Italian fans letting us all down

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

6 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

 ..... but you'll never see this championed by any politician under the current electoral set-up. 

Absolutely not, you've almost got a Gleichschaltung of the UK media here all encouraging people to kick down at the unemployed, immigrants, etc. when the real financial problem in terms of money being lost is tax evasion.

I remember Richard Murphy saying as a very conservative figure, tax evasion costs the UK government £35bn per year and due to how HMRC calculated its figures, he thinks it's a long way over that. Much easier to complain about the unemployed though.

[Mr.Carrow 376]

2 hours ago, canarybubbles said:

I have also lived in an East-European country which suffered under Communism - the Czech Republic - so I'm aware from speaking to people there that authoritarianism is not limited to the far-right, and I accept that many of the European Left were incredibly naive about what was happening in the Soviet Union, although one reason for this was a (in my opinion, totally understandable) horror and disgust of what had happened in Germany.

I think the quote which I included in my latest reply to Fen Canary (admittedly from the Guardian, but I hope this doesn't mean that you instantly dismiss me as woke) is 'requisite evidence' that the AfD has no interest in democracy other than a way of gaining power and they are covertly pro-neo-Nazi.  

As for the Frankfurt School, I am glad your nephew is reading them, although I hope they are not being 'taught with reverence' because nothing should be taught with reverence at a university. Yes, they self-identified as Marxist, although ironically they were often criticised (with the possible exception of Althusser) for being bourgeois and not Marxist enough because of their interest in superstructural cultural issues rather than the vulgar Marxist insistence on the economic base. If your nephew disagrees with the key ideas of the Frankfurt School, it's his task as a student to construct good arguments against them. I hope he does.

Finally, I accept there is an element of 'woke' that is dismissive of opposing opinions and even sometimes seeks to silence them (e.g. no platforming), but this is massively exaggerated in my opinion and to equate it with the hate-filled rhetoric of groups like the AfD is simply wrong. I feel fairly sure you disagree with me on this, and we'll just have to agree to disagree. 

I've recommended my nephew the book "Cynical Theories" about the Critical Theories (the roots of Identity politics), Pinker, Haidt and Evolutionary psychology. Surprise surprise, the only exposure he's had to these ideas is through the likes of Joe Rogan who, surprise surprise is regularly smeared as "far right". It remains to be seen if he wants to risk being failed for wrongthink in our ideologically captured educational institutions thereby wasting many years and a ton of money. Of course Gramsci and the Frankfurt schoolers knew exactly the power of social coercion and incentives they could unleash once they flipped the victim/victimiser dichotomy from class to identity. I almost admire them. It was very clever and it's worked. We are now living in Marcuse's "repressive tolerance".

As for the AFD, from the Guardian article i read it was an open ended discussion on pro's and con's at a meeting which has subsequently (predictably) been spun to be a defining policy commitment. Much as far left meetings will have regularly discussed defunding the police, disrupting the nuclear family,, reparations, equality of outcome etc but anyone who points out that these ideas are fundamentally Communist is called all the usual slurs. Classic ideological propaganda tactics- exaggerate and spin anything from the other side, whilst downplaying, ignoring or misrepresenting the extremes of your own side. Congratulations, it's working. 

Edited January 22 by Mr.Carrow

[duke63 542]

3 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

That bit in bold looks incorrect as a far greater proportion of benefits are paid to the working poor, not the unemployed. These figures are from 2016 but it should make clear that unemployment is always a very small fraction of the welfare budget.

How is the welfare budget spent? - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

I don't think anyone doubts that there are some people who do this here and there, but considering that Bernie Ecclestone has recently paid over £600m in previously unpaid tax recently, and this was just from one single tax evader, it's fair to say that tax evasion is a far more serious problem, and one that costs us far more money, than some people on unemployment benefit.

