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).

Murray was a breath of fresh air when I first heard him on Youtube. As our world becomes more and more unhinged, led by our supposed 'deep thinking professors', I almost wept when I heard someone using both their intellect and common sense at the same time. There are far too few philosphers who are being heard now days, and our society is the worse for it. No wonder it's becoming so dismal. The thing with crowds, is that they tend to sink to the lowest common denominator--what we aren't realizing, is that with social media, we are becoming a crowd, and I'm not sure where the 'lowest' common denominator might be, but I once we hit bottom, we might get a bounce. Murray is an articulate, handsome, gay man who speaks common sense like a kindly, old grandfather. It took a minute to get over the paradox, but I'm glad I stuck with him. His book is wonderful, well thought out, and makes perfect sense of the insane policies our medias are screaming at us. High school boys showering with highschool girls because the boy suddenly feels like a woman. How insane are we? If this would have been suggested ten years ago, the idea would have been ridiculed out of existence. Now, like the Emporor's New Clothes, you're considered not 'woke' if you don't agree. We may have forgotten George Orwell, but we have Douglas Murray to tell us where we're headed--and it's not good. Read this book so you can sleep at night knowing that there is still sanity in the world. Read this book so you can calmly and analytically tell your Marxist friends why they are not only wrong, but are taking us into the insane world of Communisim, something that has led to abject misery for us ever time it's tried.

The author documents and analyzes the destructive descent into a type of identity driven madness which has really accelerated in our society over the past 5 years. He has 4 concisely constructed chapters dealing with race, gays, women and trans gender movement. He shows why the motive behind what we are seeing is not to improve the health of our polity and the lives of the people in these groups, but rather just Marxist tearing down of our way of life. Some of my favorite quotes : “ As anyone who has lived under totalitarianism can attest, there is something demeaning and soul destroying about being expected to go along with claims that you know not to be true.” “People looking for this movement (SJW) to wind down because of inherent contradictions will be waiting a long time” “One reason why contradiction is not enough to derail the movement is because nothing about the intersectional, social justice movement suggests that it is really interested in solving any of the problems it claims to be interested in” “The desire is not heal but to divide” “Among the many depressing aspects of recent years, perhaps the most troubling is the ease with which race has returned as an issue – bandied about by people who either can’t possibly realize the danger of the game they are playing” “The consequences of all this have not yet played out. But the response to BLM and the way in which it has overreached may yet be a return of white identity politics of exactly the type I and others have warned about” I can’t recommend this book enough.

In “The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity,” Douglas Murray argues that the identity politics on the Left is becoming so extreme that it no longer addresses substantial issues such as genuine civil rights. He believes that the death of grand narratives (such as Communism or Neoliberalism) and economic despair have attracted a new generation to identity politics as a way of maintaining stability and renewing failed Marxist ideas. Some characteristics of identity politics is that we believe someone is ultimately right in what they say if they are non-white heterosexual and that the goal of “intersectional” politics is to divide people, not bring them together. Another interesting aspect of identity politics is that when a group is more or less winning, they have to find new causes (some of which are dealing with fringe issues.) They also tend to act like their former oppressors and “cancel” people who don’t adhere a hundred percent to their world view. Lastly, Mr. Murray warns that extreme identity politics could cause an extreme illiberal backlash and play into white identity politics. Throughout the book, the author deals with identity politics as it pertains to gay, women, race, and transgender and has three interludes where he discusses the Marxist foundations to identity politics, the impact of big tech and a meditation on forgiveness in the age of “cancel culture.” What I liked about each chapter on identity is that it is more of a “deconstruction” (ironically) of the topic rather than providing an answer or solution to what it means to be gay for instance. For example, scholars on identity come from a place that gay is a “unfixed” category but then insist that to be gay is to be Left and not Right. These scholars problematize gender and say it is fluid. They are fine with going from straight to gay but then are outraged if someone wants to go from gay to straight. Once again, the author is demonstrating that these issues are more complicated than they are portrayed and that these issues are seen usually from the lens of leftist activism. Mr. Murray also draws attention to the fact that what was once considered a feminist position is now considered “right-wing hate speech.” This is explored in the most controversial chapter on transgenderism. Because of the Left’s obsession with being morally pure on every identity issue, anyone who has questions on certain aspects of the trans issue and public policy is cancelled. If a feminist brings attention to the fact that it is not fair for a biological male competing against women in sports, then they have to face the Twitter mob. My personal favorite chapter was “on forgiveness.” Perhaps what is so questionable about “wokeness” and “cancel culture” is that even if someone makes a minor mistake then the mob does not allow them in space or time to redeem themselves and be forgiven. I did, however, have one criticism of the section on race. The author portrays scholars of, say, critical race theory as arguing to see everything through the lens of race but doesn’t deal with their central argument that institutions can cause racial disparities even in a colorblind society. I felt like the author did not address this argument. In conclusion, I thought this was a well-argued book and worth reading if you want a critical analysis of identity politics and the “woke” phenomenon. I did not agree with everything the author said in all the identity chapters, but I didn’t think that was the point. It was more about critiquing a way of looking at the world purely through the lens of identity. This way of looking at the world will never go completely away but the point is to reduce its influence and go back to more substantive issues.

