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Canary in the Cultural Coalmine

by Toby Young
1 October 2021 8:23 AM

There’s a terrific interview with lockdown sceptic hero Lionel Shriver in the latest issue of the Critic. The interviewer is Robin Ashenden, someone I commissioned to write several essays and interviews when I was an Associate Editor of Quillette. Lionel doesn’t actually talk about the events of the past 18 months, but has plenty of interesting things to say about the attempt by the authoritarian left to police novelists and literature – a trend she has courageously resisted. Here is an extract.

What would you say are your detractors’ main objections to you?

I suspect my most egregious transgressions are those of tone. I am direct. I don’t hedge my points. I don’t preface my statements with a lot of “of course slavery was terrible” stuff, which is a waste of time, and I don’t qualify my positions. Multiple other authors have claimed that they can be “culturally appropriate” because they’re so respectful and they do so much humble homework, but other writers aren’t likely to be so magnificently sensitive, so those people shouldn’t put their sticky fingers on another culture’s sacred stuff.

I think this whole fake taboo is patently absurd, and all writers, no matter how talentless, careless, or crass, have a moral right to make up whatever characters they want. That kind of unabridged assertion drives the opposition insane. The other thing that drives them nuts is a sense of humour. I make jokes. Being droll about subjects that are meant to be deadly serious shoves an electric cattle prod right up the wokester ass. Of course, in my detractors’ terms I am a racist, ableist, white-supremacist, colonialist, misogynistic, transphobic, homophobic, hate-speech-spewing Islamophobe. Yawn.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: Cultural AppropriationLionel Shriver

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6 Comments
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Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago

Good egg, that.

12
0
thinkcriticall
thinkcriticall
3 years ago

There Is No Pandemichttps://www.ukcolumn.org/article/there-is-no-pandemic

7
0
thinkcriticall
thinkcriticall
3 years ago

Guidance for responding (in 2 minutes!) to the Government’s new consultation on Covid passports
https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/2021/09/guidance-for-responding-in-2-minutes-to-the-governments-new-consultation-on-covid-passports/

7
0
RW
RW
3 years ago

… a comic novel of the horrors of old age …

Immediate stopping point, this being an American neurosis dating back to the first half of the 19th century (first appearance in writing of shit like over 30 or over 40). If you want to avoid the horrors of old age kill yourself now. Otherwise, stop whining about being alive.

2
-1
NeilofWatford
NeilofWatford
3 years ago

Never been a fan of Shriver. Yet another humanist who overcomplicatesand intellectualise the problems we face. Rather like Brendan ONeill or Douglas Murray.
I prefer God-fearing commentators who recognise good and evil, truth and error.

3
0
Darryl
Darryl
3 years ago

Was quite positive about Lionel Shriver at the start of the plandemic, but after the first few months she when silent about the human rights abuses around the world. I understand she thinks the ‘vaccine’ is great, but how can any ‘journalist’ look at places like Melbourne and stay silent just because your MSM colleagues believe in crushing anyone who doesn’t comply with the Satanic narrative.

1
0

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