UK students more anti-free speech than ever: cultural socialism

[Pluvia]

I stumbled across this article:

unherd.com/thepost/britains-students-will-be-woke-forever/

I'm not sure I understand what is meant (or the implications) by the phrase 'cultural socialism.' If anyone can explain this, I'd be obliged.

If we’re allowed to take (or make up) terms and claim people we don’t agree with us are those words then I hereby announce there’s a new set of people in town.

The TITs

Tediously Intolerant Totalitarian(s)

These people live where the two pointy bits of the political horseshoe hang about. And tend to play a game of pretending all the people in the hoopy part of the horseshoe are Radicals and Extremists. What kind of Radical and/or Extremist can change depending on what’s most useful to derail an on-topic conversation at any given time.

They are easily identified by being deliberately disinterested if the noun immediately after the Radical doesn’t fit you.

Hence, to a TIT I am a T*RF. It doesn’t matter that I’m not a feminist. Nor that I happily worked with, for, alongside and socialised with Transpeople in considerable numbers before half of them were even alive. I am also a Right Wing Extremist. Despite only ever having voted for Labour, with the SDP manifesto as having the most points that match my views out of all available manifestos.

From this point forward I will play by the same rules. My new shiny placard (haven’t had one since the Public Order Act march in 1980 something, so this is quite exciting) is two sided and is emblazoned with

Stop Being A TIT !

And

TITs Out !

I admit the second side is entirely distraction technique deployed to disarm the blokes used as muscle in the TITs army. They won’t be thumping us if looking around hopefully every time they walk past a placard. At least half of the Gender & Politically Pious army on twitter will be unable to focus on dogpiling if #TITs keep flashing in their mentions.

This is my biggest contribution to feminism since my little, cartoony, child friendly penis sticker. Hey, it’s the thought that counts. 😬

Great posting Douglas Murray now. For those of you who aren’t fascists you do find people who propagate the great replacement theory very appealing

Yes, Douglas Murray, practically Hitler.

I knew I was living dangerously, Antifascist, so help me out. Listen to that Douglas Murray podcast and make a note of every fascist thing he says and then list them here. When I say fascist, I mean fascist as in ultra-right-totalitarian, not just something I don't agree with.

Come on, do a member of the Labour Party a favour and highlight the fascism, so I may see the error of my ways. You are the one who sees stuff the rest of us miss. Help us.

I always find that those who refuse to read or discuss anything from a source to be absolutely the people who should be wary of way they try to silence discussion.

Some posters are very quick with dismissing any article from particular news services. Hilariously; all it does is reinforce the suspicion they are not as well informed as they like to portray themselves.

How can you be informed if you refuse to read / listen to sources because of your own deep prejudices? The hypocrisy is so clear.

Listen to LGBT + people!!!

No, not that LGBT+ person…..

He’s an out and out great replacement theory fascist posting about the scary Muslims taking over our white Christian west . He’s antisemitic too. Just because he went to Eton and writes fir the Spectator doesn’t make those views acceptable to me. I understand that some on here are fans..

gay fascists are still fascists.

I didn't hear him say anything like that in the hour-long interview. Please provide evidence — direct quotes from his work, not your opinion of something he might or might not have said — to back up your argument. Not some third-party commentary on his work and no cleverly edited half-sentences. Go back to Douglas Murray's own words and evidence what you say. I will happily debate it with you when you go back to the source. I have a few hours free over the next few days to read DM fairly extensively if required. Not a task I relish, but I will do it.

Otherwise you're coming over like the people who keep saying JKR's transphobic but have never read a word she's written on women's rights.

antifascist

The problem with any movement that has an "anti" prefix is that it defines itself in terms of the very thing it purports to stand against. The two become inseparable; each a side of the same coin.

That tendency was started by Donald J. Trump, who went on to become 45th President of the United States.

A few things were picked-up by the US and UK Left from 'the Donald' - well he had been a registered Democrat supporter and donator (2001-2009).