I do agree that tax evasion and offshore tax havens are a far costlier problem ( over half the wealth of the world is believed to be hidden in these domains) but for society to function properly as a whole, then everyone who is able needs to pull their weight. As much as i would like it to be otherwise, in my work environment, i see lots who are quite happy to do the barest of minimum to ensure they survive.

The problem is there are far too many leaving education with zero skills to offer to employers and to enable them to better their lives.

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

27 minutes ago, duke63 said:

I do agree that tax evasion and offshore tax havens are a far costlier problem ( over half the wealth of the world is believed to be hidden in these domains) but for society to function properly as a whole, then everyone who is able needs to pull their weight. As much as i would like it to be otherwise, in my work environment, i see lots who are quite happy to do the barest of minimum to ensure they survive.

The problem is there are far too many leaving education with zero skills to offer to employers and to enable them to better their lives.

And by definition, tax evaders are not pulling their weight. If people are apparently doing the bare minimum within their job, then the obvious questions I'd be asking are "what's the culture like within that company?", "does the culture within that company reward hard work?" and "does the company ensure that their staff are suitably trained and equipped to do their job well?"

Agree in essence that everyone has to pull their weight for society to thrive, I'm just saying that by definition if those at the top don't - in the form of tax evasion - then a fish rots from the head down.

[mrD66M 99]

11 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

I’ve seen very little rhetoric aimed at immigrants themselves

You'd have to empathise with, and walk a mile in an average (not handpicked - random) migrant's shoes to even BEGIN to see... 

..but don't fret, no one is expecting you to be able to do either of those things.

8 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

what policies of theirs would you class as racist?

Look beyond the facade. Thought experiment - if I were to claim that I am an advocate of animal welfare rights, just because I contribute to a charity, yet my kids mistreat and abuse animals under my roof AND with my knowledge, what would that make me? 

Edited January 22 by mrD66M

[Fen Canary 829]

1 minute ago, mrD66M said:

You'd have to empathise with, and walk a mile in an average (not handpicked - random) migrant's shoes to even BEGIN to see... 

..but don't fret, no one is expecting you to be able to do either of those things.

Look beyond the facade. Thought experiment - if I were to claim that I am an advocate of animal welfare rights, yet my kids mistreat and abuse animals under my roof, what would that make me? 

I don’t doubt that some migrants have had tough lives, but that isn’t a reason to let everybody settle in Britain, especially if they arrive in such great numbers they make life harder for sections of the population already living here.

As for the second point, I’ll ask again. Which proposed policies would you class as racist? I don’t doubt they have some racist supporters but that doesn’t mean you label the whole party as racist? Was Labour under Corbyn an explicit antisemitic party for example because a few of their supporters at time happened to be, or were they simply bad individuals who supported a party? 

[mrD66M 99]

1 hour ago, Fen Canary said:

As for the second point, I’ll ask again

Your rhetorical question does not impress anyone... the answers are clearly made up in your mind. You can ask as many times as you like. My opinion on this does not matter; as I'm not a British citizen I don't have a vote in such things. 

Why the f**k would you listen to a word I say anyway? So many other voices you could listen to, yet choose not to - Gary Lineker is a Brit with a much better standing and profile than myself. Previous PMs - and Tory ones at that  -have said the Rwanda Bill is racist. As was the Windrush Scandal. 

I've been in a few countries before, but I don't think it is a coincidence that only in Norfolk I've seen people - plural - (admittedly through work) who have shrines to Nazi ideology in their homes, or display their tattooed hakenkreuz in the company of strangers. Friends close, enemies closer?

Blood and soil, yeah?

 

 

[Fen Canary 829]

40 minutes ago, mrD66M said:

Your rhetorical question does not impress anyone... the answers are clearly made up in your mind. You can ask as many times as you like. My opinion on this does not matter; as I'm not a British citizen I don't have a vote in such things. 

