There are two camps at the moment. One commands the mainstream; the other is marginal. The mainstream is not commanded by the old establishment. It is commanded by a new establishment, which evolved or emerged through the interstices of the old establishment, as a consequence of manoeuvres which were carried out from the 1960s onwards. What institutions have survived of the old establishment, including church and monarchy – to their shame – have survived by supposing that they have had to capitulate to the formularies of the new establishment.
This new establishment is, on its cutting edge, to use the new phrase, ‘intersectional’. It harnessed old interests and old money with new money and new interests, and with a new ideology, built out of fragments of transitional Thatcherism and transitional Blairism; and is crowned not only by the fragmentary but incoherent set of ‘intersectional’ doctrines found in the politically and ideologically correct creeds of ‘Trans’, ‘Black Lives Matter’, ‘Climate Crisis’, ‘Decolonisation’ etc., but also by the vast solar flare or halo of publicity achieved by its greatest coup, the COVID-19 protocols. This establishment is ‘intersectional’; but it is also ‘globalist’: and here we have a death by a thousand cuts, as every imposition is intended to further the achievement of a singular world order. For the time being, this establishment mostly works in the English language, and its doctrines are imperially imposed on the rest of the world through the continued status and prestige of English as a language of learning, diplomacy, recreation and trade.
I think we, too, we marginalised, we sceptical, are also – or should be – intersectional. Admittedly there are some who fought on the cultural front against ‘wokery’ while taking no part in the fight on the Covid front. But the truth, as, say, Steven Crowder and Jordan Peterson glimpse across the Atlantic and as Toby Young – along with the valiant and admirable Noah Carl, Will Jones and Chris Morrison – and of course James Delingpole, realise, we, the sceptics, the conspirators, the deplorables, the deniers – i.e., the sensible – are also intersectional.
We should call ourselves the RIGHT INTERSECTIONALISTS.
Every step forward in understanding the enemy is a step forward in understanding ourselves.
The enemy are the LEFT INTERSECTIONALISTS.
Everyone is becoming more familiar with the language of intersectionality. I read one of Douglas Murray’s books some time ago and learnt that intersectionality was something to do with combining what to our enemies look like different oppressions and what to us look like different grievances. I thought that the relation between the different grievances was what Malthus would have called ‘arithmetic’, but the relation is actually, as I have discovered by reading an academic paper on the subject in the last few days, what Malthus would have called ‘geometric’. What this means is that one does not, as an intersectionalist, add grievances together: one multiplies them. The result is that, for the intersectionalists, or, as I now want to call them, the left intersectionalists, there is no limit to how offended they can be.
Take race, add chipotle to prepare some racism; take sex, add napalm to prepare some sexism; take Freud’s theory of the unconscious, strip it of its existential aspect, and mix it with hydrochloric acid to prepare some much more sociologically relevant ‘unconscious bias’: then stir all of these together. The resultant dough will rise by itself: no baking soda is required. It will rise and rise and, when cooked, harden into something like a Göbeklitepe monolith – into a veritable Stonewall or BBC Ministry of Compliance – and then the draconian order which arises in the gaps between the stones will impose with jobsworthy tenacity some macroaggressions on your microaggression.
And this is before we add some melting Arctic ice, some Polar Bear blood, the wings from ten thousand hypothesised but unknown Insect species from a single tree in the Amazon, some CO2 for fizz and some mRNA as binding agent. Then we should have a vast witches’ cauldron of intersectionality: or a London shard of doubleplus ungoodness. ‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair’ etc.
Aristotle, in his Metaphysics – excuse the learned digression, but academic matters are relevant here – declared that ‘first philosophy’, i.e., the highest knowledge of everything that is: we usually call it, thanks to Aristotle, ‘metaphysics’, is the architectonic and hegemonic science. However, a bit confusingly, he also said, in his Nicomachean Ethics, that it is politics that is the architectonic and most authoritative science – for the alarming but convincing reason that it is the state which decides the status of every science within the state. Let us say that philosophy more or less held out against politics for a few thousand years, on and off. But finally politics has extended its sway over philosophy, by sweeping almost all the thinkers into the universities, where they have been carrotted and sticked into order.
