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

..and specifically, how did we get here despite 10 years of the Conservatives being in government?

I think, as others have said, that 'cancel culture' and the growing Americanisation of public life - as well as the instantaneous nature of social media - have played a big role in bringing us to this sorry state. Look at the Alistair Stewart case for a current example. If the choice is between nuance and a baying Twitter mob, the latter will win every time. It's just not worth the risk of taking them on.

What was interesting I thought about that Guardian article was that it began by recognising firstly that Fox was articulating a mainstream opinion, and secondly that the woke needed to wake up.
But it was as if O'Hagan couldnt bear to think that through so she retreated behind the usual lazy, ageist lines about bigotry, that sadly I've come to expect from The Guardian.

It turns out that Martin Shapland is well known on twitter for his racist remarks about white people.

twitter.com/search?q=@mshapland&ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Esearch

and specifically, how did we get here despite 10 years of the Conservatives being in government?

That is an excellent question. The explanation, I think, is that like most politicos, they were Generals fighting the last war, tripping over themselves to apologise for being Conservative. 'Call me Dave' was in a coalition after 13 years of Blair and he had no desire to promote Conservative principles. Like freedom The Conservatives have stated that they will address the existential threat to freedom of speech in academia. When do they plan to do this? When an academic is beaten to a pulp because someone objects to her research conclusions? Meanwhile, the colonisation of public discourse by an increasingly intolerant, irrational outrage brigade, was exacerbated by social media. And that has enabled the targeted hounding of people who, as Douglas Murray says, detonate in the Twitter landmine.

If the choice is between nuance and a baying Twitter mob, the latter will win every time. It's just not worth the risk of taking them on

IcedPurple

I think that is true. And despite the fact that millions of diverse people are appalled by it, it continues.

I think that's how someone like J K Rowling can get away with what she says. She doesn't GAF because she doesn't need to GAF. She doesn't need to please anybody. Even A list actors have to make sure producers don't see them as being possible victims of 'cancel culture'. But JK has no need of a 'middleman', and it shows.

Even JKR was very tentative for a long time. I remember her liking a tweet and then retreating while her PR people made some cringworthy excuse about having a 'senior moment'.

Even A list actors have to make sure producers don't see them as being possible victims of 'cancel culture

Harry Miller makes this point. He talks about the disproportionate responsibility he feels to speak out because most people are too terrified to do so. The consequences can be catastrophic. Those who do speak out are often denounced for their privilege Whilst their denouncers fail to acknowledge that privilege is a requirement. Freedom of speech has become a luxury most people can't afford.

Without wanting to sound conspiratorial, I guess you could say that this new obsession serves the same function for the British elites as it has done for decades for their American counterparts. If people are obsessed with their identities as members of this or that religious or racial group or sexual orientation, then it works against solidarity across the vast majority of people who, regardless of race or religion or gender identity, are being shafted by elitist governments?

Douglas Murray is interesting about the Marxist roots of the intersectional, identity politics ideology. It emerged from the debris of the Berlin Wall. It identified a new category of oppressed, which must have been a relief for many Marxist academics. Exasperation with working class 'failure' to conform to Marxist expectations could be transcended. Because class was no longer the primary category.

In the new hierarchy of oppression, equality is not the aim. The idea that identity, not circumstance confers oppression guarantees perpetual inequality. White working class boys do worse in school than any other demographic. But they are rarely mentioned. Neither are the girls in Rotherham, who were subjected to organized, prolific, horrendous abuse while the authorities did nothing. They don't feature prominently in the new pyramid of oppression either. Anyone stating that the UK is not particularly racist is bound to be vilified because identity politics is predicated upon it being extremely racist Questioning this assertion is proof of racism. This kind of tautology is routinely asserted by the intersectionalists. In lieu of a coherent argument.. ...

The idea that identity, not circumstance confers oppression guarantees perpetual inequality

I've heard it said that one of the reasons there has never been much of a strong socialist movement in the US is because it is so divided on race lines. Could also partly explain the massive inequalities in American society.

