Category Archives: blogposts about normblog

ROB MARCHANT: To Norm

Rob Marchant

[originally posted on Rob’s blog]

I didn’t know Norman Geras, or “Norm”, as he was known by the blogging fraternity, that well – we certainly never spoke, although I had a number of exchanges with him – but I feel strangely like I have lost someone important today.

As well as a blogger, I am aware he has been a highly-respected professor of politics and whom I also cite as one of the important signatories of the 2006 Euston Manifesto, which helped me re-examine the way I think about a few things. It challenged the sloppy, lazy way that sections of the left had got into thinking.

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PAUL BURGIN: RIP Norman Geras

Paul Burgin

[first published on Paul’s Blog]

Saddened to have read in the last few minutes that Norman Geras died this morning. I only met him the once, during the initial meetings of The Euston Manifesto which he helped set up, but always found him to be meticulous and thoughtful in his politics, I am glad I got to interview him for this blog, and he later returned the favour. Put simply, Norman was one of the pioneers of UK political blogging and politics online will be smaller for his passing.

ROSIE BELL: Norman Geras – 1943–2013

Rosie Bell

[first published on Rosie’s blog]

I've been heavy-hearted all day after hearing that Norman Geras has died.

Norman Geras was in the same tradition as George Orwell—a social democrat who was concerned with the inconsistencies and the incoherent principles among that part of Left that in Orwell's time was soft in the head and heart about the Soviet Union and the Communist ideology and in our time shows the same gooiness towards Islamist theocracy.

Like Orwell, he had a clear writing style that conveyed a great appreciation of living. He had a wide hinterland—cricket, football, music, literature. He was also generous. His blog spent as much time praising as taking to task, of letting other people speak as well as himself.

He's gone and the worth of his life is attested to by the many people who never met him and who are now grieving for him. They knew him as a witty demolisher of other people's cant, an admirer of other people's talents, whether in cricket or music or novels on that blog that was as sparing of pictures as Le Monde used to be and was as unblinged as a nun's face. You knew him by his words which clearly and precisely exposed fatuity and showed the weakness of an argument.

When I first started blogging, I was delighted and honoured when he include me in his Norm profiles. We sent each other a few humorous emails. One was an exchange inspired by Eunoia, a novel with each chapter using only one vowel. Norm slipped up—"oh Norm, no, wrong." I could write to him.

I was taken by his charm and humour as well as by his sharp ear for cant and his moral clarity. I've read a lot of accounts today which say the same thing—never met him, exchanged a few emails, what a lovely bloke, and what an inspiring one.

SAMIR CHOPRA: RIP Norman Geras

Samir Chopra

[first published on Samir’s blog]

[At The Cordon, you can read Samir’s reflections on two of Norm’s cricket books]

Norman Geras, prolific blogger and professor emeritus of politics at the University of Manchester has passed away at the age of 70. He had been suffering from prostate cancer. Norm was best known as a political theorist whose oeuvre included books on Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg and Richard Rorty. (He also served on the editorial boards of the New Left Review and the Socialist Register.)

I chanced upon Norm’s blog after he and I had a short online exchange in response to a minor quasi-theological debate triggered by Yoram Hazony. I had written a post responding to a piece by Hazony in the New York Times; so did Norm. Corey Robin sent me Norman’s post, and I emailed or tweeted him, pointing him to mine.

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JOHN RENTOUL: Norman Geras: 1943-2013

John Rentoul

[first published on John Rentoul’s Independent blog]

Norman Geras

Norman Geras

Norman Geras, who died today, was a Marxist Blairite, which almost renders political labels redundant. More than that, though, he was mentor to a group of people, of whom I am proud to be a member, who could be called Gerasites. We learned so much from him about how to argue, and about how the internet could raise the quality and scope of political debate. His blogging was tight, clear and polite.

I’ll miss him.

His daughter Jenny writes: The blog and all its archives will remain online.

NICK COHEN: Norman Geras: Rest in peace, comrade

Nick Cohen

[reproduced from Nick’s Spectator blog]

I was shocked this morning to log on to Twitter and learn that Norman Geras had died. I can think of few political writers, who have influenced me more comprehensively. Whenever I faced a difficult moral question, I would at some point think ‘ah, what is Norm saying about this,’ go to his blog and see that Norm had found a way through.

Last year Norm’s colleagues Stephen de Wijze and Eve Garrard published a collection of essays in Norm’s honour. I was flattered when they asked me to write about Norm’s dual life as Manchester University’s Emeritus Professor of Politics and one of the first writers to embrace the Web.

As a tribute to him, I reprint it below.

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JOHN GRAY: Norman Geras: 1943–2013

John Gray

[first published on the John’s blog]

Norman Geras

Norman Geras

The blogging world is a lesser place tonight. Prolific political blogger, Norman Geras, Manchester University Politics Professor has died.

I once heard him speak at a Euston Manifesto conference during which he described the SWP (Socialist Workers Party) as not socialists because they don’t believe in democracy, not workers since they are middle class and not a party but a cult. I never spoke to him, but I have long admired his numerous clever and insightful posts on “Normblog“.

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MICK HARTLEY: Normblog at ten

Mick Hartley

[This first appeared on Mick Hartley’s blog]

Just a note to celebrate Norm's first decade of blogging.

He is I think, for certain sections of the UK blogosphere, something of a godfather. He is to me, at any rate. I corresponded with Norm before I ever put keyboard to blog, and he was kind enough to mention me once I'd started. That was back in the days of Iraq and the Euston Manifesto. A lot of water—an ocean of water—has flowed under all kinds of bridges since then, but here we still are, and I'm still, I'm happy to say, in almost total agreement with what he has to say.

Normblog also provides some kind of object lesson in how to mix up the posts, so that—gradually—some kind of portrait emerges of the man behind it all. There's the cricket, of course—an enthusiasm I don't fully share, admittedly, though I'm sufficiently au fait to appreciate the references – and there's the Country Music (Emmylou Harris notably, and who could argue). And then there are the novels. Norm, now he's retired, seems to have an extraordinary enthusiasm for the reading of fiction which I can only envy—and his recommendations are pretty damn good too. No doubt it helps to have both wife and daughter as successful writers.

But the core of Normblog is still the astute political analysis. So much to choose from, but just from the last week there's this excellent piece on Michael Rosen which, in the calmest most matter-of-fact way, and without resorting to any overblown rhetoric (not Norm's style at all)  just takes the poor man apart. There's no coming back from that.

So—here's to the next Normblog decade.