Jon Ronson and Adam Buxton

[WarriorN]

I'm astounded at this "bonus episode" of "and things fell apart."

Absolutely everything Glinner has said has been proven.

This is a twitter link, I imagine it's on bbc sounds

x.com/glinner/status/1769152705333699000?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

How far is too far when women’s existence as a category in our own right excluding men was being destroyed with the tacit agreement of the government, police, civil service, nhs, education, political parties? How far is too far when we can’t even name ourselves without being sure it doesn’t include some bloke called pip who likes to dress up as a woman a few times a week?

fucking twats

Must be easy for people who didn’t speak up and put their head above the parapet to say glinner “went too far”.

it’s the opposite actually, everyone else - particularly those with fame and a platform - didn’t go far enough!

adam and jon who are they anyway? Oh I get it talking about glinner whilst the news has come to light at last that he was right all along, that’s the only reason they’re name dropping him to try to make themselves relevant. It’s pathetic.

thanks Graham if you’re reading, you’re a better man than most.

The clip was awful to listen to. All the 'mutual friend' haw hawing, and the contempt. The sheer lack of intellectual curiosity from two men who make a living out of claiming to be so. And now? When so much is undeniably out there? Just seems odd.

As others have said, Adam Buxton grew up with Louis Theroux (private school) and you can see how it runs through all of them. And it really sounds like a class thing here - they can throw Glinner under the bus easily because he isn't one of them.

Glinner is on X today claiming Ronson has actually put in calls to stop people talking with him. I hadn't heard that before.

I'm so bitterly disappointed with both of them. I really hope this comes back to bite them on the arse.

Clip: The BBC said, "Do you want to do something about the culture wars and I was kind of obsessed with a mutual friend of ours and his collapse...a brilliant comedy writer who got too embroiled in the culture wars and it completely took over his life to the extent that he lost all of his work and his family and I was watching this happening and just really trying to figure out what were the mechanics of this..."

Whilst you can argue that JR and AB all did not come to GL's defence (as above, they were all standing by seeing it unravel in front of them) you can't deny that GL himself became absolutely obsessed with twitter at the time, to the detriment of his family. His BIL Peter Serafinowicz tried to reason with him (as Helen was unhappy) but he continued to be up all hours with tweeting taking up all of his time. Had any woman on MN told us this about her DH, the cry of LTB would have been unanimous.

I know we’re not supposed to ad hominem and all that but RJ’s voice sounds so artificial and performative to me. Designed to convey to his audience that he really cares.

Similar to a woman in my ante natal who used that type of hushed pseudo calm gentile whispery voice all the time. Until once when she was irritated enough to snap at her DH and suddenly was capable of speaking in a normal tone of voice like the rest of us pregnant women. RJ seems just like that.

Plus, it such a dick thing to do when he sneered in a national newspaper about a woman on the street who was smiling because she was thinking of her DD wearing angel wings for a photo shoot. When I read that, I thought ‘you are not a nice person’.

That entire generation of privileged male comedians are awful about this. Richard Herring, Stewart Lee, Buxton, Nish Kumar. It an easy posture for them, they’re not affected by it at all.

Clip: The BBC said, "Do you want to do something about the culture wars and I was kind of obsessed with a mutual friend of ours and his collapse...a brilliant comedy writer who got too embroiled in the culture wars and it completely took over his life to the extent that he lost all of his work and his family and I was watching this happening and just really trying to figure out what were the mechanics of this..."

maybe they could have stopped & thought “I wonder why our friend who we know to be a good & sound person is so worried and obsessed about this? Maybe we could try & understand what’s going on?”

but they didn’t did they? They sat in their privileged male entitlement bubble shaking their heads ruefully about it all. It’s just an oddity to them, an intellectual exercise. Meanwhile hard fought for women’s rights were being erased under their noses but they didn’t notice that did they? Because it didn’t affect them so it didn’t really matter did it

I say again, fucking twats

Ronson is terrified that his kid’s generation would condemn him for this, and he’s shit scared of reaching the right conclusion because of this. Terrified of the Red Guards of Gen Z.
It’s the same reason why people like Caitlin Moran must see the problem but either won’t say, or take the TRA position. Cowardice.

Buxton is always awful I can't bear his man baby voice.

Clip: The BBC said, "Do you want to do something about the culture wars and I was kind of obsessed with a mutual friend of ours and his collapse...a brilliant comedy writer who got too embroiled in the culture wars and it completely took over his life to the extent that he lost all of his work and his family and I was watching this happening and just really trying to figure out what were the mechanics of this..."

This bit grates. "Obsessed", was he? Not obsessed enough to actually listen and get the big picture? Ronson clearly had an agenda set out from the start. I could never take him seriously again.

Twats indeed

Why do they use a friend as gossip and content

Some friends

I think we were always going to get to the point where accusations of "but you went too far" or "but its the way you said it" would become the recourse of those who either refused to engage or took the wrong turn.

Otherwise, these critics would have to self reflect and own their weaknesses and/or lack of critical thinking. And that is painful. It also takes emotional maturity.

