Ambitious young people will do anything to get ahead and they have learned that “cancelling”, virtue signalling and silencing is the way to do it

[IwantToRetire]

This is from an anonymous student giving some background to how the campaign against Kathleen Stock is being fuelled - see https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4793122-oxford-students-call-for-feminist-kathleen-stock-to-be-no-platformed-at-union-over-trans-views?page=1

The implication is that what is experienced by some as a trans campaign that erases women's rights, isn't even a set of ideological beliefs but just a weapon in a war of one upmanship, with little or no thought to the victims of their power games.

They spend as much of their days searching for a person to “call out” or a cause to rally against, as they do in libraries. They will race to be first, and ask questions later. Accuse or be accused. There are no limits to the lows they will sink or the backs they will stab.

I remember how, at the dawn of the invasion of Ukraine, there was a scramble among students to be the one who set up the University’s Ukrainian Society. Once formed, it was immediately added to some of the victorious founders’ LinkedIn and Twitter bios, even though they were yet to do anything.

At parties and events, people live in fear of something they say or do being recorded. This is more than just the effects of the internet age - it is well known that certain people, especially in student politics or journalism, often secretly audio record the entire evening in the hope of catching someone out.

The worst part is that it doesn’t matter who it is they catch. People have publicly “cancelled” their closest friends, and even their partners. Furthermore, nothing is off limits to be used as material. Family issues, mental health, relationships - all of it can and will be used against you.

Concerningly, some people do not even feel bound by the truth. They know that there is nothing their victim can do, and trying to do anything would just draw more attention to the claim, alongside requiring lengthy battles and lawyers not all students can afford.

The process is the punishment, and the evidence will live online forever. And thanks to a popular anonymous Facebook page (the content of which is controlled by a few with vested interests), attacks can be made anonymously too.

Even if the culture at Oxford might be different to other colleges, if this is the world students are growing up in, how can it not be damaging to them as individuals. And a real worry for the future. What wil our future world be if young people are not being educated, or having the experience of learning to listen to and maybe disagree with other people, but not put them in the equivilant to the stocks.

Very depressing.

The full article is here https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/21/oxford-university-students-intolerance-free-speech/ but behind a paywall. If you go to https://archive.ph/ and paste in the full telegraph web link you will find the whole article.

I had the feeling that the PHD student Amiad Haran Diman, president of the university’s LGBTQ+ Society, who is leading the campaign against Katherine Stott coming to the Oxford Union and who was interviewed on radio 4 is motivated in this way:

Oxford is full of very bright and ambitious young people, who want to be a future prime minister. Combined with the entitlement of many Oxford students, this is a dangerous mix. They will do anything to get there, and from today’s society, they have learned that “cancelling”, virtue signalling and silencing is the way to do it

Apologies, Katherine Stock

Late night head: Kathleen Stock

What a vile culture is being incubated, we're raising a generation of sociopaths. The future leaders of this country! Wait until they start passing laws.

What can be done to make sure that the people who engage in this behaviour are not rewarded for it? What can be done to make it absolutely lethal to have some version of "witchfinder" on your CV or social media history?

I think there's already a backlash against this kind of thing brewing. The GoFundMe of the most recent woman to get "Karened" at a national scale in the US has been doing very well. But we need to make sure the lowest and scummiest social climbers are caught up in the backlash and can't wriggle free of the consequences of their actions. I know people on here talk about a "golden bridge" and... yes, to a certain extent. But these are not the kind of people we need running the country. They shouldn't be able to memory hole their behaviours when it becomes convenient. People won't want to vote for politicians who engaged in this kind of behaviour. Companies must to some extent be aware that these people are incredibly bad for workplace morale (I know that there are a lot of conflicting incentives within corporations and that workplace morale isn't always top of the list of concerns.)

Wait until they start passing laws.

That's what I was thinking. It will be like going back to the days of witch hunters.

But what is even more crazy, if the women who wrote it is being truthful, what does it say about how we are bringing up children that the first opportunity to be in charge this is how they behave.

And that apparently the majority while not agreeing just keep quiet and let it happen.

This is where is we had actual news reporting these cult like behaviours could be challenged.

Its absurd to think a tiny minority has intimidated everyone into silence and passive acceptance.

"They spend as much of their days searching for a person to “call out” or a cause to rally against, as they do in libraries. They will race to be first, and ask questions later. Accuse or be accused. There are no limits to the lows they will sink or the backs they will stab".

Stasi 101.

Social media has enabled totalitarian population control.

It's not all students I hope. Oxford students in my experience are very arrogant quite clever but with little sense. People who are not ruthless and ambitious self select out of the process. Also good social skills and super high grades are not always matched, so super clever but socially inept who are not sjw will stay quiet.

Social media is an absolutely threat to democracy and this is yet another example of it.