1. Dismissing any article or news report from selected news services. CNN was a favourite source to attract his ire.
2. Booing/hissing journalists. This was a key 'feature' of the 'Trumpsters', prior to the November 2016 Presidential Election. But Corbyn's supporters wholesale-lifted the Trumpsters tactic and began booing and hissing at journalists. Over the following four years Trumpster and Corbyn supporters were in absolute lock-step with their attitude to what they both called the 'MSM' (Mainstream Media).

Corbyn supporters boo BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg

Later that very June, the reason why journalists and in particular Laura Kuenssberg had been abused by Corbyn supporters became clear, when she reported that Corbyn's office had deliberately sabotaged the official Labour Party Remain Campaign (Corbyn office 'sabotaged' EU Remain campaign - sources). Corbyn, with the by-then-deceased Tony Benn MP and union leader Joe Gormley were dedicated Europhobes going back decades, so it was no surprise that Corbyn supporters took umbrage at the media when it was so focused on Corbyn, and his supporters, tacit support for Leave. Strangely-enough, Donald Trump expressed pro-Leave sentiments regularly.

Six years on from leaving office and being chucked-off Twitter, we can see that Trump's legacy is now cemented-in through the form of political dialogue being expressed online. The American Right adopted the 'Trump Way' but so too did the US Left. In the UK, the Left adopted Trump's online mannerisms, though the Right appears to have declined - I don't think they really like Americans!

Antifascist. You will have to tell me which of the news outlets linked above: The Guardian and BBC, are not approved by yourself.

I want to see what he's written in support of the two key fascist figures of the 20th century - Benito Mussolini and General Franco. Int he UK of course we had Sir Oswald Mosley.

Personally, fascists have never rightly caused me concern. Fascists didn't enact The Holocaust, fascism has no political standing in the UK, let alone the US. In Italy, particularly in the north, Jews from southern France were hidden for years from both Nazi occupiers and collaborators. Franco's Spain chose to be neutral in WWII and its diplomats interfered with Nazi efforts (Franco's Spain and the Jewish Rescue Effort During World War II)

What does though cause me concern is National Socialism. neo-Nazism still thrives in Europe. The Labour Party came under its thrall in 2015-2020, and the ECHR report made uncomfortable reading (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/29/key-findings-of-the-ehrc-inquiry-into-labour-antisemitism) not least because the evidence of neo-Nazi influence still persists. The ECHR found evidence of neo-Nazi language being employed by Labour Party officers during that period. I'm old enough to remember the BNP (British National Party) and before that The National Front, and never rightly thought that such times and the vocabulary that went with it - particularly the persistent Holocaust Denial, would be seen in the UK again. I guess a big clue was when David Irving endorsed Jeremy Corbyn (as had the KKK's David Duke, Nick Griffin of the BNP and of course, David Icke). As you likely suspect, I don't have a great deal of time for socialists who think the word 'socialist' should always be preceded by 'national'.

Language of course has meaning. I don't believe Douglas Murray, author of that presumably fascist tome 'The Madness of Crowds' (2020) has been endorsed by David Duke, David Irving, Nick Griffin or David Icke, but then again, being a 'fascist' I doubt he will be of much interest to them.

Now I have to confess I've read 'The Madness of Crowds' and still have my copy. Why not take up Pluvia's offer? Why not we all go through it and try and identify its fascist leanings? Hey, we could all learn something, and I bet even The Guardian, who gave it a top review, would be interested in the feedback. Just 304 pages and once I've finished my current book (David Skelton's 'The New Snobbery: Taking on modern elitism and empowering the working class' which you've likely already read) I'll have a free week.

Or if you want to run through 'War on the West' I'll happily do the same. But that one, though I have it, is on my reading list, so it will be a first read for me. You will have the advantage of having read it already.