Why the f**k would you listen to a word I say anyway? So many other voices you could listen to, yet choose not to - Gary Lineker is a Brit with a much better standing and profile than myself. Previous PMs - and Tory ones at that  -have said the Rwanda Bill is racist. As was the Windrush Scandal. 

I've been in a few countries before, but I don't think it is a coincidence that only in Norfolk I've seen people - plural - (admittedly through work) who have shrines to Nazi ideology in their homes, or display their tattooed hakenkreuz in the company of strangers. Friends close, enemies closer?

Blood and soil, yeah?

 

 

My point is that a party can’t be judged solely on a minority of its voters. It stands to reason that a right wing skinhead will vote for the most right wing party, even if that party has never said or proposed any racist policy. Likewise a fan of communism’s will vote for the most left wing even if they’ve never mentioned Mao or the Soviet Union. That doesn’t make those parties fascists or communist.

Why also would I listen to Gary Lineker? He was a great footballer, but why does that mean his political views carry more weight than those of my postman or a bricklayer? Lineker is a immensely wealthy man and his views are shaped by that position of comfort and security, it’s easy to sing the praises of immigration or rally against any attempt to limit it when you’re not going to be the one adversely affected. I don’t doubt his opinions are genuinely held, but so are those who want it limited because it has created pressure on their wages and a rise in house prices and made their lives more financially difficult. Windrush I believe was down to Home Office incompetence trying to clamp down on illegal immigration (one of many failed attempts) rather than a policy borne of racist intent towards those from the West Indies, but it was still a shameful affair.

Finally you must knock around in vastly different social circles to myself as I’ve never seen a Nazi shrine in my life, or indeed anybody who follows that ideology. As all of us have/had relatives who fought, were injured and even killed trying to defeat it any pro Nazi opinions would get very short shrift 

[mrD66M 99]

5 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

Was Labour under Corbyn an explicit antisemitic party for example because a few of their supporters at time happened to be, or were they simply bad individuals who supported a party? 

Fish rots from the head. Leader sets the tone, not only by what he says, moreso by what he does but also by what he condones. IMO it was antisemitic - just ambiguous enough to shrug off most accusations until the EHRC report. When any party purges its most moderate members, without a very strong, valid reason but instead mostly on purely ideological terms, it will easily spiral into some form of extremism. Corbyn did it in 2017, Johnson did it 2 years later. Only difference is that the latter became PM and trashed any semblance of standards or accountability in government. 

 

2 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

Why also would I listen to Gary Lineker? He was a great footballer, but why does that mean his political views carry more weight than those of my postman or a bricklayer?

I did not say Lineker's words carry more weight, but they will carry further. Why you should listen, no idea. I'll tell you why I do..

Not because he's wealthy. Not because he's a football legend.

But because he's travelled to many places, experienced other cultures, talked/worked with people from many different cultures and backgrounds. Because he is from a different era, where people did things differently/treated each other differently - for good and bad. These are the kinds of people that I learn from. These are the things that add dimension and an overall more rounded perspective in life generally... and yes, it's still possible to do the above and remain a narrow minded a&&#ole. Just less likely.

Someone who for example never travelled abroad, who worked/studied with mostly people from the same background may have learned about other cultures, other viewpoints in school etc, whilst valid, it is a fairly restricted perspective.

Edited January 22 by mrD66M

[Fen Canary 829]

6 hours ago, mrD66M said:

Fish rots from the head. Leader sets the tone, not only by what he says, moreso by what he does but also by what he condones. IMO it was antisemitic - just ambiguous enough to shrug off most accusations until the EHRC report. When any party purges its most moderate members, without a very strong, valid reason but instead mostly on purely ideological terms, it will easily spiral into some form of extremism. Corbyn did it in 2017, Johnson did it 2 years later. Only difference is that the latter became PM and trashed any semblance of standards or accountability in government. 

 

I did not say Lineker's words carry more weight, but they will carry further. Why you should listen, no idea. I'll tell you why I do..

Not because he's wealthy. Not because he's a football legend.

