Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
London : Bloomsbury Continuum, 2021
Description
In the long-awaited follow-up to his 2016 best-seller The Strange Death of Europe, Douglas Murray interrogates the vicious new culture wars playing out in our media, universities, homes and perhaps the most violent place of all: online. The Madness of Crowds is a must-read polemic-a vociferous demand for a return to free speech in an age of mass hysteria and political correctness. The global conversations around sexuality, race, mental health and gender are heavily policed by the loud and frequently anonymous voices on social media and in the press. Once conceived as forums for open speech, social media and online networks have emboldened the mob and exacerbated groupthink-self-censorship and public shaming have become rife. As a result, Murray argues, we have become paralyzed by the fear of being criticized and have unlearned the ability to speak frankly about some of the most important issues affecting society. Murray walks against the tide of censorship. He asks us to think more openly about what we're afraid to say; to think outside of the mob and the psychology of the crowd.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Paul_S
It's depressing that stating the obvious is somehow controversial and brave.
LibraryThing member Tom.Wilson
A good humoured look at the mob-like behaviour of those who in the Anglophone world who are shouting the loudest about perceived oppression along lines of race, sexuality and gender, at the exact moment in history when much has been achieved in the West. This book is a 'viper' a device that is laid
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across a mine-field to detonate a series of explosive devices, in this case the potential blowback refers to what happens to those caught using language in ways not deemed acceptable by social justice advocates. Show Less
LibraryThing member APopova
Brilliant. An antidote to our hysterical times.
LibraryThing member highlander6022
Excellent. Tells the story of so many made up myths about supposed groups in our culture. Intersectionality, race, feminism, trans are all given the treatment they deserve.
LibraryThing member citizencane
Douglas Murray has written one of those "books for our times". It is brilliantly argued, moderate in tone, amply documented and given the times in which we live it is also courageous.
Murray's subject matter is the plague of identity politics that has consumed our institutional existences, political
His book is organized around four subjects simply described in the chapter headings: Gay, Women, Race and Trans. Interspersed among these topics are relevant reflections on The Marxist foundations behind the theory and practice that have taken root and spread through the humanities, social sciences, law schools, government bureaucracies, boards of directors and human resource departments.
Murray also discusses the impact of Tech specifically on the ability to leverage technology to retrieve any statement ever made by any person in a public or private capacity without any context and gin up a Twitter mob that can never be appeased no matter how abjectly the victim apologizes. Of course the victim is understood by right thinking people to really be an aggressor, a hater, a categorical criminal against perhaps women, or gays, or trans persons, or people of color.
Murray discusses the problem of forgiveness in the world we occupy. It is related to the problem of forgetting. It is hard, thought not impossible to forgive when there is no forgetting and in the world created by the pervasiveness of the internet and social media it is nearly impossible to forget. Related to this is the problem of understanding. It is axiomatic within the religion of identity politics that unless you are a member in good standing of one these oppressed groups you cannot understand their situation. Murray quotes Mark Lilla who sums up the problem as follows: "You cannot tell people simultaneously 'You must understand me' and 'You cannot understand me'." This is an observations that rings true and does not inspire optimism about our future.
I won't get into the details of his theses about the main categories reviewed here. He treats each group's claims seriously but does not accept all claims at face value and delineates tensions and contradictions where called for. I have to acknowledge a certain degree of personal schadenfreude when he relates the stories of radicals who stepped on one of the multitude of "tripwires" that set off the multitude of landmines buried in our cultural landscape (some of which they may have helped to lay).
If Murray depended on an academic position for his livelihood the best response he could hope for would be that the book was completely ignored, which is the usual response to an argument that can't be met by the predominantly left, progressive academy. His thesis would be suffocated by lack of oxygen. If his academic post was at Evergreen State College in Oregon or Yale or anyplace in between it is possible that he would be confronted by an angry mob, shouting vulgar invectives in his face, inciting him to a word or action that might be caught by a cell phone camera and destroying his career and life in the aftermath. For that matter if was employed by the New York Times, or the Atlantic, or the Daily Telegraph or even a lousy online web based magazine he could be excommunicated in an instant.
For his intellectual honesty and courage we are in his debt.
