Elon Musk vs HM Government

Maybe 1776 wasn't such a bad idea

If there is one thing that can be said about Elon Musk, whether you like him or not, he is certainly an argument for the great man theory of history. Rather than the human story just being just a series of social forces pushing us like waves, a single individual can steer events in a totally different direction. 

Before Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the social media site was driving the English-speaking world towards more progressive social norms, and it’s unlikely that the Great Awokening would have happened without it, especially both the Black Lives Matter and the transgender movement. The former culminated with the summer protests of 2020 when 19 people were killed in the United States and several billion dollar’s worth of damage was caused. (Smaller protests in Britain resulted in some police officers being injured, but its effects on our institutions were considerable.)

It did so because Twitter users came from a very specific, socially radical section of society and were pushing culture as a whole (as Kristian Niemietz likes to point out, Twitter is now real life.) Because there was social pressure to conform to certain progressive views, so there was a general drift to the Left, which ancient historian Tom Holland likened to the hoplite phalanx in classical Greece, where the body of men would invariably drift in one direction as each sought the protection of their comrade’s shield beside them. 

The organisation itself and its employees had a progressive tilt and its system of moderation was clearly run in a partial way, in particular with users being banned for pointing out biological facts.

That issue is what provoked Elon Musk to buy the site. Musk is opposed to what he calls the ‘woke mind virus’ and was animated by the case of his own transgender child. His purchase changed the nature of Twitter dramatically, and with it the direction of politics; he introduced a free-speech policy that encouraged far more right-wing users to join and even amnestied many who had previously been banned, as well as reversing the shadow-banning rumoured to suppress some users. But he has also tweeted several conservative or at least anti-woke talking points, his most recent being on the global history of slavery. On top of this, he signal-boosts several right-wing accounts and this week even went as far as sharing a fake headline posted by the co-leader of Britain First, a tiny, ultra-right wing group so far outside of the Overton Window it can’t be seen on the horizon. 

Now Musk is at war with the British Government over free speech, repeatedly tweeting about ‘two-tier Kier’ and some of the harsh sentences handed out after the riots. He seems to be having a good time and, if I’m honest, if I was one of the world’s richest men I’d probably use it to launch my own one-man war against the British establishment.