While this terrifies me, sadly it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

Oxford students in my experience are very arrogant quite clever but with little sense.

But unfortunately given the still very entrenched old school class attitudes, these are the students who go on to be part of the political establishment.

I never understood why political parties thought employing people who were little more than children with no life experience to be Spads. You wouldn't ask your grandchildren to help you take financial decisions, yet somehow politicians think asking immature arrogant young men, who cant even tie their own shoe laces, to write policy.

I just don’t think the internet and smartphones have been a net good for the world.

This.

"I never understood why political parties thought employing people who were little more than children with no life experience to be Spads. You wouldn't ask your grandchildren to help you take financial decisions, yet somehow politicians think asking immature arrogant young men, who cant even tie their own shoe laces, to write policy."

DarkDayforMN · Today 00:47

People won't want to vote for politicians who engaged in this kind of behaviour

The leader of Oxford LHBTQ+ in Oxford, who started this protest against the Oxford Union and Kathleen Stock, is
an older, PHD student, and not British, whose work is based around democracy and peace, ironically. Maybe he’ll go back to his own country where he may hope to be seen as a clever leader given he seems to have political interests.

Not our loss if so.

This is why the "non-elites" (ie. normal, everyday people) need to start seriously thinking about playing a part in civic life: standing for parish and local councils, becoming school governors, becoming trustees, going for approved candidacies for parliamentary seats.

We have left the political and governance realm to the psychopaths, and this is the result.

I have to say this is why I was pleased Elon Musk bought Twitter. I all the arguments against him, but he does seem to be in favour of free speech. The banning/censoring rules have changed dramatically since he took over, you can actually say what think (obviously not hatefully) and it will stand. That gives people a platform to disagree, call out Stasi behaviour and insist on real evidence for accusations. The recent bicycle Karen in NYC was vindicated on Twitter, and I notice they are now appending misinformation with the facts. Its a small but very important change in tidal wave of totalitarianism. Absolutely agree we should all be taking as much interest in civic life as we can.

Absolutely this. We have outsourced the organisation of our society and the people we have outsourced it to have failed or betrayed us. It's difficult to step up and do this ourselves - we all have life responsibilities and want time for the things we enjoy. And we're up against well-financed people for whom politics and social organization is a full time job.

But if we don't do it, we're doomed. So get involved, and be willing to speak up. Every little helps and what I have found is that small steps lead on to larger ones.

One of the things that baffles me about this is how pointless it is. I am v senior in a field many of this lot will want to join. The idea that we'd give a tiny shit about whether someone founded the Oxford Ukraine society when looking at applications is just laughable. We look for firsts (first), how someone interviews next, the random crap everyone throws onto their applications (such as societies) never.

It's definitely not all students, or even all Oxbridge students. But it adds to a miserable and nervy atmosphere for those who would rather just get on with their degrees without being policed for wrong think.

And it stifles debate, even debate on subjects other than direct discussion of sex vs gender rights. DC has been taken aback at how unwilling some fellow students are to have a 'proper debate', one where someone takes the less popular side in a discussion and examines the evidence. The bog-standard secondary my kids attended was better at that.

And the previous and incumbent leaders have been shining examples of humanity, have they?

I think the big difference is, and maybe it is the internet, that most places had a self elected elite, whether schools, universities, or workplace.

And yes it could be experienced as very alienating if you are one of the ones left out or sneered at because you weren't up with the latest trends.

But by and large you would have a life outside of that gang mentality.

Now via the internet it creeps into everything. The only good think is that if on a public forum it can be archived, and taken into account when interviewing someone for a job or a flat share.

Revenge is a dish best eaten cold as they say!

somehow politicians think asking immature arrogant young men, who cant even tie their own shoe laces, to write policy

although in fact it was an arrogant young woman acting on behalf of Gordon Brown who helped redefine sex in the EQ by thinking that biological women only need a few instances where biological women could meet ie we have a woman to thank for the slap in the face of "in all instances trans women are women apart from the special exemptions".

This is why the "non-elites" (ie. normal, everyday people) need to start seriously thinking about playing a part in civic life: standing for parish and local councils, becoming school governors, becoming trustees, going for approved candidacies for parliamentary seats.

I think long before social media party politics was and still is a snake pit. Lets not forget the need for Jackie Weaver!

And whilst whether or not you were chief bully at university may not get you a job where actual qualifications are needed it might be just what Westminster wants.

Not forgetting that those univeristy bullies may have so damaged some students ability to function, that they didn't get the First they might have done in a more civilisted supportive environment.

This article might be of interest to readers of this thread:

'Some protesters do not believe you are that of which you are accused, however. They only pretend that you are and accuse you as if you were — with false grins and pointed fingers — because to do so is expedient for their own cause.'

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-anatomy-of-cancellation/