Hello,
Obligatory shilling. This month, I wrote at THE ZONE about magazine writing, Titanic and history, the rich and the arts, crime rates, the blogosphere, Roger Scruton and animal welfare, the Lobster King and Jordan Peterson, viral Substack essays, a trip to England and news by viral video.
I wrote for The Critic about activism and the police, Jeremy Corbyn and “Your Party”, Howard Stern, Niall Ferguson and American perspectives on British decline.
Finally, I wrote for AmCon about Banderism.
Home front. Apologies that this diary is a day late. Life got in the way — and I was mourning the end of the summer. Still, let’s hope that we have a bright and crisp Autumn — and that those smug Australians have a chilly, wet spring.
Anon advocacy. The great Chris Bayliss defends online anonymity:
I wrote a few months ago about how there are differing degrees of free speech in this country, depending not so much on what it is you want to say, but on who you are and the degree of social status that you enjoy. For example, in the many layers of inquiry that have belatedly followed in the wake of the Rape Gang scandal, we can see that those at more senior and central levels of the justice and safeguarding systems were able to address controversial subjects directly, where junior or frontline officials were clearly uncomfortable doing so. This is indicative of how laws that were drafted to prevent “harmful” speech, and to commit employers and public services to creating a “safe” environment, have created an atmosphere of low-level political intimidation.
I’ve written on this theme before.
Crazy philanthropy. Stuart Buck advocates for outsiders:
Given the challenges of our times, we need to revitalize crazy philanthropy—that is, donations to unusual issues, to individuals outside the traditional university system, and to genuinely outside-the-box ideas that could lead to the creation of entirely new fields. Philanthropy can have much higher impact if it doesn’t just piggyback on existing institutions and ideas.
Increasingly lower education. James Martin Charlton writes on higher education and “skills”:
Do we need hundreds of universities offering the same menu of courses, each churning out students with varieties of BA/BSc Transferable Skills? If we decide there is a genuine need to train undergraduate-age students in these generics, a much cheaper one-year Certificate would surely make more sense? A leaner cadre of universities could work with those who have real enthusiasm and talent for any given discipline. A degree in a specific subject might then recover its meaning and its worth.
James was one of my tutors, coincidentally. (I wrote about my educational experiences here.)
Are we all tourists now? Ed West writes on being a cosmopolitan reactionary:
Being a cosmopolitan reactionary, I enjoy experiencing different cultures, but if anything travel reaffirms my desire that England remain English, just as I wouldn’t want Japan or Malta or Poland to lose their distinct nature. I want to see the world - not necessarily for the whole world to come to me.
Even for those native to the world’s cosmopolitan global cities, our lives are increasingly like those of tourists, who differ from ‘travellers’ largely by the way that they interact with foreigners exclusively in service roles, without any deeper or meaningful interpersonal discovery. When Bobos talk about how much they love the capital’s diversity, they almost invariably reference the role of foreign service workers in their every day lives, whose inner lives remain incomprehensible to them. We’re all tourists now, whether we like it or not.
Not dead but sleeping. Aris Roussinos dreams of the revival of British myths:
Consciously in MythoBritannia’s case, and perhaps unconsciously in Sutcliff’s, this retreat to the peripheries represents a reservoir of cultural Britishness, directly analogous to the classical nationalisms of the 19th and early 20th century, from which modern-day political strength can be drawn. Both invoke the spirits of a nation not dead but merely sleeping, ready to be summoned, like Arthur and his knights, in the trials ahead.
Building Xirusalem. Christopher Harding writes on China and Christianity:
Xi Jinping is a keen student of why the Soviet Union collapsed and some scholars in China regard religion as a factor. It served, they say, as a “sacred banner” under which anti-government elements could unite. It’s no surprise, then, that during Xi’s term in office the regulation of religion in China has tightened. Patriotic religious associations are now overseen by the United Front Work Department, which in turn reports directly to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. New measures, in 2018, on “Internet Religious Information Services” linked religion to national security and required churches to apply for licenses before sharing religious content online, from live-streaming to micro-blogging. Most registered churches in China are thought to be under some form of electronic surveillance.
Lehrer’s laughter. Bethel McGrew reflects on the genius of Tom Lehrer:
He was that already dying breed, the square leftie, who hated ostentatiously self-righteous left-wingers almost as much as he hated right-wingers. “You have to admire the people who sing these songs,” he reflected in the setup to “Folk Song Army.” “It takes a certain amount of courage to get up in a coffeehouse or a college auditorium and come out in favor of the things that everybody else in the audience is against, like peace and justice and brotherhood and so on.”
Have a lovely month!
Ben
thank you, Ben!