Libertarian Bell

Some times, at folk music festivals, after the main act has finished, there is a "sing-around" in a pub, where the punters are asked to sing a song of their own choosing. (People like this, because they fondly imagine that pub singing of this kind is where folk music began.) When it comes to my turn, I generally pass and say that I cannot sing. A nice man always says "Come on, Andrew, everyone can sing a little bit." So last time this happened I tried to sing/recite "Don't Go In Them Lions Cage Tonight".

Since then, he has stopped asking me.

A number of my Patreon supporters have said that they wished I wrote more about politics.

So this is me, writing more about politics.

I fully expect it to have the same affect as the folk song in the pub.

1: Introduction

M'learned friend drew my attention to the following essay in the Economist, a right-leaning British periodical.

The Dangers of Illiberal Liberalism

A philosophy lecturer from Sussex University, Kathleen Stock, wrote an essay for the same magazine. She took issue (from a rather dry, philosophical standpoint) with the proposition that people who were anatomically male could be said to "really" be female. She didn't say they definitely couldn't be; but she thought there could be unintended consequences of re-defining what "female" meant.

Some of the students at Sussex University were outraged by the article, which they felt was prejudiced against transexual people. The Student Union issued a statement condemning the lecturer.

The writer of the present article, one Claire Fox from something called the Institute of Ideas, is outraged by the students' outrage and condemns their condemnation. She thinks that nowadays it is progressives who are trying to police what can and can't be said, and that modern liberalism contains a dangerous streak of authoritarianism.

Matters quickly escalate, and before long things are blasphemous and taboo and everyone is being denounced, vilified and damned.

Here is Ms. Fox:

The Sussex Students’ Union denounced (Kathleen Stock) as a transphobe. In the union's original statement, it declared “we will not tolerate hate on our campus.” “Trans and non-binary lives are not a debate.”

These key tropes —“we will not tolerate” and “this is not a debate”—  are now frequently deployed to curtail discussion of issues deemed to be taboo, invariably to “protect” people deemed vulnerable from speech deemed hateful. This secular version of blasphemy follows a sacred script, written by those who consider themselves liberals. Dare to query it and you’ll be damned.

M'learned friend, who drew my attention to the article, said that he knew I didn't like the phrase "political correctness" but that the state of play at Sussex University was analogous to the situation which prevailed in the UK before the Catholic Emancipation Act — when  only people who were prepared to sign up to the Articles of the Church of England were allowed to study at University.

I felt that this was a little bit on the strong side.

2: Political Correctness Goes Mad In Dorset

You wouldn't say "Jewish Conspiracy" if what you meant was "I'm afraid Mr Levi and Mr Cohen are going to vote together to kick me off the PTA". You wouldn't say "He has a wonderful sense of rhythm" if what you meant was "he is a talented percussionist". And you wouldn't say "elf and safety gone mad" if what you meant was "are you quite sure there is really some regulation which says I can't have a glass of water?" So why say "Political Correctness" if what you mean is "prevailing orthodoxy", "self-censorship" or even "over-politeness"?

There is no such thing as Political Correctness: it is a fictional concept, invented by conspiracy theorists who think that a secret society of Jewish intellectuals in Frankfurt are plotting the overthrow of civilization as we know it. 

Are there such things as prevailing orthodoxy, self-censorship and over-politeness? Of course there are. Just try saying "The Queen is terrible at her job", "There is no need to respect our servicemen" or "I am a big fan of Gary Glitter" and see how far you get.

Are there things which you just can't say nowadays? I seriously doubt it. Most of the things which you just can't say are said all the bloody time. "You can't say that trans women are not women": no; and if you do, you will be asked to write a long think piece in the Economist. "You can't complain about religious dress": no, and if you do, you will be paid a huge sum of money to write a column in the Daily Telegraph and be interviewed in every news outlet in the country. "You can't talk about immigration", no, and during the EU referendum campaign neither side wanted to talk about anything else.

In practice "You will be damned, denounced, vilified and treated like a non-conformist prior to 1829" actually seems to mean "Someone in the Guardian will write a rude article about you, and the University of Sussex Student Union will pass a jolly stiff resolution."

I will not be locked up if I speak against the royal family and the army and in favour of pedophiles. No-one will come and smash my printing press. But the chorus of disapproval would make Sussex University's motion of censure against their philosophy teacher seem like the mild rustling of programmes at the back of the auditorium.

