Spiked (magazine)

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Spiked
URL	http://www.spiked-online.com
Commercial?	No
Type of site	Politics
Registration	No
Owner	Brendan O'Neill
Created by	Mick Hume

Spiked (also known as spiked or sp!ked) is a British Internet magazine focusing on politics, culture and society. The magazine’s mission statement is that they wish to “make history” and to stand up for the principles of “liberty, enlightenment, experimentation and excellence”.^[1] Spiked’s' social and political critique is often described as Libertarian Marxist.^[2][3][4][5]

In the "about" section of the publication, the magazine describes itself as:

"...an independent online phenomenon dedicated to raising the horizons of humanity by waging a culture war of words against misanthropy, priggishness, prejudice, luddism, illiberalism and irrationalism in all their ancient and modern forms. spiked is endorsed by free-thinkers such as John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx, and hated by the narrow-minded such as Torquemada and Stalin. Or it would be, if they were lucky enough to be around to read it." ^[6]

Contents 1 Stance 2 Origins: ITN vs. LM 3 The question of ideological tradition 4 George Monbiot and Lobbywatch 5 Therapy Culture 6 Spiked, environmentalism and the global warming debate 7 Partners, support and funding 8 Editors and contributors 9 See also 10 References 11 Publications by Spiked Writers 12 External links

[edit] Stance

The magazine focuses on what it defines as issues of freedom and state control, science and technology. They seek to counter positions such as multiculturalism, environmentalism and what they see as a recent trend in Western foreign policy — that of humanitarian interventionism.^[7]

A prominent focus of the magazine is the defence of the freedom of speech — where all forms of censorship imposed by the state or otherwise are fiercely opposed. In particular, they call for a repeal of libel^[8], hate speech^[9] and incitement^[10][11] laws. This, together with a sustained critique of risk society; animal rights; political correctness; and an argument that environmentalist interpretations of the scientific consensus on global warming, especially those of a Dark Green tendency, are "exaggerated" and "hysterical"^[12], has attracted both praise and criticism.^{[citation needed]}

Other notable positions of Spiked is their opposition to the post-9/11 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and Western aid for or interference in developing nations in general.^[13][14][15]

[edit] Origins: ITN vs. LM

The magazine was founded in 2000 after the bankruptcy of its predecessor, the print title LM magazine. LM, an acronym for Living Marxism, closed around this time after losing a libel case brought against it by the broadcasting corporation ITN. The case centered on LM featuring an article by Thomas Deichmann called "The Picture that Fooled the World" .^[16] that alleged that the photographer who took the famous ITN picture of Bosnian Muslims behind a barbed-wire fence in a Bosnian Serb-run camp during the Yugoslav war gave the false impression that this was a Nazi-style concentration camp. Deichmann claimed that it was really the photographer who was in a fenced in area and that it was a transit camp.

The libel case caused international condemnation of ITN as even one of Spiked's most trenchant critics George Monbiot notes:

Some of the world’s leading liberals leapt to the magazine’s defence: Harold Evans, Doris Lessing, Paul Theroux, Fay Weldon and many others condemned ITN’s “deplorable attack on press freedom”. The Institute of Contemporary Arts, bulwark of progressive liberalism, enhanced LM’s heroic profile by co-hosting a three-day conference with the magazine, called “Free Speech Wars”. With the blessing of the liberal world, this puny iconoclastic David will go to war with the clanking orthodoxies of the multinational Goliath. .^[17]

The corporation won and the ensuing award and costs, estimated to be around £1 million, bankrupted the magazine and its publishers.^[18] Ed Vulliamy , who filed the first reports on the Trnopolje camp, commented:

... history - the history of genocide in particular - is thankfully built not upon public relations or melodrama but upon truth; if necessary, truth established by law. And history will record this: that ITN reported the truth when, in August 1992, it revealed the gulag of horrific concentration camps run by the Serbs for their Muslim and Croatian quarry in Bosnia.^[19]

