Carole Cadwalladr recently published a piece in the Observer entitled ‘How to Survive the Broligarchy: 20 Lessons for the Post-Truth world’. This is an amazing piece: written by someone who appears to be a tri-cross between David Lammy, James Delingpole and, say, Judith Butler or Catherine MacKinnon or someone similar, i.e., she seems to believe all the usual thoughtless political precepts familiar to us from the anti-Trump, anti-Brexit, pro-Covid Guardian, while exhibiting a conspiratorial mindset worthy of the Delingpod (and this is a good thing), all of which is articulated in feminist manner, hence her happy adoption of the word ‘broligarch’.
Everyone else is inventing words, so let me try. I would like to coin a new word: ‘Defemition.’
What is a defemition?
A defemition is a definition designed by feminists to insinuate that males are misogynists and that misogyny is the grand conspiracy of our time and that almost any activity carried out by males, whether it is progressive or reactive, is a contribution to that conspiracy.
A defemition = a definition + feminism + defamation.
What is an example of a defemition?
The word ‘mansplaining’.
The word ‘mansplaining’ takes a neutral thing, ‘explanation’, and somehow manages to insinuate that whenever a man ‘explains’ something he is in fact perpetuating misogyny by assuming ignorance on the part of his interlocutor, especially any female interlocutor. Typically, this female interlocutor is imagined to be silently nursing both a grievance about being spoken down to and a sense of smug self-satisfaction because, of course, she knows more about the subject than the ‘mansplainer’. This female interlocutor says not a word, but then broadcasts to the world that she has been the victim of another episode of ‘mansplaining’.
Defemitions work, probably, because men find them amusing.
And, yes, ‘broligarchy’ is another example of a defemition. ‘Broligarchy’ seems to be over a decade old, but it is finally entering public consciousness. Why?
At first I thought this was a term of abuse: a sort of up-dating of the old word ‘patriarchy’. The word ‘patriarchy’ is a favourite word of feminists. It is designed to insinuate that almost all order before John Locke was misogynistic. You know, Locke refuted Robert Filmer, the author of Patriarcha, who had argued that all title to rule came by descent from Adam. But in the 1980s feminists managed to suggest that in fact almost all order since John Locke has been misogynistic too. This was the triumphant argument of Carol Pateman’s The Sexual Contract, which claimed that original paternal patriarchy had been replaced by a much more sophisticated fraternal patriarchy based not on status but on contract. I cannot be bothered to reread the book to see how persuasive the argument was: what was persuasive about the book was that it very reasonably pointed out that most political philosophers before J.S. Mill spent exactly no time reflecting on women. Machiavelli said fortune was a woman, Aristotle said a woman was a sort of child, and so on.
I think that behind all the modern maunder about ‘patriarchy’ is the dim post-Pateman conviction that all order is sophisticatedly patriarchal and that no amount of men genuflecting to feminism or letting women into the bar, the universities, or parliament will ever prove otherwise. The system is unconsciously masculine to the core. This is a belief in the form of an absolute presupposition: it cannot be argued with.
So what is the broligarchy?
Shall I quote Cadwalladr? Her article has been quite successful. One finds excerpts of it all over the internet. It is garbled and hasty and a bit nasty: also pert and not above a certain non sequiturish “I’ve-won-the-argument-already” manner. Also, some of it is not exactly true: she seems to believe that Trump is going to prosecute journalists, academics and probably doctors. Some of it is good: a sort of Jordan Peterson for the centrist Dads, although she almost always blurs her point by adducing a terrible example, e.g.:
- Know who you are. This list is a homage to Yale historian, Timothy Snyder. His On Tyranny, published in 2017, is the essential guide to the age of authoritarianism. His first command, “Do not obey in advance”, is what has been ringing, like tinnitus, in my ears ever since the Washington Post refused to endorse Kamala Harris.
Great precept. Terrible example. (What about COVID-19?) Anyhow, she continues with some fairly sensible para-Petersonian precepts.
- Don’t buy the bullshit… Pay in cash… Find allies in unlikely places… There is such a thing as truth… Find a way to connect to those you disagree with… Take the piss…
As I read this I can hear the strains of “I love Delingpole…” in the background. Fine. And Cadwalladr’s Twelve Rules for Life is no more objectionable than Jordan Peterson’s. But the whole salad is dressed in the harsh vinegar of Trump Derangement Syndrome 2.0:
- When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Last week Donald Trump appointed a director of intelligence who spouts Russian propaganda, a Christian nationalist crusader as Secretary of Defence, and a Secretary of Health who is a vaccine sceptic. If Trump was seeking to destroy American democracy, the American state and American values, this is how he’d do it.
