A Review from The Sunday Times of a book that attacks identity politics.
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One afternoon more than a century ago, Douglas Murray tells us, a man in Ohio who was late for an appointment began to run. Spotting the runner, a young boy in high spirits chased after him. Spotting the pair, someone else started to run. Rumours began to swirl that they were running because a local dam had burst, though nobody had checked. Within 10 minutes, the streets were filled with residents fleeing the town. When, eventually, some of them realised that the dam had not burst, the embarrassed residents returned home. They never spoke of the “Great Run” again.
Today, western societies are embroiled in the equivalent of the Great Run but on a much larger scale. Their populations are more educated than ever before but the mobs are still running wild, destroying reputations, careers and lives on a daily basis and rarely stopping to think about why they are running, or for what purpose.
It is this “great crowd derangement” that is the subject of Murray’s fascinating new book The Madness of Crowds. A conservative and vocal critic of immigration and Islam, Murray won notoriety for his international bestseller The Strange Death of Europe. This time around it is a new strand of left-wing thought, not immigration, that is his target.
Continue reading @ The Times.
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