Came here from Ed West's newsletter, it turns out I follow nearly everyone you mention here on twitter including you. V enjoyable and good humoured summary of the state of the right. I'm not particularly optimistic (I came from Ed West's newsletter after all), but perhaps we can get a proper, conservative rather than liberal establishment Tory party back under Jenrick. We need a leader that doesn't mind being hated.
Ha, thanks! I don’t know how I feel about the future Tory leader, or the current one, being left wing as I am, but I hope to see more nuance and competence.
"This is why we can’t have nice things like free speech." Wait-Why not? Nothing in that section of your essay explained why free expression can't be had. I think it CAN be had... but it will lead to the airing out of a lot of opinions you don't like. That's an acceptable cost I think.
We always have that freedom, don’t we? You’re free to begin to speak; others are free to physically attack you; you’re free to fight back, and the state is free to physically attack them, you, neither or both.
There is a price you pay for saying whatever comes into your head; if people do not respect codes of conduct, like politeness, then society breaks down. This is why in a civilised society you have free speech but also norms of conduct that are mindful to culture, context, history etc. The problem with race realists is they took a dysfunctional policy measure rooted in false evidence: all people are equally smart given the right environment. Therefore, one example if we don't have high enough numbers of black students admitted to medical school we should lower the standards to let those students in- that would be bad policy because it erodes the standards for everyone and does not tackle any justifiable root causes- as racism still exists, but that does not mean that every time a black student fails to do well that's the result of racism. So you have a well-evidenced fact that people cannot stomach: intellectual ability is not equally distributed among people. Race realists took that and said, 'Oh, but look, we can now see which races are smarter'. Ok, cool, even if that's the case (as I said, science is disputed and race groups are not clear-cut), what further policy apart from 'don't be racist and don't have race quotas' must we pursue? and do they see any problem with their continuous campaigning of this issue basically convincing people that being racist is backed by science? Say you have 100 people from a specific race, and I tell you for a fact that half of them have low IQ. Why should that impact how you view people from that race generally, or worse, how the GOVERNMENT should treat people from that race... because THAT is what some of them are suggesting .... and you don't need a PhD in history to know how that goes for the human race. This is why we can't have nice things. I take stifling political correctness any day over people who think they are being oppressed for not being allowed to inject race supremacy into normal politics.
I think the basic idea is that if race realists are wrong than that would result in worse outcomes than quotas / lowering standards for qualification. Basically if minorities perform worse due to discrimination but are just as capable, then on average minority candidates (eg for surgery) will be better at the same level of qualification than non-minorities. Therefore quotas would be prima facie a good thing.
There are potential answers to this like quota discrimination is bad in itself, or qualifications reflect ability in a way that is independant of discrimination (so discrimination -> worse ability -> worse qualifications rather than same ability & discrimination -> worse qualification). But the basic idea that best policy is dependant on certain empirical facts about the world seems likely to be true.
Albeit only policymakers who need know the true facts (or the best uncertainties over the truth) - level of public knowledge may have little effect.
Exactly. Utter devoid of substance, preferring vapid and patronising sneers to actually grasping the problem these terrible people are trying to address.
It's very interesting: 5 years ago there barely WAS anything called the 'new right' (the alt-right was something very different). Now the term is known by millions, immediately. Things are changing fast.
Ok cool. But what would you do if you became the dictator of the UK? I feel like the response is going to be either solidly bad or slightly bad+boring. Little reminder on what you have to solve: increasing Debt, aging population, economic stagnation, fracturing society, increasing unwillingness to fight for the UK even in a world with a mean Russia and a new unpredictable USA
Ok boring dodge. Then let us make the little game even more complicated then. You are the charismatic leader of your political party that has 60% of the seats after the Labour Party fucked up too much. You can’t pass unpopular laws for too long or the people will stop voting for your party. How do you solve the UK situation now?
1) commit to building nuclear power stations, 2) lift the ban on fracking, 3) get rid of the triple lock on pensions, 4) close all taxing loopholes, 5) cut two-child benefit cap, reverse NI tax increase and don't touch anything that makes life for young working people more expensive.
Yes, "sort of". At risk of repeating myself, even if commonwealth longterm residents were the decisive factor in UK elections (I have seen no evidence of such) - it's not as if elections decide anything.
Is there anything in the UK comparable to US states? Looking at this list seems kind of depressing, and raises my estimation of the US federal system of government in which the states still retains significant powers. Because that builds a whole developmental ecosystem of politicians, where lots of people are working on different ways forward for their political coalition, and it doesn’t seem like the UK has that kind of pipeline of future political leaders (based on the lack of mention of figureheads for most of the groups). In the US, because there are so many states and because the decisions made by the states are important, there are a lot of possible paths forward for each of the major parties that are already embodied in elected politicians doing the actual work of governing a particular state.
hmmm we do have a pipeline of politicians who are simple MPs, the lack of figureheads I was referring to was about the new right-wing, fascist-curious coalition, not lack of political ambition or talent more generally. The British system is different to the USA but we have our checks and balances too in the form of the Supreme Court and the House of Lords.