3: The Great Farron Flip Flop

Here is Ms Fox again:

I still consider myself a liberal in the Enlightenment sense of the word. But I have to admit that being a liberal these days is confusing.....

.....In contrast, today’s so-called progressive liberals are often intolerant, calling for official censure against anyone perceived as uttering non-progressive views.

Far from being a challenging paradox, the idea of "illiberal liberals" is a rhetorical cliche, on a level with "if you are so keen on socialism why don't you go and live there?" and "if men evolved from monkeys how come there are still monkeys?"

"Liberal" in the old-fashioned British sense means someone who believes that it is the job of government to make wise laws which maximize individual freedom. "Liberal" in the modern American sense means simply "of the left" or "progressive" or simply "socialist". The extreme right use it as a cuss word to describe anyone who isn't on the extreme right. 

So if I talk about illiberal liberals then I am saying nothing more than "People who are liberal in the American sense are not always liberal in the British sense", which we knew already. The same person might very well want to improve the standards of education for everyone but be prepared in so doing to curtail the freedom of rich people to educate their children privately. Ms Fox's essay is predicated on a piece of word play.

3: Arooga! Arooga!

A cursory look at the coverage of the so-called “Free Tommy” brigade, centered around the alleged censorship of Tommy Robinson, a notorious anti-Islam campaigner, reveals how liberals shun defending the free-speech rights of the unpalatable. Yes, I find many of Mr Robinson’s views odious, but a pick’n’mix attitude to free speech betrays liberalism, not Mr Robinson, and worse, it adds to the myth that “free speech” is a “right-wing” cause. 

This paragraph should set off a major klaxon. A story about a man being sent to jail for contempt of court has morphed into a story about a man being denied freedom of speech because other people don't like his views.

I certainly don't like Tommy Robinson's views, if they even count as "views". He believes in "the right of English people to their own country over and above people from elsewhere" and has a massive bee in his bonnet about their being more Muslim folk in this country than there used to be, or as he puts it "the struggle against global Islamification." But he was sent to prison for taking photographs inside a court, which is not allowed in the UK;  and for live-streaming photographs of defendants in a case where the judge had imposed reporting restrictions. There will be no prizes for guessing the ethnicity or faith background of the defendants in question. 

You could, I suppose, say that "free speech" by definition includes the freedom to make comments which are prejudicial to an ongoing trial after you have been told not to; in which case it is literally true that anyone punished for contempt of court has had their freedom of speech curtailed. Similarly, you might say that a citizen forced to pay compensation to another citizen after defaming them; or a civil servant prosecuted for breaching the Official Secrets Act have had their freedom of speech inhibited. But how is any of this connected with students snarling at a philosophy lecturer about an article they didn't like? Is there some connection between the ancient British law of contempt and the recent emergence of these illiberal liberals?

Ms Fox appears to think that liberals (British sense) should have sided with the Free Tommy campaign because what was at stake was an individual's freedom of speech. She suggests that these liberals adopted a "pick and mix attitude to free speech". This appears to mean that she thinks that freedom of speech is indivisible: that if you defend it in one case you have to defend it in every case. If you believe in the freedom of the press to hold the government to account you must logically also believe in the freedom of a far-right podcaster to make prejudicial comments about a trial — and also, presumably, the freedom to shout "fire!" in a crowded theater. It is possible that Ms Fox, a libertarian, does believe in the absolute and unqualified freedom to say whatever you like whenever you like regardless of context. But this is not something which either kind of liberal has ever been in favour of.  

"The British contempt laws are not compatible with Article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights " might be a perfectly feasible position. "Tommy Robinson shouldn't have been punished for taking photos inside a court because liberals" not so much.

I doubt very much if Ms Fox really believes that Tommy Robinson's imprisonment had anything to do with freedom of speech. I think that the paragraph is best understood as a kind of mating cry to People Who Are Not Liberals (In The American Sense). I think that People Who Are Not Liberals (In The American Sense) will hear "Free Tommy....censorship....Tommy Robinson....liberals....free speech....free speech....free speech." And they will instantly pick up the message: "It's okay. I'm on your side."

4:  Bound to Lose, Bound to Lose, You're Bound To Lose

The writer says that liberals (American sense) didn't defend Tommy Robinson because they found his views "unpalatable". She also talks about free speech being tossed aside "to silence those labelled as intolerant" and says that liberals want to prevent speech which is "deemed" hateful, and to censure views which are "perceived" as non-progressive.

