Titania McGrath satirically writes that Douglas Murray's latest is an Alt-right handbook: 300 pages of hateful bile – on white paper, no less.

I’ve never reviewed a book before, and I fully intend to follow my editor’s advice and be as impartial as possible. But just to make it clear from the outset, Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds is an abomination. It’s a sustained invective against woke culture, an attempt to reverse all the hard work of passionate civil rights activists such as Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi and Lily Allen.

It’s essentially an Alt-right handbook, and I don’t think it’s too much to suggest that every copy ought to be incinerated. Preferably in a public square or something so that we can all see what happens when fascists try to spread their wicked ideology.

For the best part of 300 pages Murray spews his hateful bile – on white paper, no less – denouncing social justice, identity politics and intersectionality. Even the font has a certain heteronormative quality about it. He rails against “millennial snowflakes” who all “identify as attack helicopters” and how “you can’t say anything anymore” and that “you can go to prison for singing the national anthem these days”. I mean, he doesn’t actually write any of these words, but we all know that’s what he’s thinking.

The book is divided into four sections: “Gay”, “Women”, “Race” and “Trans”. These are all wonderful subjects – coincidentally, they also happen to be the names of my tropical fish – and so it is heart-breaking to see such noble ideas befouled in Murray’s grubby paws.

Continue reading @ Unherd.

Why I’ve Reported Douglas Murray To The Police

Titania McGrath satirically writes that Douglas Murray's latest is an Alt-right handbook: 300 pages of hateful bile – on white paper, no less.

I’ve never reviewed a book before, and I fully intend to follow my editor’s advice and be as impartial as possible. But just to make it clear from the outset, Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds is an abomination. It’s a sustained invective against woke culture, an attempt to reverse all the hard work of passionate civil rights activists such as Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi and Lily Allen.

It’s essentially an Alt-right handbook, and I don’t think it’s too much to suggest that every copy ought to be incinerated. Preferably in a public square or something so that we can all see what happens when fascists try to spread their wicked ideology.

For the best part of 300 pages Murray spews his hateful bile – on white paper, no less – denouncing social justice, identity politics and intersectionality. Even the font has a certain heteronormative quality about it. He rails against “millennial snowflakes” who all “identify as attack helicopters” and how “you can’t say anything anymore” and that “you can go to prison for singing the national anthem these days”. I mean, he doesn’t actually write any of these words, but we all know that’s what he’s thinking.

The book is divided into four sections: “Gay”, “Women”, “Race” and “Trans”. These are all wonderful subjects – coincidentally, they also happen to be the names of my tropical fish – and so it is heart-breaking to see such noble ideas befouled in Murray’s grubby paws.

Continue reading @ Unherd.

23 comments:

  1. Alarm bells should always ring when anyone calls for books to be burned, even Mein Kampf.

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    1. https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/03/12/why-i-invented-titania-mcgrath/

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  2. I think McGrath fails to do whatever it is she intended.

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  3. Godfrey Elfwick did this better, hence why “xe”’was banned and this one wasn’t.

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  4. Imagine seeing this on twitter in 2016!

    Godfrey Elfwick: Brendan Cox is correct. 37 Islamic attacks across Europe don't represent Muslims. Unlike Thomas Mair who spoke for everyone who voted Leave.

    It need to be short and to the point , too much satire can fire.

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  5. AM

    I dont think it works very well.

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    1. Christy I think it works great - it is a satirical checklist of what is so suffocating about political correctness: its sense of entitlement, censoriousness, using the police to investigate matters that are not even crimes, adherence to thought crime inter alia.

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  6. I also think that like Roger Scruton, Murray is a formidable right wing intellectual whose ideas society must consider in order to be able to reject rather than merely repress. And his cojones are something to be admired - not too many from his stable trashed the Bloody Sunday Paras like he did.

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  7. AM I got the sense of irony with which McGrath was writing but it just doesn't score with me... that's satire I suppose.

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    1. I suppose it is a matter of taste, the important thing being is that we are not policed for having our own taste.

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  8. Sorry Anthony, but Douglas Murray’s own news editorial on Bloody Sunday (wherein he cites Jean Kirkpatrick as his moral guide) doesn’t strike me as gutsy if that’s what you mean by “cojones”. And since when is mass murder a “mistake”? The British knew exactly what they were doing in Ireland just as the American government knew exactly what it was doing in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

    A 'Bloody Sunday' Reckoning
    Britain fesses up to a mistake—no contrition yet from IRA terrorists.
    By Douglas Murray
    Updated June 18, 2010 12:01 am ETm

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704198004575310811893959590

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  9. Eoghan - I am thinking of this type of comment from him which whatever others might think takes moral courage. "having watched all of the Bloody Sunday shooters testify, I can say with certainty that they include not only unapologetic killers, but unrelenting liars."
    Moral courage is not something we ascribe to only those we agree with.
    I didn't read the link.

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  10. Anthony,

    But I do agree with Douglas Murray!