Murray's subject matter is the plague of identity politics that has consumed our institutional existences, political
Show More
and putatively non-political. This phenomenon aided and abetted by social media that serves as the transmission belt for social justice warrior mobs is squeezing all of the air of the public square. Support for free speech and debate is under assault from those institutions that are most dependent on it to perform their functions: universities, newspapers, television and radio networks, and online communications media.His book is organized around four subjects simply described in the chapter headings: Gay, Women, Race and Trans. Interspersed among these topics are relevant reflections on The Marxist foundations behind the theory and practice that have taken root and spread through the humanities, social sciences, law schools, government bureaucracies, boards of directors and human resource departments.
Murray also discusses the impact of Tech specifically on the ability to leverage technology to retrieve any statement ever made by any person in a public or private capacity without any context and gin up a Twitter mob that can never be appeased no matter how abjectly the victim apologizes. Of course the victim is understood by right thinking people to really be an aggressor, a hater, a categorical criminal against perhaps women, or gays, or trans persons, or people of color.
Murray discusses the problem of forgiveness in the world we occupy. It is related to the problem of forgetting. It is hard, thought not impossible to forgive when there is no forgetting and in the world created by the pervasiveness of the internet and social media it is nearly impossible to forget. Related to this is the problem of understanding. It is axiomatic within the religion of identity politics that unless you are a member in good standing of one these oppressed groups you cannot understand their situation. Murray quotes Mark Lilla who sums up the problem as follows: "You cannot tell people simultaneously 'You must understand me' and 'You cannot understand me'." This is an observations that rings true and does not inspire optimism about our future.
I won't get into the details of his theses about the main categories reviewed here. He treats each group's claims seriously but does not accept all claims at face value and delineates tensions and contradictions where called for. I have to acknowledge a certain degree of personal schadenfreude when he relates the stories of radicals who stepped on one of the multitude of "tripwires" that set off the multitude of landmines buried in our cultural landscape (some of which they may have helped to lay).
If Murray depended on an academic position for his livelihood the best response he could hope for would be that the book was completely ignored, which is the usual response to an argument that can't be met by the predominantly left, progressive academy. His thesis would be suffocated by lack of oxygen. If his academic post was at Evergreen State College in Oregon or Yale or anyplace in between it is possible that he would be confronted by an angry mob, shouting vulgar invectives in his face, inciting him to a word or action that might be caught by a cell phone camera and destroying his career and life in the aftermath. For that matter if was employed by the New York Times, or the Atlantic, or the Daily Telegraph or even a lousy online web based magazine he could be excommunicated in an instant.
For his intellectual honesty and courage we are in his debt.
Show Less
LibraryThing member wyclif
This is likely the single most important recent book that explains the descent into insanity of the modern universities. Essential reading if you want to understand what is happening to British and American higher education.
LibraryThing member 064
In today's world of outrage, it is incredibly rare to find people who are reasonable and rational. Douglas Murray is one of the few. I bought this book because I thoroughly enjoyed reading his analysis of the European migration crisis in "A Strange Death of Europe". I like how reasonable and clear
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he approaches every heated topic, especially gender, race and identity. I believe that we are allowed to question if it's a good idea to introduce 100 different genders or to judge people by their skin colour and not the content of their character. It is a very educational read and I can highly recommend it to everyone who is a free thinker and/or willing to explore a perspective that is not today's mainstream. Show Less
LibraryThing member tuckerresearch
Good. Sad, again, that a book like this needs to be written. Four big issues, despite the three in the subtitle: Gay, Women, Race, and Trans, with three interludes (Marxist foundations, technology, forgiveness), and a conclusion. Gay: we've gone pell mell from studying it and understanding it to
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BAM, biology, genetic, born this way, can't change. Odd, because, it doesn't seem to be the case. And, to skip to trans, we've gone to NOT biology, NOT genetic, born in the WRONG body, CAN change. What? On women, we've gone from equality to man-hatin' and blaming everything on "the patriarchy." And on race we've jettisoned Martin Luther King's dream for IT IS all about race. Sad. The Marxist interlude is important; the tech section is about Google's manipulations, and the forgiveness section bemoans our current "cancel culture" that allows no way out of being white or making a PC mistake. Sad. Show Less
LibraryThing member Zare
It is rather sad time when from open, resilient society we end up as society divided, non-resilient, terrified to openly communicate and reigned in by ever present danger of scandal and social ostracism. Bombarded by ever stranger statements and catastrophic predictions through ever so bombast
Is it not strange that today's calls for ostracizing someone from the society or professional groups, because he or she did not follow the guidelines of that very hour or raised touchy questions, are very reminiscent of the people being stoned in what we like to call less enlighten eras? Reason is very simple - once passion is involved (and religion is a passion because it relies on emotions and blind belief which we call faith) reason leaves all the people involved. Passion is quite the opposite to what everybody seems to cherish nowadays but usually don't follow - reason. Truth is without passion common things such as love and affection would not exist (imagine robot-like individuals weighing factors like ability to give birth, long life (or short), height, weight etc ... horrible). To be humans we need passion but we must not let it loose like a wildfire in our everyday activities. And when I say religion I don't just think religion - I mean all movements, political and social, that encourage passion and blind belief (Stalin and Hitler first come to mind here but period of French Revolution also has its share of weird and terrifying characters that ruled by terror).