Now, to be a true, multi-valent, left intersectionalist, ever since the portentous year of 2020, is to be not only Douglas Murray’s sort of intersectionalist – the one who wears a Black Lives Matter t-shirt, waves a rainbow flag, pushes statues into the sea, talks of pronouns – but also Toby Young’s sort of intersectionalist – the one who wears a mask, boasts of being triple-jabbed, glues himself to roads and picture frames, and reads Private Eye’s M.D. with nodding (and sadly satire-resistant) approval. The first wave of left intersectionalism was weak-minded and, as an old physicist friend of mine at university used to say about almost anything which was not physics, “arty-farty”. Thus, the humanities: despised for at least a century and a half by the crowd William Whewell in the nineteenth century first called ‘scientists’. The second sort of intersectionalist is strong-minded, because scientific: it has a battalion of extremely self-certain doctors and scientists as its vanguard.
Left intersectionalism is now hyper- or super-intersectional. It is more intersectional than even the eager race-baiters and trans-baiters are yet capable of understanding. For it is a massed intersectionality of do-goodery on all fronts: on both the humanitarian and scientific fronts. The Gericault rafts of loony lefties are now in chaotic alliance with the Blitzkrieg tanks of the technocrats and experts.
So what is right intersectionalism?
Well, for a start, it is coherent. For what I have not yet said clearly enough is that left intersectionalism is wholly incoherent. Left intersectionalism is a coincidence of a thousand different and contradictory aspirations: an abundance of utopian enthusiasms harnessed to a singular puritan or totalitarian taste for coercion. No one can make left intersectionality harmonise without raising the intellectual temperature so much that all propositions evaporate into a burning gas. (This is the world in which analysis is sexist, reason is racist, and so the only form of acceptable dialektike nowadays is to echo-scream the talking points of the time.) There is no way – except through political assertion – that sex and race and religion and climate and disease and all other possible aspects of exuberant despond can be harmonised into a universal position. Everything is particular. Indeed, the whole point about this intersectionality is that it refuses to state a clear position: everything is always immediately withdrawn to particulars, or covered by the vague word ‘oppression’. One academic paper I read recently quoted a translogician who attempted to claim that to theorise anything at all (especially theorising anything à la Kathleen Stock) is surely secondary in a world in which oppressions and hate exist. This, it will be obvious, is not an academic argument. (Though it exists in academic publications.) It is, rather, an exhibit of left intersectionalism: a single exhibit from the set of confusingly incoherent and provocative hemi-demi-semi-positions which achieve vindication by postulating intersectional multiplication, by claiming certainty, by refusing argument, and by imposing views by force and fraud.
Right intersectionalism is coherent because it is resistance to this, all of this. It is coherent because it is against the inchoate, incoherent mass of blaming and modelling which goes on on the left intersectionalist side. This is not to say that right intersectionalists agree about anything positive. Right intersectionalism is negative. Right intersectionalists form a common front against left intersectionalism on the grounds that it is completely foolish and extremely dangerous and, most importantly, in all its aspects has to be seen as a single assault on civilisation. Here the word ‘civilisation’ has to stand in for something right intersectionalists will not agree on. For some, civilisation might be liberal; for others it might even be properly socialist; and for yet others it might be Christian. No matter. As I say, right intersectionalists are united in so far as they are against all of this. It is a negative position: a reactionary position. As Rod Liddle recently said of the ‘gender-critical’ feminists, they are allies at the moment, though perhaps not for long: the alliance between us and them, he commented, is a sort of ‘Ribbentrop pact’. And this is why, even though it is coherent, unlike left intersectionalism, right intersectionalism is just as intersectionalist as left intersectionalism is. It is united negatively, reactively, but it is not subject to geometric hysteria: it is sober, sceptical, realistic, conservative in the best sense of the word, and ideally hard and unrelenting – principled.
