Fantastic Mr. Fox (2005) | Hacker News Reader

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2005)

granta.com

Wow - this is old journalism at its best. A few things really stand out:

- a 36(!!) minute masterpiece, and difficult to cut anything out to make it shorter without losing something

- the journalist covered both sides of the story, and did so beautifully, allowing us to enter into his shoes and feel like we were in the action, talking to the people on both sides

- both sides were given more than fair treatment to voice, not just their political stance, but their passion and feelings about the issue

- added supplementary information about foxes, the history of hunting, animal rights, English dissenting tradition, even his personal experience with foxes - all to add color to the issue and make it come alive within its historical and humanistic context

- the opinion on whether or not fox hunting is right is not the main point of the article - the issue isn't front and center, the people are

- does not write his opinion into the article, remains the unbiased third party throughout while still allowing the reader to get into the heads of both sides and form their own perspectives and views

- an absolutely amazing conclusion (i want to avoid spoiling it) that manages to tie everything mentioned in the article together and turning fox hunting into commentary about the entire British society

2004, huh? Would love to see this kind of journalism make a comeback.

I disagree. This shows some of the worst flaws of modern journalism: The smarmy tone, writing the story about personalities rather than facts, the narcissistic urge of the journalist to insert himself into the story.

It's a travesty.

So, what's the alternative? And would it be as interesting to read? People generally like the human interest aspect. Especially as this isn't "news" but more a form of anthropology, a visit to two secretive warring tribes of rural Britain.

I think the fact that the journalist is pushing the warring tribes narrative is part of the problem. I should have listed that among its flaws.

The journalist here is egging the two sides on, deliberately setting up confrontations, and rooting for blood. It's interesting read because it stimulates your lizard brain, but it's not good journalism.

The confrontations were always there - the two sides were engaged in regular confrontations for years. If anything the journalist tries to defuse it at one point by pulling the "I'm with the press" card, and eventually sets up a non-confrontation reminisce between the two old men of the old sides.

I don't see how bringing the activist into a bar full of hunters and then announcing that you're his protector is anything like trying to diffuse conflict. Acting like a macho tough guy and flippantly giving a library card as a press credential when you get called out is a pretty cheeky thing to do.

Farmyard, rather than bar: "we drove into a farmyard full of farmhands and hunt supporters."

> Acting like a macho tough guy and flippantly giving a library card as a press credential when you get called out is a pretty cheeky thing to do.

Flippant, yes, macho .. not exactly. It is however extremely English, this kind of whimsicality in the face of interpersonal violence. Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digby_Tatham-Warter carrying an umbrella about the Battle of Arnhem and leading a bayonet charge wearing a bowler hat.

The British Library membership card is fantastic for this. It's almost literally saying "Don't punch me, I'm upper middle class". Given the importance of class signifiers in the whole affray, that moves him perfectly to bystander status. Probably worked better than an actual press card. Or warrant card.

But as he points out, this is an extremely routine conflict, almost as if this is what these people do at the weekends rather than have fights at football matches:

> "Then, I had the sense, it was all just like old times. The saboteur women screamed murderous abuse at the terrier-men while the terrier-men tried to knock video cameras from the women’s hands, there were scuffles and a good deal of debate about who started what, and vicious, well-rehearsed arguments about the bloody business of killing foxes. I wandered around asking if anyone happened to have seen my car keys."

(There is probably a whole other article to be written about the dark whimsy of violence that pervades this article!)

> smarmy, narcissistic, rooting for blood, lizard brain, macho guy, flippantly, cheeky

Just letting you know about a blind spot you may have. These words I'm highlighting are the exact opposite of factual - they are all your opinion that the author of the article is full of himself, and for your personal growth, I'd encourage you to try not to assume that about people.

The human interest aspect is the whole point of it. If there were no humans, there wouldn't even need to be a law about fox hunting, so if you take the human interest away, there is no issue.