I suspect too that most of these individuals will have young people in their lives claiming to be trans. And Gen X adults/parents seem to have a tendency to want to be their kid's friend over being a parent/adult. (I say this as a Gen Xer myself making an observation I've noticed about my age group)

Overall though, I think this is a positive sign. They know the writing is on the wall and they're using Graham to lay down a pathway to reverse-ferret once its safe to do so.

We'll have to accept that very few people will graciously take the golden bridge. Most won't own their mistakes. And those who lack character will point the finger at others to justify previous behaviour.

But their stance will be remembered in the fuller context of time. Jon Ronson I once admired. I used to like Adam Buxton too. I can't listen to either of them anymore. I wonder how true that will be for many others?

ron Jonson.

Fuck always do that.

Reported my own thread 😆

😬

It is interesting that Jon Ronson says that the reason he did the BBC series on the culture wars was because of his obsession with Glinner. I feel there may be something to say about which obsessions are permitted and which are a descent down a rabbit hole.

Ronny Jonny
Jonny Ronny
😁

In a certain mindset I agree; closer analysis of what they actually say with the full context of what's happened behind the scenes i completely disagree.

Even the fact they say "mutual friend"

Really? Friend?

Two men discussing and dismissing the efforts of a man who stood up to something that greatly affects women and children, and has now been evidenced in public policy, is peak patriarchy imo.

I see Graham Linehan's behaviour as having been detrimental to starting a real challenge to the male trans rights activism. The issue needs nuance and care to start a challenge.

It is very sad that it does need that and a travesty that children have been subject to grooming and life altering medical interventions before society generally started to wonder whether this might in fact be wrong.

When you are too forceful in your arguments, you cause your opponent to become more entrenched. This has been harmful to questioning the movement that is happening in schools and extended the life of the harmful and outrageous practices that have been happening in medicine and education.

We have to tread carefully, particularly around our adolescent daughters, because forceful opposition to the phenomenon pushes them further along the narrative and makes you the 'bad' person that cannot be trusted.

his series' of Things Fell Apart are excellent in my opinion

Understanding his omission in the Mitchfest one hasn't coloured your view of his veracity at all?

I don't think its possible to comment on whether they were fair without knowing Graham oneself (which I don't)

As well as the very valid concerns about gender there is an awful lot of conspiracist clap trap out there and if he was spending so much time on twitter and talking about it obsessively that his wife left him then it seems likely he was acting in a way that's not usual and probably did concern his friends.

I think that was maybe a legal thing because Rivers case hadn't been heard when he made the show. Who knows though?

Golden bridge time, golden bridge time. [mutters to self]

There's an interesting general history behind this aside from the obvious point that nobody wants to be reminded of a time when they were on the wrong side of history and they tend to start critiquing the people who were right by saying they were too strident, too [X] etc.

There's a phenomenon known as 'premature anti-[X]' and two of the best known instances are to have been a premature anti-fascist or a premature anti-Nazi.

‘Premature anti-fascist’ was the name by which the Lincoln Brigade veterans of the Spanish Civil War were known by the US Army in World War Two. This service and knowledge didn't distinguish them for a leadership position, it was counted as demerit on their record.

In John Platts-Mills' autobiography (barrister and post-war Labour MP), he recalls being ‘excluded from any form of normal war service by the stupidities of Bevin’. He noted: ‘An anti-Nazi history, was of no help and to have been prematurely anti-Nazi was a positive hindrance … we were condemned throughout most of the 1930s on the grounds that only Communists were against the Nazis and this hostility carried over into the war years.’

Commenting on (British?) veterans of the Spanish Civil War, Platts-Mills wrote that ‘many lefties who had served in Spain were called up or were accepted when they volunteered. Several more got in only after a tussle with the authorities.’ [1]

I wonder if some of the women deplatformed from various social media will find themselves labelled 'premature anti-authoritarians' or some other 'premature anti-[X]'." Glinner likewise has been deplatformed for correctly seeing what was happening. That deplatforming may now well continue for the 'crime' of having been 'strident' and a premature anti-[X]'.

[1] Completeness means that I have to note that he objected to allying with the US rather than Russia after WW2 and would not accept the adverse reports about Stalin.

I completely understand this perspective. However, treading carefully has never served women well. All the be kind, accept your erasure has resulted in our children being transitioned everywhere with trusted adults being exhorted to accept the toxic belief that children need fixing.

I'd go so far as to suggest that it's actually enabled what's happened in schools. A bit more "fuck no, that's child abuse" when the first trans activists started telling children that their bodies are flawed and a sex change will cure them, would have protected thousands of vulnerable children from buying into this lie.
Of course there's a place for calm, nuanced discussion, but in the face of much of the exploitation of children, fuck off might have had more effect had it been used more often.

Now that the tide is turning and Graham who has been totally vindicated and will soon be back on top at the BBC, these two smug also rans will rue the day they recorded this podcast episode and hold their heads in shame for the utter contempt they have expressed towards him.