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Thomas Jones's avatar

I really enjoy these newsletters, almost too many interesting things to now read. Will Solfiac's point is really well made - if you study modern European history you dutifully note the difference between French civic nationalism and German ethnic nationalism. But of course in both cases they were entirely underwritten by "strong ethnic cores". Blair very foolishly misunderstood this point, and here we are.

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Ed West's avatar

thank you!

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DaveW's avatar

So much there to digest. I seem to have a thousand tabs open. I agree about the exercise thing, although I don't think Jon Haidt does say that that phones are the only cause of the apparently greater increase in misery among teenagers. I think he's says they're a factor (which will remain theoretically falsifiable while being incredibly difficult to actually falsify for long time) and the takeaway should be that parents are schools are advised to ration phone use. Obviously, there's been a cultural change too, and parenting styles are more coddling and less laissez-faire leading to less self-reliance.

But on the exercise thing, I agree with former footballer Danny Mills, "[Kids are] like dogs, almost. They need exercise… You have to tire them out a little bit." (I've probably said this before, but it seems to best approach to parenting I've ever heard of.)

https://youtu.be/CmzBUkFfSCA?si=ynv89VBYr3y-7jYo&t=169

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William H Amos's avatar

"I seem to remember years ago a poll found that, among English football fans, Queen’s Park Rangers supporters were the most right-wing, which surprised me"

QPR were always known as a more or less NF aligned club back in the day.

Their firm used to drink in the General Smuts on Bloemfontein Road in White City on a match day.

An old workmate of mine was stabbed in the head there once.

Very rough pub. Finally closed by the Police in 2011, I believe, but the old 'reviews' make amusing reading.

https://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/comments.shtml/8612/

"The General Smuts was a supremely scary place, located in the midst of the White City estate....."

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Ed West's avatar

wow, I didn't know that

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Brian Thomas's avatar

Interesting point about Intra-Left status contests. I work for an organisation that occasionally receives e-mails from politicians and political groups advocating on behalf of particular individuals. The e-mails from mainstream politicians are generally short, courteous and to the point. The ones from the Far Left are generally long, confrontational and hostile. There's something performative about them; you get the impression that the correspondent has blind copied dozens of fellow leftists and is basically saying to them "Look how eloquently and uncompromisingly woke I am!"

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Barekicks's avatar

Ed, as subscribers of your Substack is there a chance we could get non-paywalled access to your podcast with Alex Kaschuta?

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Ed West's avatar

I can ask

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Ed West's avatar

She unpaywalled it (was not way of just allowing access for some people) https://www.alexkaschuta.com/p/ed-west-reflections-on-the-revolution

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David Johnston's avatar

Where to even start on how wrong-headed N.S. Lyons.

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David Cockayne's avatar

Having driven up and down the M6 many thousands of times over the decades, the revelation that I had been doing so over the degraded corpses of 2.5 million Mills and Boon novels brought a sudden tear to the eye. Somehow it was all worthwhile.

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Mar 24
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Ed West's avatar

isn't it self-explanatory? you can avoid vaccines if everyone else is taking them

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Mar 24Edited
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Ed West's avatar

because whether other people have vaccines affects our risks too. if enough people convince themselves that vaccines cause autism and refrain from taking them, that increases my children's risk of getting measles. if a vegetarian suffers for their diet, it doesn't affect me.

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