The insistence here is that successful cultures be destroyed while unsuccessful cultures are spread.
The Left's foundational allergy to the very concept of cause and effect has no problem with this, because it does not recognize the relative success of cultures as a product of those cultures; it simply sees a "power imbalance" to be quashed.
Surely the leftist belief that economic factors determine social relations is an example of a belief in cause and effect? Aren't they aways banging on about 'the real causes' of this and that?
I suppose describing the problem is a step in the right direction and certainly preferable to pretending everything is fine. Even so, I seem to have been reading about this and associated problems for a very long time. I wonder if the drip-drip of such articles is helping to dismantle an unfair state of affairs through a steady accumulation of speaking truth to self-deceiving gits, or whether all we are doing is venting our frustration to prevent ourselves from going collectively mad.
With woke breaking into the mainstream there seems to be far more awareness of what’s been going on under the surface for decades. The reaction to the sex denial aspect of the trans movement is the best example (bear in mind that the GRA 2004 passed almost without comment) but that is more interesting as an example of a manifestation of single philosophy which prevails and is directed at the deconstruction of the all that defines the West, apart from the stuff the emerged post the sexual revolution
At what point is the social contract for those at the bottom is broken?. It is not getting passed over for promotion. It is not going down the council house list another 40 places...
I lived in Birmingham in 2005 and had to click Ed's link to remind myself of what happened. But for those of us who lived in the more fashionable areas (even Brum has them) Lozells might as well have been on the moon. Even my spell checker declines to recognise it.
It’s perfectly natural for groups to quite nakedly regard their own (country, culture, customs and people ) as somewhat superior to all others. To think otherwise (en masse)would be demented. But this is not permitted by western progressives, being a prohibition they enforce via the racism taboo and the ever expanding definition of racism itself. Perhaps because progressives ,contrary to all protestations, believe western culture to be so obviously superior as to require to obsessively deny this proposition so as not to destroy, by the very thought of it, people THEY view as too puny to take it
I'm not convinced that it would be demented for say, Europeans en masse, to NOT view there country, culture and customs as superior. It seems to me the more scienc-y a culture becomes, the more objective it becomes and the less inclined it is to view itself as superior. Surely the demented thing about the west is that we are unwilling to defend our way of life on the basis that it IS our way of life and that we prefer it to goat herding and throwing gay men off buildings. Superiority needn't enter the argument, even though our culture may indeed be superior in many ways.
I don't mean superior in the hard way, although not so lacking in hardness that we cannot be openly proud of our heritage, irrespective that it is at odds with others. It is interesting that we are free to openly criticise the application of Islam in ME States (see the coverage of Qatar during the world cup) but not facts pertaining to its operation here in the UK, where the criticism would be much more apt because we are enabling practices by not addressing them. But then we cannot address them and so the terrible double bind which multiculturism places on us, which we then seek to resolve by ceding our culture.
Hi Cynthia. Yes, I agree. I was responding to this comment of John's:
'It’s perfectly natural for groups to quite nakedly regard their own (country, culture, customs and people ) as somewhat superior to all others. To think otherwise (en masse) would be demented'.
What he was talking about was not en masse customs and culture etc. but how people en masse view those customs. That's a slightly different thing. I don't think he (or I) was suggesting that British customs are the same as, say, Spanish.
Thanks, Mr. Merrick, for the clarification. In evaluating the utility of John's observation, a key point is the definition of "a group." "Europeans" as a group doesn't work, in my opinion.
In some ways, though, it's almost a tautology on an individual or small-group level. I believe my personal "county, customs, and culture" are better for me than other "countries, customs, and culture," or I would change: move to another country, practice other customs and culture.
It was my fault for introducing the word 'Europeans'. I think John talked about 'westerners'. However, I'm guessing you wouldn't like that term any more than Europeans since it is even more inclusive!
I think the point he was making was that westerners are uniquely pressured into NOT feeling their culture is superior to that of others. I thought that 'superior' was overdoing it. It's enough to want to preserve your culture because you prefer it and it suits you, not because it's objectively better than all others (though it might be). It's like those people who say their mum's cooking is the best in the world when what they mean is that they like it best.
I don't believe it is a tautology. For example, I believe 1950's Britain was a better place to live than Britain today but I can't pack up my stuff and go there. I also think that Japan is a btter place in many ways to live than the UK but it's not practical for me to up sticks and live there. And short of becoming a Miss Haversham, you can't practise customs and cultures on your own.
