Important article by Lionel Shriver

[FarriersGirl]

Leading article in the Times today by Lionel Shriver. She has long been a critic of woke but really doesn't pull any punches. In particular she highlights the fact that far from being progressive the era of woke has been the opposite.

www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/ditching-woke-brain-rot-transgender-pronouns-58g8dpxnp

I guess when you earn your living by churning out copy week after week then you may well tend to fall into predictable habits that don't require much thought or reflection. Columnsts all do this. They become known for a certain style - and they just keep replicating it.

Shriver has every right to express her views, but my heart sinks every time biological reality is mixed with in bigotry. Shriver does not speak for me. Her vision is to keep the world for people like her she approves of.

This a thousand times. A family member told me Richard Dawkins was ‘problematic’ because he’d said words to the effect that if he had to choose he preferred CoE garden party religion to Islam. Hell yeah, don’t we all. Especially women.

Meant to quote this.

You’re saying that in Canada, people can get fired because of their ethnicity. Do you have a recent example?

No, they get not hired.

For example, just today while helping my son look for jobs, we saw the hospital has a position for a cleaner open. However, you have to "identify as black/African descent." Which is to say, people of European or Asian descent are not welcome to apply.

I heard on a radio programme about a year ago that European and Asians get passed by for college scholarships. Say, for example, a child of a Greek or Asian immigrant - not a super privileged group.

This was just a supreme court case in the US, institutions like Harvard were weighting applications by race. So the SAT scores required to get in were differerntiated significantly depending on what your race was. If they went just by SAT scores, the campus would have been more than 40% Asian.

Basically, in order to get a "balanced" racial profile for students, Asians have to score well above the white students, who in turn need to score above black and Hispanic students.

Asian students, unsurprisingly, objected to this.

The idea of picking the applicant from the least represented group where a number of equally well qualified applicants could do the job equally well, is not new. It was one of the methods used to try to increase the number of women in non-traditional areas.

If there are a number of equally well qualified applicants for one post, a choice is going to have to be made on some basis, so why not on the basis of increasing the diversity of an organisation, which is beneficial on a strictly business basis?

This is not the same as adjusting required qualifications downwards. Lionel Shriver's examples of this are from the US, and we have to be careful not to import ill-fitting arguments against policies that are in force in the US but not on this side of the Atlantic.

She claims that 'Numerous black female hires' 'are sometimes conspicuously under-qualified' and 'owe their appointments to that fungal way of thinking'.
She gives just one example, leaving every other black female appointed to a responsible position under the shadow of being a 'diversity ‘buy one, get one free’ appointment.

The boringly common SM slur against women politicians, even if they are highly qualified and have years of relevant experience - 'Oh she's just a diversity tick-box candidate' - is an example of hard it is for people to be taken seriously if their face doesn't fit the traditional idea of a politician or a car mechanic or a professor or a gas-boiler technician or a brain surgeon. Lionel Shriver's mission-creep from challenging trans ideology to undermining 'numerous black female hires' is turning the clock back.

There has to be some way other than 'wokeism' to make the world a fairer place by undoing centuries of injustice, we can't just abandon the fight for social justice because it has been hijacked by TRAs. The struggle continues.

If Lionel Shriver knows of a better fox-hole....

"picking the applicant from the least represented group where a number of equally well qualified applicants could do the job equally well... Lionel Shriver's examples of this are from the US, and we have to be careful not to import ill-fitting arguments against policies that are in force in the US but not on this side of the Atlantic"

The situation in the UK isn't better and it's not about choosing between "equally well qualified" [sic] candidates.

Do you have a kid in a UK university? I do. When applying for any oppportunity, be it summer internship or a prestigious research project, application forms ask if kids are an ethnic minority, gay, trans, or first in their family to go to university. Those get the few slots available. If you are white, straight, from an educated family, you have no chance of getting a place.

This is in the UK, in 2024.

It's not LS causing the perception that some people might be diversity hires - it's the people who are hiring people because of their sex, race, sexuality, or gender identification.

Probably about half of jobs you apply for in Canada ask you for this kind of information. I don't give it on principle, however I know that particularly in large organizations that can work against being hired - there can be a lot of pressure in organizations like that to hire according to internal diversity quotas, so they won't bother with applications where they don't know what they are getting, and the assumption tends to be they are white and straight.

There has to be some way other than 'wokeism' to make the world a fairer place by undoing centuries of injustice, we can't just abandon the fight for social justice because it has been hijacked by TRAs. The struggle continues.

We could always try the old fashioned methods: making sure people have access to descent education and stable families and good medical care; making discrimination in the work place illegal and frowned upon; encouraging people to enter sectors they are interested in even if they are non-traditional for their families or larger communities.

The move from that kind of approach to wokeism and DEI hasn't exactly increased success in these areas, it's resulted in a real worsening of race relations and attitudes, and it's split the communities it's meant to be helping as well. The people in the US who most support this stuff are white university educated people, blacks less so, Hispanics don't like it, and Native Americans seem to like it least of all. This is the kind of thing that is pushing these groups away from voting Democrat.

