The Gnostics of the Left

Debate is not always democratic. For example, we would not welcome an open debate about whether the right place for a woman is in the kitchen. In this case, debate itself would benefit the anti-woman bigots by allowing them to portray themselves as one legitimate side in a nuanced discussion.

Says London University sociologist David Hirsh. David is a lonely left-wing voice against academic boycotts of Israel and thus far on the side of the angels. Unfortunately it does not follow that his variety of leftism is peculiarly rational, moderate or (at least in the old-fashioned sense) liberal.

"Debate is not always democratic." Very much the view taken in the former German Democratic Republic. What it was democratic to debate was debated and what was not democratic to debate - the leading role of the Socialist Unity Party, for example - was not debated. The parameters are drawn rather more tightly in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea but the principle is the same.

Why should we strive to close down the women-in-the-kitchen debate? Because it would benefit "anti-woman bigots". Well, naturally. Bad Thoughts are thought by Bad People who must not be allowed to clothe them in Bad Words. "Bigot" is obviously not in the same league as "despicable human scum" but the fundamental impulse is the same (and, come to think of it, the imperative to ensure their illegitimacy is recognised does, historically speaking, bring a definite suggestion of bastardliness into play). "If you know what's good for you, you won't go there". it says. You might not get dragged before the firing squad but you can certainly wave goodbye to your career as a sociologist at Goldsmiths, London.

But even granted that we are talking about Bad People, why should the consequences of letting them open their mouths be so dire? Surely this is a win-win situation for the good guys. If they are bigots they will simply expose and reconfirm their bigotedness throuugh their pathetic lack of rational arguments.

And suppose they did come up with a decent argument or two? After all, given the not insignificant part that prescriptive gender roles have played in human history, it would be quite surprising if there was nothing whatsoever to be said in their favour. Wouldn't that too be a good thing? Wouldn't it be of interest to David Hirsh the sociologist? Wouldn't it, if nothing else, help him to make his own case more effectively?

That's just not the way it works in David's professional and political worlds. As with the Gnostics of old, to be On The Left is to possess knowledge of the nature of things which is hidden from the common multitude. David does not need to hear the arguments in favour of an opinion he disagrees with because he already knows it's wrong. Whereas those not yet fully initiated into the knowledge - his students, let us say - cannot be relied on to know that the arguments are wrong, so must be protected from hearing them, lest their innocent minds be corrupted by despicable human scumBad People.

Moral agency

Buried somewhere in this Beeb story is an oblique hint to the effect that if gay men persist in playing Russian roulette with their health by having unprotected anal sex with numerous strangers, it may not entirely be the fault of an uncaring homophobic society. But you have to work at finding it - in fact, you have to work your way to the final sentence. In between there's a lot of stuff about how various fake charities need more of our money so they can hang up "Caution, stable door open, bolting danger" signs and count the horses periodically to establish how many have gone awol since the last time.

The case for gay marriage is made in a way that is curiously detached from the facts on the ground* as alluded to by Yusuf Azad. Is it intended as an alternative to the "gay scene" or as an add-on to it? Or is that just none of our business?

Meanwhile, Harry's Place, in stereotype-busting mode (ee, bah goom, lad, it's tough up North London, and no mistake), has no doubts whatsoever about moral agency. If a couple of civil partners can't get a joint appointment at a beauty salon, then the proprietor should be driven out of business. And preferably hung, drawn and quartered and his remains left for the vultures to dispose of.

When Mr G was a student Leftie, he and his comrades in arms aspired to nationalise the top 200 monopolies under workers' control and management. If he was a student Leftie today he'd be campaigning for a boycott of the homophobic beauty salons of Woodford Green, apparently. Somehow, a wider vision has gone missing.

*A little number-crunching: the number of gay men living with HIV is comparable to the number living in civil partnerships.

It's also interesting that the average age of new civil partners continues to be fortyish (bizarrely but perhaps revealingly, the average age of those dissolving a partnership is actually lower), which does rather suggest that it's what you do when promiscuity begins to seem a bit like hard work. Now I'm not saying there aren't plenty of straight men who would be very happy to build up their sexual CV along similar lines, given half a chance. But the whole point is that, unless they have the good fortune to play in the upper reaches of the Premiership, they aren't given the chance.

Beebthink

Britain has some of the highest childcare costs in the world, with many mothers with two or more children saying it does not make financial sense to work.

What the writer is trying to say is not that the Swedish system has driven costs down by having one carer per five hundred kids and paying the carers just enough to subsist on bread and water. He/she is complaining that the British state does not pick up as much of the tab as others do. Because when the state pays, there is no cost to any actual people, right?

Just like the free-at-the-point-of-use BBC, come to think of it. With an outfit like this forming voters' opinions, is it any wonder that Gordon Brown spent like there was no tomorrow and Cameron and Osborne dare not cut as if yesterday really happened?

Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells speaks out

Those Swedish rape laws, eh? Political correctness gone mad, if you ask me.

Droit de seigneur: alive and well and living in the celebrocrat Left. Cf. Roman Polanski's apologists.

What GG says would not be unreasonable in itself were it not transparently special pleading for his crony. Say what you like about the Catholic abuse scandal, but the Church hasn't reacted by demanding that the age of consent be lowered.

The fault line between the man-hating Left and the Neocon/Zionist-hating Left is laid bare, and it's not hard to guess which faction is in the ascendent. History teaches that hatred is most profitably directed at minorities.

So sorry

It has just come to my notice that my predecessor but one inadvertently flooded the country with a load of foreign Johnnies who don't really count for diversity purposes being pallid and blonde (and probably a bunch of fascists if truth be told) and can't even vote for me. I would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused by his carelessness. Please be assured that your votes are important to me. Thank you and good night.

Was that really what you wanted to happen?

Who is this about?

[He] reminded the audience about last year’s events in Great Britain “when it all came to mass riots, torched cars and robbed stores”. “As the society guarantees the right to express their opinion, including by street events, to some of the citizens, it must protect other citizens and the society as a whole from radicalism,” he said.

Answer: Vladimir Putin, announcing that he has granted himself swingeing powers to arrest and fine anti-government protesters.

So all the people who tried to portray the riots as some kind of political protest have helped hand Putin a useful argument for more repression. The blurring of distinctions always cuts both ways.

Egg? What egg?

What kind of person thinks that Muslims shouldn't serve in an army that's fighting the Taliban, and that Jews shouldn't be permitted to reproduce - and makes both points with a revolver?

It's hardly a question to baffle a Clouseau, never mind a Maigret. Once it became clear that Toulouse wasn't hosting a gunmen's convention, I'd have said "neo-Nazi" was a 50-to-1 shot, and "apolitical nut job" more like 200-to-1.

Of course it's always a good idea to wait until you have some facts before rushing to judgment, otherwise you could end up looking extremely silly. Not, however, that this fate could overtake anyone delivering an ex cathedra verdict on behalf of the World's Most Righteous Newspaper: Fiachra Gibbons said Sarkozy was to blame, and you can be sure that he feels amply vindicated.

I see that last year "Turkey specialist" Gibbons offered the Guardian a piece on "10 of the best films set in Istanbul". Apparently none of them deal with the city's synagogues. Quelle surprise.

St Paul's latest

Protester Naomi Colvin told the Today programme the demonstrators wanted any decision to leave to be theirs, and it would come only when they had achieved their objectives in the current location.

Ms Colvin, aged thirty one and three quarters, also said that the demonstrators had come to a democratic decision that it was up to them when they went to bed and that neither parents, the ex-Dean of St Pauls nor anybody else had any business telling them it was bedtime.

Update: the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has announced his resignation. In a statement just issued by Lambeth Palace, he said that since over the last fortnight the demonstrators had gained a far larger audience for woolly leftish moralising than he had managed in all his years in office, he felt somewhat surplus to requirements. He was confident that he was leaving the conscience of the nation in safe hands, and was looking forward to resuming his research on the Arian heresy and the late Roman banking system.

Reports of uncontrollable laughter from somewhere beyond the clouds were unconfirmed.

The Messiah: exclusive photo and interview

Vastly entertaining front page of the Grauniad today. What a very naughty thing to do to to shy, retiring Dr Fraser.

Actually the interview is by no means lacking in good sense, albeit with a generous helping of cant mixed in. E.g.:-

I mean, if you looked around and you tried to recreate where Jesus would be born – for me, I could imagine Jesus being born in the camp.

What a thing it is to have a vivid imagination. Nobody much seems to be spending the night in those tents, never mind giving birth.

Then there's this:-

"Money is the number one moral issue in the Bible and the way the Church of England goes on you would think it was sex,"

Dear me, I must have been going to the wrong churches during my time in the C of E.

As for the guff about rediscovering the Incarnation in Bethnal Green, this is a man whose career so far has included an Oxford college chaplaincy, the cure of souls in Putney and, of course, one of the plum jobs at St. Paul's. There are, I believe, plenty of vacancies in inner-city parishes, but when he asserts that "Christianity is one of the most materialistic of the world's religions" he is perhaps revealing rather more about Giles Fraser than he intended. I'd love to know what Trollope would have made of the whole business.

If you want a more humbug-free Anglican voice I recommend George Carey.

One question raised by pro-protest commenters on Carey's piece is "what does St Paul's need £20,000 a day for?". The obvious answer is of course "to maintain one of the finest buildings in Britain", but there's an even more fundamental one, namely "none of your business". Those who fail to understand that are totalitarians at heart.