The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity

This is a wonderful new book by the author of THE STRANGE DEATH OF EUROPE. THE MADNESS OF CROWDS concerns the issues of gender, race and identity and the manner in which they have been weaponized and unendingly politicized, particularly in the west and particularly, as he notes, in those countries (the U.K., the U.S.) where the most progress has been made in countering original forms of prejudice. In contrast with societies where gay people are thrown off of buildings our societies are criticized as being homophobic to a catastrophic degree. How can this be so? How can we be accused of being most retrograde and reactionary when we are, in fact, most 'advanced' and 'progressive'?This is the broad subject of the book. Some of the answers: when we come closer and closer to solving a problem the lingering existence of some aspects of that problem become progressively more intolerable. This is a fact of human nature. We continue to fight against as yet 'incurable' diseases but when we see individuals die of diseases which are quite curable we are enraged. This is an example of 'physical evil' being transformed into 'moral evil' where, for example, a curable disease kills people because corrupt politicians have chosen to enrich themselves rather than utilizing funds for the delivery of vaccines.This is not DM's principal answer. The principal answer(s) are that the activities that we are witnessing are ultimately rooted in Marxist principles—the desire to perpetuate warfare and division in order to accumulate political power and personal recognition. All of the demands in favor of creating peace and brotherhood are, in fact, attempts to create and perpetuate division. Division creates jobs and it conveys that thymos or recognition that Francis Fukuyama saw as one of the principal desiderata of failed states.To politicize everything is to destroy everything but that corrected intersectional polity which some social justice warriors argue for is, for many, a substitute religion. It offers a way to 'belong' at a time when traditional forms of religion and other traditional institutions have failed (and/or been undermined). Eric Hoffer made this point in his 1951 study, THE TRUE BELIEVER. Mass movements are the only way that some individuals can find meaning in their otherwise humdrum lives.The problem is that the intersectional program is radically flawed, internally contradictory and rife with internal division. We are left, e.g., with a world in which biologically-male athletes who consider themselves to be female can eradicate opportunity for biologically-female athletes. DM gives the poignant example of biologically-male mixed-martial-arts athletes pummeling biological females until they are broken and bloodied, while at the same time the behaviors of men toward women (in, e.g., the 'workplace') are rigidly codified with hitherto-unknown shibboleths. The notion that men who strike women are to be condemned is quickly nullified if the 'man' in question wants to think of himself as 'female'. In fact, the man who 'gazes' at women is to be condemned while the 'man' who thinks of himself as 'female' and pummels his female opponent is celebrated. DM's bottom line is often that we are being asked to subscribe to notions which are patently absurd and offensive to common sense. These notions are not the foundations for a utopian society; they are the foundations for a chaotic hell.This has all happened 'yesterday' and eons of tradition and experience are suddenly overthrown in an instant, a process exacerbated by contemporary technology which contributes materially to 'the madness of crowds' and creates an ethos of hatred and violence while attempting to create an ethos of brotherhood and sisterhood.The examples adduced are cogent and telling. The author is both a scholar and a journalist, so the book is trenchant but also immediately accessible to all interested readers. The advice that it offers--a spirit of forgiveness, a spirit of generosity and common sense, a respect for the individual and a suspicion of mobs everywhere--is powerful and persuasive. The sad reality, however, is that it is likely to be principally persuasive for those who are already predisposed to hear his message. "Mad" crowds are seldom fitting vessels to receive the gifts of sweet reason, particularly when their default position is obsession and, ultimately, self-interest.Bottom line: a stunning book which should be the 'common reading' text at all colleges and universities (but never will be).

The author has written about the death of culture Europe and now he brings a spotlight on four issues raising their ugly bias in the 21st century. Excellent book! Should be read by anyone (and everyone) who thinks they know the “answers” for society.The author takes a great deal of time to look at how the "tribalism" in America has destroyed our ability to talk across the lines that most Democrats use to separate us. The saddest chapter dealt with the issue of Trans people and how this has been mixed in (hidden within) the gay and lesbian movement. The two are not identical and yet our society seeks to mix them together for discussion. It was appalling to hear about people like Senator Elizabeth Warren clapping for the little child that the mother has already started on hormone therapy when in most places on earth this would be considered child abuse. To also read how trans gender changes are being done to Down's Syndrome children to "better their life." It was hard to read and yet the book is highly research and foot-noted.Douglas Murray has a perfect finger on the banality of the tribalism, race hatred, and victimhood that plagues America. While he is a Brit, his research, writings, and works are deep, clear, and solid. He is a voice that needs to be listened to and understood.