Labelled, deemed, progressive. She cannot bring herself to say that people like Tommy Robinson really are intolerant and hateful; merely that illiberal liberals label them and perceive them as such. And she thinks that "liberals" (American sense) merely find him "unpalatable" — as if disapproving of ethnonationalism were a matter of taste, like preferring Irish whiskey to Scotch. 

But this unleashes a massive can of unstated assumption worms. Are liberals only being illiberal in cases where they try to silence a perfectly harmless person who they have falsely labelled or deemed intolerant? Or are they also illiberal when they try to silence someone who really is intolerant and hateful? Or is there in fact no such thing as intolerance and hatred? Is the claim "Some of the people you accuse of being witches are not witches at all: be very careful before you proceed". Or is the claim "Stop hunting witches, you silly children: there is no such thing."

A case could probably be made that some students at Sussex unfairly took against what was intended to be a dry, logical essay on how we define terms like "male" and "female". But Claire Fox's essay is illustrated with pictures of demonstrators holding up placards saying "No platform for fascists". Are we to take away the message: "Careful now. Perhaps the people you want to de-platform are not really fascists at all?" Or is it "If you would refuse a platform to anyone, even a literal fascist, you are no true liberal."

Not allowing a fascist to speak in your meeting hall; and refusing to appear at a meeting to which a fascist has been invited seems to be a pretty moderate form of censorship. I would not be in favour of saying "no platform for people who supported the bedroom tax" or "no platform for people who think Mrs Thatcher was quite right about the coal mines" or "no platform for people who think Corbyn has it wrong about trade unions." That kind of stuff we can and should debate. But your British National Parties and Britain Firsts and English Defense Leagues? You should certainly be free to join that kind of club. I would take a dim view of anyone who tried to stop you. I disagree with what you say but will defend to the point of mild inconvenience your right to say it. But don't think I am going to help you say it or facilitate your saying it. Don't expect me to appear at your meeting or let you borrow my hall.

And don't expect me to be your friend.

Don't you think it is a little bit suspicious that the Right is saying that it is dangerously illiberal of the Left to refuse to share a platform with people whose views they don't like while at the exact same moment they denounce, vilify and damn the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition because he has, in the past, shared a platform with people whose views they don't like?

5: H.P Sauce is the Great British Sauce

I suppose that at one time "identity politics" had a meaning. It described the kind of thinking which says "I support Labour because I am a Labour supporter; I am a Labour supporter because my father and my grandfather before me supported Labour": your political affiliation was part of who you were. But like Political Correctness and Liberal, the term "identity politics" has become a right-wing snarl word. At this moment, a nasty group of fans are boycotting Marvel and trying to set up their own company because they see comic books like Ms Marvel, Moon Girl and Ultimate Spider-Man as being full of "identity politics". What they mean  — literally the only thing they mean — is that Ms Marvel's parents are from Pakistan and she is a cultural Muslim; that Moon Girl is African American and Miles Morales is Hispanic. The tendency to use "identity" to mean "non-white" and indeed "non-white and therefore bad" reached its ludicrous end point last week when someone literally and without irony said that sales of mayonnaise were falling because young people preferred "identity condiments".

6: Conclusion: In Which The Various Threads of The Argument Are Drawn Together, And Pigs Fly

How far should intolerance be tolerated is a good question.

One answer would be "Always, without qualification, and without question: if you are tolerant of immigrants cooking unfamiliar food, then you must be equally tolerant of newspapers saying that those same immigrants should be put down like cockroaches."

Another answer would be "Never, without compromise: the slightest suggestion that someone has criticized a fellow citizen's dress, religion or sexuality must be stamped on without mercy."

In between there are many shades of grey. Fifty or more. Most of us, whether we call ourselves liberal or not, fall into that grey area.

But the Economist essay is not talking about shades of grey. The Economist essay seems to envisage a situation where the poor reasonable souls who calmly explain to transsexuals that they might want to think a little bit more systematically about the philosophy of gender are SILENCED and PROSECUTED by the intolerant left. And yet only last week I read that someone had taken the trouble to walk along Crosby sea front sticking cocks on all the statues along with the slogan "women don't have penises". Someone stuck a cock on the statue of Colston in Bristol yesterday, although sadly on his plinth, not his crotch. Just imagine: someone took the trouble to draw this thing, and then spent money on getting it printed, and then distributed roles of stickers to all their friends; and then someone must have gone out with stickers in their pocket, deliberately looking for places to display them. Imagine being that person. Imagine caring enough about other people's bits to think it worthwhile.

