Best of Wrong Side of History #68

And summer's lease hath all too short a date....

It’s bank holiday Monday, the bittersweet end-of-summer long weekend which signals that we won’t get another holiday for four months because of 16th century RADICAL LEFT CRAZIES.

This month I asked the question on everyone’s lips right now: when did medieval Europe overtake Rome? Short answer: William the Conqueror probably would have beaten Julius Caesar, but his companions would have made less interesting dinner party guests, having lower rates of literacy (the last thing to catch up).

I wrote about travelling, having just got back from Sri Lanka, and why it makes returning home all the sweeter.

Yorkshire, God’s own county. Taken this week

Incidentally, as another reminder, I will be travelling to the US in October – if you’re in Washington DC, Charleston, Savannah, Austin, San Francisco or New York, get in touch if you haven’t already.

I wrote about the growing prominence of flags on our streets, and whether it means Ulsterisation (it should be Ulsterfication, since Ulsterisation was a name for a specific British government strategy during the Troubles, but social media has decided on the latter).

I also wrote about why politicians and voters drifted apart, and whether the latter can be ignored much longer.

The comments

I’ve been meaning to feature comments in these occasional newsletters, the only thing stopping me being the workload. In the last round-up, Basil Chamberlain used the example of Israel to show how bank notes reflects a country’s identity:

It’s remarkable how they reflect the developing ideology of the state. In particular, the figures on the 1959 series of the old Israeli lira - a scientist in a laboratory; a labourer at an industrial plant; young pioneers in an agricultural landscape - could have appeared (with appropriate ethnic modification) on banknotes from North Korea.

By the 1970s, the banknotes illustrated world-famous Jews like Einstein and early Zionists (Herzl, Weizmann). By the 1980s, with the introduction of the shekel, they bore the images of Israeli politicians, a couple of Jewish financiers, a medieval rabbi (Maimonides) and the founder of Irgun. Through those changes, you can trace the shift from the early project of Labour Zionism, confidently secular and progressive, to a more conservative, capitalist and hawkish Israel.

Presumably, with demography being what it is, in a few years’ time the notes will have a more overtly religious theme.

Basil C also commented on the travelling post, writing that

My answer to Callard’s piece would be that the very counter-example she gives actually suggests why travel is valuable, in that modest way. She wasn't interested in falcons, but because it was "the thing to do in Abu Dhabi", she went anyway. In other words, she did something she doesn't usually do, and wouldn't normally have thought to do, because she was somewhere else. Maybe she was left underwhelmed; but she might have discovered a newfound, hitherto unsuspected fascination with birds of prey.

Fifteen years ago, I went to Vienna for a conference. I had a spare evening and I thought, "What does one do on a spare evening in Vienna?" - so I went to the opera. I was so delighted by the experience that when I got home I started going regularly. OK, that wasn't particularly a "life-changing experience". But I found a new hobby, a new passion - one I might not have discovered had I not travelled abroad.

Similarly, DaveW wrote

Travel is memorable, and a holiday in Sri Lanka is probably more memorable than one in Dorset. I think it's worth giving your children memories. Kids probably don't spend enough social time with their parents now with the distractions of social media. Granted, flying across the world is an expensive way to get them off their phones.

I think some of the complaints about travel are purely status-driven. If you can't travel more than other people, brow beat them into travelling less, so your status is restored. Does anyone travel in order to "feel"? I get strong straw man vibes here, coupled with "It's just not my scene, man."

"The traveller departs confident that she will come back with the same basic interests, political beliefs, and living arrangements. Travel is a boomerang. It drops you right where you started."

I don't think this is true. It wasn't true for me. It might drop you back, but in a slightly different place. Just one day visiting East Berlin dispelled any illusions I ever had of supporting Communism.

Agnes Callard has no interest in falcons, but this is somewhat Green Eggs and Ham-ish—you don't know until you've tried. At risk of being even more of a pain that I usually am, there is a mindful way of doing this, and it sounds like she wasn't. There's a small chance that you do this, then go home and relive "Kes" apart from the bird being killed. You probably won't, but you'll know something about yourself you didn't before. Personal growth, man.

You are right, and I was being somewhat flippant. Travelling does teach children something worthwhile and important – I visited East Berlin when I was eight and am grateful to my parents for installing in me a lifelong terror of communism (presumably that was the aim). I also agree as a general principle that it’s (almost) always worth trying something new. You may find falconry boring; it might change your life. One way to increase the probability of success and happiness in life is to try new routines, meet new people and vary your habits as much as possible; the upside risks of innovation are usually greater than the downside risks.