But because he's travelled to many places, experienced other cultures, talked/worked with people from many different cultures and backgrounds. Because he is from a different era, where people did things differently/treated each other differently - for good and bad. These are the kinds of people that I learn from. These are the things that add dimension and an overall more rounded perspective in life generally... and yes, it's still possible to do the above and remain a narrow minded a&&#ole. Just less likely.

Someone who for example never travelled abroad, who worked/studied with mostly people from the same background may have learned about other cultures, other viewpoints in school etc, whilst valid, it is a fairly restricted perspective.

Didn’t Lineker only ever play in 3 countries, and one of those was only because of the Heysel ban. The gilded and sheltered life of a footballer also wouldn’t necessarily lead to in depth knowledge of a local culture and customs, he’d have no experience of having to deal with the local job markets or rules and regs, paying bills etc and the little nuances that differentiate slightly between nations as that would all be done for him. Many former players struggle to navigate this country when they finish playing despite growing up here, as the club has always organised everything for them, so I don’t think the fact he had a jolly playing for Barcelona gives him any insight into life outside of his own bubble. 

For what it’s worth I’ve worked and lived in more countries than Lineker has, so in your eyes would that make my opinions worry listening to? Or are they to be dismissed out of hand because they’re the wrong ones? 

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

Fair play to Udinese here, the correct decision when they found one of the fans in question.

Udinese fan banned for life for racist abuse towards AC Milan goalkeeper Mike Maignan - BBC Sport

[mrD66M 99]

2 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

For what it’s worth I’ve worked and lived in more countries than Lineker has, so in your eyes would that make my opinions worry listening to? Or are they to be dismissed out of hand because they’re the wrong ones?

Where did you live, and what did you learn that broadened or narrowed your perspective? Where were your assumptions challenged, and confirmed? What do you carry with you to this day? Pros and cons of each country? Where did you integrate better, and why?

If you went and lived abroad, were you expected to integrate into the culture, speak the language etc?  If not, then how can you demand that people who move to the UK do that - unless for you it's merely about following the laws of the country?

If you lived in 10 countries yet talked the bare minimum with locals, didn't participant in the local customs/culture, etc, what did you learn? It is possible to live in different places and still be very insular... it takes a degree of openness and courage, a willingness to contribute (more than in just material terms ie work, taxes, etc), to integrate successfully. 

Opinions aren't inherently wrong - until we start lumping ours on other people and refuse to allow our opinions to be challenged, refuse to think we are above logical flaws / rationalisation / getting emotionally tangled up. 

Since this debate is on immigration... 

No country can support a massive and sustained increase in population - logically correct 

Where this increase is from migration, controlling migration by lawful and humane means is not only desirable but essential - logically correct 

Asylum seeking is illegal - logically incorrect

Rwanda is humane - logically incorrect 

 

 

[Fen Canary 829]

44 minutes ago, mrD66M said:

Where did you live, and what did you learn that broadened or narrowed your perspective? Where were your assumptions challenged, and confirmed? What do you carry with you to this day? Pros and cons of each country? Where did you integrate better, and why?

If you went and lived abroad, were you expected to integrate into the culture, speak the language etc?  If not, then how can you demand that people who move to the UK do that - unless for you it's merely about following the laws of the country?

If you lived in 10 countries yet talked the bare minimum with locals, didn't participant in the local customs/culture, etc, what did you learn? It is possible to live in different places and still be very insular... it takes a degree of openness and courage, a willingness to contribute (more than in just material terms ie work, taxes, etc), to integrate successfully. 

Opinions aren't inherently wrong - until we start lumping ours on other people and refuse to allow our opinions to be challenged, refuse to think we are above logical flaws / rationalisation / getting emotionally tangled up. 

Since this debate is on immigration... 

