The Madness of Crowds

overwhelming, percentage of the population might be said to agree on a common aspiration: that nobody with a competency to perform a task should ever be held back from achieving what they can achieve because of some characteristic over which they have no say. So no young girl, person of colour or person who isn’t heterosexual should be held back fr

the madness we are living through is an over-reaction to the fact that there has been prejudice against people in the past and that the fastest and best way to address this is to over-compensate for a time in order for us to arrive at equality faster.

rights battles are not all the same, and it should by now be clear that the T debate does not follow on seamlessly from the LGB ones.

while trans people are obviously deserving of the same dignity and understanding as everybody else, the T has very little to do with the L, G or B.

‘Cancel culture’ certainly does exist. And by now it has become clear how it works. It operates most effectively when it can locate a hierarchy above an individual that is itself wobbly, gutless or otherwise vulnerable to mob pressure. Universities have become Exhibit A in all this.

minimizing difference is not the same as pretending difference does not exist. To assume that sex, sexuality and skin colour mean nothing would be ridiculous. But to assume that they mean everything will be fatal.

One of the ways to distance ourselves from the madnesses of our times is to retain an interest in politics but not to rely on it as a source of meaning.

Politics may be an important aspect of our lives, but as a source of personal meaning it is disastrous.

In an era without purpose, and in a universe without clear meaning, this call to politicize everything and then fight for it has an undoubted attraction. It fills life with meaning, of a kind. But