Euan McColm: We shouldn’t forget it’s OK to disagree sometimes

The newspaper columnist Jack McLean was a remarkable character.

A former art teacher, he became famous for his – let’s say trenchant – views, which appeared during the 1980s and 1990s in the pages of The Scotsman and the then Glasgow Herald.

Jack – who died over Christmas at the age of 78 – bestowed upon himself the soubriquet “The Urban Voltaire” and swanked around, looking quite the dandy.

If there was one thing Jack spent more on than whisky, it was clothes. He wore handmade Italian shoes, silk suits, cashmere coats and fedoras, and he sparked your cigarettes with a gold Dunhill lighter. He resembled a movie gangster.

Vain and self-conscious about his baldness, Jack fashioned a preposterous hairstyle out of a few strands, a series of kirby grips, and a lot of hope. I suspect those fedoras weren’t chosen merely for their look.

There was much about Jack you could ridicule, but I always rather admired his old-fashioned adherence to making an effort. And I’m sure he was smart enough to know that his appearance was good for business.

Seen this lad smoking outside Heraghty’s bar on Pollockshaws Road in Glasgow yesterday, asked to take his photo, then asked his name. Someone piped up 'you're obviously not from Glasgow if you need to ask his name', which was Jack McLean. pic.twitter.com/cPxXHcziYc

— Fritters (@YourWullie) June 6, 2021

A generation of newspaper readers could have identified him in silhouette. He made himself stand out from the crowd of columnists by carefully crafting an image for himself.

Jack appeared to be someone who lived a glamorous life of decadent excess. The reality was that he lived with his mum, until her death, in a tenement they bought off the council.

Differences of opinion create insurmountable walls

The other way in which Jack made himself stand out was with the words he wrote. He could be provocative and sometimes downright offensive. The first time I met him, I told him my mother had only ever once written to a newspaper and it was to complain about him.

“Ach,” he said, “she was probably right.” And then he got the drinks in.

Back in the late 1990s, when I was a most enthusiastic drinker, I spent many nights in Jack’s company. I remember a lot of laughing and a lot of good-natured argument.

From time to time, I would agree with something Jack wrote but, more often than not, I wouldn’t. Sometimes, it would simply be a case of his views belonging to a man of a certain age. Sometimes, I’d accuse him of crossing a line in order to shock rather than to shine a light.

Thinking about Jack, I find myself growing nostalgic for a time when disagreement was no big deal; when it was possible to think somebody quite wrong about just about everything and still rub along with them perfectly well.

These days, it seems differences of opinion create insurmountable walls between us.

In 1999, when the Scottish parliament first opened, it was perfectly normal to see MSPs of all parties socialising together in the pubs of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile

Social media, of course, has played its part in that. It’s far easier to type a snippy reply to someone than to confront them in person. Online, we don’t see the whole person with all their complexities and frailties. We just see someone who is wrong.

Add to this a new era of political tribalism, and the chance of agreeable disagreement withers further.

In 1999, when the Scottish parliament first opened, it was perfectly normal to see MSPs of all parties socialising together in the pubs of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. If you dropped into Deacon Brodie’s on a Thursday evening, you’d find SNP, Tory, Labour and Lib Dem members locked into rounds together.

There was a reassuring sense that, although these people would disagree furiously in the debating chamber, they still respected and even liked each other.

Today, if an SNP MSP was seen sharing a pint with a Tory opponent, someone would have a photo up on Twitter in minutes, and there’d follow a torrent of abuse.

It’s more important than ever to accept it’s fine to disagree

We are, I fear, losing the ability to accept that those with whom we disagree may be acting in good faith. If someone holds an opinion with which we disagree, they must be doing so for malign reasons.

Politicians have played their shameful part in this. The SNP’s witless charge that any party that disagrees with its independence wishes is just another type of Conservative – Labour members are frequently accused of being “red Tories” – has polluted the discourse. Now, it is quite common to see politicians attacked not only for their beliefs but for who shares their beliefs.

I’m sure many of you know families where big binary questions such as Scottish independence and Brexit have created painful division. If we recognise this, we must surely fight back against it.

In these divided times, it’s more important than ever to accept it’s fine to disagree, just as I usually did with my old pal Jack McLean.

Euan McColm is a regular columnist for various Scottish newspapers