The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity

Douglas Murray (Bloomsbury Continuum: London, UK)

5.0 out of 5.0 stars

Listen up

When a gay man writes a book explaining how “woke” culture is destroying society, it’s time to listen. We have a desperate societal problem and Douglas Murray sums it up nicely. Society has a new ideology – identity politics – and it’s about pushing us apart, not pulling us together. It’s about virtue signaling that leads to the problems being overstated and it’s about destroying (not just silencing) contrary opinions.

Everyone in our society needs to read this book … and listen to the advice

Ideology

Murray explores four areas (or perhaps movements) – gay, women, race and trans. One of the core points he makes is that in every case, these movements started with a legitimate cause: basically, that all people deserve to be treated fairly. He notes, however, that in each case, there has been a tendency to overcorrect. In this respect, he makes a pertinent comment:

“What this has done in fact is merely tell some groups in society that they are of less value than other groups: that men are not as smart as women, that white people are more to be disparaged than black people, and that heterosexuality is really just a bit dull and embarrassing.”

He makes a great point. This overcorrection simply reverses the discrimination; and this discrimination is equally abhorrent as the original.

What defines us?

I also liked how Murray made the point that people are more complex than simply their gender, race or sexual orientation. And yet this movement focuses entirely on splitting us apart on the basis of these qualities. Why not instead look to the things that unite us and define our common humanity?

Cancel culture

Murray makes a great point here where he notes that people are routinely cancelled for things that they said years ago that may have been the prevailing logic of that time! For example, he notes that some people are vilified as being “homophobic” because they opposed gay marriage years ago, even though that was the majority view at the time, and a perspective shared by no less than President Obama!

Further, he highlights the risk that every one of us takes each time we express an opinion today because we cannot be certain how well that opinion will be viewed in future decades!

What a crazy situation we find ourselves in.

Change matters & it’s urgent

I strongly agree with Murray’s comment that:

“What has become clear in the last year, however, is the urgency of coming up with solutions to the ulta-divisiveness that identity politics has created in our societies.”

He’s absolutely right. We need to radically rethink how we’re approaching each other in western society. We cannot continue to divide into tribes and view other tribes as the enemy. Our political leaders are going to have to step up and say “enough” — the political gamesmanship of identity politics may help win elections but it is destroying our society.