I have a hard time finishing books. Many of them wither at the end. But I read and reread this book through and through. Murray has made sense of the four movements in our society: Gay. Feminism. Race. Trans. His analysis is incisive, but he is not mean. I highly recommend this book for anyone scratching their head while watching the news feeds and muttering “what the hell is going on”.When he exposes the movements and explains their origins and their original intentions, he is as kind as a pastor. But then, as the movement gains steam and spreads, there are plenty of incidents that serve as a parody of themselves. There is plenty of commentary—some of it biting—to help the reader understand why the world seems to be going mad.Well researched and documented, but never dull and academic.

Murray digs into the illogic of identity politics to ultimately propose and better way of getting on as a society. An important book for anyone trying to understand identity culture and it’s hectoring proponents.

Thorough review of the mechanisms behind the political correctness frenzy

Another eye opener from mr. Murray. Great overall picture of the current society.

This book is an absolute eye opener. Everyone across the world should read this.

As a person of a certain age, I have been baffled by the constant decline of the social discourse in recent years.It has been increasingly difficult of late to understand my fellow man (and woman).I grew up in the world that Douglas Murray describes: long-due civil rights were being obtained by categories of people who for centuries, millennia, had been treated as second-class citizens, and they were doing so in a world (the Western world) overwhelmingly in agreement that this was right, that reason, goodwill and justice were finally prevailing over bigotry, racism, stupidity.I have traveled a lot in my life and this has always given me the sense of how incredibly lucky I am. You only have to go to certain parts of the world to see how terrible it must be to be gay in certain countries in Africa, a woman in rural Pakistan, or a black person in parts of the United States. I could return to my expat home in Italy and enjoy a society where all these problems had vastly been overcome.I grew up in the eighties in a world where the only way you judged a person was by what they brought to the table. Yes, if you were gay you left your small town and moved to the big city, if you were a woman some occasional catcalling would occur (not the drama it is made out to be today and sometimes quite funny really). People of colour never, at the time, faced any particular threat, and in my world, nobody would have even mentioned the colour of someone's skin in a conversation, though in more provincial parts of the country foreigners would be addressed with "tu" instead of "lei", mainly because of the conviction that they didn't understand the language. More a matter of provincialism than actual racism.Then something happened and the world went completely bonkers.As Douglas Murray says, we were nearly there. It wasn't perfect, we were collectively working on making it better, we felt heard, one sometimes had to take to the streets, referendums on weed smoking came and went, funds were raised for the AIDS epidemic victims abandoned by bigoted families, but they were raised, and perceptions were changed. And despite the failings, it was the best the world had ever seen.In this book, the author picks apart the various themes that are the battlefield of discussions today, discussions that inevitably, always, alarmingly, immediately get completely out of hand, take surreal turns, and are hijacked by shrill, shrieking, deranged, aggressive, obsessed people who in a few strokes make it completely impossible to have any reasonable conversation, over anything at all, ever.Reading the book, I of course didn't agree with everything he writes, but the overall description and analysis of the state we are in today is lucid, and finally gives me a way to interpret what we are experiencing.He does so with humour (another victim of our age is the terrible, depressing soul-numbing lack of any irony and cheerfulness of the typical millennial social justice warrior) and compassion.It is an ideology, it is a religion, this fanatical search for a culprit, for someone to blame, for someone to burn at the stake.And I feel even more lucky today for having lived in a world that wasn't like this, where people were just people, who happened to be gay, woman, coloured, trans, men, heterosexual or whatever, but didn't think that this was the only thing worth mentioning about themselves. You had to try harder than that. And of course, whining and being a victim was so uncool, and we wouldn't have been caught dead being uncool.O tempora. o mores.Highly recommend.