No country can support a massive and sustained increase in population - logically correct 

Where this increase is from migration, controlling migration by lawful and humane means is not only desirable but essential - logically correct 

Asylum seeking is illegal - logically incorrect

Rwanda is humane - logically incorrect 

 

 

I hadn’t realised you wanted my life story. I had it easy in that the places I’ve lived have all been English speaking, whether that was a slightly unconscious choice on my part being too lazy to learn another language I’m not sure but if I had taken a job in a foreign speaking country then I’d have tried my hardest to learn the basics before I arrived if I intended to stay for any amount of time. I don’t think you should qualify for a visa if you can’t hold a basic conversation in your host country personally.

I’ll skip to your final two points as I believe this is going round in circles now. You’re right that asylum seeking isn’t illegal, however entering a country without the relevant paperwork is. There’s definitely an argument that Britain needs to set up a better system for taking in refugees (my personal choice would be to lift an agreed number directly from the various refugee camps around the world annually), but simply allowing boat loads of Albanians to enter illegally with no deterrent is simply stupid.

I also fail to see why the Rwanda plan is inhumane. Asylum simply means you’re given a safe haven, it shouldn’t mean you get to pick and choose wherever you want to live

[Mr.Carrow 376]

2 hours ago, mrD66M said:

Where did you live, and what did you learn that broadened or narrowed your perspective? Where were your assumptions challenged, and confirmed? What do you carry with you to this day? Pros and cons of each country? Where did you integrate better, and why?

If you went and lived abroad, were you expected to integrate into the culture, speak the language etc?  If not, then how can you demand that people who move to the UK do that - unless for you it's merely about following the laws of the country?

If you lived in 10 countries yet talked the bare minimum with locals, didn't participant in the local customs/culture, etc, what did you learn? It is possible to live in different places and still be very insular... it takes a degree of openness and courage, a willingness to contribute (more than in just material terms ie work, taxes, etc), to integrate successfully. 

Opinions aren't inherently wrong - until we start lumping ours on other people and refuse to allow our opinions to be challenged, refuse to think we are above logical flaws / rationalisation / getting emotionally tangled up. 

Since this debate is on immigration... 

No country can support a massive and sustained increase in population - logically correct 

Where this increase is from migration, controlling migration by lawful and humane means is not only desirable but essential - logically correct 

Asylum seeking is illegal - logically incorrect

Rwanda is humane - logically incorrect 

 

 

At risk of sounding boastful I've done all the things you list. I've probably travelled and read as much as anyone on these boards. Thing is, when you do this you don't necessarily come to the conclusions everyone expects. As Pinker wrote in the "Blank Slate", it's perfectly possible to be a kind, open hearted Liberal whilst being wary of the flaws and dangers of evolved human nature (in the modern world often caused by evolutionary mismatch). People really are wary of the "other" (particularly if they look different) for the same reason people are wary of snakes and spiders. This is a feature rather than a bug of humanity and rather than constantly self flagellating that racism still exists in Britain, perhaps we should reflect on how and why we have way less of it than the rest of the world (anyone who doesn't understand this hasn't travelled, and we are statistically the 5th most Liberal and tolerant country in the world ). Amidst all the furore over Rwanda, nobody mentions that two ethnic groups who look almost identical to us decided to slaughter each other only a couple of decades ago. 

 

The Woke/Identity politics Left are simply wrong on virtually every level and represent a far bigger threat to a genuinely inclusive Liberal democracy than a far right who were utterly delegitimised by the second world war. 

[canarybubbles 1,923]

When I was young, it was people on 'the Left' who were paranoid. We even had a joke, 'just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you'. Somehow it has become 'the Right' who now mistrust governments and authorities and the legal system and the police, who complain about 'the Blob', and, as we saw after the last election in the US, would resort to insurrection if they can't win power through a democratic vote.

