Glad you didn't go on to give yourself an aneurysm. Those lists can certainly lead to apoplexy after a while.
I'm not so sure we aren't walzing into the GDR, actually. I have a lot of connections with that part of the world, and exactly what you describe at the end of this very good essay is what was perhaps most salient for many East Germans - having to say completely different things in public from at home and this being their normality. We can't be too careful about this, especially with the online safety bill having now passed into law.
I suppose the difference is for the most part that in our society the result of saying or thinking the wrong thing tends to be cancellation or lack of opportunity for career advancement which, although by no means trivial, is not the same as being sent to prison.
Love that expression 'monastery of the mind'. So apt. Faced with arrant nonsense as the official narrative + the fact that there is such a thing as the 'official narrative', many of us have been forced to retreat into our individual monasteries to save our sanity in this Alice Through the Looking Glass world. Interactions with officialdom are like conversations with Tweedledum and Tweedledee and those in authority more and more begin to resemble the Red Queen "off with her head" in their arrant imbecility.
"I don’t wish to live in a society in which the great and good are allowed to decide who is and is not worthy of being able to speak, because in the end I don’t really believe that the great and good are particularly great, or good. In fact I think they are as mediocre and bad as the rest of us."
The Bill Gates conspiracies can appear crankish, but he has definitely been dishonest. Indeed a lot of the things that have been dubbed "conspiracy" re lockdowns were in fact marketing schemes, which when you think about it are a kind of conspiracy, especially when the government gets in on "the deal." Something has tilted sideways where governance is concerned, which is what you've been writing about. Thanks for yet another insightful piece, David.
I don’t regard Substack as a monastery, more a convivial and generally good humoured club. I actually lived in a monastery for 4 years, and it could be a very claustrophobic and controlling environment. I am also very fortunate in that I really don’t have to interact with the management any more - retired in La France Profonde and thoroughly insulated from most forms of wokeness.
My fear is that eventually La France Profonde, like 'deep England' (Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Northumberland, etc.) will eventually come under threat too. The hatred of urban elites for rural, independent-minded yeomanry is a very long-running theme in European history.
and maybe the farmers’ revolt and the forthcoming EU elections will throw some sand in the gearbox. In the end, we have to eat and persuade someone to collect the garbage
The great unanswered question is whether TPTB are in control, or simply terrified. That Trudeau’s reaction to the truckers was not calculated but panic stricken. TBH if they have an evil plan, it doesn’t seem like a very good one (unless it’s just to pull the house down and see what happens).
Yep, see the Telegraph's report on how the countryside is too white or some such nonsense that was the conclusion of a report sponsored by various charities. Of course, the grift meant they would always come to this conclusion but you do wonder what the next steps will be.
Thank you David. This case illustrates exactly the managerial mindset. There have always been opinions that would get you cast out of polite society but the approved list of thoughts has changed .. who had ever heard of the term hate speech in the 60s? You either agreed or disagreed with the views expressed. Now you are accused of hate if you say a man cannot become a woman. OK, if you hold your thoughts in this area you might not be investigated by the police. However, try not implementing climate change nonsense in woke local authorities if you work in housing or transport say, or refusing to do unconscious bias training in a big corporate. You will be lucky if you hold onto your job but definitely your chances of advancement are limited. In other words everyday life is now a verbal minefield and you could get blown up at any time if you are not careful. I do wonder if this is behind some of the drive of the ‘Great Resignation’. If you can afford it, why put up with the nonsense? I agree that there is a withdrawal from public life outside of work too. Who can be bothered to mix with the commissars if you don’t have to? As to public entertainment, much of it is risible crap. Better to look at quality stuff from the past. Funnily enough, a writer on the dissident right, has just launched a channel called AA Mellow Moments, entirely focused on clips of old telly. Myself, I love an old episode of the Good Old Days after an evening down the pub.
Thank you for introducing me to the concept of "Monasteries of the Mind". A similar concept upon which I stumbled at the start of the pandemic, and into which I have retreated ever since, is Paul Ilie's "Inner Exile" (Roger Moore, https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/download/13520/14603).