Other journalists have differed in their views. Alexander Cockburn for example comments:

...ITN put LM out of business by winning a libel suit against the magazine. But due to the quaint nature of British libel law, the decisive issue in court was NOT the truth about the wire fence. Rather, it was whether or not the ITN reporters had "deliberately" sought to deceive the public. The issue become one of intentions and emotions. The judge, in his summing up, acknowledged that the ITN team reporters were mistaken as to who was enclosed by the old barbed-wire fence, adding, "but does it matter?" The jury decided it did not. ^[20]

Looking back Hume comments:

Would I do it again? We could have got out of the case by apologising, which seems to be the fashionable thing to do. But I believe in the unfashionable freedom to state what you understand to be true, even if it causes offence. I would do almost anything to avoid ever again setting foot in Court 14. But some things really are more important than a mortgage. .^[21]

Writers such as Hume continue to campaign for the repeal of the UK's libel laws arguing that they are archaic, unfair and stifle freedom of speech.

[edit] The question of ideological tradition

Spiked has repeatedly been described by journalists from The Independent and The Guardian newspapapers such as George Monbiot and Johann Hari plus their numerous and highly vocal supporters online, as pursuing a right wing and pro-corporate agenda under a guise of being left wing. Much of the criticism levelled at Spiked may stem from the difficulty of writers from the left, centre and right in placing their critique into the traditional left and right political categories.^{[citation needed]} This perceived ideological opacity and the often contrary stance (relative to prominent leftist groups) on certain issues has led many on the left and centre-left (and eco-left) to claim that they have more in common with free-market libertarians. For example, in a LobbyWatch interview, The Guardian journalist and eco-campaigner George Monbiot claims of Spiked's predecessor, LM Magazine, that:

...it was very far from a Marxism journal — it was just about as far from a Marxist journal as you could possibly get. And it seemed to me that the title was a direct and deliberate attempt to distract attention from the fact that this was a far right wing libertarian publication that was using the terms of the left to make it look as if the positions it was taking were new and unusual ones.^[22]

A response to this view is to be found in a Spiked article by Spiked's editor, Brendan O'Neill. In that he interviews professor Frank Furedi who states that LM magazine and, by extension, Spiked's stance springs from the tradition of the "anti-Stalinist left". He argues that the reason why many in the left tradition have difficulties in identifying their ideas with the left is that they completely misunderstand the humanist political position of being progressive in terms of human progress, science, rationality and freedom, and yet be completely anti-state:

...much of the left in the twentieth century tended to be influenced by Stalinist and Social-Democratic traditions, which means they could not imagine that you could be left-wing and anti-state...so they were confused by us. But that was their fault, not ours. It was a product of their own abandonment of liberty in favour of ideas about state control.^[23]

In the same article professor Furedi lists Marxist activists, politicians and writers who he describes as an underpinning influence in both LM and Spiked. These include Roman Rosdolsky, Henryk Grossman, György Lukács, Paul Mattick, Christian Rakovsky, and Leon Trotsky.

Other left-wing critics such as Nick Cohen have written off Spiked's controversial positions as mere attention seeking:

"if you strip revolutionary defeatism of its revolutionary content, you have what modern editors and producers want: contrarianism, the willingness to fill space and generate controversy by saying the opposite of what everyone else is saying just because everyone else is saying it – an affectation most people get over around puberty."^[24]

[edit] George Monbiot and Lobbywatch

In addition to criticisms about Spiked’s political and ideological stance (see The question of ideological tradition, above), George Monbiot and the Lobbywatch Network of web-sites^{[25][26] [27]} have also accused the contributors of Spiked (and its predecessor, LM Magazine) of adopting a strategy of entryism into the media, communications and science networks. For example, Monbiot posits what he calls the “LM Network” — and goes on to state that this 'network' is responsible for the formation of front groups, the infiltration of pressure groups, think tanks and governmental advisory committees to pursue what he sees as an agenda suiting a diverse range of corporate funders. Monbiot and his network of online critics therefore argue that Spiked ideas are simply a front for their corporate funding. Spiked has responded at length to these allegations and vehemently denied that they are paid to provide a coporate point of view:

