Yes to every single point! Indeed, an infantilized society. I would just add that certain concepts they use, such as "safety," are part of a codified language that always means more than what it says. For instance, for a student, to be "safe" is equivalent to being protected from knowledge itself, the knowledge of values and beliefs different of his/her own. "Traditional values, such as courage, duty, patriotism and solidarity, were replaced with therapeutic ones, such as emotional literacy, wellness and self-esteem." Yes, all true; but the paradox is that in the end, these people are emotionally unstable, unwell and lacking in real self-esteem, because you can only create self-esteem if you overcome adversity.
There is a psychological payoff for people directing the lives of others. The attitude of judging others seems to tempt everyone across quite disparate institutions from local councils to museums and nearly every quango let alone goverment departments. It is more than just power corrupting, the temptation to control other people. There appears to be an underlying mechanism that produces such commonality in behaviour.
The people who regulate us appear to believe they are superior either morally or intellectually, that their judgement is inherently better than that of the masses. The censor believes we are corrupted by what we read and hear but is him or herself immune. That is, they are not ordinary, not misled or affected in the way others are. Such superiority, such difference. The sense of purpose they enjoy, of doing good for society or groups of other people is in reality a form of self-serving snobbery, of sustaining their self-image at the expense of others but disguised as altruism. Paradoxically, it arises from a need for purpose that is morally good. Young people in particular cast about for causes that lift them from insignificance.
Schools and universities, directly or subliminally, imbue their students with a simplistic oppressor v oppressed moral simplification, of socialism good capitlism bad, It has reached a point that even employees in those citadels of capitalism, the banks, think that bringing their misguided manichaen view of the world and of life's purpose can be brought to work. The debanking of Nigel Farage, or more accurately, the disclosure of the 'reasoning' and comment by employees about Farage, was quite shocking. Banking is not just about money anymore. It is social control of, in their judgement, the morally bad. And that rot went all the way to the top.
The cultural shift to undo all of this is huge. It may even be too big now. Like Japanese knotweed in a garden it has penetrated all areas and become impossible to eradicate. In the eighties Thatcher, first and foremost a preacher (as her biographer Charles Moore has pointed out), took years to effect the change that was the late eighties. Today, the education system, the capture of so many institutions, and the globalisation of ideas, probably means that a purely politically led cultural change is unlikely to succeed. While there was much resistance to Thatcher there was no social media, no equivalent of Iran and Hamas' effective propoganda fomenting dissent, no forces mustered internationally to contend with as there is today.
A cultural change may yet occur organically without direction from above but it will be in conditions of social breakdown as is happening in Europe. But, with enough crime and rape, as in Germany or Sweden, forces of reaction emerge. That is not a reason to hope for the hope can only be that one's self is not raped or assualted. It is the route in which many others suffer and have their lives blighted.
However, there is resistance in the form of the Free Speech Union, Big Brother Watch, the New Culture Forum, Together, Migration Watch, Taxpayers' Alliance, History Reclaimed, and some tiny parties that 'get it'. We should support them all no matter how forlorn doing so seems right now. The 'woke' think momentum is with them and it may well be - for now.
But our sense of purpose is not superficial moral superiority. It comes from a deep sense of values, something worth fighting for.
You are right-on Alta!
Yes to every single point! Indeed, an infantilized society. I would just add that certain concepts they use, such as "safety," are part of a codified language that always means more than what it says. For instance, for a student, to be "safe" is equivalent to being protected from knowledge itself, the knowledge of values and beliefs different of his/her own. "Traditional values, such as courage, duty, patriotism and solidarity, were replaced with therapeutic ones, such as emotional literacy, wellness and self-esteem." Yes, all true; but the paradox is that in the end, these people are emotionally unstable, unwell and lacking in real self-esteem, because you can only create self-esteem if you overcome adversity.
There is a psychological payoff for people directing the lives of others. The attitude of judging others seems to tempt everyone across quite disparate institutions from local councils to museums and nearly every quango let alone goverment departments. It is more than just power corrupting, the temptation to control other people. There appears to be an underlying mechanism that produces such commonality in behaviour.
The people who regulate us appear to believe they are superior either morally or intellectually, that their judgement is inherently better than that of the masses. The censor believes we are corrupted by what we read and hear but is him or herself immune. That is, they are not ordinary, not misled or affected in the way others are. Such superiority, such difference. The sense of purpose they enjoy, of doing good for society or groups of other people is in reality a form of self-serving snobbery, of sustaining their self-image at the expense of others but disguised as altruism. Paradoxically, it arises from a need for purpose that is morally good. Young people in particular cast about for causes that lift them from insignificance.
Schools and universities, directly or subliminally, imbue their students with a simplistic oppressor v oppressed moral simplification, of socialism good capitlism bad, It has reached a point that even employees in those citadels of capitalism, the banks, think that bringing their misguided manichaen view of the world and of life's purpose can be brought to work. The debanking of Nigel Farage, or more accurately, the disclosure of the 'reasoning' and comment by employees about Farage, was quite shocking. Banking is not just about money anymore. It is social control of, in their judgement, the morally bad. And that rot went all the way to the top.
The cultural shift to undo all of this is huge. It may even be too big now. Like Japanese knotweed in a garden it has penetrated all areas and become impossible to eradicate. In the eighties Thatcher, first and foremost a preacher (as her biographer Charles Moore has pointed out), took years to effect the change that was the late eighties. Today, the education system, the capture of so many institutions, and the globalisation of ideas, probably means that a purely politically led cultural change is unlikely to succeed. While there was much resistance to Thatcher there was no social media, no equivalent of Iran and Hamas' effective propoganda fomenting dissent, no forces mustered internationally to contend with as there is today.
A cultural change may yet occur organically without direction from above but it will be in conditions of social breakdown as is happening in Europe. But, with enough crime and rape, as in Germany or Sweden, forces of reaction emerge. That is not a reason to hope for the hope can only be that one's self is not raped or assualted. It is the route in which many others suffer and have their lives blighted.
However, there is resistance in the form of the Free Speech Union, Big Brother Watch, the New Culture Forum, Together, Migration Watch, Taxpayers' Alliance, History Reclaimed, and some tiny parties that 'get it'. We should support them all no matter how forlorn doing so seems right now. The 'woke' think momentum is with them and it may well be - for now.
But our sense of purpose is not superficial moral superiority. It comes from a deep sense of values, something worth fighting for.