- This summer, I seriously considered withdrawing from any involvement in politics. Exhausted through overwork, incapable of productive activity, I found myself drifting through social networks, feeling my depression and exhaustion increasing.
‘Left-wing’ Twitter can often be a miserable, dispiriting zone. Earlier this year, there were some high-profile twitterstorms, in which particular left-identifying figures were ‘called out’ and condemned. What these figures had said was sometimes objectionable; but nevertheless, the way in which they were personally vilified and hounded left a horrible residue: the stench of bad conscience and witch-hunting moralism. The reason I didn’t speak out on any of these incidents, I’m ashamed to say, was fear. The bullies were in another part of the playground. I didn’t want to attract their attention to me.
The open savagery of these exchanges was accompanied by something more pervasive, and for that reason perhaps more debilitating: an atmosphere of snarky resentment. The most frequent object of this resentment is Owen Jones, and the attacks on Jones – the person most responsible for raising class consciousness in the UK in the last few years – were one of the reasons I was so dejected. If this is what happens to a left-winger who is actually succeeding in taking the struggle to the centre ground of British life, why would anyone want to follow him into the mainstream? Is the only way to avoid this drip-feed of abuse to remain in a position of impotent marginality?
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Boy. The comments on there. This is the first I've read this. What he calls the Vampire Castle I've referred to as "wokeness bingo" or "purity points" because whoever I'm talking to gets my meaning immediately but the analogy is apt. Someone on Twitter pointed out that the Left are unhappy because the Right have the Senate, the Executive and the Judiciary but the Right are unhappy because the Left have utter and total cultural dominance. And maybe that's the problem: when Ellen's kiss was 24 years ago, when Queer Eye is already in remakes, when the mayor of London is muslim, there are no more bonus points to be had for championing the cultural touchstones you demanded and demanding is what you do. I hated that book when I read it but I keep thinking back on it so it must not have sucked. Ask the 'boomers what the most important year in the 20th century was and they'll tell you '68 with no hesitation - Tet, RFK being shot, MLK being shot, Summer of Love. That's basically when they decided they had permission to switch from being free-loving flower children to being selfish self-serving narcissists. But Caryl's argument for 1979 includes: - Thatcher and Thatcherites utterly dismantling all class progress - Deng switched China to capitalism - Pope John Paul II aligned the catholic church against communism - Khomeini switched the Middle East from secular dictatorships to Muslim dictatorships Britain has been gutted. China has gone Dickensian. Communism is gone and the catholics are in hot pursuit and the Middle East is every bit as fucked as it was when we were handing out Arabia and Iraq to our loyalists. Startin' to look like 1929 out here.