Douglas Murray on denunciations and Lawrence Fox

[BovaryX]

Douglas Murray takes aim at the cancel culture and denunciation tactics at the heart of # no debate. Those who try to control and police what people think and say have dominated public discourse to its detriment. Many are aware of the existential threat to freedom of speech this faction represents.

Nothing that Fox said on Question Time was at all controversial. He suggested that the Labour party leader might be selected on merit and he suggested that Britain is not a racist country. Both these sentiments are held by the majority of the public. Yet so dominant have the minority-opinion pushers become that many people are persuaded that it would not just be career-damaging but socially fatal to say anything to the contrary. Even when that thing is the truth

A bunch of rich kids abusing their families' power and putting them lower orders In their place

If you've not seen it you really must watch the infamous cafeteria scene at Evergreen College:

Out of control controlling narcissistic rage.

Mao himself was from a well to do family. He had little time for peasants in his youth, only using them as pawns later on. The current campus situation in the US reminds me very much of the Cultural Revolution in China where intellectuals, professors and artists were publically humiliated by students. So far, they have not been sent to re-education camps, only banished from public view.

nauticant

Thanks for posting the Evergreen video, I had seen the earlier ones last year, they are simply shocking. The students are racist, anarchic, narcissistic twonks, who want to get people sacked. Hopefully plenty of people will see these videos and it will render the baying mob as unemployable.

I wonder if students in Iran have arguments about whether their dining cards have been swiped when their oppressors turn up....

Bloody hell, just watched.
Cautionary tale for British Universities.
This Illicits some strong feelings in me. Good that these people will have this to forever remind them (and others) of their lunacy.

Now I don't want to disparage all those with an intersectional outlook, but I'm not feeling all warm and fuzzy about it. There are those who seem to use it to better understand, reflect and analyse, those that use it for evil, and those that defer to it. I don't know enough about it. It has a very American/Canadian-ness about it that is hard to like, or relate to. It seems to be the backbone of the trans rights movement.

andyoldlabour: a while back I went through all of Benjamin Boyce's Complete Evergreen videos over a couple of weeks.

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRdayXEOwuMG9DG66Bvx6YbUnhw-buS5K.

By the time I was done I felt like my grip on reality was much weaker than it had been.

That's also for you shedquarters. How to lose 5+ hours of your time and end up utterly disillusioned about what universities are now for.

nauticant

"By the time I was done I felt like my grip on reality was much weaker than it had been."

Happened to me back in October 2018, when I saw the podium shot of the World Master's Track Championship. In the comments section of the viseo, someone said those students reminded them of "Lord of the Flies".

TheRealMcKenna

My wife has told me plenty of stories about her university in Tehran at the start of the revolution. Some students were smashing windows in the cafeteria and half a dozen police turned up with riot batons. I think students in Iran today have far more serious issues to protest than dining cards. That was the most surreal part of the video as far as I am concerned.

Nauticant
As a 'woman of a certain age' I decided to study for a degree. Visited a university, used the GN loo, looked around at all the students, and decided to go to the local college instead. Best decision. No regrets.

The most interesting part of the video to me was the girl who said (not exact words) that it’s less of a risk to be a protester and be wrong than to be considered a racist.

You could easily substitute ‘racist’ with ‘misogynist’ or ‘transphobe’ to describe why so many people stay silent on all sorts of issues they feel strongly about.

It comes back to that question though, how did accusations like racist and bigot gain that power? It almost seems like they are magical words that you invoke to take away the power of your enemies.

It seems to be due in a big part to the public shaming phenomenon on social media. Anything that ever happens, some twat is filming it and uploading it, others are commenting on it and rating it. Add that to cancel culture and intersectional politics, and bobs your uncle, fanny's your aunt.

It comes back to that question though, how did accusations like racist and bigot gain that power? It almost seems like they are magical words that you invoke to take away the power of your enemies

That's a very interesting question Goosefoot It is not incidental that accusations of racism and bigotry have assumed such prominence. It is a deliberate tactic of the # no debate crew. You can see examples of it on this very thread. This is the playlist. Make an immediate, unsubstantiated accusation of racism/bigotry. This will distract from the idea being discussed and focus attention on the speaker. It also serves as a warning to anyone watching that they too will be vilified if they dare dissent. White liberals are particularly vulnerable to this. Many just crumble when accused, no matter how ludicrous the accusation This is control speech, smear tactics and intimidation deployed by people who don't believe in debate, freedom of speech or diversity of opinion. They believe in silence and submission.

