Sunday West 38

Why Britain should stop being poor

Morning comrades, and thanks for subscribing; in particular thanks to those of you who have referred friends to Wrong Side of History. Currently the top spot goes to DaveW with 12 referrals, followed by James Thompson with 10. But thanks to everyone who has spread the word.

Since the last Sunday West I have written about the NHS and the role of the 1940s in British life, on why we keep on bringing over young immigrants but they keep on getting older, on Waitrose-grad vs the ‘NIMBOcrites’, a three-part post on the French Intifada – one, two and three – and on where Jews are safest in Europe.

I also appeared on the Aporia podcast, where I was asked ‘what’s my most controversial opinion’ (nice try, Fed!). Shed aficionados will be able to also check out my working space.

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Elsewhere, a very good piece by Sam Bowman on why Britain should think like a middle-income, not a rich country.

When we talk about building more housing, which is probably the biggest single fix for the UK economy, elites rightly attack Nimbies a lot. But they also repeat obstructionist memes like embodied carbon, nutrient neutrality, condemnation of “luxury housing” and foreign owners, biodiversity net gain, and even the completely silly idea that housing costs aren’t really high at all, and high prices are a product of low interest rates alone. Oh, and mandatory bee bricks.

Similarly, John Oxley writes about how it’s not just an elite problem.

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Conor Fitzgerald on ‘What’s Wrong With the “What’s Wrong With Men” Discourse’

One of the other reasons men shy away from the discourse is they know before even setting foot on the road that the destination is Therapy. The true cliche, often quoted by Richard Reeves, is that women relate face to face, men relate shoulder to shoulder. That may be why men find therapy and the therapeutic worldview alien and unhelpful. Even the flimsiest male specimen has psychological needs related to accomplishment, strength, usefulness and capability; an atmosphere of unconditional empathy and unrestrained emotional disclosure can be poisonous to those things. Whatever the reason, men understand that therapy (the practice) is mostly just the medical codification of a typically female worldview as objectively true and correct. Most men aren't going to be interested in joining a conversation conducted in that spirit.’

Yes! In the White Lotus, the miserable teenage boy stuck on holiday with his family only finds meaning and happiness when he starts to join in with some local rowers, ands with it comes accomplishment, brotherhood and lactic acid, three things essential to male wellbeing.

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On a similar subject, Fred Skulthorp for the Critic on mental health.

There is, however, never any meaningful sense of what might guide a mental health conversation on a one to one basis, beyond the mere expression of apparently repressed feelings. Nor is there the idea that they might possibly touch on some of the socio-economic, spiritual or psychological phenomena that lurk behind all this. Instead we are lowered into a stew of common sense solutions and banal platitudes, which tell us more about the failings of our own society than how to psychologically transform ourselves. Exercising. Not being alone. Community. Religiosity. Job satisfaction. Having strong relationships. If only it were that easy, eh?

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If you’ve ever wondered why so many young British women look sort of strange now, Louise Perry on the normalisation of cosmetic surgery.

A generation brought up on social media, accustomed to projecting an idealised version of themselves, is buying into a certain ideal of beauty. In an era when editing photos of yourself is widespread, more people are starting to edit their actual selves with plastic surgery. Prices are crashing down: bigger lips from £200, a nose job for £3,500. The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) says that 600 cosmetic procedures a week were performed last year, twice as many as the previous year.

I know this is very puerile, but I can’t believe they’re called ‘BAAPS’.

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Richard Hanania on Christopher Rufo, one of the most influential – if not the most influential – anti-woke figures of this decade.

