Important article by Lionel Shriver

Thank you for the share token.

I think this is true:
They didn’t invent their wretched ideas; they’re reading from a common hymn sheet. That’s why they all use the same words and subscribe to the exact same roster of convictions, no matter how preposterous: these people aren’t original thinkers. But they imagine they’re at the cutting edge.

I see the purity police are out in force taking their kicks at KJK. The call must have gone out in Brighton. Real socialist feminism needed on Mumsnet now, get up, get posting, get deploring!

I'm behind Shriver, even on what the virtue-signalling early brigade call the racism. The decolonisation and SJW movements, BLM — all part of the greater problem. See the Evergreen videos for evidence. I'm also behind KJK. I don't own a piece of her merchandise, I've never been to one of her rallies, but even so I credit her with being really effective at mobilising women that WPUK couldn't reach.

Exactly this. As a chronic, craven people -pleaser I'm genuinely fascinated by people who give no fucks. I always wonder how they do it.

This absolutely. She is the intellectual equivalent of a marmite sandwich for me.

I actually would like to attend a dinner party with her as a guest. I find her interesting and forthright. I for sure don’t agree with everything she thinks or says but that is ok. I like that. Her novels are hit or miss. Kevin was fantastic.

Hm, I sometimes read things, and think "They're having a literary wank." This article feels a bit like that to me. As @teawamutu says, she may 'excel in the uncomfortable' but here she's just polishing away for the sake of it.

I'm inclined to agree with PP that while I agree with her position on gender identity and can appreciate the clarity of her arguments, she's not someone I feel allied too.

Racism and disablism are not OK. A second Trump presidency is nothing to celebrate and people like Shriver risk labelling GC feminists as bigots.

She sounds like she ate Katie Hopkins.

We can celebrate the good sense which is finally prevailing on gender and gender affirmation -thank goodness.

I can't work out whether she's having a laugh or is in earnest with much of the rest of her article, but I don't like it. There, I said it.

A massive FFS from me.

And KJK makes me equally uneasy. I would not line up on the barricades beside either of them

She's a free speech absolutist and vehemently against anything she regards as tokenism.

I'm not comfortable reading those words either, but she excels in the uncomfortable. She's the literati equivalent of KJK, perhaps?

Cross-posted!

You've perfectly summed up how I feel reading this. I agree with her position on gender identity, but this is a nasty, bitter article with racist and ablist undertones (celebrating the return of the word "retarded" FFS).

She makes me really uneasy. John Lewis advert filmed in Nigeria, for featuring black people? How is that not blatant racism?

Celebrating the come back of the word retarded? Really?

I don’t like much of what she says but I agree that extremism in left wing politics caused an enormous back lash which in turn has led to the increase in right wing extremism and now threatens to undo all the good which the more moderate left had previously achieved.
The madness of trans activism was the straw which broke the camel’s back.

I'd very much like to meet Lionel Shriver. I don't think she'd be comfortable company for a minute, but her absolute clarity of expression is incredible.

God she is depressing. So much pound-per-word contrarian moaning. Whenever I read her columns I find it hard to believe that she wrote the magnificent We Need To Talk About Kevin.

She seems to specialise in being Too Affronted to sort out which is baby and which is bathwater. I don't particularly want gender critical thought to be lumped in with her gammony raging about anti-racist initiatives.

I noticed it said it was originally published in Spiked. This is the original article.

www.spiked-online.com/2024/12/20/we-may-finally-be-recovering-from-the-woke-brain-rot/

Finally we’re ditching the woke brain rot - share token

www.thetimes.com/article/63d6cc31-7a40-4d63-abba-8938f79c6c6f?shareToken=addf06eb53e41d04fbb97e1bc83e02ab