Gwindor wrote that

I wonder if travel losing its coolness (at least on X) is also due to it becoming somewhat boomer-coded. I recently had a chat with an older couple, who were extremely nice, but after their third story about the Maldives, or Dubai, or wherever, I admit I started to glaze over a bit. They were also frustrated about their kids not having kids, and despite them being in work not able to afford a decent flat, but then launched into an account of their third jaunt to the Caribbean that year, so it all began to get a bit Nicolas 30 ans. Probably unfair - I don't know what else they spent their money on - but I can understand zoomers souring on travel a bit if all the olds are splurging the inheritance on safaris.

On flags, Paul Cassidy points out that it’s not the Pride flag being flown, but the Progress Pride.

LGB people reject, and as such is a blatant statement of adherence to, and aggressive promotion of, gender ideology. That’s why many of us our furious about it and take profound exception to its ubiquity during the Holy Month of Pride and beyond.

As the joke goes:

American SlowlyReading points to examples where the US flag has become more controversial. I wasn’t aware of all of these cases.

On the most recent post, Anthony points out that the Unpopular Review was not an ‘explicitly right-wing publication’, as I wrote:

In fact the link you sent features an article by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and if you check out her rather fascinating life you’ll see what I mean. The publication was contrarian, but was more interested in solid independent thought than any particular ideological stance.

Fair enough - my mistake.

****

Elsewhere, James Marriott has written about his favourite YouTube videos, and you’ll all be surprised to learn it does not contain any Mr Beast or PewDiePie.

****

A charming piece by James Harris on learning Dutch.

The courses were brilliant. The teaching was fantastic; the students, themselves often seeing specific career motivation in learning the language, were generally committed. (Dutch spoken with a strong French accent remains a thing of wonder). There was something oddly charming about a group of people from all around the world learning a relatively minor language; Argentinians, Qataris and Walloons uniting on their common language as that of Hanseatic fisheries. One day I met a fellow student in the street and we conversed; a Portuguese man and an Englishman chatting Dutch in 2025. The 17th century was back, baby.

Dutch is funny to English ears, and I will revisit the topic when I get around to finishing a piece on spiteful Belgian language wars; I’ve wanted to write it ever since I missed my stop at Brussels because the Flemish-speaking city I had travelled from used a different name for the station, with no translation.

****

As I’ve argued before, the parallels with the 1970s are strong right now: economic stagnation, the exhaustion of a three-decade long consensus, and the inability of the state to function so long as the question of ‘who governs Britain’ is an issue. Back then it was the unions who were the rival source of power (quite literally); today it’s judges and lawyers.

At the Telegraph, Sam Ashworth-Hayes writes about judicial overreach.

That Britain has a welfare problem is well-established. This year, spending on the personal independence payment (PIP) alone is set to cost £29bn, up £13bn in five years since the pandemic. Attempts to cut it, however, came unstuck in spectacular fashion, with a major row between Sir Keir Starmer and his backbenchers.

The strangest part of this is that a great deal of the increase was never intended by the government in the first place. In fact, the introduction of PIP was supposed to cut the number claiming benefits by 600,000, saving £2.5bn. Instead, caseloads and spending soared. Some of this was poor policy design. But some was the result of judicial decisions.

In 2016, in the case of MH vs the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, a panel of judges decided that “psychological distress” should be considered when deciding whether applicants should receive additional payments to help with mobility, opening up these funds to a large number of applicants with mental health issues. The government, surprised, introduced regulations to undo this decision, clarifying that its policy was not to make these awards.

This resulted in another round of legal action, and in 2017 the High Court ruled that these regulations were also unlawful as they discriminated against the disabled in breach of the convention on human rights, and had not been sufficiently consulted on. The government backed down, and set about backdating claims. A rough estimate for the end result could today be in the region of £1.4bn of spending per year. This is far from the only case, however, where human rights claims have shredded common sense.

****

On a similar subject, Lucy Connolly is finally out, and her case is gaining attention in the US. For those who are unaware of the story, I wrote about it here and here. Connolly wasn’t the only one to suffer a draconian sentence last summer for online comments; Julie Sweeney’s punishment was also harsh, to put it mildly.

****

Christopher Caldwell on Israel’s special relationship with America

Reports of starvation from occupied Gaza seem to have shaken the American public’s unconditional support for Israel: 53% hold a negative view of the Jewish state, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, which surveyed 24 countries. The United States used to head the list of countries in Israel’s corner. Today, that list is just three countries long: only in Kenya, Nigeria and India did those with a positive view of Israel outnumber its critics. The United States may be coming into line with European countries, in all of which public opinion on Israel is negative. A late-July Gallup poll found that Americans now oppose Israel’s military operation by almost two-to-one.