Confusing, I know. Is Trump going to do it, or not? Or is Cadwalladr’s belief that she is being told something (that she has not been told) sufficient evidence that it is being done? (And is her writing meant to be the subjunctive, or in some new hypothetical-inevitable, mood?)
In the midst of all this we have the word ‘broligarchy’. And, as I said, this is not a term of abuse, believe it or not. At least not by intention. It is a term of analysis. “To name is to understand,” she explains. Broligarchy is:
- McMuskism: it’s McCarthyism on steroids, political persecution + Trump + Musk + Silicon Valley surveillance tools.
Broligarchy is the name of the new stitch-up whereby “Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp is the Stasi”. Let’s read on: “Trump’s administration will be incompetent and reckless but individuals will be targeted, institutions will cower, organisations will crumble.” Cadwalladr cites Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and points out that everyone is being “surveilled” at all times and thereby allowing corporations to turn their data into property to be sold to the highest bidder. She chiefly wants to attack Thiel, Musk, Trump and Vance – she wrote an article earlier this year pointing out that Vance is a Thiel creature – but although she does mention Facebook, she never admits that Facebook did engage in an algorithmic conspiracy against the public, and that Musk at X, on the other hand, did try to open the books to reveal the algorithms, i.e., give the game away. I do not understand why Musk is worse than his rivals since he has made it his business to admit what is going on. It is as if admitting-what-is-going-on is worse than doing-it.
This is the explanation then. Broligarchs is a word for Bezos, Jobs, Gates, Musk, Zuckerberg types. As such, it is not interesting, and was not interesting before the summer of 2024. But now that Musk has gone rogue, embraced the politics of the dark side, and joined Trump, it is now a very sharp term which can be used to decorate the fears that centrist dads and childless cat ladies have about a global conspiracy. No, no, no, not that global conspiracy of the globalists (Covid, Net Zero, etc.). No, the other one, the global conspiracy of neoliberal, technofeudal, misogynistic, data-stealing, billionaire buddies who want to rape Mars, block Mexicans, deny the Climate Emergency, and sow the foundations of Washington DC with salt before building a Doge’s palace where the White House used to be.
Now I think Cadwalladr and those who agree with her – for instance, Prof. Julie Posetti, Natalia Antaleva and Brooke Harrington of the Atlantic – have a point. There is good reason to remain vigilant about Musk and Thiel. But there are two caveats. One is that surely we should remain vigilant about all the data-stealing, rent-seeking billionaires, and not just the single one who is on the political Right: we should also keep an eye on the hypocrites on the left. The other caveat is that it is surely irrelevant that these are ‘bros’. This makes it seem as if the problem is not what Musk, Zuckerberg et al are doing, but their sex – the patriarchy, the broligarchy. It’s the men, stupid. Well, saying that is stupid, stupid.
Our feministocrats seem to be very fond of running the following three very different things together:
- The activities of a few rich billionaires of the Thiel and Musk sort.
- Standard toxic masculinity, unconscious misogynistic bias, as found in Rory Stewart, Gary Lineker, etc.
- The Tate-Peterson attempt to ‘rewild’ you.
These are not the same thing. Call Musk and Trump ‘oligarchs’, Cadwalladr, if you want to say something serious about them. If you call them ‘broligarchs’ you are weakening your argument, by making it about boys. And I think you’ll find that the Tate-Peterson boys/bros and perhaps even the Stewart-Lineker boys/bros might be provoked by your language to go over to the other side.
One speculates as to whether there is a form of cognitive assonance-out-of-dissonance (some sort of Bernard Hermann Psycho chord) that goes through the rewired feministocrat brain every time our commentators see any one of the three. They see “Musk” (money) and immediately think “Tate” (influence) and “standard toxic masculinity” (ubiquity), and the Psycho chord plays. Or they see “Peterson” and then, in what for most of us would be a non sequitur, they think “Trump” and “My husband/boss/son”. Psycho chord: especially for the husband.
