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

The more I find out about everything, the more I think it’s all batshit.

The more I find out about everything, the more I think it’s all batshit

The more I find out about everything, the more I think it’s all batshit.

Welcome to my world.

I’d be more inclined to ask someone where they were from based on an accent rather than skin colour.

Also can’t we just live in a world where we just apologise if we cause offence? Nobody sails through life without offending someone sometime or another.

Also can’t we just live in a world where we just apologise if we cause offence? Nobody sails through life without offending someone sometime or another.

Ideally, yeah. And then intent becomes a factor. "I'm really sorry, I didn't realise that was offensive to you, I didn't intend to upset you, I won't say it again" is pretty thorough.
Except that's not enough for the professional grievance merchants (rarely the actual aggrieved party and more the online mob).
If you interact, you risk getting it wrong. If you can't even rely on a heartfelt apology smoothing things over, it's safer to just not interact.

Dunno. I have been asked where am I from and then where are you really from when people are curious about my background. It doesn’t bother me. When I am in Cyprus people think I am Cypriot, when I am in the ME, people think I am Lebanese.

I'm multi-ethnic and from a multi-heritage background, and it's non-Commonwealth. I read as white, but my euroasian features mean I've been asked where I am from with the "no, really" tag since I was about 13 -- and interestingly, the people who most tended to ask were from BAME communities.

Looking back as an adult, there was evidence of 'wariness' even when I was very young. One of my primary teachers referred to me as the "olive-skinned girl" (I'm not olive skinned, btw. Just kinda yellowy. )

Does it bother me? Nah, not really. I'll always be an outsider, and that position is both a boon and a curse. I prefer to focus on the boon aspect of it. I can be nominally read as a native across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. If someone assumes that I am something I am not, it doesn't bother me because the only people who could possibly guess my ethnicity accurately would have to be specialists in a very niche area of history.

In a literary sense, my identity is very Borgesian; I'm a kind of mythic beast from a place that doesn't exist and a culture that is lost to time.

What does bother me though is that there is no recognition that people have these complex identities that very much challenge simplistic political, social and cultural narratives about race, ethnicity, culture and belonging. I guess my background enables me to see the complexity of other people's identities in this regard, and I reckon it is that insight that allows me to understand other people's perspectives.

So when one of my white working class neighbours mentions feeling a bit bothered because they had an experience where they felt they were suddenly in another country, I get that because I've experienced that sense of dislocation my entire life. When someone from a BAME community tells me they had an experience that they think might have been influenced by racial or cultural prejudices, I get that because I've had those suspicions throughout my life as well.

But when I muse about identity and culture, sometimes I just think: "well, none of this shit gets carrots peeled, does it?"

That, I reckon, is the line. Concepts of identity and culture have to be useful, they have to deliver material benefit and value; otherwise, it's all just esoteric navel-gazing, init?

And that is the point that I think we, in the Western world, may have breached in the last decade. It's identity for identity's sake in some sections of society.

I may be missing the point of some of the discussion but I saw an interesting read/TEDx talk.

Don’t ask where I’m from, ask where I’m a local.

twitter.com/taiyeselasi/status/648987793344077824

That, I reckon, is the line. Concepts of identity and culture have to be useful, they have to deliver material benefit and value; otherwise, it's all just esoteric navel-gazing, init?

Precisely.

And that is the point that I think we, in the Western world, may have breached in the last decade. It's identity for identity's sake in some sections of society

I totally agree with this. And when it’s viewed from a non Western vantage point? Some of it really does seem like first world problems. I have zero patience with people who make farcical claims about innocuous words. There are serious problems and the semantic obsessions of certain alleged liberals seem very superficial. But they are also indicative of an authoritarian tendency which has been allowed to colonise much of the media and academia

I don’t think it’s a small minority. Anyone who asks me is clearly saying “You can’t be British because you’re not white”.

AutumnRose1, if I forgot myself and asked you, it’d because I could tell you were a fellow Londoner but suspected you of being from... north of the River.

In my part of London, it’s increasingly unusual for people of my age, who ‘look like me’, to be from here. It’s a surprising effect of gentrification.

FWIW, so much of what you’ve written on this thread resonates, and I share your dismay.

You don’t have to be white to be British.

Or white to be working class.