Give me an Pluvia the nod and I can start-up a new thread in Mumsnet - What We're Reading

Nah you’re alright

-I’ve read his vile anti Semitic piece about Peter Gumbel amp.spectator.co.uk/article/history-shouldn-t-be-used-against-us/amp

ive Watched his pompous bullying great replacement video
twitter.com/adamrutherford/status/1539141551972143105?s=21

why would I waste my time reading his book?

You know DM wasn't talking about Muslims in the clip, right? You watched the whole interview I assume, it's an hour or so long. It's not about Replacement Theory or even about immigration.

You aren't filling me with confidence that you have actually watched what he said or understood it.

Those statistics (in the article) are scary. I must admit I do tell my students that they might want to think twice about going to university. After spending a year or two years where we discuss everything under the sun, they are going off to institutions where they'll be scared to open their mouths. To be fair, the trend has been trickling down to colleges for a while and there are now some 'off limits' subjects. The older students are still wanting to talk and discuss everything, but the younger ones are horrified by the very idea of discussion.

I often share Douglas Murray videos with students - he has a lot to say that's relevant to them. Obviously I share other resources too.

My daughter is getting ready to start applying to programs after finishing school. She's inclined towards university and would be good at what universities traditionally do, but man, it is a huge question whether that is what she will find. She has decided against a few areas of study that are particularly closed, and also against a few institutions that have become obsessed with id pol - including where I attended. It's depressing to see what some institutions and departments have become.

My fear is she'll get a crap program despite best efforts and owe large amounts of money at the end.

Honestly, Mangy, your DD might be better off looking for an apprenticeship. Lots of employers now are not that interested in graduates anyway - they want young people who are bright and hardworking and they'll train them into a profession. They don't want indoctrinated wokesters with meaningless 2:1s (because really there are no meaningful academic standards now at uni.) I don't think there are any universities left now who are doing what universities are supposed to be doing. But I know that going into a job or apprenticeship or even a vocational course is probably not what your DD is wanting. It's a rubbish situation to be in.

The Bit where he’s talking about the war on white people. If I found out anyone was showing that to my kids I would make a complaint

I teach adults; they can complain for themselves if they have a problem. Luckily, the adults I teach are pretty open-minded. I share all kinds of material with them, introduce them to ideas from across the political spectrum. That's what education is supposed to do - it's not supposed to be propaganda.

I wouldn’t show hate speech or vacuity . Murray fails on both counts

That's just nonsense. I wouldn't show hate speech either, unless we were specifically looking at it as a topic. Or vacuity? Do you mean vacuousness? Well I've certainly shared materials with students that I personally find vacuous, because it's important to always look at more than one side of an argument. But you can hardly accuse Douglas Murray of being vacuous. He's devastatingly eloquent and erudite.

No, they don't Because they think it is just them who get to decide.

And yet polls show a considerable majority of them believing the Trump story that the last election was stolen - and thus supporting, at least in principle, Trump's attempt at a fascist coup. And Trump, having nailed his colours to the mast as an ACTUAL fascist with no regard for democracy whatsoever, is a frontrunner to win the next Republican nomination because they know he will be popular with voters.

Can't say I much agree with your conception of "moderate".

But the reality is that many news sources in the UK are brazen, obvious, unashamed mouthpieces of Tory propaganda masquerading as "news". Why should we call it anything other than what it is, or waste time considering it when we're trying to find out actual news?

Again, you need to watch the whole interview.

He is linking what he sees as a war on western or European culture with the id pol thinking about "whiteness," suggesting that the latter exists as a mechanism for the former. That is, the people undertaking this see it as a war on whiteness and justify it on that basis, when really it's an attempt to discredit a whole culture.

He talks about this about an hour before the clip you posted, it's what the rest of the interview is predicated around.

I've suggested that she think seriously about something like that, and I think she is considering it. She has to start applying next year so things may change, she has a summer job that might push her in a different direction and she really needs to try and earn some scholarship money, so we'll see.