The blatant irony here is that the accusations of racism, sexism, bigotry etc ONLY hold power because we in Britain manifestly aspire to not be any of those things. It’s even baked into to the accusations, people writing think pieces on systemic this and systemic that wouldn’t even bother if they didn’t think the majority of people aspire to be non-racist, liberally minded and they would find a sympathetic audience.

As to why? It’s because with a lot of White people if you can press the guilt button in the right way resources dispense out. It also creates a ready made ‘original sin’ that people can be controlled with.

You can even purchase indulgences or prosletize for the woke dogma to escape your inherently sinful white nature. Where this is all rapidly unravelling however is that the dispossessed poorer white communities who have been safely and callously ignored by white middle classes and up are jumping ship from the left in droves as it’s been their experience that nobody listens to them anymore as they can be safely written of as stupid and or racist.

Dervel

What a superb post. I think the poorer white communities are in a political wilderness at the moment.

Who keeps the ‘running score of oppression’?

Is your white privilege broken down by nation and region? Does a white woman in Bradford experience the same amount of white privilege as someone in Fulham?

Does a white Irish Traveller male experience the same amount of ‘privilege’ compared to his female sibling as a white middle class male?

Is amount of oppression uniform across all areas of life? Does a white disabled person have the same amount of privilege in employment as a black able bodied person but a different amount of privilege when it comes to law and order?

Does anyone keep a ‘score’ about how privilege or oppression changes over time? If not, and perhaps most importantly, could we now be focussing on all the wrong things?

Terrifying video about Yale showing the change in focus from rigour and scholarship to edutainment. This is about expectations of students and complete repudiation of critical thinking in favour of adopting ready made robes of righteousness. What really frightens me is they don't seem to be growing out of this.

Considering the day’s news about Twitter usage/Twitter suspensions, I just thought I’d leave this here....

www.foxnews.com/entertainment/new-york-times-stands-by-new-tech-writer-sarah-jeong-after-racist-tweets-surface

TheRealMcKenna

Imagine if a white male journalist had said those things about Asian women.

Ironic given it's the NYT, ground zero of American liberal wokeness.

That 'journalist' sounds slightly demented, but I wouldn't sack her for that. Then I wouldn't have sacked (or 'accepted the resignation' of ) Alastair Stewart or got a bee in my bonnet about Laurence Fox either. The double standard is hilarious when it's not sad.

What a fantastic thread. Just caught up with it..

I dont think that fear of being called racist, bigot etc..are new fears. I recall lots of this stuff like this from the 80s and 90s. I don't think it was as all encompassing and isolating as it is now (social media). There are links with bullying behaviour in general. Pre smart phones etc.. You could always get away from the proximity of bullies, come home from school or work, take sanctuary in you home for a time. Do something different and get away. Now it is attached to you at all times, in every space you are in. The implications of this are fear at all times.
you can't get away from bullies, unless you go tech cold turkey. For many people this is an alien concept and they can't do it.

It is the nature of how we communicate and interact now that is different. This communication is globalised too. Different political perspectives all being mixed up together homogonising. The Americanisation of discourse.

Dervel

Yes, I think that's an accurate observation of the psychology. And I think the reason for the focus on helping those particular communities is because they are limited. It doesn't mean elping the poor, whomever they are, which would require really changing how we distribute resources. It just means helping a segment of the population become better off relative to the poor.

But those people who are jumping ship, there is nothing to hide that they are meant to remain as the group which we can refer to one day and say, look, now these people from named identity group are no longer on the bottom of the heap in disproportionate numbers.

Oh, that sounds confusing, I mean the poor, white, rural people are meant to be the ones that we can compare others to and show the others are comparatively better off.

There's an article in the Spectator about SOAS, another fine institution which has been ruined by far left anti semitism and activism. A contributor from "Harry's Place" wrote that Jewish students wouldn't dream of applying there and numbers have gone down from other applicants as a result of the toxic atmosphere these people cause. By the way, I was in the British Library today having a coffee in the cafeteria. The young man sitting opposite had stickers on his laptop - "trans women are women" and "I voted Labour."