My advice to cultural critics on the Left is that they should stop lumping everything together. Words like ‘broligarchy’ just increase the chances that we on the other side will use words like ‘feministocracy’. Is that what you want? If you have a particular comment to make about ‘surveillance capitalism’ then make it elegantly, as Zuboff does in her book, Surveillance Capitalism. Do not make it into a vast intersectional floor-is-lava whereby everything male is thrown into a laundry basket of mixed metaphors along with Trump, Musk, and Tate.
Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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Perhaps you can take in a scotch egg and eat it in the witness stand. That should cover it.
However, surely an initial decision would be required on whether the Scotch Egg constituted a meal or a snack. And the response might dictate the conduct of the inquiry itself – standing up or sitting down. Given the pantomime is anticipated to be a taxpayer soakaway of ten years duration tired legs might be a problem.
No decision is needed. If the Scotch Egg self identifies as a substantial meal then obviously to try and claim otherwise makes you a despicable mealaphobe, or maybe eggaphobe.
That would be racist
What we are we to make of senior academics who are so committed to their political point of view they fail on simple logic?
No. All that follows is that some people attending the enquiry think this is true and the organisers don’t want to discourage them from attending for the trivial expense/effort of taking a test.
This is the partly the first assumption reworded – positive test equals greater infectivity -m plus the assumption of mode of transmission which doesn’t follow at all.
Again this only means some people attending the enquiry think this. As we don’t know what those measures are it is fairly meaningless statement anyway. If the measure is to insist on video interviews then I think we can reasonably assume they will prevent admission.
Doesn’t follow at all. Who knows what happens if you attend with respiratory symptoms.
You and a lot of rich-world people are in some parallel reality to me where covid was something special. I don’t think we can happily coexist – we need new countries for covidians and non-covidians.
tof just ignore MTF – always the same. Not worth the bother.
What we are we to make of senior academics who are so committed to their political point of view they fail on simple logic?
No. All that follows is that some people attending the enquiry think this is true and the organisers don’t want to discourage them from attending for the trivial expense/effort of taking a test.
As the people who wrote the policy didn’t give a rationale for it, any statements about what’s likely the rationale is necessarily speculative, ie, neither yours nor the one your complaining about are necessarily true. The one of the authors is the more simple one and the one based on a more charitable interpretation of the text, specifically, the people who made these demands made them because they believed them to be technically sensible.
I was planning to write more here but it’s really not worth the effort. This is all speculative BS from someone who’s known to tow the COVID establishment line and who – judging from comments prior to the £5 watershed – would love to see us all still force-masked and because he claims to believe this would benefit him.
Quite, there’s always been a powerful irony with these people claiming sceptics are “selfish”.
We heard that term banded around during the so called pandemic… But the irony is that it’s these people that are selfish as they actually own zero altruism.. Their pretence is astonishing
“Some people attending the enquiry think this is true”
Bedwetting cretins who should be mocked, not indulged, and whose presence can’t contribute anything to the search for truth.
But why do they want to discourage rational people from attending?
Couldn’t be that it’s a cover-up, could it?
No. All that follows is that some people attending the enquiry think this is true and the organisers don’t want to discourage them from attending…
Given the weight of genuine scientific evidence that neither LFTs nor masking played any major part in “managing the pandemic”, surely the organisers should be discouraging people who still cling to the irrational and outdated belief in their efficacy from attending ? It’s like inviting witch-doctors to an investigation into whether voodoo works better than neurosurgery when it comes to treating brain tumours.
For all your analysis of the author’s logic you still fail to counter the argument that he makes and is evidenced by the content of the policy document issued by the organisers of the enquiry: they BELIEVE that the measures they propose will prevent transmission of Covid 19, and those measures were part of the Government’s attempts to tackle the ‘pandemic’. As such the enquiry is clearly tainted with bias from the outset.
Your failure of what you claim to be simpler logic is clear to almost everybody but you. This requirement for a test is a signal to us all that this enquiry is biased. Why otherwise would it be the only place in the country where you need to take a test to attend. How are you so qualified that you can’t understand the signal of bias sent by this, that properly qualified people can and based on the approval rating of your comment piece, so can about 97% of the people who read it.
On reflection I wrote that comment too quickly and in a bad mood and it needs correcting. So here goes.
Heneghan and Jefferson seem to assume that the reason for asking for the test is because the decision makers in the enquiry are concerned about Covid infection; believe the test is sufficiently accurate to detect the virus; and the virus is highly infectious. Because of that H&J believe the committee is “biased”.