By the way, I'm Keith, not Mr. Merrick. That's my dad.
Randolph Bourne: Deformed little goblin who hated the society he grew up in because the girls wouldn't go out with him. Bourne is to English-speaking nations what Grima Wormtongue was to Middle-Earth.
-----
"this week Peters revealed that one of the councillors named in a report into the town’s failures to deal with the grooming gangs scandal has gone onto become a senior Diversity & Inclusion Manager working for the NHS"
-----
This is similar to the way in which abusive priests were retained and even promoted by virtue of their exalted moral status and the correctness of their beliefs in times past (and present?). Diversity and Inclusion is basically the modern day equivalent of a theology degree and priestly ordination, casting out the demons of racism, sexism and what not. DIE is the new religion, and it's ok when they do it.
There is also an additonal complication here, EVERYBODY who worked around Mahroof Hussain knew what was going on, but if he goes down how many others will go with him? So essentially everyone clams up and says nothing. They all know the score.
You are technically correct, the best kind of correct.
I won’t be pedantic and bring up certain cardinals, and Catholic abuse stories are now very much expected (sometimes unfairly). The main issue is ethnicity on the part of the perpetrators, but also religion on the part of our British elites enforcers, who associate moral integrity with diversity. I think Hussain has a deep sympathy with the rapists as they are “his group”, his kin, maybe even he knows a couple of them - Pakistani communities are very close knit. The ethnic tribalism exhibited by this community in particular is quite strange to British people, who rarely feel such kinship among themselves, at least consciously. We find it hard to imagine a white guy covering up for a white rapist because the victim wasn’t British, it’s an utterly alien way of thinking for us. But we need to be a little more aware that some portions of humanity actually operate on this basis routinely.
I get your analysis and cannot fault it but am left feeling sad. It is a heartbreaking story. Such small minded, mean thinking while thinking one is being kind but also protected from the worst of society.
A couple of years ago, my old university's Student Union condemned the term 'friend zone' as "an invention of toxic masculinity" in one of its publications. Funnily enough, our cultural elites rarely apply that term to rap music, despite its endless references to b*tches, guns, crime, violence against people who diss you, and all the rest of it. Skinny teenage boys reading manosphere articles are the *real* threat to our civilisation, you see. (Sorry, I mean "our communities".)
Randolph Bourne is annoying by the way. Probably not a representative sample, but everything I've read by him annoyed me.
Ever see the movie Reds, with Warren Beatty? It depicts the (extremely irritating) Greenwich Village crowd in the 1910s. Bourne isn't portrayed, but much of the rest of that crew is. Deeply irritating proto-wokes of the Zeroth Awokening, and the movie is very well made which makes it even worse. Also, some of the mummified survivors of that scene still alive at the time of filming (the actual people, not actors -- they're all 85~100) are featured in interviews that are interspersed throughout the film.
Anyway, Eric Kaufmann is a force of nature, and you could probably turn a couple dozen of the interesting things in Whiteshift into WSOH posts.
"As the weakest members of the most powerful group, they were always going to be asymmetrical multiculturalism’s fall guys ..."
Vivid phrasing and an insightful observation.
thank you
Cynthia. Was it you who recommended a charity in the chat a few weeks ago? I forgot which one it was.
I might have. Missionaries of the Poor, probably.
https://missionariesofthepoor.org/
ah that's the one, thanks!
You're welcome.
ok done. Merry Christmas (still)
The insistence here is that successful cultures be destroyed while unsuccessful cultures are spread.
The Left's foundational allergy to the very concept of cause and effect has no problem with this, because it does not recognize the relative success of cultures as a product of those cultures; it simply sees a "power imbalance" to be quashed.
Surely the leftist belief that economic factors determine social relations is an example of a belief in cause and effect? Aren't they aways banging on about 'the real causes' of this and that?
File that in the category of pretending to believe in free speech while in the minority, then aggressively censoring once in the majority.
That Leftists invent cause->effect narratives as part of their rhetoric is not the same as giving any weight whatsoever to the actual concept.
“Effect: Capitalist oppression. Cause: Capitalism bad.” So Id say they do believe in cause and effect
Yep, me too.
Superb and well worth the wait.
