Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

[BovaryX]

There is an interesting article by Douglas Murray in the DM about the authoritarian, identity politics which have alienated Labour voters and triggered a paradigm shift in the political landscape. It covers some of the themes which Lang GC Pencils and others have been discussing in light of election result.

It is a divide between people who have real-world concerns and those focused on niche and barely significant ones...How, you might ask, have we reached such a state? There is a clue in the Labour Party’s dysfunctional reaction to its catastrophic defeat on Thursday

Eh?

I've just produced two articles (after no effort whatsoever) where the phrase is used like that.

I've also made perfectly clear that I don't think everyone (or even most people) using that phrase is intending to convey racist undertones – but that their listeners may hear these.

No one has accused you of being white supremacist. I don't understand why you feel defensive.

Or why you're enamoured of this particular phrase? It's only just been suggested on this thread: it has some merits, some demerits. Discussing both of those is a good thing!

This is all just a bit weird now.

Arnold "Antisemites referring to Jews as wealthy or (in modern parlance) metropolitan elites is much older than social media, as are sneering references to bankers. They go way back to the era when Christians were not permitted to be money lenders and Jews were banned from many other professions."

I'm aware of those things but I don't think it's unreasonable not to be. It was the North London thing that threw me.

thing is, again, this is partly about how you grew up. If you grew up in the days where race was just about to stop becoming an issue - seems to be my age group and possibly a London/Essex thing - you often won't know much about history of persecution because why should you?

this also goes back to my irritation re endless questions on heritage - as if people just need to fit me into a box and are very annoyed when they can't do that.

tbh I can barely remember what happened yesterday, never mind the history of anything. I had a friend round yesterday and we were talking about this - you eventually end up with a vague memory of "x happened to this group because"...and then you're middle aged and just living your life and of course you've forgotten it and that should be okay, IMHO.

I would love for my world to be smaller, really. A globalisation problem? Happy to be called parochial etc.

Was having lunch with a friend yesterday and we were discussing the outcome of the election, hes very interested in politics and told me about a tweet by the former Kosovian foreign minister under Corbyns concession twitter video where Corbyn implied history would prove him right

"If the world listened to you in 1999, my family and million other Kosovars would have been refugees scattered across refugee camps."

twitter.com/Petrit/status/1206201371713851392

Corbyn was against intervening in Kosovo, he was also against the peace process in Northern Ireland (which hasn't been perfect but has meant 20 years of relative peace) unless the starting point was a united Ireland, was against intervention in the Falklands and has supported regimes like Maduro which have decimated their country etc.

This isn't a bashing Corbyns voting record post but it just got me thinking that politicans are lambasted for action like the Iraq war but rarely for inaction just like more liberal partners in a coalition are judged by the actions of that coalition as a whole when they may have moderated the actions of the more senior coalition partner.

I thought it was an interesting perspective of "the right side of history" which everyone wants to be on, the identity of a lot of labour voters is so much tied to which side their chosen candidate was on as regards Iraq which was a failure versus the successes

Perking
This is the last response I will make to you. You claimed that the phrase ‘kith and kin’ was so laden with racist connotations it shouldn’t be used. I googled it and found zero evidence to support your claim. When I questioned you about this, you replied

If you don't mind them suspecting you might be a white supremacist and therefore interpreting everything else you say through the prism of that suspicion, then crack on. You may find yourself being misunderstood for reasons you can't fathom...

If kith and kin is a white supremacist dog whistle? I suggest its audibility is seriously limited. Despite your claim.

I'm aware of those things but I don't think it's unreasonable not to be. It was the North London thing that threw me.

No, I don't think it's unreasonable not to be, as I say, it isn't something that's taught. The message given via our culture on anti-Semitism is all too often no more nuanced than 'Hitler bad'. We are all ignorant of many, many things, there's no shame in that.

I think we may be talking somewhat at cross purposes as I generally see 'metropolitan elite' refered to in a wider, ore global context, and didn't really pick up on the specific reference to 'North London'. US right wingers use it a lot for example.

I'm aware of those things but I don't think it's unreasonable not to be.

I agree.

And then you decide to stand as a local councillor or MP or take a high profile job, and a spotlight is shone and people start saying you should have known.

I don't think there's an answer to this, unfortunately.

Arnold I think a lot of the problem with political discourse generally is that everyone's talking at cross purposes, which is a shame.

ironically, this leads us into Murray's book on "The Madness of Crowds".

Looking up Murray, I can find quite a lot of alarming information about comments he has apparently regretted making.

but this article led us to this discussion, which has been genuinely helpful all round.

I still think that if we could find a way back to integration, it would be helpful - but it's too late now - I'd be decried as a coconut for suggesting it, a white person would be decried as a racist.

I didn't get the "North London" reference until I saw David Irving use it (when I was following his failed case against Penguin and Deborah Lipstadt about his holocaust denial), and what's more using it to a US or other overseas audience who'd need a map to find London.

Made absolutely no literal sense at all: what on earth could he be talking about?

Ohhh, then he made it perfectly clear: he meant Jewish, with trad antisemitic conspiracy bollocks just for good measure.

Up till then, I hadn't a clue.

I'm late to this thread but wow @packingsoapandwater your post on 15th Dec cuts right to the heart of the matter. You are dead right

I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the dog-whistle business. There are plenty of reasons people might have negative views of bankers, the financial sector, that have zero to do with Jews or anti-semitism or anything related to those things, and I don't think having to clarify constantly that we don't mean x, y, or z is helpful.

I once mentioned something said by a British political philosopher about social organisation to an American, who then went on to tell me this was a dog-whistle for a certain anti-black political faction in the US. Which was idiotic because it made no sense, and the idea being talked about was an interesting one. But the discussion was completely derailed and shut down.