Right intersectionalism is a temporary position, no doubt: but it is an absolutely necessary one. Our weakest allies are those who do not understand the necessity of our having a single response to everything that is going on. Our enemies are dividing and conquering us whenever they make us forget that we on this side are united by being intersectionally opposed to all of their terrible conjectures. There is plenty of evidence of divide and conquer. Despite his achievements on one front, Douglas Murray has avoided the other fronts. Kathleen Stock is not known for the soundness of her views on climate change. However, Jordan Peterson, seems to be sound on all fronts. So he is a fully-committed right intersectionalist. It is hard to think of others in the public sphere; thought there are plenty on the margins. Lord Sumption is good on some fronts, not at all on others. The anti-woke academics like Malcolm, Biggar, Tombs, Abulafia and Marenbon seem a bit reluctant to argue against scientists, though they are willing to oppose bad history or bad philosophy. There are many partially sound figures: Gavin Ashenden, for instance, and the Old Uncle Tom Cobley and All which Delingpole has interviewed over the past three years. Russell Brand seems to have surprisingly good instincts. And you will know of some others, no doubt. But few outside such circles see that the whole problem is a singular one.
If you doubt that everything has to be fought at once, consider this. Is not ‘unconscious bias’ an almost laughably perfect equivalent in Wokology of what ‘asymptomless transmission’ is in Covidology and perhaps also of what ‘carbon emission’ is in Climatology?
Dr. James Alexander is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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Hi transmission of
Off topic but many thanks for your reply yesterday which I only read this a.m.
transmissionofflame
19 hours ago
Reply to Stuart
There was a significant spike in all-cause mortality I think in late March/early April 2020, so cause of death isn’t relevant. If it wasn’t covid, what was it? Lockdowns, neglect, DNR? Or some combination of covid and those other things.
This is an article from BMJ May 2020 which may be of interest.
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1931
Covid-19: “Staggering number” of extra deaths in community is not explained by covid-19
BMJ 2020; 369 doi: (Published 13 May 2020)Cite this as: BMJ 2020;369:m1931
Thanks for that. Shocking.
Could it have been the DNR order , no
post mortems , no visitors to hospitals , in fact what a way to dispose of the very ill , old & weak from the system if you were that way inclined ! Oh hang on …….
They had a spike in South Dakota. No lockdowns, but not sure about healthcare for the frail.
Who’d of thought that something like that would happen?
Small state, Big individual.
I’ll have some of that
Sorry if Im not very eloquent or coherent in this but I think the first thing we need to do (Daily Sceptic) is to define Left Wing and Right Wing politics/viewpoints, even behaviours.
To me – a person of science and engineering, I was never into listening to the political wasters in six-form and university unions. However, as far as my humble learnings in pre O-level History was that Stalin was a Communist i.e. an extreme dictatorial form of international socialism. We refer to them as the Far Left. I also learnt a little about the European (Germany & Italy) Fascists – particularly our old favourite Herr Hitler. If I remember correctly, Fascists were an extreme dictatorial form of National Socialism. We refer to them as the Far Right.
Now in both cases – they both demonstrate extreme dictatorial forms of Socialism. I find this upsetting as Im often called a Far-Right nutter and a NAZI by some people. But Im not a socialist? I just want to run my private business without interference and over the top regulation, have a successful economic family and well…..mind my own bloody business.
So may be someone at the DS educates me and perhaps run a detail piece of the perspective of the Far Right and Far Left (both of which are to my far far left perspective)?
Nothing demonstrates how the world is now upside-down than the continued believe (and claims) that the German National Socialist Party was “extreme right wing” and accordingly disassociated from “extreme left wing”.
I see the political spectrum being akin to a ribbon, with far left and far right being at the join of that ribbon. Most people don’t know, or excuse it away, that the Nazi party was a socialist party – an inconvenient truth for the left of course. But I agree, there’s only a fag paper between these political extremes.
I see the political spectrum as a piece of slack knicker elastic to be twisted and stretched to suit whatever purpose a person wants to achieve.
