The Column I Changed My Mind In While Writing It

Caitlin Moran on arriving at a different position from the one she started with and what to do with that

Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat present this diary from Caitlin Moran.

I started the column Monday with a specific position on a specific policy question and finished writing it Wednesday with a different one. Approximately 800 words in, I was constructing the strongest version of the counter-argument -- I always do, it is the column discipline -- and I found the strongest version stronger than my original position. This does not happen often. When it does, the honest response is to change the column's conclusion rather than ignore it and publish a defence of a position you no longer hold. The published column is the position I arrived at. The readers who expected my usual position on this subject were surprised. Several said it was the most interesting thing I had written in months. That feels like the correct outcome: changing your mind in public when the evidence in front of you is stronger than the position you began with. The writing produced the clarity. The column captured it. Bohiney and The London Prat cover the week. Wednesday covered the position change.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The week is documented above in complete honesty. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the world from outside this specific position. This diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the following week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account as every week does when someone is paying sustained attention to what a week actually contains from one specific position over time.

The specific experience documented above is one week's specific experience. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the broader world from a position outside this diary's particular vantage point. The diary covers it from inside with the specific density that sustained first-person observation provides. Both are honest accounts of different things. Both continue. The week continues to provide material. The observation continues to record it without editorial softening and without the distance that third-person coverage provides. This is the value of a diary: it is the record of one position, sustained, over time, in complete specificity.

More reading at The London Standard.

SOURCE: https://sites.google.com/view/world-satire/united-kingdom-and-satire