Showing posts with label laurie penny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label laurie penny. Show all posts

13 Oct 2019

Douglas Murray: The Madness of Crowds

Bloomsbury (2019)


Douglas Murray's new book is conveniently divided into four main sections headed by a single term (dramatically printed in bold even on the contents page): Gay - Women - Race - Trans

Each of these terms plays a foundational role within contemporary culture; they are the four pillars of postmodernity; the terms to which all paths lead and all other signifiers refer. Whilst they provide meaning and allow individuals to forge identities, they are also the true causes of the collective insanity that lies at the root of what is happening today.

That - in brief - is Murray's central argument; one with cultural and socio-political aspects, but which essentially remains a philosophical argument to do with the collapse of old values in an age after God, when even the secular narratives that initially promised to fill the void no longer retain our belief.     

The problem is, Murray is not a philosopher; he's a journalist and public intellectual. And so his analysis tends to be common sensical rather than conceptually challenging and when he does mention philosophers by name, it's only ever in passing and nearly always in a dismissive manner - never once does he engage with their ideas or even think it might be worthwhile to do so.

And that's a real problem for me - even if, broadly speaking, I agree with Murray on many points and share some of his concerns. Perhaps if he did read the work of thinkers such as Foucault and Deleuze with serious critical attention he might understand a little better why we are where we are and avoid the anglophonic arrogance that he and others of his ilk (Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro) are prone to.          


Gay

According to Murray, Foucault's views on homosexuality are deeply confused. I don't think that's true: I think, rather, that Murray dislikes any degree of ambiguity and, in the end, Foucault is a little too radical and a little too queer for his liking. For whereas gays, such as himself, want social acceptance and pride themselves on their respectability, "queers want to be recognized as fundamentally different to everyone else and to use that difference to tear down the kind of order that gays are working to get into" [37]

For Murray, irresponsible queers - along with radical feminists, black militants and trans activists - take things too far; instead of seeking liberal consensus and some form of historical resolution, they just keep banging on about power and politics, identity and intersectionality:

"Such rhetoric exacerbates any existing divisions and each time creates a number of new ones. And for what purpose? Rather than showing  how we can all get along better, the lessons of the last decade appear to be exacerbating a sense that in fact we aren't very good at living with each other." [4]

Murray's fear is that this risks a backlash that would threaten some of the advances made in civil rights and sexual freedoms that he supports: "After all it is not clear that majority populations will continue to accept the claims they are being told to accept and continue to be cowed by the names that are thrown at them if they do not." [232]

That's a very reasonable concern, but, ironically, some critics would argue that his moral conservatism is part of that reaction.    


Women

Murray's wish that we might all just get along is developed in his chapter on women and the relations between the sexes. But he seems to think that we'll never get along until everyone acknowledges the innate biological differences between men and women (including aptitude differences) and accepts these as a basis for ordering society, rather than the "political falsehoods pushed by activists in the social sciences" [65]

The problem is, of course, that even biological facts are subject to cultural and socio-political interpretation. And even if we could identify biological facts concerning sexual difference in and of themselves, Murray doesn't provide any reason why they should be inscribed within society and its institutions as natural law; why biology should become not only a determining factor but a destiny.  

Murray also worries far too much about silly slogans, hashtags, and memes on social media that betray an apparent war on men being fought by man-hating fourth-wave feminists: things such as 'men are trash', 'kill all men', and references to 'toxic masculinity', etc.

I'm surprised Mr. Murray has the the time or patience to read the latest tweets from Laurie Penny et al and would suggest he spend less time on social media (which, in an interlude following this chapter, he describes as a massively disruptive force that dissolves the public/private distinction and ultimately leads to group think and mass hysteria).*     


Race

It's not only queers, feminists, and the tech giants of Silicon Valley who are foisting us off with "things [we] didn't ask for, in line with a project [we] didn't sign up for, in pursuit of a goal [we] may not want" [120], it's also those anti-racists who "turn race from one of many important issues into something which is more important than anything else" [122], writes Murray.  

Just when black and white people were learning to live together in the same perfect harmony as the keys on Paul and Stevie's piano, along came critical race theory and black studies to fuck things up with "a newly fervent rhetoric and set of ideas" [122] that don't simply celebrate blackness, but problematise (and even demonise) whiteness.

Why, it's almost as if race were a political issue to do with power and privilege ... things which, as we have noted, Murray wishes to turn a blind eye to; just as he wants us all to be colour-blind: "the idea of which Martin Luther King was dreaming in 1963" [126]. To get beyond race is such a beautiful thought, says Murray. But, obviously, it's not going to happen: not least of all because race isn't simply a question of skin colour, as Murray acknowledges; it's a time bomb.  
 

Trans

Murray writes:

"Among all the subjects in this book and all the complex issues of our age, none is so radical in the confusion and assumptions it elicits, and so virulent in the demands it makes, as the subject of trans [...] trans has become something close to a dogma in record time." [186]

That, unfortunately, seems to be the case: and whilst I have no problem with trans individuals, dogma and/or doxa, should always be challenged - even genderqueer dogma.