Statue of Edward Colston, Bristol, 25 Sep 2018

An article that said "Hey! Both sides! Take it down a notch!" might possibly have been worth writing. But anyone whose response to this kind of thing is "Gosh! Aren't liberals a problem!" needs to take a long hard look at their values. 

I think that from 1945 to about 2000, there was a broad "liberal" (American sense) consensus across all political parties. Fascists were no platformed by default. People like Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson existed, but they were mostly marching behind black flags in out of the way drill halls, not being invited to speak on mainstream talk shows and being lauded by the President of the U.S.A. Enoch Powell wasn't prosecuted or imprisoned as a result of the so-called "rivers of blood" speech, but he was kicked out of the Conservative Party and remained on the political sidelines for the rest of his life. But the rise of Trump and Farage has allowed the intolerant and the hateful —  the kinds of people who compare refugees with rats and cockroaches and call black people semi-savages, and think that slavery wasn't too bad and anyway the South never supported slavery — to express their views in public.

And when decent folk in all political parties refuse to engage with them we get articles in the Economist saying "why has the left become so intolerant all of a sudden."

7: Conclusion, in which the exegete cleverly deconstructs the article's major premise and leaves the stage to massive cheers.

You probably noted that Ms Fox specifically says that she is quoting from the Sussex Student Union's original statement.

If you go to the Student Union's website, you will find that the original statement is not there.

You will instead find the revised statement, which merely states that the Union is "in solidarity" with trans and non-binary students, and that they "strongly disagree" with the views of Dr Kathleen Stock."

I can, if I wish, read Dr Stock's dull essay on the Economist magazine's website.

I can, if I wish, read Claire Fox's screed about the intolerant toleratti.

But I cannot find out what the Student Union originally said about Dr Stock.

Because someone has persuaded or compelled them to remove it.

I look forward to a future essay in the Economist asking why the Sussex University Student Union have been denied their freedom of speech in this regard.



It is probably too late to stop me from publishing my notes on Boris Johnson and Talons of Weng Chiang, but if you join my Patreon you might be able to divert me into something more interesting next month. 

I Think This Getting Needlessly Dialectical

If it is the intention to expose comprehensively the downside of recipients of statues in Bristol, why stop at Colston. To the equestrian statue of William of Orange in Queen's Square could be added "He complied with the invitation from a group of traitors to depose the rightful king, James 2nd." To Cary Grant's: "He was a serial adulterer." To Edward VII's "He was a frequenter of French brothels". To Queen Victoria's; "As Empress of India, she ruled over the oppression of millions of Indians. Of course this will not happen. 

We know our new masters.

Letter, Evening Post, 31/7


"In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man."

Enoch Powell, April, 1968



intrigued but not surprised to find out that the Colston Cultists are Jacobites, incidentally. 

The Last Days of Dangling Plot Thread Woman

After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Just because it perished?

How do you follow the most iconic scene in the history of comic books? 

Spider-Man has conquered his inner demons; exorcised his albatross; saved his Aunt and demanded fair pay from his boss. So what happens next? Steve Ditko needed to come up with something very special indeed if he was going to surpass the legendary Spider-Man-lifts-something-really-really-heavy sequence from #33. He needed something that would make our collective jaws drop; something which would change Spider-Man forever. He needed something which every previous issue had been building towards, and which would affect every issue to come.

And dammit if, just for a second, it doesn't look as if he is going to pull it off. 

Spider-Man 34

It comes, as all great scenes do, from nowhere. After twenty seven issues of dancing around the question, Betty Brant asks Peter Parker directly: "I know you are keeping some terrible secret from me; you must tell me what it is." And after all the lies and hypocrisy, Peter Parker gives her a straight answer. He calmly climbs up the wall, hangs upside down from the ceiling and rips open his shirt. "Peter?" he says "That's just one of the names I'm known by. I also answer to another name. The name of Spider-Man." He pronounces the last word in blood red letters, Jessie Custer style, just in case Betty misses the point. 

And then she wakes up.