The problem with Adil is not so much that his views were wrong. After all, the rights and wrongs of Covid are heavily disputed to this day. Put me in the lockdown sceptic camp. The problem with Adil is that his views were clearly deranged. Microchips for goodness sake! As someone who uses the health service I really, really don’t want to have as my doctor someone who is so adrift from reality.
OK. But what about a Tribunal that orders the party under investigation to unsay what he does believe and to say what he doesn't, and then finds against him because he doesn't mean what he says?
I don’t think ordering him to unsay it makes me any more relaxed. If my doctor sincerely believes that microchips are being injected under the cover of a vaccine program I think it isn’t obviously unfair to remove them from the profession.
OK. We all agree that it's on the loony side of cranky and that, other things being equal, we'd rather not be treated by people with loony ideas. (I mean, what else are they loony about?) But (1) Other things aren't equal. For thirty years he has practised as a surgeon without his looniness endangering his patients. And, we can guess, during those thirty years there has been many a surgeon who had to be struck off for being a danger while having ideas that we'd all think perfectly sensible. The question for the tribunal then ought to have been not 'Does he have loony ideas?' but 'Is he a danger to his patents?' If the answer to that question was 'No', isn't it loony to have struck him off? So (2) Don't we need a new tribunal?
If I were thinking to judge you, it would be entirely appropriate and acceptable. We are all going to be judged one day, so I'm just getting you used to the idea.
I do see the sense of what you are saying. But in the end I just think it is ‘over the line’. Slightly illogically if his cranky ideas were non medical I’d probably not be too fussed.
You should check out the many videos put out by the Spanish group - they are called Fifth Column I think, in which microscopic analysis of the injection contents by a wide variety of specialists reveals metalloids arranging themselves into all sorts of interesting configurations, none of which should be there.
Do not let ignorance be your guide as to what you think about Dr Adil, who may not be 100% correct, but he is by no means 100% wrong.
David I have a post in mind on a related topic that I call Legalised Corruption.
I am personally acquainted with a significant number of senior professional services partners - lawyers, consultants, headhunters - who work for firms that work for the government. Quite an extraordinary number of people who effectively cannot speak out against government policy. I'll drop you a note.
Thank you, David, for another insightful and elegantly expressed article.
I think the current increasing attacks on free speech are a consequence of the introduction of social media. Before the days of the internet, the expression of crankish views by an individual had little effect. Today those crankish views can be expressed on social media and published for all the world to read. There is more scope for crankish views to have a widespread impact.
The authorities have responded by cracking down on those who make use of this power.
Someone putting videos on YouTube, or writing on Substack, or commenting on Substack, is more akin to a political pamphleteer in days of old than to someone simply expressing views. In the past, Mr Adil would probably have expressed his views only to a few friends, and have come to no harm. In today's world, he put them on YouTube and they came to the attention of an increasingly twitchy Establishment whose narrative is being questioned.
Social media has destabilised society by giving a platform to competing narratives. I believe the Establishment are beginning to realise this. In the future, rather than attacking those who express controversial views on social media, they are quite likely to turn their attention to the social media companies themselves. In fact we are already seeing that with the Online Safety Act.
I'm not actually against everything in the Online Safety Act, and in some respects think it could go further. But that's a subject for another blog post.
The estimable Dr McGrogan - and this not said lightly - should familiarise himself with the Johns Hopkins pre-covid rehearsal of all that was later to transpire in terms of it being implemented, as well as acquainting himself with the entirely unconspiratorial findings of Sasha Latypova, next time he finds himself unable to discern the clear and obvious signs of conspiratorial activity, by the GMC and all of its associated criminal entities.
That said, an excellent article as usual, from a clear- thinking professional man.
Glad you didn't go on to give yourself an aneurysm. Those lists can certainly lead to apoplexy after a while.
I'm not so sure we aren't walzing into the GDR, actually. I have a lot of connections with that part of the world, and exactly what you describe at the end of this very good essay is what was perhaps most salient for many East Germans - having to say completely different things in public from at home and this being their normality. We can't be too careful about this, especially with the online safety bill having now passed into law.
I suppose the difference is for the most part that in our society the result of saying or thinking the wrong thing tends to be cancellation or lack of opportunity for career advancement which, although by no means trivial, is not the same as being sent to prison.