Anyway, moving on ... I was fascinated to discover that:

"One of the most striking trends as the trans debate has picked up in recent years is that autogynephilia has come to be severely out of favour. Or to put it another way, the suggestion that people who identify as trans are in actual fact merely going through the ultimate extreme of sexual kink has become so hateful to many trans individuals that it is one of a number of things now decried as hate speech." [196]

This surprised (and disappointed) me as someone who has written positively about autogynephilia and eonism in the past on Torpedo the Ark: click here, for example. Why must everything - even changing sex - be presented as a spiritual journey and an issue to do with human rights?**

Call me old-fashioned, but I'd rather think in terms of desire and seduction, perversion and pathology. And if I were a transwoman, the last thing I'd want to be is some kind of sexless figure like a nun whose newly constructed vagina is a sign of sacrifice and suffering rather than a site of potential pleasure.    


To conclude: The Madness of Crowds is an informative and interesting book, rather than an important and inspired one; a piece of intelligent journalism, rather than a work of philosophy. A book that ends with a call to love, as if it weren't precisely such idealism that got us into the mess we're in today.


Notes

* Murray will later go on to say: "The arrival of the age of social media has done things we still have barely begun to understand and presented problems with which we have hardly started to grapple. The collapse of the barrier between private and public language is one. But bigger even than that [...] is the deepest problem of all: that we have allowed ourselves no mechanisms for getting out of the situation technology has landed us in. It appears able to cause catastrophes but not to heal them, to wound but not to remedy." [174]

One suggests Murray read (or re-read) Heidegger's classic 1954 essay The Question Concerning Technology, which might deepen his thinking on this point and also provide him with a wider perspective. I suspect, however, that Heidegger would be another of those philosophers that he'd dismiss for lacking clarity (though he could hardly accuse the latter of being a crypto-Marxist).  

** Murray provides the answer to this question:

"If people have a particular sexual kink then [...] it is hard to persuade society that it should change nearly all of its social and linguistic norms in order to accommodate those sexual kinks.  [...]
      If trans were largely, mainly or solely about erotc stimulation then it should no more be a cause to change any societal fundamentals than it would be to change them for people who get a sexual thrill from wearing rubber. Autogynephilia risks presenting trans as a softwear [i.e. non-biological] issue. And that is the cause of the turn against it. For - as with homosexuals - there is a drive to prove that trans people are 'born this way'." [198-99] 

Readers might be interested in a post on Douglas Murray's previous book, The Strange Death of Europe (2017): click here.        

5 Jun 2013

Better a Spectacular Failure ...



Malcolm was very fond of saying: Better to be a spectacular failure, than a benign success.

I always agreed with him on this, because, what it means in effect, is that it is as right to rebel, take risks, and show courage as it is admirable to resist doxa, stereotype, and convention. In Nietzschean terms, it means: love fate and live dangerously.

For what is success, ultimately, if not the reward for conformity: a form of patronage? There's nothing noble in it, nor creative. And nothing particularly inspiring about being a winner, despite what our athletes like to think. Just as it is the small imperfections of a face that make it beautiful, so too it is the losers who really capture our imagination and our hearts.

The British have always understood this, even if the Americans never will. But today, sadly, within a culture largely determined by Simon Cowell, the fear of failure has never been greater and, in a wonderful phrase, Laurie Penny speaks of the 'desperate tyranny of aspiration' that results from the bullying and humiliation of the less able, less talented, and less successful which is now the key component of both Saturday Night television and government policy.

When an entire nation can only dream of having the X-factor or winning the lottery - and despises anyone who refuses to share this final hope - then you know things have got pretty grim.    

1 Jun 2013

Better Penny Red than Dead



Let me say from the outset: I like Laurie Penny.

Anyone who can cheerfully provoke such astonishing levels of vitriol from left, right, and centre deserves not just begrudging respect and admiration, but genuine affection. Thus, although this post was originally intended as a critical commentary upon her Notes from the New Age of Dissent, it might in fact be better read as a passionate appreciation of both book and author.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter if Ms Penny is right or wrong, or whether her work makes good sense or no sense. If, sometimes, she's spectacularly mistaken and naive in her assessment of what's unfolding within contemporary culture, I prefer her wrongness to all the orthodox banality and cowardice that usually passes for rightness in this world. The point, surely, of Penny Red is to accept the challenge that is being thrown down and engage - not nit-pick.

For a work concerned with politics and feminism, however, the nature of this challenge is rather unusual. Lacking as it does any kind of theoretical framework or point of reference, it's not so much a challenge to think, as to care - which, for those of us who philosophically affirm insouciance and irony (terms that will make Ms Penny splutter on her cup of tea) is quite a big ask.

However, such is the quality of the writing and the personality of the author, that one feels almost charmed into dropping the simulated apathy and indifference of my generation, for a while at least, in order to share her anger and enthusiasm. Even, at a push, I might also concede the importance of retaining a little hope.

That said, I'm certainly not about to scrabble around amongst the ruins looking for old values and ideals and something to believe in once more - not even for Ms Penny! Revolution should never be a question of faith: or, if it is, then you can be sure a time of terror and inquisition will follow.

Besides, as Nietzsche pointed out: No one is free to be a crab. Which means you can't just reterritorialize on models of self or society which you imagine as more authentic or more real. (Ms Penny does tend to fetishize these notions and there's a powerful sense of nostalgia throughout her writings which she might do well to interrogate at some stage, as it undermines her radicalism.)  

Anyway, I'll stop here, for fear of starting to sound like one of those pompous and patronising middle-aged men who always talk over women at dinner parties; or, worse, one of those academic dinosaurs who rudely like to jab fingers in the face of the young.