The Jeremy Clarkson Affair

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Most readers of this blog are in the USA - and are probably missing the current fracas over Jeremy Clarkson, lead presenter of the BBC TV programme Top Gear.

At one level this business is an indescribably trivial example of a long-running headline news story - but in reality this is serious. It is, indeed, a much more significant example of the Phil Robertson/ Duck Dynasty phenomenon.

Firstly, although he is apparently just the presenter of a programme about cars, Clarkson is a very significant figure in British national life - and has been a national figure for about thirty years.

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Top Gear is, of course, a staggeringly-successful programme, with money pouring-in from vast international sales and spin-offs - and (whether or not you are interested in cars) it is an example of top-notch television.

Some of the programmes are as near perfection in their genre as can be imagined; and to maintain this standard over so many years is a remarkable achievement.

(Clarkson's contrasting sidekicks James May and Richard Hammond are also brilliant in their own right; but there is no doubt over who is top dog.)

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The super-success of Top Gear is based on a whole new style of heavily-facetious presenting which was devised by Clarkson. This is very modern; because he is able to be outrageous, arrogant and outspoken; while simultaneously undercutting and making fun of himself.

In a technical sense, Clarkson is, in fact, one of a small handful of TV journalists who have changed the face of the medium. He is also a very good humorous opinion journalist - but it is the TV work which sets him apart.

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It is only Clarkson's enormous talent and income-generating power which have preserved him for so long, because for the vast majority of the British mass media, including the BBC who employ him for Top Gear, Clarkson has been for many years public enemy number one.

That Top Gear comes from the BBC is an essential fact; because the BBC has been the primary origin, focus and disseminator of effective evil in British life for half a century - see my recent book: Addicted to Distraction

- http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk

Every couple of months there is a major concerted attempt by the media to get Clarkson sacked by seizing on some trivial or manufactured 'gaffe'. Clarkson (and his co-presenters) have triumphantly survived all of these so far; appearing utterly un-fazed by the hate campaigns; emerging not only unscathed but apparently cheerful, carefree - and as cheeky as ever.

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Because the primary significance of Jeremy Clarkson in British life is that he is the last remaining public figure who is openly and aggressively anti-PC; who never apologizes, who keeps on-and-on doing what he does, in the face of the unanimous scorn and condemnations of the opinion formers of Leftism.

Jeremy Clarkson's positive socio-political agenda is merely secular hedonism and 'common sense' - in the tradition of comic anti-heroes such as Rabalais, the Good Soldier Svejk or Han Solo - in other words, he represents nothing which a Christian reactionary such as myself would actively support; nothing which could serve as a basis for motivating a corrupt and demoralized nation.

Nonetheless, all men of goodwill should support Clarkson against his critics; because for the mainstream politically correct Left centred in the mass media, it is extremely important (and would be very pleasing to them as individuals) publicly to destroy Clarkson's highly symbolic career - to display their power to seek-out and punish all those who oppose the Left agenda; no matter how successful, gifted and well-liked by the public at large.

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Even repressive tyrants of the past tolerated truth-telling jesters, to keep their feet on the ground, and in-touch with popular sentiment.

It is a measure of the extremity of reality-denying psychosis in Leftism that - uniquely - it will never tolerate any opposition of any degree from anybody.

What we are seeing in the elite-mob persecution of the Clarkson Affair is therefore a highly purified form of evil; yet further evidence of the reckless self-hating self-destructiveness of Western elites.

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