The MPs don’t really govern though, unlike say a governor or speaker of the house in a US state. Sometimes people in the US say that being a US senator is a step down from being a governor or legislative leader in a state because the state leadership has more agency and impact. In the US the fascist curious can actually run things at a state level, and people can see the consequences. It just seems to me that it is a very different ecosystem, where politically ambitious people can have genuine responsibility and authority much earlier in their life, and so political movements are less theoretical and more practical. And that there is a different kind of talent where individuals have to build their own identity at the state level, whereas I imagine that politically ambitious people in the UK have to show they are good soldiers for the party or start their own party, while in the US, at the state level, the incentives for candidates are to build an identity distinct from the party (and this is true even in one party states due to the importance of primaries).
To an extend yes but the US is a faaaaaar bigger country. We have local government in the UK, too, in the form of local councils and devolved governments. What we are seeing now in the US is not normal. ..
I'm ok with the race scientists, and believe while everything should be studied, it's hubris to think that we are equipped now to find all the answers. Asians test better than Whites with current testing methods, but I beleive that Asians are superior to the sane extent I believe Blacks are inferior.
it should not have an impact on how you view people or how the government treats people, and that is the problem with race scientists, for them it is not enough to stop at scrapping race quotas, they want their 'observation' to apply on government more generally
Thanks for providing links and screenshots, sometimes I struggle to believe the extremes exist on the Right because I don't see it.
You quoted Orwell about the 'Gentle Englishness' - do people estabilsh these characteristics the moment they touch english soil? If not - where does it come from?...I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the existance of English (and Greek) ethnicity vs nationality. Would it be a permitted topic on this blog?
No, they don't, but definitions of ethnicity are not important to me; I view the whole debate as a distraction. Since you ask, eventually, I do think someone should be considered ethnically the country they were born in. Modern ethnicities are mixtures, there is no such thing as pure ethnicity, they are human fictions. My grandparents were refugees from Turkey, Pontic Greeks ( an ethnic minority). Undoubtedly, there is Persian blood in there or what have you, looking at the skin colour of my family and our noses. Does that make that part of me any less Greek than my mother's side, who were from Crete, blue-eyed, blond and ginger? Of course not, it's so unimportant, it does not matter. Similarly, the UK has a colonial history, which meant its ethnicities mixed with other ethnicities, so a modern Englishman can be someone like Rishi Sunak. This has been a fact of empires since time immemorial; in fact, it was the reason the Greek Empire flourished under Alexander the Great; he encouraged marriage between the ethnicities and recognised the offspring as Greek. Hence why so many of us modern Greeks are so dark. And no, I don't think your manners and culture have anything to do with the amount of melanin in your body. It is how you were talked to as a baby, how you were picked up as a toddler, how your teacher frowned at you when you interrupted your classmate, what you saw when you turned on the tv after school over and over and over again. I am not English, I will never be, but where I to have my children with an English man, I would hope they wouldn't have their belonging to any nation questioned.
Rishi calls himself British Indian, which perhaps is a side-step to the issue of English ethnicity and nationality. Ethnically there has been little change for around 1000 years on this island. The Empire is more recent and relatively small changes, especially compared to the last 20 years.
For a baby to grow up to be culturally English it needs to be subsumed into English culture, but there are a lot of people who wish to remain in their ethnic enclave.
The best solutions and arguments I've heard are from Katharine Birbalsingh, which is to bind all people under a collective nationhood with careful management of the differences and needs. Kind of like Lee Kuan Yew 'One people, One Nation, One Singapore'. Is there anyone on the Left who discusses how to build a unified multi-ethnic society?
Came here from Ed West's newsletter, it turns out I follow nearly everyone you mention here on twitter including you. V enjoyable and good humoured summary of the state of the right. I'm not particularly optimistic (I came from Ed West's newsletter after all), but perhaps we can get a proper, conservative rather than liberal establishment Tory party back under Jenrick. We need a leader that doesn't mind being hated.
Ha, thanks! I don’t know how I feel about the future Tory leader, or the current one, being left wing as I am, but I hope to see more nuance and competence.
like a bear at a gypsy weddding!!! haaaaaaa too good! even the bear would have more shame.
perfect no notes
Aww thank you 🫶😊
"This is why we can’t have nice things like free speech." Wait-Why not? Nothing in that section of your essay explained why free expression can't be had. I think it CAN be had... but it will lead to the airing out of a lot of opinions you don't like. That's an acceptable cost I think.
