The Madness of Crowds

The Madness of Crowds explores the confusion and contradiction, the fury and fanaticism at the heart of identity politics. Under the headings of “gay”, “women”, “race” and “transgender”, British author and journalist, Douglas Murray, examines the inverse relationship between advances in rights for women and minorities and the escalating militancy of campaigns for justice and equality. What seemed like victory or breakthrough for one wave of activists appears in time to have been no more than an advance to a new position where an even greater battle has to be fought.

 Murray delves deeply and widely across a social and political landscape criss-crossed with battle lines because identity conflicts are complex and they can intersect. He traces the origin of the lexicon of grievances to fringe academic studies that have been edging more and more into the mainstream. Originating in the 1980s, Women’s Studies have been joined by Gender Studies, LGBT Studies, Queer Studies, White Studies and of course any number of unconscious bias training courses and workshops. This is where terms like “toxic masculinity”, “white privilege” and “male privilege” were minted. 

One of the many ironies the book reveals is that the academic freedom that weaponised today’s social warriors is frequently denied to contemporary academics when their findings are seen to undermine the ideologies in vogue. Murray cites examples including research that suggests the differences between the sexes goes beyond genitalia. Authors of such offensive findings, no matter how qualified, are denounced as purveyors of hate. The bizarre thing is that often colleagues and their employer universities do not support them allowing their careers to be destroyed by ideologues who have not read let alone understood their research and its methodologies.

Leading feminist writer, Camille Paglia, has long acknowledged that issues for women around motherhood are largely unexplored. New terminology that replaces “mothers” and “fathers” with the single term “parent” is yet another ploy to shove such considerations out of acceptable discourse. Attending a women’s conference about the effects of “toxic masculinity” on womens” career advancement, Murray was struck by the aura of wealth and success around participants as well as their high maintenance glossy glamour. These were the women who “lean in” without it would appear toppling over. Yet to say they were angry and aggrieved would be an understatement. The mere fact of being female, particularly female and of child bearing years, held them back, they protested. They would always be held back until some great systemic upheaval overthrew the “patriarchy”. The narrative of oppression, Murray tells us, has geared up to a point where it claims that it is women’s superiority, not just their equality, that is being suppressed. “Men are trash” is a common slogan and not just because they discriminate against women but because they are actually inferior. Even Christine Lagarde has stated that if Lehmann Brothers had been Lehmann Sisters, the banking collapse of 2008 might not have happened. Murray notes the apparent unawareness of the contradiction of claiming both equality and superiority, which denotes difference, at the same time.

He does not however delve more into the wellsprings of the disproportionate anger and grievance. Other than a hand sweep in the direction of motherhood and its emotional and psychological implications for women, he leaves us alone to consider the question. Nor does he address the greatest contradiction of all which is the obsession with low stake inequalities while countless women across the globe and in the recesses of our own society suffer harrowing, unspeakable suffering and exploitation. Because of modern media we know of them. Some by name. Assia Bibi, Nasrin Soutedeh, Meliana. Sisterly solidarity like minority solidarity appears to stay within the peer group.

The sexual and gender identities lumped together in the LGBT acronym are often described as “a community”. Murray however rejects this notion. They are disparate groups and their agendas often collide. Leading feminists have taken issue with the idea that a biological man who has socially transitioned can be regarded in the same way as those designated female at birth. Feminists with otherwise impeccable credentials like Germaine Greer and Julie Bindel have been black listed, vilified and endlessly trolled whenever they surface in pubic life. Clashes of opinion also arise with gay parenting which is problematic on a number of counts for feminists. The feminist view that there are no differences between men and women “from the neck up” is at odds with transgender theory which holds that what you feel inside your head is what determines gender and that genitalia are largely irrelevant. The experience of transwomen who find that oestrogen combined with testosterone blockers changes their choices in books and films along with their emotional responses also challenges the feminist view that differences between the sexes is only genital. Murray recounts how the travel writer and journalist, James Morris who transitioned to Jan Morris found that as a man he had focussed more on “great affairs” and as a woman on “small affairs”. This paralleled a change in writing focus from places to people. The awarding of national accolades for women to transwomen like Caitlin Jenner is something else that riles feminists. Further differences arise between transgender people who insist that gender is hard wired and those who define themselves as gender fluid or non-binary. Murray uses the privilege his own gay status gives him to question if the rise in transgenderism isn’t to some degree about gay people searching for easier access to potential partners. 

 

When it comes to race, the contradictions and conflicts and the “catastrophising” anger are amplified to absurdity. In Yale university a world renowned sociology academic, Nicholas Christakis and his wife, also a tenured academic in Yale, were verbally abused on campus with a ferocity and venom reminiscent of Mao’s red guards’ attacks on those suspected of counter-revolutionary tendencies.The only difference was that the onslaught remained verbal. Their offence was that Erika Christakis had questioned the appropriateness of the university issuing guidelines to students about Halloween costumes. The menacing in the language and continued trolling was enough to force Erika Christakis from her job. The offence of cultural appropriation in dress and costume has become a proxy war for deep seated resentment rooted in the endless stoking of old wrongs. Even food can be a trigger. When British Labour MP, Dawn Butler, attacked chef Jamie Oliver for the temerity of appropriating and then adapting a West Indian recipe we get a good sense of just how unpredictable the cultural minefield is. Again, it is not merely the taking of offence where one might think a compliment could be just as easily taken. It is the “catastrophising” of the offence. What might seem at most a lapse in etiquette is characterised as a desecrating violation, a new form of colonisation. As Murray points out many times, it is extraordinary that when things were never so good for minority rights that activists make is look like things were never so bad and not only bad but getting worse. Rows over the casting of white actors in stories about other ethnicities is yet another battle line which sits oddly with the inclusion of actors of colour in Shakespearean plays and opera, a development which is considered positive and progressive. 

All this inchoate anger needs further analysis. Disproportionate anger tends to be displaced. Murray’s book offers a vivid exposé of where we are now and the black knot of contradictions embedded in identity politics. He does not probe for root causes. He does, however offer some pointers. Post-faith culture has kept “the guilt, sin and shame without the means of redemption”. It offers “judgment without mercy”. At another point he observes that “virtue has taken the place of faith”. And the Internet, both social media and Big Data enforce the new religion even to the point where search engines are coded to imprint the new mores on the facts. A search for famous scientists for instance will throw up scientists of colour before Einstein or Darwin. Murray offers some bizarre examples across several subject searches. 

The demand for “safe spaces” points to something even more interesting. Having won signal victories, minority activists still cling to the barricades, “as if they had no home to go to”. When Professor Christakis, defending freedom of expression, told a protester that Yale was “an intellectual space” she yelled, “it is not an intellectual space, it’s a home”. One must ask if our boomer generation has not in some way failed to give their children a “safe space” at some crucial point in childhood? What is behind the seemingly insatiable neediness, the insecurity, the emotional brittleness, the “snowflake” vulnerability? 

Murray, who has described himself as “a Christian atheist” or “an atheist Christian” has probably found his way to the nub of the matter leaving it, for now at least, to the reader to reflect further. And that is a very good point for such a stimulating book to end.