This is often said, but I don’t agree. Nazis and fascists are not the far right. This is a misnomer perpetuated by socialists in an attempt to associate conservatives with the crimes of Hitler and Mussolini. But fascists are not “extreme conservatives”. Conservatives believe in small government, individual freedom and the rule of law. Fascists believe in totalitarian government, authoritarianism and arbitrary dictatorship. They are the opposite of conservatives. On the contrary, they are socialists who base their appeal to their supporters on racial hatred, rather than the class hatred relied on by communists. But both are forms of socialism – as a wise man once put it, “two cheeks of the same arse.”
In 30 years I went from Centre-Left to Alt-Right, without substantially changing my position on anything,
Communists will portray Nazis as far right so as to distinguish and distance themselves, and yet as you say the Nazis were socialists. Hitler’s party was the National Socialists and he uses the noun ‘comrades’ a number of times. And there was zero room for free expression and the individual.
“Fascism, Nazism, Communism and Socialism are only superficial variations of the same monstrous theme—collectivism.” – Ayn Rand
You have a point but the article by the excellent James Alexander complicates the subject. Surely there are the ‘normal’, sensible thinking people who believe there are two biological sexes, that Net Zero is a nonsense and unscientifically based; that Covid 19 was a slightly more serious Winter Flu and big Pharma is pulling the strings through WEF and Western governments.
Then there are ‘the Grauniad readers’ who believe that BLM is a force for good, Covid vaccines are safe, that there are 105 non binary sexual identities and Climate Change is caused by man and it is Armageddon unless we follow the Net Zero policy.
I am surpised that the author has not mentioned cognitive dissonance which is precisely the condition that pervades ‘the Grauniad readers’ and is akin to a cult.
However, the biggest group is neither of these two groups – the normal and ‘the ones’. This group is huge, it is everyone else. This is the ampathetic majority who do not read enough, do not listen enough, have no comprehension of figures and statistics and whose eyes glaze over at the mention of anything that is encapsulated in a six word headline. They do not agree with anything that ‘the Grauniad readers’ think and probably side with the ‘normal’ to ‘ group but have neither the inclination or wit to argue with the ‘Grauniad readers’ group. Therein lies the problem and it is how the Blob and incompetent Government Ministers – aka the ‘Grauniad readers’ are able to ‘nudge’ the country to accept their proposals.
Beyond the normal group maintaining their crusade – which must be constant – I do not suggest a quick solution.
The old language still works.
Left intersectionalism was prevalent on the continent (and, to a lesser extent, here ‘swanking about in footer bags’ as P.G. Wodehouse memorably described it) in the 1930s
Today’s version only lacks the risible uniform.
Socialist fascism, as the last three years have shown, is alive and well….
Intersectionalism cannot be coherent, as by definition it is all about dividing people up into different victim groups and then attempting to focus them against the majority rather than each other. The trick being to get them to ignore their own contradictions and all aligned against us.
I understand the point about different opinions on the right from the ‘classical liberals’ to the ‘religious conservatives’ for example, but these are not intersectional per-se as they are neither competing with each other nor aligned in a hierarchy of victimhood. We have our differences but we are not divided.
One of the saddest things for me has been the abandonment of the ‘MLK doctrine’ of equal rights and opportunity for all, for this concept of favouritism towards ‘oppressed’ groups (who gets to decide who is oppressed, again we return to the victimhood pyramid). Not only have race relations taken a backward step but we are also seeing the re-introduction of apartheid and discrimination in academia and woke corporations.
“Jordan Peterson, seems to be sound on all fronts.” Not really, there are some questions about his judgement. More research required.
I do find Peterson interesting. I think the key to intelligence is being able to reconsider. To be able to recognise you’ve made a mistake and, crucially, to say that out aloud. To be able to forgive some things, but to understand that forgiveness should not be given for other things – at least, not without displaying a level of honest humility. It’s impossible to get everything right, but very few are capable of admitting when they are wrong. I put a lot of weight on someone’s ability to simply utter the words “I’m sorry”; it’s an emotional intelligence most people cannot muster.
I too find him interesting, to the extent that I have read several of his publications, watched dozens of hours of his lectures, on YouTube and completed some of his psychology self learning processes. His position on the controversy surrounding the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh was disappointing to say the least, as have been some other recent pronouncements.
What did he say about Kavanaugh and what other recent pronouncements did you find disappointing?