Well, that's why I mentioned the online safety bill, which seems to be paving the way for exactly that.
Love that expression 'monastery of the mind'. So apt. Faced with arrant nonsense as the official narrative + the fact that there is such a thing as the 'official narrative', many of us have been forced to retreat into our individual monasteries to save our sanity in this Alice Through the Looking Glass world. Interactions with officialdom are like conversations with Tweedledum and Tweedledee and those in authority more and more begin to resemble the Red Queen "off with her head" in their arrant imbecility.
Particularly agree with the following:
"I don’t wish to live in a society in which the great and good are allowed to decide who is and is not worthy of being able to speak, because in the end I don’t really believe that the great and good are particularly great, or good. In fact I think they are as mediocre and bad as the rest of us."
The Bill Gates conspiracies can appear crankish, but he has definitely been dishonest. Indeed a lot of the things that have been dubbed "conspiracy" re lockdowns were in fact marketing schemes, which when you think about it are a kind of conspiracy, especially when the government gets in on "the deal." Something has tilted sideways where governance is concerned, which is what you've been writing about. Thanks for yet another insightful piece, David.
I don’t regard Substack as a monastery, more a convivial and generally good humoured club. I actually lived in a monastery for 4 years, and it could be a very claustrophobic and controlling environment. I am also very fortunate in that I really don’t have to interact with the management any more - retired in La France Profonde and thoroughly insulated from most forms of wokeness.
My fear is that eventually La France Profonde, like 'deep England' (Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Northumberland, etc.) will eventually come under threat too. The hatred of urban elites for rural, independent-minded yeomanry is a very long-running theme in European history.
and maybe the farmers’ revolt and the forthcoming EU elections will throw some sand in the gearbox. In the end, we have to eat and persuade someone to collect the garbage
The great unanswered question is whether TPTB are in control, or simply terrified. That Trudeau’s reaction to the truckers was not calculated but panic stricken. TBH if they have an evil plan, it doesn’t seem like a very good one (unless it’s just to pull the house down and see what happens).
There is no plan - it's just the product of certain incentives that I think are an inevitable feature of modernity. The only way out is through.
Yes - but I wonder if it is possible to navigate the rapids
Hopefully I’ll be dead before they get to me 😂
Yep, see the Telegraph's report on how the countryside is too white or some such nonsense that was the conclusion of a report sponsored by various charities. Of course, the grift meant they would always come to this conclusion but you do wonder what the next steps will be.
unless you have one
Mind you, not entirely sure there’s an alternative 😂
"Build yourself a nice one."
Mine is particularly comfortable :-)
The quest for freedom of expression always requires endangerment. Especially if we live in a world where lies reign supreme.
As Guy Béart said in his song “La Vérité”: The first to tell the truth, It must be executed.
So true (yesterday and today)
Lyrics of the song (French / English)
https://lyricstranslate.com/fr/la-vérité-truth.html-2
Thank you David. This case illustrates exactly the managerial mindset. There have always been opinions that would get you cast out of polite society but the approved list of thoughts has changed .. who had ever heard of the term hate speech in the 60s? You either agreed or disagreed with the views expressed. Now you are accused of hate if you say a man cannot become a woman. OK, if you hold your thoughts in this area you might not be investigated by the police. However, try not implementing climate change nonsense in woke local authorities if you work in housing or transport say, or refusing to do unconscious bias training in a big corporate. You will be lucky if you hold onto your job but definitely your chances of advancement are limited. In other words everyday life is now a verbal minefield and you could get blown up at any time if you are not careful. I do wonder if this is behind some of the drive of the ‘Great Resignation’. If you can afford it, why put up with the nonsense? I agree that there is a withdrawal from public life outside of work too. Who can be bothered to mix with the commissars if you don’t have to? As to public entertainment, much of it is risible crap. Better to look at quality stuff from the past. Funnily enough, a writer on the dissident right, has just launched a channel called AA Mellow Moments, entirely focused on clips of old telly. Myself, I love an old episode of the Good Old Days after an evening down the pub.
Thank you for introducing me to the concept of "Monasteries of the Mind". A similar concept upon which I stumbled at the start of the pandemic, and into which I have retreated ever since, is Paul Ilie's "Inner Exile" (Roger Moore, https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/download/13520/14603).