It came as a massive shock to me when I went to uni (even a long time ago, which it was) and discovered that posh people thought working class and not-white were two different things.

Sorry....two different things that did not overlap.

well, none of this shit gets carrots peeled, does it?

In my experience (what I've witnessed) people who ask where are you from...no where are you really from... Are usually the same skin colour as the people they're asking. I'm thinking of my two closest friends, one is black her parents Nigerian, and the other is Asian and her parents are from India. When out with both of them, it was always men (never saw a woman ask), of the same skin colour as them, who'd press them on where they are "really" from. (London was never accepted as an answer). Maybe because the area we are from is quite a mixed area racially, maybe in a high/predominantly white area it would be different?

Actually university was a big eye opener for me. I'm from an "underclass" kind of place. I went to a posh uni with one of my friends in my last post. It was a very different world.

I miss the 90s.

I get a sense that quite a few of us miss the 90s but I think that wonderful thread about london in the 90s is long gone.

I'm another one whose perceived ethnicity seems to vary depending on environment. It's usually people assuming I'm part of their ingroup rather than people being arseholes, but the rare occasions where it is someone who's actually of my own ethnicity assuming that I'm in the "foreign and can be bullied as a result of that" group have certainly been illuminating.

I haven't visited London in a long time and am a bit scared to do so, honestly, just because it would be so sad to see the things I liked most about it lost.

Wow this is one of the best threads I’ve ever read on MN!

I’m an anywhere but work somewhere where everyone else is a somewhere.

I find the clash of cultures between my uni educated ‘friends’ on FB and WC colleagues interesting and disturbing.

The WC people I meet are much more socially conservative and social issues are more of a concern to them than economic issues than the liberal academic types I know.

Things like attitudes to social security recipients- the less income people have the harder they are towards who they perceive to be ‘scroungers’. Whereas my FB is full of ‘give to the most vulnerable’ dialogue.

Identity issues dont seem to have hit here yet at all- it’s not commutable to a uni. Even being gay is still seen as gossip worthy. This is poles apart from my MC uni friends who would find this unimaginable.

I think people exist in such small bubbles that they dont see how diverse attitudes are in the country as a whole.

Prodigal

“ I haven't visited London in a long time and am a bit scared to do so, honestly, just because it would be so sad to see the things I liked most about it lost.”

I have a friend who worked abroad and on her return, couldn’t see what I was whining about. So it might be worth a try for you.

What bit are you worried about?. I’ve missed what you think might be gone.

Things like attitudes to social security recipients- the less income people have the harder they are towards who they perceive to be ‘scroungers’. Whereas my FB is full of ‘give to the most vulnerable’ dialogue.

I would expect that working-class people in general have a better idea of the inequities of the benefit system, and are thus more wary of benefits claimants. What exactly went wrong with the benefits system is a great long essay in itself, and I would not expect most working-class observers to understand all the specifics, but policy decisions, such as the benefit cap, make intuitive sense to people within working-class communities.

To take a concrete example; when I last lived in London (late 2012, or so) I was working for the government, with a professional salary exceeding the median household income. Had I resigned, and started working for 16 hours a week, at minimum wage, I would have been better off by around £100 per month, with an additional 20 hours of spare time. Of course, this example is specific to my then personal circumstances, and changes to tax credits in the last seven years means that this would no longer be true, but it speaks to the working-class objections; these are that the benefits system seems to be designed to give preferential treatment to those who do minimal work, and that government policy militates against working-class economic independence.

Some people ARE benefit scroungers. Middle class socialists don't seem to be able to distinguish between working class people and scroungers. Anyone who's lived in the rougher areas of town and is from a lower class background knows that there are people who'd rather do anything than work for a living in a minimum wage job and would rather doss about claiming benefits. Working class people take great pride in working hard and providing for their families, they occasionally become unemployed and have to claim benefits, and when the economy is on the downturn this may be for some time. Others couldn't give a shit about working hard and feel the state is there to provide for them, despite never contributing much to it themselves. It's not a sin to acknowledge that these people exist, it's just important not to demonize those who do want to work and don't have the opportunity. Working class people strive to distinguish themselves from benefit scroungers, they couldn't think of anything worse than to be seen as belonging to this category, it's shameful. Middle class socialists don't seem to get this and see us all as one and the same, in a very patronising, paternalistic manner.