I think most dangerous things ever said are "Be passionate about your " - where x ranges from work, interests, to ones beliefs, and "Follow your own truth". Once passion takes over, reason leaves. For good. And in that utter mayhem, main issues, true problems that need solving, get scattered to four corners of the world to be forgotten by everyone. And by relativizing truth we enter the truly dangerous place - because if there are multiple truths (or as one political activist says in recent documentary about false news - philosophy will tell you there is no truth) then we break the very foundation of the civilized society. If there is no truth but this is left to interpretation then laws and rules cannot function.
And this is what this book is about - loud, modern day prophets, self righteous to the extreme, using true social issues to start the upheaval but very soon diverting from the path to actually solve the problems, because without problems what would happen to them, what would be their raison d'etre? If this reminds you (again) of religion you are right. It was only with breaking the central control over ones spiritual life (rise of Protestantism in the west) and notion that between individual and higher power there is no need for intermediaries (priests, prophets) that societies could move to secularism (long process lasting several hundred years). But it seems this has left empty space in people and they need to fill it. In any way possible. They need a goal in life and to achieve this they will chose any idea, anything that can give them meaning and thus new religion is born.
Author writes in a very clear way and points to the danger of constant rise of movements that are originally based on actual problems but very soon deviate to the point of even ostracizing members that are actually working on problem solutions and where even founding members (as can best be seen in truly weird developments and actions of new feminists against original ones - I haven't seen better description of saying that revolutions devour their own children). These movements use what might be called society politeness - letting everyone speak about their problems, publicly, unopposed - only to force everyone with after-comment to shut down, to the point of having them humiliated and even socially degraded if their answers are found to be "subversive to the idea". Supported all the time by media constantly on the lookout for scandals and bombastic, catastrophic predictions they successfully manage to silence down every opposition (be it true or imagined)
We live in a very interesting times (which is not such a good thing if one recalls the famous Chinese proverb). If we allow bullies to push us around we will end in a very unpleasant world. Some might call it "new normal" but in true it is "new abnormal". Allowing oneself to live in constant fear is self demeaning and rots one from within. It is the ultimate step to de-humanization and this is not something we should aim for.
Since there is no ad-hoc solution to this my only hope is that reason will prevail and that these movements will accept communication and conversation as tools to communicate with differently opinionated people instead of just stepping over them. It will require time because people do not relinquish the power they are given (just look at bureaucrats worldwide during this pandemic), and these movements wield tremendous power, unprecedented in reach, but it needs to be done. Otherwise, as author states, if discussion is off the desk then only thing that can result is violence. And this is something that needs to be avoided.
Excellent book, very troubling. Highly recommended to everyone trying to figure out what is happening around us (which was case with me).