I would challenge both parts:
There are other reasons why the test may be required. It may have been a decision by someone who is not a decision maker in the enquiry. It might have been done because certain key people would not otherwise testify (it is a small price to ask). It might even be a bit of out-of-date bureaucracy.
In any case it is not clear what bias means in this case. An open mind doesn’t mean not having prior beliefs. Everyone who participates in the enquiry is bound to have prior beliefs. An open mind means listening carefully and fairly to all points of view including those that challenge your prior beliefs. You could demand that prior beliefs are in some sense equally distributed among the inquiry members but that is meaningless.
I’ve just popped back from the future to let you know the conclusions of the inquiry.
Apparently we need a bigger state, less freedom and autonomy, and more censorship.
Oh, and they said we really need to trust the experts and follow the science.
It defies belief they haven’t included measures to combat altitude dependent SARS or in layman’s terms Pub Covid. This highly unusual and aggressive strain identified towards the end of 2020 suspends itself around five feet above food and on the way to toilets. As the inquiry must know, this is a real and present threat to anyone standing up that still demands full 400% cotton facial protection across an entire beard.
I definitely think, had they bothered to fund such a study, that they’d find wheelchair users who went to the toilet were the safest of all, when compared to able-bodied people. Especially if they ate crisps the entire way. It’d be the equivalent of putting zombie innard gunge all over yourself then walking through a herd of zombies. The virus, like the walking dead, will not pounce because it doesn’t notice you, but stand and walk at your peril.
Bloody clever, but also discriminatory..Actually they should have a third group who walks and eats to the toilet, as the gold standard obviously.
Love it Mogs.
Absolutely. I actually wore a plastic tray that circled the entire circumference of my neck which I kept filled with calamari. This modern day life saving Shakespearian ruff enabled me to go anywhere. It’s the only reason I’m still here.
Class.
“altitude dependent SARS or in layman’s terms Pub Covid.”
Oh, that’s good.
No need for facial protection when you’re the one responsible for the policy and want an unhindered picture with a famous member of The Vulnerable. Touching permitted.
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/scottish-news/20074393.lulu-nicola-sturgeon-spotted-book-launch-glasgow/
“We are asking staff and visitors to take a lateral flow test….”
In which case you decline to take up their offer, because if they are merely asking, you can say no. No-one, in the course of their duties, should be obliged to be nose-raped by a swab of uncertified composition to obtain a dubious result for a disease of little consequence.
I had a massive (polite) barney with the organisers of a national level event one of my teenagers was attending. I wasn’t prepared to lie and say a test had been performed. I cited bodily autonomy, inaccurate tests, no risk to young ‘uns, cribriform plate damage etc etc, the whole 9 yards. Given the nature of the event, the nasal probing could scupper a career, so doubly daft. Trustees were called, made to wait outside, isolated from group, whole psycho interrogation bolleaux. They caved. I guess they realised they had no legal leg to stand on, possible bad publicity. Eventually allowed in as long as we didn’t tell anyone.
If my 14 year old was brave enough to deal with that lot, then you grown blokes can too.
Good for you, but I’m intrigued now by what the event was. Peruvian nose flute ensemble?
Hear, hear and well done.
Everyone knows it’s a done deal, us and them, so why waste £100 million?
The bottom line is that too many powerful people have too much to lose by an honest assessment.
Hancock is its figurehead – corrupt, shameless, unaccountable, opportunist, marriage breaker.
Verdict: Every MP who supported covidism, every media outlets that took government advertising money, every corporation that pushed this wickedness are all guilty of murder, breaking the economy, ruining education and bullying old people to die alone.
“so why waste £100 million?”
Driving the country to bankruptcy is very much part of the reset. When the country’s debts are so great that they cannot be met we must go cap in hand to the IMF or BIS. Their “loans” to keep us solvent will in effect sell the country lock, stock and barrel. And then our dozy, useless compatriots will know what enslavement really means.
Politicians in our countries have driven us into debt…they have done this without our consent.
How do we get accountability?
Hear hear these people are less than human.
What is the false positive/false negative of the several different lateral flow tests, anyone?
And, always a mystery to me is what exactly is the absolutely definitely accurate test which the tests are measured against in order to assess said percentages (clue, there isn’t one)- because If it exists, shouldn’t we have used and be using that one?
Sadly a positive lateral flow test has entered the lexicon of infallibility – OMG you/I’ve got Covid – and all the sheep quiver with anxiety…again.
What a bloody world the last 3 years has made some of us.
