In a comment on my previous Post, David Lindsay writes:
Extraordinary, isn't it? They are even saying that he only got it because they organised voting for him as a "comedy meme"!
Well, yes, and, if I may say so, no. No because the Neocons' Arrogance is such that they appear genuinely baffled at having been so resoundingly Defeated.
Therefore all manner of excuses must be invented. The main one is that it was a minor award of no real importance, which only a tiny handful of people voted for. But you could say the same thing about the Booker Prize! The judging panel for that number far less than the ONE THOUSAND people who voted for Neil Clark. So surely on that basis the Neocons should be insisting that Salman Rushdie's 1981 Booker Prize is of no consequence! But no, of course, their Sheer Hypocrisy knows no bounds, so on the rare occasions when one of their Heroes wins an award it must be presented as an Overwhelming Victory.
The next excuse, it seems, is that nobody took it seriously. Try telling that to Neil Clark! Again though, this just shows up their Arrogance; they cannot even imagine the existence of an opposing view to theirs, which as David has Noted is currently Hegemonic, and therefore they have to pretend that such views are somehow a joke or a spoof. How glad I am that we shall soon be seeing that this is, indeed, very far from being the case.
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Patrick, I hate to break it to you, but many people undoubtedly did vote for Neil Clark repeatedly for comedic reasons. I've already admitted to doing so myself, and while I obviously can't prove that I wasn't the only one, I'd be very surprised indeed if this was the case, as there was plenty of encouragement doing the rounds.
Whether this swung him the final victory or not, I can't possibly say - but on balance it seems highly likely that it made a very significant contribution. And those of us who did it in search of comedy are being richly rewarded, as Clark's self-important vaingloriousness has been a joy to behold.
And your comparison with the Booker voting system makes no sense whatsoever. The Booker Prize is voted by a small number of judges chosen for their expertise, who have spent months reading and discussing all the nominees in depth - so you can be reasonably sure that the final verdict is a considered one.
How can this seriously be compared with a system that has no registration, no way of knowing whether the votes are informed (I'd barely heard of the other nominees), and which actively encourages multiple votes?
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