    Those Brit Paras are liars and murderers.

    But to call them that is not an act of moral courage.

    Maybe if they're shooting at you when you call them that.

    But not when you're just taking notes of their testimony...

    And then just opining later about the obvious.

    That's hardly going out on the ledge for the greater good.

    You should have read the link to his editorial.

    The words "moral courage"and Jean Kirkpatrick are mutually exclusive.

    I'd give you a link but apparently you don't do footnotes.

    So just google "jean kirkpatrick" and "El Salvador"

    Then ponder Mr. Murray and her apology for "preservation".

    Imperial system supporters are not courageous or moral.





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  11. Eoghan - we differ on what moral courage is.

    Your suggestion that it is shouting at them when they fire at you is physical courage.

    To stand within the midst of your own group and openly say what it finds abhorrent is moral courage.

    I do footnotes. I don't do links nor do I google to find what someone else finds interesting. When people recommend to me links that prove them wrong or which put forward a perspective they thoroughly disagree with, I might change my mind.

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  12. Anthony,

    Had you read Douglas Murray's editorial that I linked...

    You would have seen him standing in the midst of his own group...

    And back peddling like his moral guide Jean Kirkpatrick on Vietnam.

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  13. Eoghan - but I didn't read the link and am left only with your take on it.

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  14. Anthony,

    I gave you the link so that you wouldn’t just have my take on it but his too.

    Douglas Murray is a politically astute British right-winger.

    But he is hardly a profile in courage like Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning or Julian Assange.

    Those British Paras mass murdered those people in Derry on camera for all to see in 1972.

    And then they and their government always lied about it all the time ever since.

    But it took Mr. Murray until 2012 to figure that out?

    Granted he was born in 1979 but if 7 is the age of reason and 18 the age of majority…

    You shouldn't need a belated government inquiry to obviate the obvious for you.

    Me thinks he just realized it was safe to finally come clean and ditch the incredibly indefensible.

    Like a sailor on a sinking ship dumping cargo to keep old Britannia and company floating along.

    Without him having to flee his country or do jail time for saying what he did.

    And if his book is the best a Brit right-winger like him can do…

    Then it’s egging the pudding to say he is morally courageous.

    Just see his cringing speech here to American elite:

    “America should be the world’s policeman. It’s not America’s force that allows it that right, it’s America’s virtue that allows it that right.” -- Douglas Murray, 2008

    World Police Debate: Douglas Murray 6/14- Intelligence Squared U.S.
    “moderated” by Morley Safer.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_1XW1kZFo4

    I’m giving you this link knowing you are not likely to look at it but others viewing here may.

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  15. Because where is America’s virtue here?

    What is Douglas Murray talking about?

    The US Public Health Service Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male 1932-1972?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment

    The Mỹ Lai Massacre 1968?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

    The Phoenix Program 1965 – 1972?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program

    Operation Rolling Thunder 1965 – 1968?

    The US government has estimated that 30,000 civilians were killed in total as a result of the operation.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder

    U.S. Secret Bombing of Cambodia?

    Estimates vary widely on the number of civilian casualites inflicted by the campaign; however, as many as 500,000 people died as a direct result of the bombings while perhaps hundreds of thousands more died from the effects of displacement, disease or starvation during this period.

    http://rabble.ca/toolkit/on-this-day/us-secret-bombing-cambodia

    US & British “NATO” bombing of Yugoslavia? Which was so bad that even:

    Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Ariel Sharon criticised the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia as an act of "brutal interventionism" and said Israel was against "aggressive actions" and "hurting innocent people" and hoped "the sides will return to the negotiating table as soon as possible"

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia

    The Fallujah killings of April 2003?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah_killings_of_April_2003

    The First Battle of Fallujah, 4 April – 1 May 2004?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Fallujah

    The Second Battle of Fallujah, in November and December 2004?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fallujah



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  16. Eoghan - good job. I am sure somebody will get something from it.

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  17. Anthony, maybe I will get something out of it.

    Because I am struck as to why a big guy like yourself who is a profile in courage…

    Would go out on the skinny branches for a political sycophant like Douglas Murray.

    Afterall, he called intentional mass murder by the British Army “… a mistake”.

    This is hardly an act of bravery or moral courage on his part.

    It’s standard right-wing minimizing and intellectually dishonest.

    Just see the Principal Conclusions and Overall Assessment of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry itself:

    “None of the soldiers admitted missing his target and hitting someone else by mistake.”

    Page 36, footnote 3.73

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/279167/0030.pdf

    And who can forget this:

    “At the end of 1972, Lt Col Wilford, who was directly in charge of the soldiers involved in Bloody Sunday, was awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)

    So, everyone knew what they were doing when they were doing it.

    No one was mistaken about anything, not even Mr. Murray - since he knew all this too.

    And note that I can’t find where he has ever referred to the British as terrorists.

    But nor would I ever expect to find that.

    Since it is his system supportive political bias that keeps him “mainstream” marketable.

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