We always have that freedom, don’t we? You’re free to begin to speak; others are free to physically attack you; you’re free to fight back, and the state is free to physically attack them, you, neither or both.
There is a price you pay for saying whatever comes into your head; if people do not respect codes of conduct, like politeness, then society breaks down. This is why in a civilised society you have free speech but also norms of conduct that are mindful to culture, context, history etc. The problem with race realists is they took a dysfunctional policy measure rooted in false evidence: all people are equally smart given the right environment. Therefore, one example if we don't have high enough numbers of black students admitted to medical school we should lower the standards to let those students in- that would be bad policy because it erodes the standards for everyone and does not tackle any justifiable root causes- as racism still exists, but that does not mean that every time a black student fails to do well that's the result of racism. So you have a well-evidenced fact that people cannot stomach: intellectual ability is not equally distributed among people. Race realists took that and said, 'Oh, but look, we can now see which races are smarter'. Ok, cool, even if that's the case (as I said, science is disputed and race groups are not clear-cut), what further policy apart from 'don't be racist and don't have race quotas' must we pursue? and do they see any problem with their continuous campaigning of this issue basically convincing people that being racist is backed by science? Say you have 100 people from a specific race, and I tell you for a fact that half of them have low IQ. Why should that impact how you view people from that race generally, or worse, how the GOVERNMENT should treat people from that race... because THAT is what some of them are suggesting .... and you don't need a PhD in history to know how that goes for the human race. This is why we can't have nice things. I take stifling political correctness any day over people who think they are being oppressed for not being allowed to inject race supremacy into normal politics.
Then don't whine if you get injured at the hands of an underqualified surgeon.
why can't you have the same standards of qualification for everyone?
I think the basic idea is that if race realists are wrong than that would result in worse outcomes than quotas / lowering standards for qualification. Basically if minorities perform worse due to discrimination but are just as capable, then on average minority candidates (eg for surgery) will be better at the same level of qualification than non-minorities. Therefore quotas would be prima facie a good thing.
There are potential answers to this like quota discrimination is bad in itself, or qualifications reflect ability in a way that is independant of discrimination (so discrimination -> worse ability -> worse qualifications rather than same ability & discrimination -> worse qualification). But the basic idea that best policy is dependant on certain empirical facts about the world seems likely to be true.
Albeit only policymakers who need know the true facts (or the best uncertainties over the truth) - level of public knowledge may have little effect.
The “Rivers of Blood” speech was given by Enoch Powell in 1968, over 50 years ago. What’s so new about the New Right?
This article is a fine example of the Millenial Snot: https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/on-millennial-snot
Exactly. Utter devoid of substance, preferring vapid and patronising sneers to actually grasping the problem these terrible people are trying to address.
It's very interesting: 5 years ago there barely WAS anything called the 'new right' (the alt-right was something very different). Now the term is known by millions, immediately. Things are changing fast.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/the-new-right
_Alt_ is German for ‘old’.
Revenge was never about healing your pain; it’s about deterring future aggressions.
It's also about the reassertion of a collective identity.
Ok cool. But what would you do if you became the dictator of the UK? I feel like the response is going to be either solidly bad or slightly bad+boring. Little reminder on what you have to solve: increasing Debt, aging population, economic stagnation, fracturing society, increasing unwillingness to fight for the UK even in a world with a mean Russia and a new unpredictable USA
but I don't want to be dictator of the UK, what do you mean ? I believe in democracy, social democracy to be precise.
Ok boring dodge. Then let us make the little game even more complicated then. You are the charismatic leader of your political party that has 60% of the seats after the Labour Party fucked up too much. You can’t pass unpopular laws for too long or the people will stop voting for your party. How do you solve the UK situation now?
1) commit to building nuclear power stations, 2) lift the ban on fracking, 3) get rid of the triple lock on pensions, 4) close all taxing loopholes, 5) cut two-child benefit cap, reverse NI tax increase and don't touch anything that makes life for young working people more expensive.
it is good. Everything here is directionally correct, though it won’t be enough
All fixed by spending other people's money of course! All you need to do is take it off those disgustingly selfish rich people - sorted.
('everything is the fault of immigrants' / 'everything is the fault of the rich')...
The rich have more influence on policy.
thats true. But if immigrants are more likely to vote in certain directions, perhaps they also influence policy.
Can most immigrants vote? For that matter, since when did the voters have any say?
In the UK they sort of can, since at the moment all long-term UK residents who are Commonwealth citizens can vote in UK elections.
I can't, if you don't have citizenship and are not commonwealth you cant
Yes, "sort of". At risk of repeating myself, even if commonwealth longterm residents were the decisive factor in UK elections (I have seen no evidence of such) - it's not as if elections decide anything.