Betty Brant was never meant to be Lois Lane. She drifts through issues #2, #3 and #4 as a background character; only in #5 does Peter Parker notice that she's really pretty, and not until #6 does he ask her out. It isn't clear Peter and Betty ever go on what you would really call a date; but issue #7 ends with them chastely embracing behind Mr Jameson's desk. It's a lovely ending to one of my favourite Spider-Man tales. Geeky Peter has stopped whimpering and found someone he really gets on with.

But a happy relationship does not a story make: and an engagement would have spoiled Peter Parker's teenage appeal. So Stan and Steve set about making the path of true love as rough as they possibly can. First they turn Betty Brant into "the girl with the dark secret". She cryptically refers to a mysterious tragedy in her past; and she appears to be being blackmailed by the Mob. This is resolved in issue #12: it turns out that her brother Bennet was in debt to organized crime. When Bennet is murdered, Betty conceives an irrational hatred of Spider-Man. This defines Peter and Betty's relationship for the rest of the Ditko years. He can't ask her to marry him unless he first tells her who he really is, but if he tells her who he really is, she won't want to marry him. The nice girl who shared Peter's sense of humour has morphed into a tragically unattainable courtly heroine.

From issue #13 onward, Betty is redefined as "the jealous woman." She thinks that Peter is dating Liz (who he doesn't particularly like); she thinks he is dating Mary Jane (who he has never even met); she thinks he is dating the Human Torch's girlfriend (who he kindly returned a lost wallet to); and she thinks he is dating Hollywood starlets (because he is covering a movie for Mr Jameson.)  In fairness, Peter gets to play the role of "the jealous guy" from #18, when Betty's too-good-to-be-true boyfriend Ned Leeds appears on the scene and immediately leaves the country. Just when things seem to have settled down, Ned comes home (#29) and promptly asks Betty to marry him (#30).

When Peter finds out about the proposal, he and Betty have a shouting row, which ends with him telling her to go ahead and marry Ned and her shouting "It's you I love" through the slammed door. They break up all over again in #33, with Betty first running after Peter and then running away from him. In #30 her inner monologue is preoccupied by Peter Parker's mysterious secret; in #33, she is more concerned about his dangerous line of work and apparent hunger for action. 

Peter Parker has a Big Secret. Peter Parker gets himself into dangerous situations. Peter Parker sometimes gets beaten up. Peter Parker takes pictures of Spider-Man. But Betty Brant cannot draw the obvious conclusion even when her unconscious is screaming it in her face. "Oh thank heavens! It is not so! I merely dreamt it! Whatever Peter's secret is...it can't be that!"

*

When Doctor Octopus unmasked Spider-Man in issue #12, the cover copy screamed "Not a dream! Not an imaginary tale!" This is a little bit unfair to Marvel's Distinguished Competition: imaginary stories were invariably announced as such on page 1; they were never used as devices to trick the reader. But Marvel never really went in for Imaginary Tales. In the 70s they had a magazine called "What If?", but there is a philosophical, or at any rate grammatical difference between a story about what "may" happen in some hypothetical future, and a story about what "might have" happened in some alternate present. "What would happen if Lois Lane had Superbabies?" is a very different proposition from "What would have happened if Uncle Ben had survived." 

But dream-endings certainly were used as a means of tricking the reader; and they were always very annoying. In this case the trick only lasts for a few panels, but it is still very irksome. It hurts to be told that something has happened, and then to be told  that actually, it hasn't happened after all. It hurts to be shown something as interesting as Spider-Man unmasking and not to be allowed to see what follows from it. And it hurts a great deal to realize that the only remaining avenue of character development has been closed off. Now that she has dreamed the bleedin' obvious fact that Peter is Spider-Man, there is zero chance that Betty is going to put two and two together in real life. And now that we have seen Peter Parker tell Betty the truth in a dream, there is zero chance that we will see him come clean in the waking world. We thought we were getting a resolution: what we actually got was a declaration that this story-line is never going to be resolved.

Betty is shunted off to the land where subplots go to die. Or at any rate, Chicago. She can't go back to sleep because she is thinking of Peter Parker, and realizes that she has to "make a decision about him...a decision which can't be put off any longer." And that's the last we see of her for seven issues. By the end of issue #34 Jonah Jameson has a new secretary, and Peter is having a good old whinge about the situation. ("She'd never accept me as Spider-Man...but Spider-Man I've been...and shall always be...for as long as I live.") In #35, he goes to the office, meets the new girl, and chucks a framed photo inscribed to Betty in the bin. As previously noted, Peter is childishly obsessed with chucking his toys in trash-cans. Since Ned Leeds is also out of town, Peter assumes that he and Betty left together: the following issue, he actually uses the term "eloped". By #36, he is very much treating Betty as an "ex-" ("I don't want another Betty Brant situation developing again".) Jameson has another new secretary in #37; another one quits in #38. ("That's the third one this week" quips Peter "and it's only Tuesday.")