I suppose describing the problem is a step in the right direction and certainly preferable to pretending everything is fine. Even so, I seem to have been reading about this and associated problems for a very long time. I wonder if the drip-drip of such articles is helping to dismantle an unfair state of affairs through a steady accumulation of speaking truth to self-deceiving gits, or whether all we are doing is venting our frustration to prevent ourselves from going collectively mad.
With woke breaking into the mainstream there seems to be far more awareness of what’s been going on under the surface for decades. The reaction to the sex denial aspect of the trans movement is the best example (bear in mind that the GRA 2004 passed almost without comment) but that is more interesting as an example of a manifestation of single philosophy which prevails and is directed at the deconstruction of the all that defines the West, apart from the stuff the emerged post the sexual revolution
Happy New Year, Ed. Great piece and I'm glad you're feeling better.
Well what a charming start to 2023
The Lozell riots have been memory holded
At what point is the social contract for those at the bottom is broken?. It is not getting passed over for promotion. It is not going down the council house list another 40 places...
It is seeing your daughter raped
starting the new year on an optimistic note, sorry
I lived in Birmingham in 2005 and had to click Ed's link to remind myself of what happened. But for those of us who lived in the more fashionable areas (even Brum has them) Lozells might as well have been on the moon. Even my spell checker declines to recognise it.
Asymmetrical multiculturalism writ small:
A: “Your group are responsible for all of these bad things.”
B: “But look at the goods things my group have done.”
A: “You don’t have a group and your claim to have one makes you a supremacist.”
A:“Also, your group are supremacists.”
B: “I thought I didn’t have a group”
A: “You don’t.”
2023 off to a positive start on the WSOH!
West Suffolk Operational Hub?
Wrong Side of History
Sorry, of course. Has your documentary already been aired?
Week of the 16th. Check us out on Twitter for more updates SOON. Thanks for checking
It’s perfectly natural for groups to quite nakedly regard their own (country, culture, customs and people ) as somewhat superior to all others. To think otherwise (en masse)would be demented. But this is not permitted by western progressives, being a prohibition they enforce via the racism taboo and the ever expanding definition of racism itself. Perhaps because progressives ,contrary to all protestations, believe western culture to be so obviously superior as to require to obsessively deny this proposition so as not to destroy, by the very thought of it, people THEY view as too puny to take it
I'm not convinced that it would be demented for say, Europeans en masse, to NOT view there country, culture and customs as superior. It seems to me the more scienc-y a culture becomes, the more objective it becomes and the less inclined it is to view itself as superior. Surely the demented thing about the west is that we are unwilling to defend our way of life on the basis that it IS our way of life and that we prefer it to goat herding and throwing gay men off buildings. Superiority needn't enter the argument, even though our culture may indeed be superior in many ways.
I don't mean superior in the hard way, although not so lacking in hardness that we cannot be openly proud of our heritage, irrespective that it is at odds with others. It is interesting that we are free to openly criticise the application of Islam in ME States (see the coverage of Qatar during the world cup) but not facts pertaining to its operation here in the UK, where the criticism would be much more apt because we are enabling practices by not addressing them. But then we cannot address them and so the terrible double bind which multiculturism places on us, which we then seek to resolve by ceding our culture.
"I'm not convinced that it would be demented for say, Europeans en masse, to NOT view their country, culture and customs as superior."
There is no such thing as "country, customs, and culture" of "Europeans en masse."
Hi Cynthia. Yes, I agree. I was responding to this comment of John's:
'It’s perfectly natural for groups to quite nakedly regard their own (country, culture, customs and people ) as somewhat superior to all others. To think otherwise (en masse) would be demented'.
What he was talking about was not en masse customs and culture etc. but how people en masse view those customs. That's a slightly different thing. I don't think he (or I) was suggesting that British customs are the same as, say, Spanish.
Thanks, Mr. Merrick, for the clarification. In evaluating the utility of John's observation, a key point is the definition of "a group." "Europeans" as a group doesn't work, in my opinion.
In some ways, though, it's almost a tautology on an individual or small-group level. I believe my personal "county, customs, and culture" are better for me than other "countries, customs, and culture," or I would change: move to another country, practice other customs and culture.
It was my fault for introducing the word 'Europeans'. I think John talked about 'westerners'. However, I'm guessing you wouldn't like that term any more than Europeans since it is even more inclusive!