I guess it's because 'the counter-culture' succeeded in many ways (IMO it failed in many others, especially in terms of its theoretical anti-consumerism, but that's a different argument). We now live in a different cultural environment, and most people seem to like it. They show no desire to go back to a world of back-street abortions, gays being locked up in prison, by-elections where one of the candidates had a campaign slogan saying 'want a n***** for a neighbour, vote Labour', where women were patronised and governments were almost exclusively male, where mild sexual harassment was seen as a normal fact of life and just a bit of harmless fun (as it seems to be regarded in our current parliament), and so on.

A history of six million people dying in concentration camps and a current rise in far-right politics and what we're worried about is 'woke'. Yeah, right.

 

[Herman 9,779]

The far-right are as big a terror threat to this country as the extreme Islamists, which has been stated by the actual security forces, but no, it's a made up bogeyman, the "woke" which is a serious concern for some. Jesus wept (after he stopped laughing.)

[Mr.Carrow 376]

20 minutes ago, canarybubbles said:

When I was young, it was people on 'the Left' who were paranoid. We even had a joke, 'just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you'. Somehow it has become 'the Right' who now mistrust governments and authorities and the legal system and the police, who complain about 'the Blob', and, as we saw after the last election in the US, would resort to insurrection if they can't win power through a democratic vote.

I guess it's because 'the counter-culture' succeeded in many ways (IMO it failed in many others, especially in terms of its theoretical anti-consumerism, but that's a different argument). We now live in a different cultural environment, and most people seem to like it. They show no desire to go back to a world of back-street abortions, gays being locked up in prison, by-elections where one of the candidates had a campaign slogan saying 'want a n***** for a neighbour, vote Labour', where women were patronised and governments were almost exclusively male, where mild sexual harassment was seen as a normal fact of life and just a bit of harmless fun (as it seems to be regarded in our current parliament), and so on.

A history of six million people dying in concentration camps and a current rise in far-right politics and what we're worried about is 'woke'. Yeah, right.

 

Many of those reforms were enacted under Tory governments, which underlines the fact that Liberalism isn't a Left/Right issue. The Woke Left are expressly anti Liberal a, because it's worked imperfectly but well in conjunction with a Capitalist system and b, because realistic Liberalism logically leads to Conservatism in that if you're not a Utopian there has to be a point where society is Liberal enough and further attempts to create complete equality require coercion at the very least (which is de facto illiberal).

So your point about people being pretty happy in a Liberal culture is correct There is no great drive to turn back the clock, there are no far right political partie, journalists, academics, public thinkers or business tycoons in the UK whereas there are so many openly Marxist or frame culture in Marxist concepts (oppressor/oppressed, institutional oppression, blank slate Utopianism etc) that people are increasingly fearful of offering any alternative viewpoint unless they have their lives destroyed and/or are labelled "far right". Freedom of speech and expression are now regarded as right wing talking points. 

Politics is downstream of culture, right? What percentage of culture is far right?

 

[Mr.Carrow 376]

48 minutes ago, Herman said:

The far-right are as big a terror threat to this country as the extreme Islamists, which has been stated by the actual security forces, but no, it's a made up bogeyman, the "woke" which is a serious concern for some. Jesus wept (after he stopped laughing.)

Why do you think that Britain is statistically the 5th most Liberal, open and tolerant country in the world?

[Herman 9,779]

2 minutes ago, Mr.Carrow said:

Why do you think that Britain is statistically the 5th most Liberal, open and tolerant country in the world?

Because people fought for it to be a liberal, tolerant and open country. But that seemed to change quite dramatically in 2016. 

[canarybubbles 1,923]

53 minutes ago, Mr.Carrow said:

Many of those reforms were enacted under Tory governments, which underlines the fact that Liberalism isn't a Left/Right issue. The Woke Left are expressly anti Liberal a, because it's worked imperfectly but well in conjunction with a Capitalist system and b, because realistic Liberalism logically leads to Conservatism in that if you're not a Utopian there has to be a point where society is Liberal enough and further attempts to create complete equality require coercion at the very least (which is de facto illiberal).