In issue #38 Ned Leeds comes home. It turns out that he didn't elope with Betty: he went to California on private business and has no more idea than Peter where she went. Ned blames Peter for driving her away, and tells Peter that he has proposed to her, even though Peter knows, and Ned knows he knows. The two guys have a fully fledged shouting match. Peter's internal monologue is even more chauvinistic than usual: he is still banging on about how Betty would never accept him as Spider-Man, and then adds "But I can't be sure. No-one can predict a female's reaction!" He spends the rest of the issue worrying about Betty (patronizingly calling her "the kid") and then punches a shop window mannequin because it looks slightly like Ned Leeds. "You know Why I hate you, Leeds... Because you have the right to propose to Betty! The shadow of Spider-Man isn't standing between you." 

I think that Ditko was going somewhere with all this. Betty has gone somewhere to do a thing, and Ned Leeds is using his Investigative Reporter skills to find out where and what. But Steve leaves the building without giving Stan any clues as to how the story was going to develop; and within two issues Stan has allowed it to fizzle out like a second hand firework.

Is it perhaps even possible that the Ned/Betty plot was supposed to be connected in some way with the Norman Osborn plot?  Steve was laying the groundwork for a Big Reveal about Norman Osborn in his final two issues, fueling the speculation that it was a disagreement about this plot line that caused the greatest partnership in the history of comics to come to an end. Of  course, we now take it for granted that the Mysterious Mr Osborn turns out to be [SPOILERS FOLLOW] the Green Goblin. But Romita's first two issues (#39 and #40) follow awkwardly from Ditko's last ones (#37 and #38). As late as 1974, Marvel's in-house magazine FOOM was claiming that Ditko intended Ned Leeds to be the Green Goblin, while Stan Lee was still wedded to the Aztec Mummy idea... Some people think that there is some significance in Ned Leeds' green tie, and in the fact that the tailor's dummy has a big grin on its face. This is a really big stretch. But I can't believe that two characters would have gone off on mysterious journeys if there wasn't supposed to be some revelation about their destinations.

So, in Romita's first issue, Parker meets Ned again, and they mutually apologize for their row. Peter tells Ned that he's "out of the running" for Betty and tells himself that he will now "put her out of his mind" forever. (Peter may be turning into a hipster, but he still regards women as prizes which men compete for.) In issue #40, Betty gets to do some soliloquizing of her own. Apparently what happened was that she woke up from her bad dream and hopped on a train to Chicago (some 800 miles away) but is going to come home because "a girl can never run away from a decision". But...but...I thought the whole reason for her leaving town was to enable her to make a decision? She says that she still hates to hear Spider-Man's name; but is more worried about whether Mr Jameson will give her her old job back.

"And if he does...what will it be like, seeing Peter Parker and Ned Leeds again? And what will they say when they see me? Will there still be a place in their lives...for Betty Brant?" 

Oh dear. 

This scene carries a Stan Lee qualifier:

"As you've probably guessed by now, the pages you've just read are a typical Marvel device for bringing new readers up to date as painlessly as possible! We just didn't want you to think that you'd picked up a romance book by mistake."

Stan's relationship with John Romita seems to have been much less Marvel methodical than the one with Ditko: there is a much greater sense that Stan tells John what to draw, and John draws it. But six panels is a lot of space to spend telling us stuff we already know; and Betty's soliloquy is more than usually replete with waffle. Did Romita turn in pictures of an enigmatic Betty on a railway station, as part of an ongoing romantic sub-plot, and did Stan then fill it with inconsequential thought bubbles because he was no longer interested in this particular thread? He certainly seems still to be sensitive to the complaints of fans who object to love, romance, drama and mystery....

Betty finally gets back to New York in issue #41, and the romance which has been coming to an end since issue #11 grinds to a resounding nothing. Betty tells Peter that she has had a nice time on the coast. It follows that her business in Chicago was so secret and mysterious that she is prepared to lie to both Peter and Ned about where she has been. Or that she went to Chicago via California, a detour of barely two thousand miles. Or else that Stan Lee has completely stopped paying attention. 