What is most interesting about this is the partisan skew. Whereas Republican support for the Israeli war effort has remained steady at 71%, Democratic support has collapsed, from 36% to just 8%. This matters: the Democratic Party wins about 70% of the votes of American Jews, and has been their political home since they began arriving as immigrants in the 19th century. It is under pressure to become an anti-Israel party. Under the influence of Donald Trump, the party is moving Left. And opposition to Israel has been a winner for Left parties in the West. La France Insoumise, the continent’s most anti-Israel major party, won the most seats in France’s legislative elections last year. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the party’s leader, is France’s most uncompromising critic of Israel. Jeremy Corbyn, who occupies a similar spot on the British political landscape, came within a handful of seats of becoming prime minister in 2017, and now appears to be enjoying a revival.

…. Israel’s position in the affections of Americans is for the most part unchanged and secure. On the other hand, there is that matter of the anti-Israel activist who is set to become mayor of New York. Should Mamdani govern successfully, he could become a model for a new generation of Democratic politicians. No less important, Democrats always stand a chance in presidential elections. Taken together, that leaves Israel only one or two bad breaks away from a downgraded relationship with its indispensable backer.

****

Meanwhile, sick Palestinian children are being brought to Britain for hospital treatment. This feels like an almost quintessential example of politicians being unable to understand the consequences of their actions, especially when opposing something appears heartless.

Lawmakers and journalist really struggle to understand the reality of chain migration, in part because some struggle to understand second-order effects. They also fail to appreciate that chain migration is far more pronounced and accelerated in clannish cultures, especially those with very high fertility, one of many reasons why taking in Palestinians is completely different to taking in Ukrainians or Hong Kong Chinese. In this case, the children will get asylum, as will their parents and then their cousins and, thanks to a ruling by judges, even non-blood relatives will be able to claim a ‘family connection’.

All of which points to long-term consequences we could avoid by paying for their treatment in another country. Denmark’s previous generosity towards Palestinian asylum seekers was a disaster. Another difference is that the risk of Ukrainians or Hong Kongers engaging in political violence here is close to zero, while with Gazan refugees there is a serious danger of repeating the Libyan evacuation (the result being the Manchester and Reading terror attacks).

****

Katja Hoyer on Freikörperkultur, that strange and alien German habit of being comfortable with their own bodies.

To open a new exhibition, entitled “Frei Schwimmen – Gemeinsam?!” or “Free Swimming – Together?!” Stuttgart’s Haus der Geschichte or House of History museum is offering two types of guided tours: on some nights, you come fully clothed, on others, you visit entirely naked:

“Museum admission begins at 6:15 p.m. Please note that the exhibition can only be visited naked this evening. Please bring a towel to use the seating. The temperature in the exhibition space is approximately 23 degrees Celsius. Lockers and cloakrooms are available in the building near the special exhibition space.”

Nein danke.

****

In Bloomberg, Amanda Mull on the US becoming more Southern. It’s all thanks to ‘air conditioning’, that strange space age tech they have on the other side of the Atlantic.

In 1955 fewer than 2% of American homes had AC. In 1966, Texas became the first state to have it in more than half of its residences, and by the end of the decade, the entire South had hit that benchmark. Not coincidentally, in Arsenault’s view, the 1960s were the first decade since the Civil War that the South saw its population grow instead of decline, a reversal that was “startling” at the time. He attributes the shift both to the success of the Civil Rights Movement and to the multifaceted impacts of cooling in the region’s homes, workplaces, stores and medical facilities: Heat-related mortality plummeted, the region’s historically high levels of out-migration declined, and Northerners started moving south. In a 1970 editorial, the New York Times declared that year’s census “the air-conditioned census,” for the evident impact that the technology was already having on Americans’ migration between regions.

Southern universities are also becoming more prominent, and she points out how a lot of these trends were accelerated by lockdown. The South had far fewer BLM demonstrations in 2020, I seem to recall - not having an insane ruling class has some benefits.

****

The Pimlico Journal on Bournemouth

Two months after the murder of Amie Grey, on 19 July 2024, a day of delirious warmth culminated in violent clashes between youths, many coming in from London, on the seafront — clashes which were filmed and circulated on social media. In the chaos, a teenage girl was sexually assaulted. Jessica Toale, the freshly-elected Labour MP for Bournemouth West, a seat which had been Tory since its creation in 1950, said after the events of 19 July that crime and anti-social behaviour had become a ‘huge issue’ in contrast to the safe Bournemouth she remembered as a girl, stating that ‘…parents had told [her] that they are concerned about letting their daughters go to the town.’ These are almost reactionary words from a Labour MP, and reflective of the mood of anxiety and decline that seems to have enveloped the city, a mood founded on the series of despair-inducing events plaguing residents and visitors. On 30 June, disorder similar to that witnessed in July last year returned to the seafront, with police making arrests across the country in the aftermath.

The author has responded to some of the queries about the statistics in the latest post. I don’t know the town well, although everyone familiar with it seems to lament its decline.

****

A tribute to The Imperial Institute in South Kensington.