So your point about people being pretty happy in a Liberal culture is correct There is no great drive to turn back the clock, there are no far right political partie, journalists, academics, public thinkers or business tycoons in the UK whereas there are so many openly Marxist or frame culture in Marxist concepts (oppressor/oppressed, institutional oppression, blank slate Utopianism etc) that people are increasingly fearful of offering any alternative viewpoint unless they have their lives destroyed and/or are labelled "far right". Freedom of speech and expression are now regarded as right wing talking points. 

Politics is downstream of culture, right? What percentage of culture is far right?

 

I hope I have already made clear that I have no truck whatsoever with things like cancelling and no-platforming. I believe, if you wish to put it in these terms, in the marketplace of ideas. I'm well aware that an old-fashioned Marxist would call me a bourgeois liberal. I probably am.

But there are almost no old-fashioned Marxists anymore. There is the Petersen line that this is because Marxism failed politically and economically and so it moved into the cultural realm in the 1960s and 70s and morphed into post-modernism, but this radically underestimates the many conflicts between the two sets of theories. If post-modernists rejected Marxism as a grand narrative, then the Marxists who were left rejected what they saw as the bourgeois idealism of postmodernism. There are probably intellectual and historical links but the tensions are at least as great as the similarities. It also underestimates how much of the thinking in the 60s and 70s came from the grassroots, not from the intelligentsia.

A lot of what is seen as dangerous in 'woke' is IMO merely the customary certainty of young people that they have all the answers.

Edited January 24 by canarybubbles

[Mr.Carrow 376]

54 minutes ago, Herman said:

Because people fought for it to be a liberal, tolerant and open country. But that seemed to change quite dramatically in 2016. 

No, we've actually become statistically more Liberal, open and tolerant since 2016. Why do you think that is?

[Herman 9,779]

24 minutes ago, Mr.Carrow said:

No, we've actually become statistically more Liberal, open and tolerant since 2016. Why do you think that is?

You’re either taking the mick or haven't paid the slightest bit of attention. 

[Mr.Carrow 376]

1 hour ago, canarybubbles said:

I hope I have already made clear that I have no truck whatsoever with things like cancelling and no-platforming. I believe, if you wish to put it in these terms, in the marketplace of ideas. I'm well aware that an old-fashioned Marxist would call me a bourgeois liberal. I probably am.

But there are almost no old-fashioned Marxists anymore. There is the Petersen line that this is because Marxism failed politically and economically and so it moved into the cultural realm in the 1960s and 70s and morphed into post-modernism, but this radically underestimates the many conflicts between the two sets of theories. If post-modernists rejected Marxism as a grand narrative, then the Marxists who were left rejected what they saw as the bourgeois idealism of postmodernism. There are probably intellectual and historical links but the tensions are at least as great as the similarities. It also underestimates how much of the thinking in the 60s and 70s came from the grassroots, not from the intelligentsia.

A lot of what is seen as dangerous in 'woke' is IMO merely the customary certainty of young people that they have all the answers.

I appreciate that you at least listen to the other side of the argument. As ever, when discussing things like post modernism you end up needing to write an essay just to define terms and concepts. In terms of the culture war i think the most important distinction to make is between the original thinkers and what was defined in Cynical Theories as "reified postmodernism"- also referred to as applied postmodernism or weaponised postmodernism, which is essentially the academic Left using the powerful insights of that branch of thought to manipulate culture (explicitly written about by the Frankfurt school, the Intersectionalists, Judith Butler, Critical Theorists etc).IMO Peterson's interviews went viral because he articulated something very obviously sinister that people experienced in their everyday lives, yet couldn't quite pin down. But here we are: to come out as a racist or fascist in Britain is basically the same as coming out as a murderer or paedophile, whereas to come out as a Marxist/Communist is perfectly socially acceptable and even applauded in many circles, yet mainstream orthodoxy has everyone convinced that only the former pose a threat. Again, it just goes to show that many of those thinkers were right about how easy it is to socially manipulate people. 