It's also tended to reward members of targeted groups who are a already in a good place. That was one of the interesting things about Claudine Gay, she was from an extremely privileged background - arguably, if we are talking in neomarxist terms (or whatever you want to call that ideology) very much a member of an oppressor class. Who seemed to have no qualms about ousting a black faculty member from an underprivileged background who wasn't falling into line with the proper anti-racist talking points.

I really wish, with these kinds of initiatives, that there was a requirement to go to the rejected individuals and say, "sorry, we haven't chosen you, not because of anything to do with you personally as an individual, but because of the group identities we see you as representing".

I suspect that many would balk at saying that straight out to a real person, even if it didn't dawn on them that creating a social norm where it's ok for individuals to lose out for being members or certain groups due to their unalterable characteristics might be really dangerous.

I often think that the one privilege which is totally accepted and not compensated for is the biggest privilege of all: wealth.

So if you come from the right minority in the right field, but are privately educated and grew up in a stable rich home with lots of books etc, you can still have an easier ride than a white male with no disabilities who went to a sink school and grew up in a less than ‘nice’ home.

I think it is this that causes massive divisiveness more than anything else. People will fight tooth and nail for their wealth to continue to buy them and their descendants privilege.

I love Lionel Shriver's writing. I think she's hugely incisive about culture. I subscribe to The Spectator partly to read her work.

I think this article is a good reflection of the reality of what is happening and railing against reality because it's 'bigoted' sounds a little bit like some other people we know....

GC views are currently included in the views held by those (the majority in the USA at least, and maybe here too by the next election) who are rejecting the 'progressive' agenda of social justice above actual justice, equity above equality, promoting discrimination based on race, using a power structure of identity as the only interpretation for all inequity, and using language as the key weapon in all this.

Tbh if you cannot see the links between this and the TRA movement and the public rejection of it you are not trying very hard.

It looks like just another rendition of 'you can't say that because that makes you a bigot.' and you'd think once you'd had this tactic used on you you'd think a bit more deeply before applying it to others.

GC feminists who still thinks this is a separate issue from all the other identify politics, which the good people like them are right about amazes me. It really does.

Anyway I think she's reflecting a cultural and political shift which is real and coming your way. If you are worried about it, you may want to do more than just shout bigot, as the USA election has shown that's not going to work anymore.

Yeah, it's interesting. A friend of mine, who grew up underprivileged and as a black woman in a large, increasingly decrepit American inner-city, married a guy, also black, from a very well off family of academics. She is very bright and struggled through family stuff to get a degree, and has done pretty well for herself. He, however, is a golden boy, and it's like everything he's ever wanted to do has been facilitated, right up to a cushy tenured university position at a very young age, positions on boards, etc. He's totally wedded to the whole ant-racism movement. My friend became less enamored with the movement after he revealed himself to be a cheating twat - not just, I think, because she was bitter at his entitlement, or even because it was so clear he'd been privileged in every way over many other people, but also because she realized the whole thing made her feel pretty miserable and hopeless. It was kind of a scales dropping from eyes moment, not unlike what you see sometimes from women that have fallen for gender ideology.

Our family background over generations, of course, has a lot to do with our current circumstances. Race can be a big factor in how families managed in the past. But it's only one factor, there are all kinds of other things that create generational poverty, lack of stability, lack of cultural capital. There are whole groups of people who have been part of recognized underclasses who are not black, even in the US. In my own family propensity to alcoholism seems to have reared its head again and again, affecting family prospects over generations. And there are other things as well.

You can see similar weird dynamics when sexuality is used as a diversity target in groups, gay men in particular often do really really well in high paying professional spheres, so giving them a leg up in employment over others seems pretty weird.

It's just way too reductive, and as you saw, wealth so often is the real factor that is an advantage - and wealth of your parents, not ancestors 5 generations ago.

Well that was the original manifestation but when Marxism didn't factor in that most people actually want the chance to be wealthy so communism wasn't going to work they had to shift the 'power struggle' with oppressors and victims to identity.

What's also interesting is that other markers of inequity such as beauty, height, And the biggest one of all IQ haven't been targeted for the equity treatment. I wonder why if the aim is equity??

TempestTost replied to this quote from me:
There has to be some way other than 'wokeism' to make the world a fairer place by undoing centuries of injustice, we can't just abandon the fight for social justice because it has been hijacked by TRAs. The struggle continues.

We could always try the old fashioned methods: making sure people have access to descent education and stable families and good medical care; making discrimination in the work place illegal and frowned upon; encouraging people to enter sectors they are interested in even if they are non-traditional for their families or larger communities.

I'm on the same page as you, TempestTost, as you can see I reject 'wokeism' in the first line.
I've seen first-hand how successful the kind of measures you suggest can be. Tackling disadvantage 'upstream', for instance by better preparing young people for jobs or university, is an excellent ideas which has worked well when it has been properly supported. It's not a question of lowering the bar, but of providing better training to reach the required height.

CoteDAzur can be reassured that the bar for entrance to university in the UK not a moveable feast, and whether a student is ethnic minority, gay, trans, or first in their family to go to university' or 'white, straight, from an educated family', their work is submitted anonymously, so they are all assessed according to the same criteria - the bar is at the same height.