Built in commemoration of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, with the founding stone laid the following year by the Queen herself, the Imperial Institute was opened in 1893 with great pomp and ceremony. Yet, by 1957, work had already begun to demolish the Institute and by the end of the 1960s all that remained of this once imposing and ornate building was the Queen’s Tower (seen below, now surrounded by the unsightly modern buildings of Imperial College).

****

Is Donald Trump changing American English? via Aidan Barrett.

YES, clearly. He must be the most linguistically influence person alive.

****

A poll found that 88 percent of students at two American universities said they pretended to be more progressive than they are ‘in order to succeed academically or socially’.

Steven Pinker writes that ‘Such preference falsification (caused by fear of punishment for honesty) can lead to “pluralistic ignorance” or a “spiral of silence,” in which everyone thinks everyone else thinks something but no one actually thinks it.’

They’re probably wise to lie, since 43% of US academics would want to sack someone for being against diversity in some way.

This is a subject that interests me a lot, as I think we’re going through something of a preference falsification cascade at the moment. Anti-racism is our society’s central moral imperative, to the extent that people will even overlook child rape if their reputation for being anti-racist is on the line. There is obviously huge social pressure, and enormous incentives, encouraging people to be more pro-immigrant and more pro-diversity than they actually are, something we get some inkling on from their revealed preferences.

One unspoken effect of preference falsification is that it causes commentators on the left to become more suspicious of conservatives, because they suspect that their views on this subject are actually more right-wing than they profess, and they are dissembling. The social pressure to have the correct outward opinions leads to a sort of Spanish Inquisition-style paranoia among the country’s moral guardians about people’s true beliefs. Tell us your real opinions, so we can get you sacked!

****

On a similar theme, ‘Analysis of US college syllabi by the Open Syllabus project shows that bell hooks is assigned more than Aristotle, Judith Butler more than Plato, Edward Said more than than Kant, and Foucault more than everybody.’

I still can’t take the no-caps name ‘bell hooks’ seriously.

****

In brief…

The impact of settlements on marriage among British aristocrats

‘Individuals residing in regions with higher historical disease risk tend to have more positive views about the future of humanity than individuals residing in areas with lower historical disease risk.’

It’s good to see someone defending an ancestor; unless your forebear was a literal Nazi war criminal, you should avoid denouncing them, and something about this recent tendency horrifies me on a deep atavistic level. I think it began with this guy, who seemed like a comedy skit back in 2008 but was actually a trendsetter.

Cremieux on false beliefs

Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis
Sugar makes kids hyper
Shaving makes your hair darker/thicker
Gum sits in your stomach for 7 years
’Detox' helps to flush toxins
Lightning never strikes the same place twice
Bulls hate red
Alcohol cooks off completely
Brown eggs are more nutritious than white ones

Are all of these untrue? Have I been eating alcoholic bolognese this whole time?

A Helen Andrews thread on elderly people in Greensboro, North Carolina, and their memories of integration and white flight. If I were a billionaire, paying a bunch of researchers to interview the people forced to flee the urban crime explosion that hit America in the 1960s would be worthwhile. I’d also love to see a documentary on the subject - suggestions welcome for what music to feature on the soundtrack.

Useful timeline of the events of 2020.

Kenya has eliminated sleeping sickness. Great Boo’s up, Edmund!

Anyone who remembers the ‘Jamaicans invented the industrial revolution’ thing: ‘there’s now a peer-reviewed paper in Annals of Science responding in detail to Jenny Bulstrode’s still-unretracted claims about Henry Cort and Jamaican metallurgists, showing even more egregious problems with them than originally found.’

Surprised to learn that a fashionably progressive writer employed by a prestigious publication to criticise whiteness turns out to have written loads of hate-filled things. One of the lessons of the past few years is: don’t lean in too hard to the spirit of the age, because moral norms now change rapidly.

Just as the sleazy culture of the 1990s/2000s is now shocking to a more puritanical younger generation, so the normalisation of anti-white rhetoric in the 2010s encouraged many people to express things they should have kept to themselves. So, too, with trans activists; what was briefly viewed as an unimpeachable form of identity might come to be seen as a fetish, with negative consequences for people who were better advised to be more discreet. We just don’t know which way it will go, and perhaps the same will be true of those engaging in anti-immigration rhetoric in the current ‘vibe shift’.

The wealthiest and most populous city in China has a fertility rate of 0.53. Wow!

Manchester will become the fourth British city to get a metro system, after London, Glasgow and Newcastle. We’re still behind France (6) and Italy (7), while China leads the way with 47 metro systems, although I’m surprised to learn that Iran has 6, with two more on the way. Meanwhile, a man in China built a subway system for his cat.

Some fun Onion headlines in response to this. I often come back to this one.

Anyway, have a great week, and thanks for subscribing!