We’re ALL GOING TO DIE!! Which actually is true but not necessarily at the same time or of the same causes.
Now be scared everyone and do as you’re told.
The Covid “Inquiry” is and will be a complete farce.
Take this article from the Telegraph today…..
“Ordinary Britons will have a role to play in the upcoming Covid inquiry hearings. Those who lost a loved one to the virus tell their story”
Ordinary Britons…. Apart from the tens of thousands who have died from the results of lockdown, the “vaccines”, and a crumbling NHS…
And the Telegraph still bang on about this oh so deadly virus..
There’s absolutely no hope.
On another note, I was intrigued to hear Frisby discuss the concept of Revolution (although as I do he feels it’s what is required)….. https://youtu.be/HwT7RtN44Fc
The Revolution will not be televised.
Well,not by the BBC. With any luck they’ll be the first to go down.
I’ll never forget the anti vax/lockdown marches which they simply ignored – in accordance with orders from their masters.
Logically, there’s absolutely no value in hearing the stories of those who lost relatives – everybody knows that death in the family is tragic. But this Inquiry should surely be about what everybody doesn’t know, and which needs to be investigated by… an inquiry.
A rhetorical question, no doubt. But it appears that we never could, given the built in assumptions. And who pays? Us; and it might be better value to rely on the work that’s been done elsewhere, or at least restrict it’s agenda so as to examine what our politicians did. Any sane individual would ask the question: who’s side are they on?
It could never be trusted – the outcomes have been decided, their problem is how to defend those outcomes.
Agreed. I’m a glass half full person but also a realist and I wouldn’t trust any of the buggers involved in this inquiry as far as I can spit. Alas, the outcome is a foregone conclusion, Kabuki theatre. I have zero hope anybody will be found guilty or held to account for their part in crimes against humanity. The article above is Exhibit no.1 as evidence on how this is going to go down. Yes let’s see how they spin the unfavourable outcome. They’ll have to really pull some spectacular crapola out of the bag.
I’m curious – a month after the WHO declared the pandemic over (or its “acute phase”, at least), I’m not aware of any public venues in the UK requiring COVID tests or masking, outside of isolated NHS departments bucking national NHS policy.
So what makes this Inquiry a greater risk than every pub, restaurant, sports venue and church in the country?
If the question is protecting the anxious, then there’s nothing to stop them wearing a mask which, if they’re still wearing them in the height of summer, they must be sure gives them 100% protection.
Something tells me ”the anxious” will be on their 7th jab and most likely test themselves as often as they floss. Much like the trans radical harpies the rest of us are expected to affirm and enable their mental health issues.
Slightly off topic but Dr Mike Yeadon has just posted that Mark Sexton’s application for a Judicial Review concerning the Scamdemic has now been accepted. Against the Hallett pantomime the manner in which the law gets broken yet again will be interesting and will certainly indicate the end point of her taxpayer funded bonanza.
The Inquiry is intended to:
The one thing it is not intended to do is challenge the premise that the lockdowns were necessary and justified.
It’s a massively expensive farce.
Surely we must realise that HEALTH, OUR HEALTH is the thing we should be most concerned about. Just like the lone masker I encountered in a large supermarket yesterday; so concerned about his health, that, while wearing his mouth/nose cover he bought half a dozen packets of pork scratchings. Me? I bought half a dozen packets of anti-histamines.
Yep the security guard in my local Waitrose still wears a mask with nose poking out over the top of course.
Note: staff and visitors. Those in. Herve need not apply (this rule)!!! Isn’t it the whole point of this enquiry? To find out if these stupid rules hinder the whole country and economy, and if those who made the rules are guilty of contempt of freedom plus? And that they broke them as they went along? What a farce!
Another thought – those in charge want to make sure the excess stock of LFT are sold….ad infinitum!
Shut this farce of an enquiry down now and save wasting time and our money. Just by deciding to implement a command to use these waste of time tests, it’s clear this whitewash has already decided what it is going to conclude. Let someone start a proper enquiry chaired by people who know what went wrong like Dr Carl Heneghan, Dr Tom Jefferson, Dr Jay Battachara Prof. Sunetra Gupta and Dr Martin Kullldorff all people who are qualified to advise on the hopelessly useless and disgracefully anti-democratic government’s controls using covid as an excuse. A report from this group of people would have many times more value and cost much less than this pro-government, pro-anti-freedom, rubbish enquiry set up by the government.