TempestTost - creating a social norm where it's ok for individuals to lose out for being members or certain groups due to their unalterable characteristics might be really dangerous.

Anybody who belongs to a group which has for centuries been losing out due to their unalterable characteristics will raise an eyebrow at this concern that it might be really dangerous - it already is really dangerous to belong to groups that suffer disproportionate levels of violence. Women, for example. Which is why the 'old fashioned methods' of fighting against social injustice which we both support were necessary in the first place.

Assuming we want fairness and equality for everybody, the struggle against social injustice must somehow be carried forward.

Lionel Shriver's comments about 'numerous black females' being unqualified for the position they hold, and celebrating the return of the word 'retarded', belong to a past that I thought the 'old fashioned methods' had got rid of, and I don't want to go back there.

The traditional sort of racism or discrimination is absolutely - you belong to the wrong group, so regardless of your qualities as an individual, we won't hire you.

The goal of maintaining the fundamental equality of dignity and worth of all people, whatever group or population they come from, and judging them on their individual qualities, has been the goal of various civil rights movements for decades.

Modern ant-racism explicitly rejects that approach, and wants us to use the approach of treating individuals according to their group membership. That is, to accept some people for positions and benefits due to group membership, and reject others. They are simply flipping the advantaged vs disadvantaged groups.

That is the danger I am talking about, which the progressive left and DEI and BLM people are all embracing. And IMO that is what LS is talking about and why she is so dismissive and disgusted by it. It's gross in itself, and dangerous because once society accepts that premise there is no guarantee it will be applied in the way they think. Should it raise an eyebrow - sure, but it seems not to among certain political groups (though I think the majority are waking up to it which is why Matt Walsh's latest film has been so well received.)

The fact that so many posters here seem to think that this means becoming a racist is worrying to me, it suggests they really haven't understood the roots of gender ideology and what the progressive movement is really after. This is not a movement that opposes racism, or any other bigotry, it just changes its shape.

Tbh I've never fully understood why the term "retarded" became unacceptable. I understand that it was formerly used by professionals to refer to those with a disability of intellectual development, so using it nowadays is considered to be "ableism". The problem is, the terms "idiot", "imbecile", "moron" and "cretin" were also formerly technical terms used to refer to those with mental disabilities, and yet no one is proposing to ban those terms. Is it just that we have to wait longer before we can use "retard" as an insult, since those terms dropped out of technical use earlier on? Then again I'm not sure that anyone has used "retard" as a technical term in the UK remotely recently - it certainly hasn't been the preferred term for many decades - so perhaps the prohibition is primarily for American benefit?

I can see what you are saying here, but again disagree. In getting the balance right in these discussions we also need to be clear when someone is being racist or bigoted. Saying a JL advert featuring black people looked like it was filmed in Nigeria is racist. Pure and simple.

Celebrating the use of offensive language like retarded is hateful.

My big fear is that in the backlash to the recent sledgehammer approach to EDI, we will lose sight of why we started off down this road. The world is horrifically unequal. Some people are born into incredibly disadvantaged circumstances and others are born with immense privileges. The world would be a better place if it were more equal. But what won't get us there is dicking about with pronouns

@MarieDeGournay re "CoteDAzur can be reassured that the bar for entrance to university in the UK not a moveable feast, and whether a student is ethnic minority, gay, trans, or first in their family to go to university' or 'white, straight, from an educated family', their work is submitted anonymously, so they are all assessed according to the same criteria - the bar is at the same height."

MarieDeGournay can be reassured that is NOT what I said, which she would know if she actually read what I wrote.

I said my child is already in said UK university.

I said the issue of priority to ethnic minorities, gay, trans, and first generation at university in their family arises at their university, when applying for prestigious research projects and summer internships. There are very few such places offered in a given year and the priority given to DEI kids means that straight white kids from educated families have no chance to get in even if they work more and their grades are higher.

This is very important because it builds up a student's relevant work experience for when they leave university and apply for the few jobs that will be available in their field.

I hope that my post is now clearer to MarieDeGournay. If MarieDeGournay still finds it challenging, I can try to explain it in another way, with other examples.

I have a child at university, and what @CoteDAzur says is not false. My own DC comes up against the same situation.

Our advice is that it is competitive and to try harder and to not give up. We don’t want to encourage bitterness or excuses. It doesn’t do the individual any good.

However if this is wide spread, it would explain the surprising support across Europe for the far right by the young.

Wholeheartedly agree. The comment about Nigeria was disturbing, because for a start I've seen plenty of John Lewis adverts featuring white people, and secondly, why on earth shouldn't a John Lewis advert sometimes feature black people? We have plenty of black people in the UK, born and bred here, who are as British as anyone else. It's hard to read her comment as anything other than straightforwardly racist.

I think what Shriver seems to be saying is that previously marginalised groups have been given too much leeway and perhaps too much power. But that isn't our objection to gender ideology at all. Most of us, I think, don't regard trans women as a marginalised group but as men exercising male power, as men have always done, but in a new and disturbing way.