Interesting! I like it.
The problem with Adil is not so much that his views were wrong. After all, the rights and wrongs of Covid are heavily disputed to this day. Put me in the lockdown sceptic camp. The problem with Adil is that his views were clearly deranged. Microchips for goodness sake! As someone who uses the health service I really, really don’t want to have as my doctor someone who is so adrift from reality.
OK. But what about a Tribunal that orders the party under investigation to unsay what he does believe and to say what he doesn't, and then finds against him because he doesn't mean what he says?
I don’t think ordering him to unsay it makes me any more relaxed. If my doctor sincerely believes that microchips are being injected under the cover of a vaccine program I think it isn’t obviously unfair to remove them from the profession.
OK. We all agree that it's on the loony side of cranky and that, other things being equal, we'd rather not be treated by people with loony ideas. (I mean, what else are they loony about?) But (1) Other things aren't equal. For thirty years he has practised as a surgeon without his looniness endangering his patients. And, we can guess, during those thirty years there has been many a surgeon who had to be struck off for being a danger while having ideas that we'd all think perfectly sensible. The question for the tribunal then ought to have been not 'Does he have loony ideas?' but 'Is he a danger to his patents?' If the answer to that question was 'No', isn't it loony to have struck him off? So (2) Don't we need a new tribunal?
He is not loony, quite obviously.
He simply knows more than you do, to your eternal shame, because you think to judge him.
You're not thinking to judge me, are you? It would be to your eternal shame, you know? (Or have I taken a bait?)
If I were thinking to judge you, it would be entirely appropriate and acceptable. We are all going to be judged one day, so I'm just getting you used to the idea.
I do see the sense of what you are saying. But in the end I just think it is ‘over the line’. Slightly illogically if his cranky ideas were non medical I’d probably not be too fussed.
Well, I have to admit that I'd rather not be operated on by someone thinking like that.
You should check out the many videos put out by the Spanish group - they are called Fifth Column I think, in which microscopic analysis of the injection contents by a wide variety of specialists reveals metalloids arranging themselves into all sorts of interesting configurations, none of which should be there.
Do not let ignorance be your guide as to what you think about Dr Adil, who may not be 100% correct, but he is by no means 100% wrong.
David I have a post in mind on a related topic that I call Legalised Corruption.
I am personally acquainted with a significant number of senior professional services partners - lawyers, consultants, headhunters - who work for firms that work for the government. Quite an extraordinary number of people who effectively cannot speak out against government policy. I'll drop you a note.
Yes, please do!
Thank you, David, for another insightful and elegantly expressed article.
I think the current increasing attacks on free speech are a consequence of the introduction of social media. Before the days of the internet, the expression of crankish views by an individual had little effect. Today those crankish views can be expressed on social media and published for all the world to read. There is more scope for crankish views to have a widespread impact.
The authorities have responded by cracking down on those who make use of this power.
Someone putting videos on YouTube, or writing on Substack, or commenting on Substack, is more akin to a political pamphleteer in days of old than to someone simply expressing views. In the past, Mr Adil would probably have expressed his views only to a few friends, and have come to no harm. In today's world, he put them on YouTube and they came to the attention of an increasingly twitchy Establishment whose narrative is being questioned.
Social media has destabilised society by giving a platform to competing narratives. I believe the Establishment are beginning to realise this. In the future, rather than attacking those who express controversial views on social media, they are quite likely to turn their attention to the social media companies themselves. In fact we are already seeing that with the Online Safety Act.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-children-and-adults-to-be-safer-online-as-world-leading-bill-becomes-law
I'm not actually against everything in the Online Safety Act, and in some respects think it could go further. But that's a subject for another blog post.
The estimable Dr McGrogan - and this not said lightly - should familiarise himself with the Johns Hopkins pre-covid rehearsal of all that was later to transpire in terms of it being implemented, as well as acquainting himself with the entirely unconspiratorial findings of Sasha Latypova, next time he finds himself unable to discern the clear and obvious signs of conspiratorial activity, by the GMC and all of its associated criminal entities.
That said, an excellent article as usual, from a clear- thinking professional man.