I feel like we are getting further and further into a quagmire of taboo words and phrases, with an magical ability to conjure up demons if we use the wrong combination. It's back to purity politics, but in this case its the language that becomes tainted as soon as it is associated in a particular instance with an unsavoury person or view.

but this article led us to this discussion, which has been genuinely helpful all round

I think one of the most damaging things which has happened is the dominance of a narrow, political orthodoxy which is simplistically tribal and full of Manichean slogans. This narrative has been used to control debate and demonise anyone who dissents as a bigot. It is why Twitter was filled with people reeling from shock and awe about the election result. That is what has been great about this thread. The questioning of orthodoxy. There should be more of it

I feel like we are getting further and further into a quagmire of taboo words and phrases, with an magical ability to conjure up demons if we use the wrong combination

It’s also interesting that controlling language has become the explicit aim of a vocal faction on the left. It is an authoritarian impulse

I can't help but think that a lot of this language policing is a from of 'anywhere' etiquette.

Just as you won't be accepted into upper class society if you don't know the correct way to use a fish knife, or the correct form of address for a dowager duchess, you can't be accepted into 'anywhere' society unless you learn all these abstruse and ever changing rules about which phrases are currently regarded as problematic. And if you don't understand or aren't willing to go along with the rules than you're a bigot and therefore persona non grata.

It's a great way to shut the 'unelightened' people out of the discourse, isn't it?

I'm getting serious Double Plus Ungood vibes from your post Goosefoot.

Has anyone been following the pasting JK Rowling is getting on Twitter?
Its frightening,

Dunno. I think the desire to control language and redefine the meaning of words is an authoritarian impulse. Words are a means of communication. Attaching arcane connotations to innocuous words might be a way to signal wokeness. But telling people not to use a word that is innocuous because it’s code for white supremacy? It’s a control obsession

I'm also feeling increasingly uneasy about the accusations of 'dog whistling' and 'micro-aggressions' . Not because I don't think they exist as observed behaviours but because they discourage any serious, honest public discussion.

Honestly I tend to assume good faith until I have firm evidence otherwise.
Only recently found out that 'uppity' is supposedly racist when for 67 years I've seen it as a class or sex prejudice. Uppity servants, uppity women, uppity self made (nouveau riche).

but because they discourage any serious, honest public discussion

I actually think that is the explicit aim

I will also put my hand up and admit that I am not at all familiar with the "somewhere, anywhere, nowhere" thing.

Is there a handy guide for people like me please?

Re "uppity" - one thing I've noticed is that common US usage is taken as the absolute arbiter of whether something is a "dog-whistle". So, as you say, for probably a century, UK usage has been that "uppity" is a class based issue. In the US it's racists - and suddenly we in the UK are no longer allowed our usage.

Similarly, I've had Canadian friends immensely angered by the use of phrases like "Eskimo kiss", which would be deeply offensive if used in Canada, but (admittedly due to complete ignorance) has no racist connotations at all when used in the UK.

I used to post on a US website which refused to let me use the word "fag" in the context of cigarette, because in the US it only exists as a pejorative word for gay man.

Just in case anyone's confused (I don't think most people are), and bringing it back to the context of this thread...

I don't think "kith and kin " is a taboo phrase. I was explicitly responding to:
Kith and kin feels like it could be used in the 'present' without the baggage of national identity

Because I happen to know that for a fair number of people in the UK, in some contexts, it does indeed have that baggage.

Can't imagine anyone having a problem with me saying, "I'm sending Xmas cards to my kith and kin".

But if we were to start discussing in terms of, "Community isn't what it used to be because of lack of kith and kin nearby", or "Housing should prioritise people who have kith and kin in the area," I'd expect people like La Hopkins to be all over it like flies on shit, eagerly exploiting precisely the "baggage of national identity" . (And in the unlikely event little Miss "Final Solution" Hopkins needed guidance, her good pals in the racist white southern African scene could tell her exactly where to find and exploit that baggage.)

But like I said, obviously it's up to people to make their own decisions whether to use that language in that context. A PP disagrees it's a risk – OK, fine, we have different takes. No biggie.

I'm reminded of what an ex of mine - lapsed Catholic atheist Dubliner - once said about the Troubles: "part of the issue is there is no neutral language - once you have named a certain city as either 'Derry' or 'Londonderry' you have picked a side just in virtue of your choice of name."

There is no language which can't be co-opted, stolen, tainted with association. And this is getting worse, not better, with the rise of the Twitter soundbite.

Indeed, BarbaraStrozzi. As LangCleg said way above, in the UK, class is the original sin; in the US it's race.

Autumn

'Somewheres' and 'anywheres' have been used by some commentators to explain the brexit (or Trump in the US) divide.

'Somewhere' being people who have remained in their stable communities for long periods and seen them change, 'anywheres' being people who are mobile and have moved from place to place.

I'm not terribly keen on the division as with so many others it cannot explain Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Has anyone been following the pasting JK Rowling is getting on Twitter?
Its frightening,

Yes, it's all a bit Kmher Rouge for my tastes.

Woke authoritarianism in general is all a bit Khmer Rouge for my tastes.

Just in case anyone's confused (I don't think most people are), and bringing it back to the context of this thread

The context of this thread was Douglas Murray on the intolerance of politics. Look at the OP if in doubt. Not your attempt to redefine ‘kith and kin’ as code for white supremacy.

obviously it’s up to people to make their own decisions whether to use that language

That’s exactly right. The language choices people make are up to them. The fact that you are trying to control and redefine words on this thread? And then making baseless accusations of white supremacist when challenged? Unimpressed.