I think part of my praise of this piece is because most modern issues lack the anthropological side to the conversation, when often it is the most important part. Policy makers (and that is everyone in a democracy) that only care about the "rightness" of a policy and do not get into the people's lives that are being affected by it tend to create poor solutions and only make the problem worse.

I love that this article goes beyond anthropology into conflict resolution. An arbitrator takes two warring parties and brings them together to be able to discuss their issues. While this author doesn't have an arbitration background, his bringing of the two parties together does what any good arbitrator do - cause each party to see the humanity and point of view of the other, and be able to "agree to disagree" without getting worked up. I don't know what else to say except that it's great journalism - it's great reporting on the complexity and maturity of modern human society.

I think it caught the spirit of the conflict, which is inherently political and cultural, rather well. It also appears well researched. The conversation with Tony Banks and his references to Peter Freeman give a lot of historical perspective and how society and the role of the state/establishment is changing, albeit slowly. So there are plenty of facts, just not simplistic ones.

A review of the situation in 2019 would be interesting to see. What did the saboteurs achieve, was it long term and what lessons could be applied to stop the continuing cruelty being meted out to wildlife on a daily basis which is still legal - the poisoning and shooting of protected birds of prey to satisfy the demand for driven grouse shooting being a good example.

Poisoning and shooting protected birds is still illegal, but as the article subtly points out, there is almost zero chance of it being prosecuted.

The foxhunting issue is still ongoing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-468...

Since the article was written in 2005 the obvious analogy was the Iraq war; today it would be Brexit.

I think if this was masquerading as journalism I'd agree with you but it's even categorized under "Essays and Memoir" which I think is pretty accurate. It's not objective news reporting as much as weaving a tale from a subjective viewpoint, conveying an interesting series of anecdotes.

Probably wrong

I think long-form pieces like this are interesting, but I would hardly say it'd be "difficult to cut anything out". There is a ton of fluff here. I certainly don't have time to read the whole thing.

Interesting article. I have two bits to offer.

Firstly, when I was young, my dad used to judge fox hunting. The trials he judged were almost never to the "death" though. He once told me that he only saw a hound actually catch a fox once when the fox ran though a culvert while the hound ran over it and got to the end first. There is a clear opportunity to separate the hunt from the kill.

The second is that I now live on a rather large piece of property. Some fields and some woodland. We allow a local group of "fox hunters" use our property as part of their hunt. While they show up with a dozen horses and twice as many hounds on a semi-regular basis, they don't actually hunt or chase fox. Prior to the hunt the hound master comes to our property and uses a scent rag of some kind to scent a trail for the hounds to follow.

In fact, there is a fox den within 50m of my home office and the hounds show no interest in the den. Fox tend to raise their kits "closer" to people as coyotes (the main local threat to fox) are reluctant to come as close to people as fox are. Not great news for my chickens as we loose one or two a month to the fox, but that is the price I pay for living where I do.

The gist of it is this. It is unfortunate that the various players can't typically reach a compromise. There seems to be ample opportunity to do so. I live in a world where the "fox" hunting tradition thrives and yet no fox are actually chased let alone killed.

Oscar Wilde summed fox hunting up best: "The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable."

What the cuss, expected this to be about the Wes Anderson stopmotion film or Roald Dahl book

Are you cussing with me?

> shout ‘Free Tibet’ into the startled [chinese] premier’s car. When the pictures of his solo protest appeared on Channel 4 News, he lost his job at London Underground.

what a pathetic society.

Yeah, that wasn’t very clear. He hardly lost his job because of the politician action outside work, is that legal? Maybe it caused him to miss too many days of work and that was used to fire him, maybe by management who wanted to appear faithful to the establishment.

>He was going to attempt the Three Peaks Challenge, running up Snowdon and Sea Fell and Ben Nevis, the highest mountains in Wales and England and Scotland, in one day.

Sea Fell? Scafell Pike?

Yes, Scafell Pike. Another, sad example of a townie knowing nothing about the countryside.

https://www.threepeakschallenge.uk/national-three-peaks-chal...

https://youtu.be/Jjbu0kSEuQQ

I did this the moment I read the article's title.

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