It is intellectually dishonest... to hold a view in part because you regard those who hold the opposite view to be silly or off-putting or distracted.
That is notwithstanding the fact that he begins from a position that claims that Donald Trunp is not as bad as he seems but he retrieves himself by identifying my own natural, treasured inclination by asking,
is it wrong to take a minority position on the grounds that so many people can't be right.
Barton uses a debate about the relative merits of tennis and golf as an example to extend the effect and shows how one could be persuaded in favour of golf. Tennis is (obviously) agreed as the better sport but one is inclined to sympathize with golf more because the reasons given by others to deride golf are bad.
I recognize immediately how my natural affinity with Labour politics, not always backed up by my vote, is tempered by some bad reasons given by others for supporting them. And, in parallel, because I'd be the last to vote for a party that contains Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and George Osborne, I resent any suggestion that I might and am at pains to point out that my fascination with Jacob Rees-Mogg - and, yes, the joke has probably gone far enough by now - is only in line with Vicky Coren's aside once on Have I got News For You, 'Do you know, I find you strangely attractive'.
But it dangerously extends into artistic judgements when one's admiration of Lou Reed, which is this side idolatry, is almost tempered by the knowledge that when I saw him once, someone else who's opinion is like aversion therapy on me went to see him twice.
And my worship of Sylvia Plath, which is well beyond my estimation of Ted Hughes, is affected by those whose agendas have made her a test case for gender issues. So much so that when once I bought a badge with Sylvia's picture on it, I found I couldn't wear it for fear of being taken for a maniac and so I gave it away.
We should not be so craven in the face of the opinions of others, the various pieties, whether religious, political, artistic or sporting. Barton Swaim questions why it is 'intellectual honesty', reminding me of Ezra Pound crossing out adjectives and adverbs.
It's just honestly, probably. But when I left the atmosphere of campus correctness, where I had at least resisted the accepted taste for John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Frank Zappa, and entered the completely different world of work, I had held The Human League and much of the electronica of the early 1980's in very low esteem but then found myself working with people who bought such records. I found I changed my mind, whether by osmosis, compulsion or just to be sociable but I'm glad I did. It was just in time for Dare. And they were right and I'd been wrong.