On your last paragraph, Communism has always had a focus on "getting em young" from Mao setting up Communist youth groups to snitch on family members (essentially murdering them), to Pol Pots child soldiers who came to my girlfriend's village and smashed babies heads against trees in front of their parents before they too were dispatched. All this due to concepts such as "unearned privilege" and "systemic bourgeois oppression"....Sound familiar? Now look at the behaviour of the Woke: dehumanization as "gammons", putting anyone with even mild or factually accurate disagreements in the worst possible human category (all the "ists" and "phobes"), dismissing people as irrelevant due to immutable characteristics ("You're just a straight white male"). It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what cultural cancellation presages.

 

[Mr.Carrow 376]

49 minutes ago, Herman said:

You’re either taking the mick or haven't paid the slightest bit of attention. 

And you clearly haven't looked at the statistics. Not surprising.

[Mr.Carrow 376]

54 minutes ago, Herman said:

You’re either taking the mick or haven't paid the slightest bit of attention. 

https://theconversation.com/the-uk-now-ranks-as-one-of-the-most-socially-liberal-countries-in-europe-new-research-201509

[shefcanary 2,410]

37 minutes ago, Mr.Carrow said:

dehumanization as "gammons",

You were doing so well until then. This only came about as a response to the labelling of people as "woke". **** for tat, that is all. Bejasus.

[Mr.Carrow 376]

9 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

You were doing so well until then. This only came about as a response to the labelling of people as "woke". **** for tat, that is all. Bejasus.

The gammon thing was in the run up to Brexit. I'd never heard the word Woke then.

[shefcanary 2,410]

2 minutes ago, Mr.Carrow said:

The gammon thing was in the run up to Brexit. I'd never heard the word Woke then.

You obviously weren't on the receiving end then. Piers Morgan was all over it during that campaign, accused me of it on a couple of occasions on X!

Reductivism at its finest! 😉 

Edited January 24 by shefcanary
emphasis

[yellowrider120 764]

4 hours ago, canarybubbles said:

When I was young, it was people on 'the Left' who were paranoid. We even had a joke, 'just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you'. Somehow it has become 'the Right' who now mistrust governments and authorities and the legal system and the police, who complain about 'the Blob', and, as we saw after the last election in the US, would resort to insurrection if they can't win power through a democratic vote.

I guess it's because 'the counter-culture' succeeded in many ways (IMO it failed in many others, especially in terms of its theoretical anti-consumerism, but that's a different argument). We now live in a different cultural environment, and most people seem to like it. They show no desire to go back to a world of back-street abortions, gays being locked up in prison, by-elections where one of the candidates had a campaign slogan saying 'want a n***** for a neighbour, vote Labour', where women were patronised and governments were almost exclusively male, where mild sexual harassment was seen as a normal fact of life and just a bit of harmless fun (as it seems to be regarded in our current parliament), and so on.

A history of six million people dying in concentration camps and a current rise in far-right politics and what we're worried about is 'woke'. Yeah, right.

 

Nowadays it's common practice for the current (and I mean since 2010 actually) Govt. AND anyone who ventures to suggest they might have actually voted for them, to be tarnished with this absurd 'far right' tag. One D Lammy infamously described the ERG group as 'worse' than the Nazis. Does anyone seriously believe that J Rees-Mogg for example would go down the road of extermination of opponents / people he doesn't approve of?? 

[Fen Canary 829]

4 hours ago, Herman said:

The far-right are as big a terror threat to this country as the extreme Islamists, which has been stated by the actual security forces, but no, it's a made up bogeyman, the "woke" which is a serious concern for some. Jesus wept (after he stopped laughing.)

I did read (and I’ll happily be corrected if I’m wrong) that 90% of MI5’s work is Islamist terrorism, and 8% is far right terrorism.