Of course, an important difference is that Rufo has maintained a laser-like focus on wokeness and avoided alienating natural allies as he’s built a broad coalition within the conservative movement to take on the enemy. And his accomplishments have been quite impressive. Rufo was almost single-handedly responsible for Trump banning Critical Race Theory in the federal government, as he’s also developed close working relationships with Ron DeSantis and other politicians. Today, when Republican-controlled states ban gender transitions for minors, forbid the discussion of Critical Race Theory in schools, or abolish DEI offices in public universities, Rufo is serving as an intellectual inspiration to decision makers when he’s not directly involved in the policy process himself. If wokeness is ever defeated, one can imagine a leftist in thirty years writing a book on the career and activities of Rufo the way he writes about Marcuse and others today.

Rufo’s confrontational style will alienate the British conservatives who think ‘we shouldn’t have an American-style culture war’, ie we should pre-emptively surrender, but we could do with one of him over here.

And this is what they’re teaching in British schools.

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Hadley Freeman on Captain Tom:

Maybe it’s because English people get so nervy about patriotism — is it embarrassing? Is it racist? — that they channel those feelings into other, less suitable outlets, known as national treasures. So whereas in the US it would be bad to say you hate the American flag, in Britain it would be unforgivable to say you hate Stephen Fry. Moore became such a treasure, and anyone who questioned the wisdom of his family taking a 100-year-old man on a flight to the Caribbean just as Covid rates were rising again was denounced as “vermin” by some fans. Alas, Moore did indeed die with Covid shortly thereafter, but this did not prevent Ingram-Moore from getting her own national-treasure treatment a few months later, when she got a standing ovation at — where else? — Wimbledon.

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Ian Leslie on the Swedish musical genius.

The first is public music schools. In the 1940s, Swedish conservatives introduced an extensive after-school music program for children because they were worried about the insidious influence of American music on the morals of younger generations. Kids were given tutoring, access to musical instruments, and spaces to practice and rehearse. Participation was widespread, but as the years passed, children did not use the system as intended. They used it to learn American pop and rock. 

Today, every third Swedish kid participates in the program, either free or for a very low fee. The program employs a lot of tutors, which gives struggling musicians an income. In the 1970s, a music school tutor called Stig Andersson assembled a group of four musicians Anni-Frid, Björn, Benny, and Agnetha, and suggested they use the initials of their first names as a band name.

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Josh Barro on why the Kennedys are bad

If you’re going to have dynastic politics, you should have dynasties built around good families who share positive traits, like sobriety, thrift, and public-spiritedness. You know, families like the Romneys. The Kennedys are the opposite of this — they are a cadre of reckless, womanizing, substance-abusing mediocrities of middling IQ, who have produced a staggering array of displays of bad judgment and poor character over the decades, often leading to the deaths of themselves or others. I would not get in a car driven by a member of this family, let alone let them run the government.

Via the Bluestocking.

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Imogen Sinclair on Gen Z conservatives.

Gen Z could yet play a role in this future Tory voter base. There is a type of young, restless right-wing thinker that shares a common enemy with 2019 Tory voters: the liberal consensus. These voters are still waiting for the politics to materialise that was offered to them in the Conservative Party manifestos in 2017 and 2019: lower migration, revived industries, a renewed national culture. A reheated mixture of Thatcherism, Blairism and Cameronism is all that successive Tory prime ministers have given in return for their votes.

My instincts are that Gen Z conservatives are relatively small in number but probably more conservative than previous generations, especially among the more educated; in the US, the proportion of students who vote Republican has shrunk, but those Republicans are far more likely to be across-the-board conservatives. But a relatively small group of intelligent and dedicated young people can have a huge, outsized impact on society.

When I spoke at NatCon the crowd was very young, although one of the FBPE protesters insisted they were all paid actors, so who’s to tell.

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Finally, long-term readers will know I’m a big fan of Christopher Caldwell, so it really baffles me that his book The Age of Entitlement still, as far as I know, doesn’t have a UK publisher. You can’t even get it on Kindle here. So if there are any publishers among my subscribers, hint hint. Here’s my review.

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I will be off to Germany and France in a couple of weeks, so although the pieces will continue coming (I have some scheduled), the next newsletter will be in September. Have a great summer!