"spiked has never “taken money from the fossil fuel industry”, and those organisations that do sponsor us do not dictate our editorial agenda. It is testament to the small-mindedness of today’s illiberal liberal commentators that they think anyone who criticises green authoritarianism must be in the pay of Big Oil.’" ^[28]

Monbiot is also on record expressing his hope that members of the “LM network” lose their jobs and are no longer accorded scientific credibility, given what he sees as an alleged lack of scientific credentials. In particular, he had hoped that his Lobbywatch article, “Invasion of the entryists”, would have had more of an impact than it did — prompting sackings and scientists and others to question their associations.^[29]

Spiked dismiss the claims as conspiracy theory and liken such critics to McCarthyites. For example, Brendan O'Neill has stated:

"From their craven search for hidden agendas to their spider-web linking of various individuals to their censorious and McCarthyite demands: they might be treehuggers by day, but these individuals share all the worst traits of the most hardened conspiracy theorists." ^[30]

In other articles Spiked has compared these critics to the tiny group of neo-Nazis who have accused them of being a Jewish front organization — and have asserted that these critics have limited themselves to attacking Spiked’s associations (with certain companies and institutions) rather than tackling its ideas.^[31]

[edit] Therapy Culture

A long-standing thread in the Spiked critique is what they indentify as 'Therapy Culture' - a culture where the victim takes ascendancy and where rationality and logic is replaced by emotions and feelings. ^[32] For Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, the core issues here are about agency and political autonomy and he argues "we should stop surrendering our sovereignty to the 'therapeutic state'".

"The medicalisation of personal problems may relieve the individual of moral responsibility, but at the cost of allowing the therapeutic state to control personal behaviour and psychic life." ^[33]

[edit] Spiked, environmentalism and the global warming debate

One of Spiked most sustained analyses centres on the political, scientific and media discussions, surrounding the environment and environmentalism and climate in particular. Here, Spiked are regularly presented as being 'deniers' of global warming by their critics such as Monbiot and of ignoring the scientific consensus on the issue. As cited below, a much more nuanced and complex articulation defines the magazine's engagement here.

On the question of 'denial', Spiked writers such as Frank Furedi have responded by critiquing the concept of denial, pointing both to its close connotations of Holocaust denial and the psychological genealogy of the term (see 'Therapy Culture'). Furedi further argues that by labelling anyone who questions the consensus that climate change equals global warming a 'denier', debate is closed down on the issue.^[34]

In opening up the debate on the environment and climate, Spiked writers have deconstructed the environmentalist narratives in different ways to draw out what they see as the ideological agendas driving the debates and to compare and contrast the arguments with the scientific data. For example, Josie Appleton argues that:

"Today’s ‘global warming story’ — where morality equates to carbon calculating — owes more to the anxious zeitgeist than scientific findings."^[35]

Woudhuysen and Kaplinsky have taken the approach of closely comparing what environmentalist such as George Monbiot articulate, with the data that supports the scientific consensus on climate change. They argue that the scientific data on climate change and the impact on the environment of a modern industrialised society, does not so neatly match the arguments presented by many environmentalists on the topic. The environmentalist arguments on areas such as climate change, rather than being unquestioned scientific truth, are in fact one, and they argue, a highly questionable interpretation of available facts. Often they argue, scientific data is used to create an ideologically driven agenda:

"the IPCC's fairly sober summary of climate science has been spun to tell a story of Fate, Doom and human folly."^[36]

In a series of articles, James Heartfield has argued against what he sees as a profound anti-humanism in much green thinking, especially that surrounding climate change. Heartfield argues that an underlying hatred for humans and their actions underpins environmentalism:

