Six types of "Useful Idtot"

There have always been a depressing number of people who are willing to take the side in debate, not just of a country other than their own, but of regimes which have been disastrous failures, cruel tyrannies, or usually both.

Sometimes, as currently applies to Putin 's Russia, the regime concerned has gone to some lengths to gain the support of those people, mostly on the UKIP right or Corbynista left, who have fallen for their propaganda.

Other failed or tyrannical regimes, such as the disastrous Chavez and Maduro administrations which have presided over complete catastrophe in Venezuela, have hardly had to lift a finger to gain the adherence of naïve idealists from all over the world. In this case the people concerned have mostly been left-wingers who desperately wanted to convince themselves that a socialist regime could be successful. Gilbert and Sullivan put into the mouth of "The Mikado" the description of the kind of person who was anxious to be fooled by such regimes, as follows:







James Bloodworth has a great piece at the Unherd site about "The six types of useful idiot,"

in which he suggests that the categories in which such people can be considered include:

  • The Seeker
  • The Utopian
  • The Power-worshipper
  • The Relativist
  • The Stability-fetishist
  • The Nostalgist.

Here's a challenge - would anyone reading this like to make suggestions in the comments to see who can come up with the best allocation to these categories of Jeremy Corbyn, Seumus Milne, Arron Banks, Nigel Farage, Craig Murray and George Galloway. Bonus point if you can come up with at least one well known British apologist for Putin, Assad, Venezuela or Iran in each of the six categories.

James adds that this list is by no means exhaustive, but

"most bouts of useful idiocy can be understood with reference to at least one of these roughly drawn ‘types’. 

"Although, of course, many who are susceptible to one category are often also drawn to another. 

"I suspect many readers will wonder whether any of this matters – isn’t it obvious that such people are foolish and irresponsible? Does it really need pointing out? 

The only persuasive answer to this objection is to say that it isn’t as obvious as it ought to be. There are still those left-wing politicians and activists who, to paraphrase Orwell, will flock to anything emitting a whiff of revolution 'like bluebottles to a dead cat'”.

You can read the full article here.

Comments

Chris Whiteside said…
Taking up my own challenge:



The Seeker
Jeremy Corbyn (Venezuela)


The Idealist
Seumas Milne (Putin's Russia)


The Utopian
George Galloway (Iran)


The Power-Worshipper
Arron Banks (Putin)


The Stability-Fetishist
Craig Murray (Assad)
And anyone who suggests that if you don't support Assad you're supporting "head-chopping jihadists" (by which they sometimes turn out to mean not just DA'ESH and not just other opponents of the regime but also rescue groups such as the White Helmets!)


The Nostalgist
Nigel Farage (Putin)
Chris Whiteside said…
A useful idiot in the sense referred to in the James Bloodworth article, based on a saying attributed to Lenin, is someone who defends a foreign dictatorship or a grossly unsuccessful or tyrannical foreign government.

Therefore participants in the challenge to identify useful idiots must indicate in brackets after each person nominated the foreign dictatorship, hostile government or catastrophically unsuccessful foreign regime which the person so nominated has publicly defended or eulogised.

For this purpose a foreign regime qualifies if holds no elections or those it holds have been criticised by the United Nations or are otherwise obviously blatantly unfair, if it has been found by a court, including a coroner's court, likely to have been responsible for a murder on British soil, or if it is such an economic basket case that people are starving and resorting to tactics like eating their pets and zoo animals.

An idiot in the social media sense of "someone so stupid that they actually dare to have an opinion different to mine or do something I disapprove of" does not count as a "useful idiot" in the sense of this article.

Posts on this thread accusing someone of being an idiot which do not indicate which qualifying foreign regime the person has supported and appear to be based on an attitude that someone with different views to the poster is an idiot, will be deleted.

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