Peter and Betty have an awkward conversation until Ned turns up, and then Peter makes his excuses and leaves. On his way, he performs a short aria.

"All these months I thought about her, dreamt about her, longed for her!! So now she's returned...and nothingsville. Whatever we had before, whatever there was between us...it's gone."

But so far as we know, Peter has not been thinking about, dreaming about, and longing for Betty. Rather the reverse: Betty has been standing on railway stations wondering why the figure of Spider-Man haunts her dreams; while Peter has been basically resigned to the fact that the relationship can't work and has even started flirting with Gwen. Stan Lee has gone for one of his soft-resets: the idea that Spider-Man has driven the two star-crossed lovers apart fades out; the idea that Betty even cares about Peter's secret evaporates. It turns out that they have just outgrown each other.

This doesn't stop Peter having a jolly good wallow, and like all adolescents on the rebound he denies that his feelings about Betty were ever real. 

"Once I thought I couldn't live without her. Now she's just another girl named Betty. Boy have I grown up in these past few months! I realize now we never had anything in common. It's just that she was the first girl I ever thought I loved!" 

And so, no more of Betty Brant. In #42 she is shown working for the Daily Bugle again; and in #43 she is showing off the engagement ring that Ned has bought her. By then Peter is actively courting Gwen Stacey and Aunt May has succeeded in introducing him to his glamorous neighbor Mary Jane.

It would be a hundred issues before Ned Leeds and Betty Brant finally got married. A hundred issues after that, it turned out that although Ned was never the Green Goblin he was the Hobgoblin. Sort of.

He is killed off in in an issue of Wolverine.

Listen Bud

A Close Reading of the First Great Graphic Novel in American Literature

by

Andrew Rilstone

Andrew Rilstone is a writer and critic from Bristol, England. This essay forms part of his critical study of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's original Spider-Man comic book. 

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Amazing Spider-Man was written and drawn by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and is copyright Marvel Comics. All quotes and illustrations are use for the purpose of criticism under the principle of fair dealing and fair use, and remain the property of the copyright holder.

 Please do not feed the troll. 

How many dog whistles can you fit into one letter?

So there's a plot afoot to rename the Colston Hall.

OK, he was a slave trader, but he did a lot for Bristol, building schools, alms houses and founding charities. Didn't Gladstone's father make his pile out of the slave trader in Liverpool? What about the Willis Memorial Building at the university, master piece that it is? Didn't the Willis family make their money out of tobacco...

Where do you start and stop this sort of logic. You can't judge the people of the past by today's standards or airbrush unpleasant things out of history.
Marc Hursfield, Bristol Post 25/4

Blogger has pleasant chat with his readers: asks them what they want him to write about next. 

Kolston Kerfuffle Kontinues

There is a scheme to add an explanatory plaque to the statue of Edward Colston which stands in the center of Bristol. 

The current statue simply says that Colston was one of the "most virtuous and wise" sons of Bristol. The proposed text would read: 

"As a high official of the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, Edward Colston played an active role in the enslavement of over 84,000 Africans (including 12,000 children) of whom over 19,000 died en route to the Caribbean and America. Colston also invested in the Spanish slave trade and in slave-produced sugar. As Tory MP for Bristol (1710-1713), he defended the city’s ‘right’ to trade in enslaved Africans. Bristolians who did not subscribe to his religious and political beliefs were not permitted to benefit from his charities.”

Surely no-one could possibly have any objection to this wording?

This pathetic bid to mount a secondary revisionist plaque on Colston's Statue is historically-illiterate and a further stunt to try to reinvent Bristol's history

If it goes through, it will be a further slap-in-the-face for true Bristolians and our city's history delivered by ignorant, left-wing incomers

I have never been a believer in taking the law into one's own hands. However, if this partisan and nauseous plaque is approved, I can not find it in my heart to condemn anyone who damages or removes it.

Richard Eddy (Bristol Councilor)

I want to pull down and erase all mention of William the Conquer as he killed some English people at Hastings. 
andys rifles (via Mail Online) 

I take it these lefties also want Karl Marx gravestone and image removed too? 
Mark from Manchester, (via Mail Online)

Another example of someone from distant passed being judged by today's standards. Are these people thick or just mad?
Christian solider, (via Mail Online)

Why do those in authority always cave in to lefties instead of protecting our history
Time for revolution, (via Mail Online)