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media outlets one is forced to weigh pros and cons when it comes to reacting and asking questions. And soon it becomes obvious that silence becomes a gold standard (otherwise one could end up in such a predicament that his very survival might come in question). With this forced silence of majority our new prophets gain strength and become more and more convinced they are right and very soon all their statements become imbued with religious fervor. And no good ever comes out of that.Is it not strange that today's calls for ostracizing someone from the society or professional groups, because he or she did not follow the guidelines of that very hour or raised touchy questions, are very reminiscent of the people being stoned in what we like to call less enlighten eras? Reason is very simple - once passion is involved (and religion is a passion because it relies on emotions and blind belief which we call faith) reason leaves all the people involved. Passion is quite the opposite to what everybody seems to cherish nowadays but usually don't follow - reason. Truth is without passion common things such as love and affection would not exist (imagine robot-like individuals weighing factors like ability to give birth, long life (or short), height, weight etc ... horrible). To be humans we need passion but we must not let it loose like a wildfire in our everyday activities. And when I say religion I don't just think religion - I mean all movements, political and social, that encourage passion and blind belief (Stalin and Hitler first come to mind here but period of French Revolution also has its share of weird and terrifying characters that ruled by terror).
I think most dangerous things ever said are "Be passionate about your " - where x ranges from work, interests, to ones beliefs, and "Follow your own truth". Once passion takes over, reason leaves. For good. And in that utter mayhem, main issues, true problems that need solving, get scattered to four corners of the world to be forgotten by everyone. And by relativizing truth we enter the truly dangerous place - because if there are multiple truths (or as one political activist says in recent documentary about false news - philosophy will tell you there is no truth) then we break the very foundation of the civilized society. If there is no truth but this is left to interpretation then laws and rules cannot function.
And this is what this book is about - loud, modern day prophets, self righteous to the extreme, using true social issues to start the upheaval but very soon diverting from the path to actually solve the problems, because without problems what would happen to them, what would be their raison d'etre? If this reminds you (again) of religion you are right. It was only with breaking the central control over ones spiritual life (rise of Protestantism in the west) and notion that between individual and higher power there is no need for intermediaries (priests, prophets) that societies could move to secularism (long process lasting several hundred years). But it seems this has left empty space in people and they need to fill it. In any way possible. They need a goal in life and to achieve this they will chose any idea, anything that can give them meaning and thus new religion is born.
Author writes in a very clear way and points to the danger of constant rise of movements that are originally based on actual problems but very soon deviate to the point of even ostracizing members that are actually working on problem solutions and where even founding members (as can best be seen in truly weird developments and actions of new feminists against original ones - I haven't seen better description of saying that revolutions devour their own children). These movements use what might be called society politeness - letting everyone speak about their problems, publicly, unopposed - only to force everyone with after-comment to shut down, to the point of having them humiliated and even socially degraded if their answers are found to be "subversive to the idea". Supported all the time by media constantly on the lookout for scandals and bombastic, catastrophic predictions they successfully manage to silence down every opposition (be it true or imagined)
We live in a very interesting times (which is not such a good thing if one recalls the famous Chinese proverb). If we allow bullies to push us around we will end in a very unpleasant world. Some might call it "new normal" but in true it is "new abnormal". Allowing oneself to live in constant fear is self demeaning and rots one from within. It is the ultimate step to de-humanization and this is not something we should aim for.
Since there is no ad-hoc solution to this my only hope is that reason will prevail and that these movements will accept communication and conversation as tools to communicate with differently opinionated people instead of just stepping over them. It will require time because people do not relinquish the power they are given (just look at bureaucrats worldwide during this pandemic), and these movements wield tremendous power, unprecedented in reach, but it needs to be done. Otherwise, as author states, if discussion is off the desk then only thing that can result is violence. And this is something that needs to be avoided.
Excellent book, very troubling. Highly recommended to everyone trying to figure out what is happening around us (which was case with me).
Show Less
LibraryThing member Daniel_M_Oz
This non-fiction book is well written and I found its clearly defines and describes the causes, inconsistencies and illogical philosophies of popular modern thinking regarding gender, race and identity. The book is well worth a read to put "flesh on the bones" on what most people of common sense
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would feel intuitively is right and wrong with how the zeitgeist portray feminism, racism and trans. The book is quite readable and I imagine would give some solace to the silent majority that they are not alone in an increasingly crazy world. The main flaw with the book is that a clear path out of this madness is not suggested. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
The British Book Industry Awards (Shortlist — Audiobook — 2020)
Language
Physical description
293 p.; 21 cm
ISBN
9781635579949