

Maybe they mean "medieval" in the sense of opposing the sovereign state system -- something which certainly describes WSJ's immigration policy...

Posted by Chris | August 9, 2007 9:51 AM

As a medievalist myself, I say: kudos to you, Ross, for pointing out yet another sloppy and mentally lazy use of the adjective "medieval" when the writer really means "extreme" or "hidebound" or "primitive." The WSJ editorial-page philosophy is essentially classic 19th-century liberalism: individualistic, pro-business, and anti-government regulation of any kind. Such a stance would have been anathema during the Middle Ages: the era of trade and craft guilds, royal monopolies, and tolls of every variety.

Here's more lazy writing:

If, by some small chance, Rudolph W. Giuliani is not the Republican nominee, might Mr. Murdoch be interested in supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton, a figure of such dread at the editorial page that they practically make the sign of the cross when her shadow passes?

Hillary Clinton's "shadow passes" through the WSJ editorial offices? Really?

Sorry, David Carr (whom I'd met a couple of times when he edited the Washington City Paper)--but you can do better than that. A lot better.

Posted by Charlotte Allen | August 9, 2007 1:12 PM

Ross is correct. Murdoch's politics are pre-medieval. I would say early Roman Empire. Bread and circus social policy, government protects the wealth and status of Patricians, the Senate gives the Emperor a blank check for campaigns against the Germanic tribes, and suspicious religious minorities are fed to the lions... he'd sign up for that gig in a heartbeat. Ol' Rupes would be right there in the stands at the Circus Maximus cheering on the heroic Quintus Arrius as he tries to spike that dirty hippie Ben Hur's wheels.

But medieval? Gods, no. How can you launch a sensationalist media empire when the Church owns everything and manuscript-copying monks are the only way to distribute the news about missing white girls?

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | August 9, 2007 3:08 PM

As a medievalist myself, I say: kudos to you, Ross, for pointing out yet another sloppy and mentally lazy use of the adjective "medieval" when the writer really means "extreme" or "hidebound" or "primitive."

I don't know what a medievalist is, but I don't think it should know how to use the internet. What's the word supposed to do besides evoke a seriously unpleasant time be alive? And anyway Pulp Fiction has more of a claim than any of your favorite philosphers, doubly so in a newspaper article.

jenny

Posted by jenny | August 10, 2007 4:08 AM

Jenny:

4:08 a.m.? Get some sleep.

Posted by Charlotte Allen | August 10, 2007 4:01 PM

A medievalist is a scholar of the middle ages, or alternatively one who wants to return to a pre-modern period. Not all such people are on the right, either. The current socialist government of Bolivia, after all, has said that they want to return Bolivia to an idealized conception of pre-modern (in their case, pre-Columbian) America.

The great historian of science, Joseph Needham, once said something like 'if socialism means social justice, then the Middle Ages were more socialist than anything the West has seen since'.

The Middle Ages had their ills, certainly, but one should not look at any period of time without considering whatever good it had to offer, as well. Certainly our own time has more than its share of evils.

Posted by Hector Dauphin-Gloire | August 10, 2007 5:06 PM