Johann Hari mystifies me with one of his answers to the Total Politics questionnaire.
Asked which six people he would invite to a fantasy dinner party, living or dead, he replies:
"Oscar Wilde, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Paine, Andrea Dworkin, Clive James and my grandmother."
Okay, Oscar Wilde and Friedrich Nietzsche? And Andrea Dworkin? See, to me, that goes beyond "an interesting combination" and well into "every man for himself." I think it would take Wilde about three seconds to start throwing elegant verbal darts at old Freddy, who I can't imagine taking it well. Nor do I think Mr. "Ubermensch" would cope particularly effectively with Ms. The Patriarchy Is Even Worse Than You Think And I Have The Vaginal Scars To Prove It. And vice versa. Not that she'd get much help from Wilde, whose idea of how to handle being violently oppressed was quite different from, one might even say opposed to, hers.
I salute Mr. Hari for his bravery in wanting to oversee such a crew, and his optimism in apparently believing that light could be wrung from their heat--and that it wouldn't totally overshadow his other three guests, the great rationalist, the great critic, and the great private citizen of whom Hari has written before, the widowed grandmother who struggled to raise her children.
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What's really interesting, though, is the question of what they would eat at this party. When asked "What's your favourite dish?" a few lines down, Hari replies, "Big Mac and fries."
I hope that's what he'd serve. I'd love to see what Wilde and Nietzsche would make of it.