The Students from Asian backgrounds are outperforming the rest in American unis. Getting the best scholarships, best results, but on the Yale video were calling themselves oppressed coloureds, apart from Grace.
In reply to Good grief.
Yes. Yes there are. Nobody said there weren't I don't think?
And God FORBID a man might get pissed off at all the talk of women's rights because he didn't get the top job either
That's it then. FWR, shut up shop. A man might be pissed off somewhere.

That man might be your son who has spent a year job hunting or your husband.
I was pointing out a fact not saying it shouldn't happen, pointing it out as obviously there are winners and losers in this and it's unlikely the losers will cheer on the winners.

The Guardian is not letting up on the Laurence Fox story. This has a bit of casual ageism in it, not unexpected stuff from this rag.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/30/anti-woke-backlash-liberalism-laurence-fox

"Primarily, older, white, homeowners and pensioners"

As the aftermath of the general election showed, the "woke" left has no ability to self reflect. Apparently Jeremy Corbyn is going to start a tour of the Labour heartlands in the North, to lecture them about socialism - good luck on that Jezzer, I suggest you kick off with Blythe.

andy

That paper is a propaganda machine which doesn't cover inconvenient news It hasn't bothered to report the fact that an Oxford professor requires bodyguards because trans activists don't like her research conclusions. Those who are outraged by trivia and silent on outrages are a very unreliable source of news.....

That must be the 100th article in The Guardian about Laurence Fox - he must be absolutely loving it as 2 weeks ago most people didn't know who he was.

The article is a bit of a word salad, and of course no comments allowed, but the funny thing is that so many Guardian hacks come from a middle class, privately educated, Oxbridge set not dissimilar to Fox's 'white privilege'.

Comments allowed on guardian twitter site. Generally not woke friendly.

The Guardian has been going after the 'liberal' American market for some time now. A lot of its journalism in the past 5 years or so needs to be read in that context.

nauticant
Thank you for posting the link, haven't looked at it yet, but I will. Just extraordinary shenanigans in universities.
MsSafina
I think that is a very interesting point about the cultural revolution. There is a Year Zero fanaticism gaining ground and it is very disturbing

I’m cautiously optimistic. The fact that this is a thread in the Feminism section and the title has the trigger words ‘Douglas Murray’ in it and there have been barely any accusations of ISLAMOPHOBE or MISOGYNIST shows that there is a willingness out there to challenge the accepted ‘woke’ narrative and debate the issues more sensibly.

If this thread had been created three years ago I think the discussion would have been very different.

This DM article abour Alistair Stewart is worth skimming

mol.im/a/7946269

It hits a good score on the identity politics bingo: 'white privilege', LibDems etc. Stewart's colleagues seem to standing up for him against the bosses.

Substitute the words 'racist' and 'bigot' with 'capitalist roader' or 'bourgeoisie' , then you can see lots of parallels of the dynamics of how this could play out in the Cultural Revolution of Communist China. And it is scary.

It is not incidental that accusations of racism and bigotry have assumed such prominence. It is a deliberate tactic of the # no debate crew. You can see examples of it on this very thread.

that is the situation now, how those words are being used. But that usage is predicated on the accusations themselves already holding a lot of power. That happened before the current climate became overheated.

Something that always sticks in my mind when contemplating this is a passage from a P.D. James novel. One of the characters, a female police officer, is thinking about her education in a secular state school that served a mainly underprivileged kids from housing estates. She says that the only real philosophy or religion they were taught was anti-racism, and everyone getting along, and that this was heavily pushed. Which she seems to think is as good a religion as any.

That's not anything like a full explanation, but I think it's an interesting and largely accurate observation on the part of the author with regard to public education. SometimesI wonder if it isn't meant as a sort of pacification endeavour for the masses but then I think I am getting into tin-foil hat territory.

But my basic question is, how did we get to a place when an accusation of bigotry or racism is just accepted almost without real examination, and that people are so desperate to avoid such an accusation that they will undertake significant mental or social gymnastics to do so?