Sunday, August 31, 2008

Permanently Red

In The Sunday Times I interview John Berger

2 comments:

  1. Yes, I don't like him at all and think the study of migrant workers you mention in the piece ('A Seventh Man') is a truly awful book, but the article made me pause to listen more closely, for a moment at least.

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  2. The link you make with Blake is very important to understanding Berger's politics. He writes in such a compressed way that he seems to be copying anti-globalisation bolierplate, but in fact his anti-capitalism is based on a kind of metaphysical rejection of the disruption to spiritual life caused by capitalism.

    The fact that many of the migrant workers in the Seventh Man are now very prosperous, for example, would probably be irrelevant to him. It is the deracination, and the extinguishing of a hope of redemption that really exercises him. I hope he wins!

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