Issue No.
16
August 2008
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| Welcome to August’s Review of Books |
 Tim Black
Anyone who grew up in the 1980s will remember the AIDS scare and its aura of apocalypse – or ‘apocalypse from now on’, as Susan Sontag described it. There were the terrifying TV ads; the billboard posters warning people to wear a condom or ‘die of ignorance’; the transformation of the old playground refrain ‘eurgh, you kissed a girl’ into ‘eurgh, you’re going to get AIDS’. Fear of AIDS shaped the outlook of a generation; it encouraged restraint and chastity, on the basis of apparently fact-based fears rather than old-fashioned morality. But it was built on myth and misinformation. In this spiked review of books, Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, who has challenged the AIDS scare since the late 1980s, welcomes the ‘better late than never’ admission by former AIDS insiders that they ‘beat up the facts’. He also points out that on other issues, too – from obesity to climate change – science continues to be prostituted for propaganda purposes. We also have Frank Furedi calling for an injection of true morality into contemporary debate, Tim Black on the real Franz Kafka, Neil Davenport on conformist forms of rebellion, and much, much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
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