I think the point he was making was that westerners are uniquely pressured into NOT feeling their culture is superior to that of others. I thought that 'superior' was overdoing it. It's enough to want to preserve your culture because you prefer it and it suits you, not because it's objectively better than all others (though it might be). It's like those people who say their mum's cooking is the best in the world when what they mean is that they like it best.
I don't believe it is a tautology. For example, I believe 1950's Britain was a better place to live than Britain today but I can't pack up my stuff and go there. I also think that Japan is a btter place in many ways to live than the UK but it's not practical for me to up sticks and live there. And short of becoming a Miss Haversham, you can't practise customs and cultures on your own.
By the way, I'm Keith, not Mr. Merrick. That's my dad.
Thank you for the reply, Keith. I think our society suffers from a dearth of respectful behaviors, so I always lead with formality.
I think we are pretty much in agreement here, but I may elaborate some points later in the day, depending on Events.
Randolph Bourne: Deformed little goblin who hated the society he grew up in because the girls wouldn't go out with him. Bourne is to English-speaking nations what Grima Wormtongue was to Middle-Earth.
-----
"this week Peters revealed that one of the councillors named in a report into the town’s failures to deal with the grooming gangs scandal has gone onto become a senior Diversity & Inclusion Manager working for the NHS"
-----
This is similar to the way in which abusive priests were retained and even promoted by virtue of their exalted moral status and the correctness of their beliefs in times past (and present?). Diversity and Inclusion is basically the modern day equivalent of a theology degree and priestly ordination, casting out the demons of racism, sexism and what not. DIE is the new religion, and it's ok when they do it.
There is also an additonal complication here, EVERYBODY who worked around Mahroof Hussain knew what was going on, but if he goes down how many others will go with him? So essentially everyone clams up and says nothing. They all know the score.
Strictly speaking, it's more like the Church officials being retained, he wasn't involved in the actual abuse.
But yes, there is a certain similarity in the way that abuse can go on if there is a moral shield around the people responsible.
You are technically correct, the best kind of correct.
I won’t be pedantic and bring up certain cardinals, and Catholic abuse stories are now very much expected (sometimes unfairly). The main issue is ethnicity on the part of the perpetrators, but also religion on the part of our British elites enforcers, who associate moral integrity with diversity. I think Hussain has a deep sympathy with the rapists as they are “his group”, his kin, maybe even he knows a couple of them - Pakistani communities are very close knit. The ethnic tribalism exhibited by this community in particular is quite strange to British people, who rarely feel such kinship among themselves, at least consciously. We find it hard to imagine a white guy covering up for a white rapist because the victim wasn’t British, it’s an utterly alien way of thinking for us. But we need to be a little more aware that some portions of humanity actually operate on this basis routinely.
I get your analysis and cannot fault it but am left feeling sad. It is a heartbreaking story. Such small minded, mean thinking while thinking one is being kind but also protected from the worst of society.
A couple of years ago, my old university's Student Union condemned the term 'friend zone' as "an invention of toxic masculinity" in one of its publications. Funnily enough, our cultural elites rarely apply that term to rap music, despite its endless references to b*tches, guns, crime, violence against people who diss you, and all the rest of it. Skinny teenage boys reading manosphere articles are the *real* threat to our civilisation, you see. (Sorry, I mean "our communities".)
Happy to see you bring up the Zeroth Awokening here. Also like the in/out/far group framing and haven't seen that before -- is that original to you?
it was originally a thing with the rationalist community I think, although I've only heard it via friends and cant see it on line.
Yes, it was coined by Scott Alexander I think. I would have sworn it was in his classic “I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup”, but it turns out it was actually in the later follow-up https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/07/27/post-partisanship-is-hyper-partisanship/
Gotcha.
Randolph Bourne is annoying by the way. Probably not a representative sample, but everything I've read by him annoyed me.
Ever see the movie Reds, with Warren Beatty? It depicts the (extremely irritating) Greenwich Village crowd in the 1910s. Bourne isn't portrayed, but much of the rest of that crew is. Deeply irritating proto-wokes of the Zeroth Awokening, and the movie is very well made which makes it even worse. Also, some of the mummified survivors of that scene still alive at the time of filming (the actual people, not actors -- they're all 85~100) are featured in interviews that are interspersed throughout the film.
Anyway, Eric Kaufmann is a force of nature, and you could probably turn a couple dozen of the interesting things in Whiteshift into WSOH posts.