Malinformation

 

I'm a big fan of Neil Oliver, in fact I consider him to be the new conscience of the nation. He has a perception and passion that crystallizes many people's experience of living in today's world. A few months ago he made an interesting video about what he calls "malinformation". This term obviously emerges out of that infamous 2020's buzzword misinformation, but it's different in a crucial way. Misinformation is information that is false (allegedly), a lie, created to deceive. Malinformation is information that is true, but people being aware of it has a bad effect of some kind on somebody for some reason. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a5fBGUqfBU. In one of those strange ways, the other day I had two supposedly unconnected thoughts pop into my head at the same time. Firstly, it struck me that it was malinformation to be proud to be a hospital porter. In fact I've had so many conversations with others that prove this. I remember being on an overnight ferry to Ireland back in 2002. I had gone on holiday with somebody I really shouldn't have, as I found out later. We spent most of the journey on the standard argument... "but you just push a trolley, Ben!"... "Yes but"... and you know the rest. Despite the fact I won the debate easily, as I always do when it comes to this one; my "friend" refused to change his position and he doggedly doubled down, wasting what should have been, and could have been, a happy sea voyage for us both. By the time we docked at Cork harbour he was very agitated and found a pretext to hurl abuse at me in front of all the other passengers as we were waiting to disembark. He had been subjected to malinformation and felt hurt and enraged by it. For him, this was like an attack by me, as if I had physically struck him or stolen his car. This encounter was not the only time it happened; and it happened with many other people. What is it about being proud to be a HP that makes it malinformation? I'm still not sure after about thirty-five years of experiencing it. Maybe it's because it discredits an established piece of generally received opinion that most people regard as essential for making sense of their world. It is strange, but by far the most hostile recipients of my particular brand of malinformation are HP's or ex-HP's; especially the latter. The best example has to be "Jack Shaw", see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/05/i-lied-to-jack.html. Perhaps it would force him to admit that he had been lured away by the bright lights of civilian life because he couldn't bear the low conventional status of HPing. He resented me because I was standing up to something he ran away from. He envied me. He envied me as a prisoner envies his cellmate who achieves a jailbreak. Perhaps readers have other ideas and can enlighten me, in which case, please do post them in the comments section. The other idea I mentioned, on reflection, probably needs a separate follow-up article.