Writing / Journalism / Opinion
Curiously, society is being propelled in two contradictory directions at the same time. On the one hand, we are compelled to loosen up and let everyone just do whatever the hell they want. But simultaneously, we are henpecked by uptight cultural authoritarians over the most minor of newly-confected, sometimes barely comprehensible faux-pas.
Read More Dress Down And Shut UpIt appears that Britain has been laid with tinder, and Member of Parliament Boris Johnson, with the very tiniest of sparks, has set the whole place ablaze.
Read More Strange RevolutionHate, increasingly, just means anything the authoritarian-left disagrees with. And simultaneously, the idea that hatred is a criminal matter is drip, drip, dripped insidiously into the public consciousness.
Read More The Hates and the Hate LotsThe BBC Asian Network went a little off kilter last week. In case you missed it, they sent out a cheerful message in which presenter Shazia Awan, who just arrived from the middle ages, vacuously requested listeners to call in with their views on the appropriate punishment for blasphemy. The corporation had to cope with a backlash, and in the end Britain’s glorious state broadcaster apologised. Our selfless moral guides at the Beeb are no doubt now fretting over whether their lack of conviction with regard to persecuting sinners might have serious consequences in the next life.
Read More Stealth Blasphemy UKThe new left is racist. The middle class, holier-than-though, Europhile left. You know the ones. The millennial, mud slinging narcissists, fixated on skin colour and marching for Islamism. Look at their progressive media and you’ll find endlessly carping think pieces on their perpetual hang up: race. They have a creepy obsession and ambiguous motives.
Read More The Obsessive Racism of the New LeftStumble accidentally into a social justice dominated forum and you’ll find yourself dizzied by various barked phrases which don’t mean anything. That is, you’ll recognise the words, but their meanings will be hollowed out and corrupted.
This is because the activist left has a habit of twisting words to serve its own purpose. There’s a basic disrespect for language, and an unwillingness to be precise. Buzzwords abound, and if you don’t know what they mean, then your ignorance may itself be taken down and used in evidence against you.
The riots that took place at UC Berkeley last week were disturbing to watch. A thuggish combination of students, left-wing activists, and so-called antifa put on a chest-thumping display of violence and intimidation. With their faces covered and dressed in black, they acted out their faux-revolutionary wet dreams, playing the big man in a totally safe environment where they faced no opposition. With pack-mentality cowardice they started fires, smashed up businesses, and savagely beat those they disagree with, in this case, visiting speaker Milo Yiannopolous’ intended audience.
Read More Berkeley Riots Results Are In: Milo WinsAfter the election of Donald Trump, I thought there might be a popular watershed. Suddenly people on both sides of the political spectrum were discussing identity politics and what a pile of shit it is, and it genuinely seemed that cultural sanity might be restored. Even left-liberal Hillary supporters were confronting the problem, as shown in the nail-hitting Jonathan Pie video that went viral back in November.
Read More Truth or Nazis? How to Avoid RealityWhen you shut down free speech, thereby removing the right and the capability to dissent openly, then the methods of expression left available for those who have been silenced become out-of-sight, resentful, and, taken to the extreme, violent. The recent trend toward de-platforming and censorship is reckless and ill-informed.
Conservative journalist Milo Yiannopolous, who delights in provoking thin-skinned authoritarians, has just earned himself a $250’000 book deal with the publishers Simon & Schuster, and predictably, elements of the illiberal left are coughing and spluttering with indignation.
In Shinjuku’s eastern district—a do-as-you-like, all-night corner of Tokyo—I found myself in a tiny, crowded basement bar sipping lager from a can and listening to Depeche Mode. Assimilation indeed.
An American couple included me in their conversation, and soon began lamenting the election of Donald Trump. They became quite fraught as they went along, and after a while seemed bothered that my responses weren’t chiming with their feelings.