Is there anything in the UK comparable to US states? Looking at this list seems kind of depressing, and raises my estimation of the US federal system of government in which the states still retains significant powers. Because that builds a whole developmental ecosystem of politicians, where lots of people are working on different ways forward for their political coalition, and it doesn’t seem like the UK has that kind of pipeline of future political leaders (based on the lack of mention of figureheads for most of the groups). In the US, because there are so many states and because the decisions made by the states are important, there are a lot of possible paths forward for each of the major parties that are already embodied in elected politicians doing the actual work of governing a particular state.
hmmm we do have a pipeline of politicians who are simple MPs, the lack of figureheads I was referring to was about the new right-wing, fascist-curious coalition, not lack of political ambition or talent more generally. The British system is different to the USA but we have our checks and balances too in the form of the Supreme Court and the House of Lords.
The MPs don’t really govern though, unlike say a governor or speaker of the house in a US state. Sometimes people in the US say that being a US senator is a step down from being a governor or legislative leader in a state because the state leadership has more agency and impact. In the US the fascist curious can actually run things at a state level, and people can see the consequences. It just seems to me that it is a very different ecosystem, where politically ambitious people can have genuine responsibility and authority much earlier in their life, and so political movements are less theoretical and more practical. And that there is a different kind of talent where individuals have to build their own identity at the state level, whereas I imagine that politically ambitious people in the UK have to show they are good soldiers for the party or start their own party, while in the US, at the state level, the incentives for candidates are to build an identity distinct from the party (and this is true even in one party states due to the importance of primaries).
To an extend yes but the US is a faaaaaar bigger country. We have local government in the UK, too, in the form of local councils and devolved governments. What we are seeing now in the US is not normal. ..
What you hope for for the UK will never be, this new right is a reaction to decline and are creatures of that same process.
I don't hope for the new right, I am left-wing, I don't know if you confused my post
When I read the section on techno-optimists, I was like, uhh.. is she stalking me ?
hehe
I'm ok with the race scientists, and believe while everything should be studied, it's hubris to think that we are equipped now to find all the answers. Asians test better than Whites with current testing methods, but I beleive that Asians are superior to the sane extent I believe Blacks are inferior.
it should not have an impact on how you view people or how the government treats people, and that is the problem with race scientists, for them it is not enough to stop at scrapping race quotas, they want their 'observation' to apply on government more generally
Thanks for providing links and screenshots, sometimes I struggle to believe the extremes exist on the Right because I don't see it.
You quoted Orwell about the 'Gentle Englishness' - do people estabilsh these characteristics the moment they touch english soil? If not - where does it come from?...I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the existance of English (and Greek) ethnicity vs nationality. Would it be a permitted topic on this blog?
No, they don't, but definitions of ethnicity are not important to me; I view the whole debate as a distraction. Since you ask, eventually, I do think someone should be considered ethnically the country they were born in. Modern ethnicities are mixtures, there is no such thing as pure ethnicity, they are human fictions. My grandparents were refugees from Turkey, Pontic Greeks ( an ethnic minority). Undoubtedly, there is Persian blood in there or what have you, looking at the skin colour of my family and our noses. Does that make that part of me any less Greek than my mother's side, who were from Crete, blue-eyed, blond and ginger? Of course not, it's so unimportant, it does not matter. Similarly, the UK has a colonial history, which meant its ethnicities mixed with other ethnicities, so a modern Englishman can be someone like Rishi Sunak. This has been a fact of empires since time immemorial; in fact, it was the reason the Greek Empire flourished under Alexander the Great; he encouraged marriage between the ethnicities and recognised the offspring as Greek. Hence why so many of us modern Greeks are so dark. And no, I don't think your manners and culture have anything to do with the amount of melanin in your body. It is how you were talked to as a baby, how you were picked up as a toddler, how your teacher frowned at you when you interrupted your classmate, what you saw when you turned on the tv after school over and over and over again. I am not English, I will never be, but where I to have my children with an English man, I would hope they wouldn't have their belonging to any nation questioned.
Rishi calls himself British Indian, which perhaps is a side-step to the issue of English ethnicity and nationality. Ethnically there has been little change for around 1000 years on this island. The Empire is more recent and relatively small changes, especially compared to the last 20 years.
For a baby to grow up to be culturally English it needs to be subsumed into English culture, but there are a lot of people who wish to remain in their ethnic enclave.
The best solutions and arguments I've heard are from Katharine Birbalsingh, which is to bind all people under a collective nationhood with careful management of the differences and needs. Kind of like Lee Kuan Yew 'One people, One Nation, One Singapore'. Is there anyone on the Left who discusses how to build a unified multi-ethnic society?
thank you for your contribution to the discussion