He said Kavanaugh should step down if confirmed to the Supreme Court, in the interest of not being divisive. The other pronouncements are to do with his pushing a Judeo-Christian narrative which are questionable. And then he thinks that people shouldn’t be allowed to post anonymously, like this for instance.
I seem to be unable to reply to this for some reason. Will try later. Thanks.
Interesting; thanks.
He explains the nuances of his Kavanaugh position here:
http://www.jordanbpeterson.com/political-correctness/notes-on-my-kavanaugh-tweet/
I think it’s not beyond the pale, though I disagree with his conclusion.
He seems to be getting more Christian as he gets more vociferous on controversial topics. I’m not religious, but I can understand where he’s coming from up to a point.
I’d need to see exactly what he wrote about posting anonymously – again as a minimum I would expect him to come up with reasoned arguments.
As an ally, he’s in a very select group of people largely on our side (well, on mine anyway) who is articulate, fearless and with a large following. Doesn’t mean we have to share every position he has.
Yes I know, I read it at the time. Hence my disappointment.
Well, if everyone in life were only as disappointing as Dr Peterson, I’d be happy.
Let’s be realistic this country has been blown to pieces by left wing stupidity and billionaire greed. Would it be a surprise for a caliphate to be declared in Bradford in the next 100 years? No not really that’s the direction of travel.
100 years
That long ?
The way I see it, the left can be defined as the combination of good intentions, collective action and a total absence of cost benefit analysis.
Their good.intentions allow them to justify any priject no matter how insane. The imperative of collective action allows them to boss people around. The absence of cost benefit analysis relieves them from taking any responsibility from their disastrous actions.
If anything is to unite opposition to them it has to be a push back on these three pillars of leftist tyranny.
“total absence of cost benefit analysis”. Spot on, and I think this is something that is not given anywhere near enough column inches. They think in the now, not the then. I’m really not sure about “good intentions”. I think they have self at the centre of all their intentions; their ultimate goal is to feel better about themselves. To be able to tell themselves what a fantastic person I am. A group of people that need approval and that approval can come from themselves.
The good intentions are a key part of the toxic mix.
Stop poverty, relieve hunger, save lives, end discrimination, save the planet etc.
These kinds of loosely defined crusades are very hard to argue against and exploit people’s general sense of decency.
Don’t you want to do something to save lives? Fight poverty? If you don’t you must be some kind of monster, right?
Of course, I agree with you that the promoters of leftist crusades are doing it for themselves, mostly for political and social status.
Agree. All their campaigns use guilt as a fundamental tool for compliance. It plays on one of the most easily manipulated human instincts – the need to be seen as a good person.
Very well put.
I like Sowell’s definition – the left think that there are solutions to everything, if only the institutions could be perfected, the right accept man is fundamentally flawed and that there are only tradeoffs, no solutions.
There have only been 6 Labour prime minsters
Since 2010 there have been 5 Conservative prime ministers and the Government and country has never been more left wing.
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Sounds good overall, but I do question the wisdom of hanging one’s hat on Jordan Peterson. He may be sound on some things, but he also leaves a lot to be desired as well. A mixed bag at best.
In what respects do you think he “leaves a lot to be desired”? And who in your view does not “leave a lot to be desired”?
“No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.” – RIchard Feynman
Thank you for a very good essay and spot on that “unconscious bias” is intellectual “asymptomless transmission” both are invisible, can be claimed, cannot be refuted, disproved, rejected. Emperor’s New Clothes comes to mind.
Also need to flag up the very good point about Private Eye and MD: back in March 2020 MD said it was a mild little virus, not one to worry about … they did a full 180 and has been consistently pushing the jab line – I cannot bring myself to read his writings in full but am waiting to see when the scales finally fall from their eyes.
You can’t disprove unconscious bias/asymptomatic transmission/carbon destroying the planet. As Karl Popper argued – if there is no mechanism to disprove a hypothesis – that hypothesis can have no legs. (Don’t think he put it quite that way). Popper then could be the philosopher for us.
Bloomin’ eck Doctor, unlikely to see you back in a UK Uni anytime soon.