"As the chattering classes’ preoccupation with climate change reaches fever pitch, the extremists feel more confident to draw conclusions that others baulk from. That is because the extremists are only drawing out the underlying philosophy of environmentalism to make it more explicit."^[37]

In his most recent book, Green Capitalism: Manufacturing Scarcity in an Age of Abundance Heartfield turns on its head the notion that anyone who criticises environmentalism must be in the pay of 'Big Oil' and the multinationals. Here Heartfield argues that it is the environmentalists themselves who are the heart of contemporary capitalist ideology. In his review of the book Putting the hippies on the payroll Philip Cunliffe explains that:

"The appearance of confrontation between indignant greens on the one hand, and chastened capitalists on the other, is deceptive." ^[38]

[edit] Partners, support and funding

Spiked receives its funding via online advertising and organising online debates, surveys, seminars and conferences; with a variety of partners, corporations and organisations. It also receives donations from readers.

Spiked lists current and former spiked partners and sponsors as follows:

"Current and former spiked partners and sponsors include: Arts Council England, Bloomberg; the British Association for the Advancement of Science; the British Council; BT; Cadbury Schweppes; Cambridge University Press; the Cheltenham Science Festival; Colubris Networks; the City of London; Clarke Mulder Purdie; Continuum International Publishing Group; the Dana Centre; the European Commission research project RightsWatch; EuroScience; Hill and Knowlton; IBM; INFORM; the Institute for the International Education of Students; the Institute of Psychiatry; International Policy Network; Luther Pendragon; the Medical Research Council; the Mobile Operators Association; the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts; Natural Environment Research Council; Orange; O2; Pfizer; the Royal Institution of Great Britain; the Social Issues Research Centre; the Society of Chemical Industry; TechCentralStation; University of East London; the Wellcome Trust; and others."^[39]

[edit] Editors and contributors

Spiked is edited by Brendan O'Neill^[1], following Mick Hume's departure in January 2007, and features regular contributions from James Heartfield, Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, Patrick West and professor Frank Furedi.

[edit] See also

• Frank Furedi
• Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1978)
• Living Marxism
• Spiked Review of Books

[edit] References

[edit] Publications by Spiked Writers

James Heartfield

• Green Capitalism: manufacturing scarcity in an age of abundance (Openmute, 2008)
• Let's Build! Why we need Five Million Homes in the next 10 Years (Audacity, 2006)
• The "Death of the Subject" Explained (Sheffield, 2002)
• Great Expectations: the creative industries in the New Economy (London, 2000)
• Need and Desire in the Post-material Economy (Sheffield 1998)
• Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Ageco-editor with Ian Abley (London, 2002).

Frank Furedi

• The Soviet Union Demystified: A Materialist Analysis, Junius Publications, 1986
• The Mau Mau War in Perspective, James Currey Publishers, 1989
• Mythical Past, Elusive Future: History and Society in an Anxious Age, Pluto Press, 1991
• The New Ideology of Imperialism: Renewing the Moral Imperative, Pluto Press, 1994
• Colonial Wars and the Politics of Third World Nationalism, IB Tauris, 1994
• Culture of Fear: Risk Taking and the Morality of Low Expectation, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1997
• Population and Development: A Critical Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997
• The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race, Pluto Press, 1998
• Courting Mistrust: The Hidden Growth of a Culture of Litigation in Britain, Centre for Policy Studies, 1999
• Paranoid Parenting: Abandon Your Anxieties and Be a Good Parent, Allen Lane, 2001
• Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age, Routledge, 2003
• Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?: Confronting Twenty-First Century Philistinism, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004
• The Politics of Fear. Beyond Left and Right, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005
• Invitation to Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown, Continuum International Publishing Group,2007

[edit] External links

• Sp!ked Online
• Theresa Clifford: Is Wikipedia part of a new ‘global brain’? (Spiked article)
• Lobbywatch entry on Spiked
• Frank Furedi Official Website
• Mick Hume's column in The Times
• James Woudhuysen Website
• James Heartfield Website