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.

If you are a liberal centrist like me, you will have taken great comfort in the progress that liberal democracies worldwide have made to deliver equality of opportunity to minorities and previously marginalised groups. Yet a new wave of social justice warriors have taken up a bewildering battle and opened new fronts in a war that was already largely won. Murray shows with incisive purpose and clarity that this has the effect of atomising society into ever-smaller tribes, based on gender, race and sexuality. If you're not in one of these tribes, or express the slightest doubt about their double standards and unfounded grievances, then you are the enemy. In this intensely fascinating book, Murray reveals the logical inconsistencies, absurdities and deranged claims of the gender, sexuality and diversity movement. His writing is like watching a skilful flame thrower incinerate his victims one-by-one, with devastating power and accuracy. It's a sheer joy to read. My Kindle highlights collection from this book is bigger than any other I've read and at times it feels like I'm highlighting every second passage. Some of the passages are pure theatrical invective, yet understated in such a way as to land a devastating blow. In short, you simply must read this jaw-dropping and outrageously entertaining book. Murray will leave you in no doubt about the importance of free speech and the dangers of thought-policed tribalism.

The author presents a number of good arguments and interesting perspectives, but never really justifies them or recognizes his own ultimately nihilistic perspective. His arguments are humanistic and bank on the fact that all "reasonable" people want the same things. Since he dismisses Christians as well meaning but quaint and faintly bigoted, he throws out the underpinnings for many of his assumptions, i. e. that people should care about harm to children, or exhibit grace, forgiveness, and empathy. This is a pretty major weakness. One cannot justify universal prescriptions from individualitic and humanistic perspectives. It is obvious that the force of his arguments will appeal most to the religious because his arguments make unargued moral suppositions. The fact at issue is that, as Christianity has been attacked and ousted, the suppositions to which he appeals are no longer tenable. I appreciate the effort, and certainly sympathize, but one cannot have it both ways. Either there is an underlying design and purpose for humanity or none of this stuff ultimately matters. Any sustainable victory over the absurdity of the trans movement is going to have to be rooted in a recognition of God given purpose, design, and entelechy with regard to humanity. A thing functions best and flourishes when it follows its design. When a thing is used improperly and contrary to its design it suffers and perishes. This is the universal principle embedded in nature, not by chance, but by the great Designer. Repentance is called for.

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.

Muito importante para entender a loucura em que vivemos atualmente.

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.

In his recent bestseller, The Madness of Crowds, Douglas Murray provides a readable critique of the “new religion” of “social justice” with its “identity group politics” and “intersectionalism” (2), the lumping together of different groups as if they had common or even identical interests. He criticises extreme positions on homosexuality, gender, race and transsexualism, particularly the intolerance and irrationality of those who take such positions. Throughout, he supplies substantial, fully documented evidence and makes a convincing case. His opening chapter discusses homosexuality and the struggle for gay rights, the excesses of that struggle, the distinction between gay and queer, and some interesting if not entirely convincing speculation on the causes of “homophobia.” (The quotation marks are Murray’s.) For this reader, an “Interlude” after the first chapter was more interesting. In that interlude, Murray discusses the Marxist foundations of today’s political correctness, the lack of proof and logic in its claims and the deliberate incoherence of much of the academic prose that promotes these claims. As someone who, in student days years ago, encountered such prose with its polysyllabic, buzzword vocabulary and the Gordian knot as its stylistic model, I appreciate Murray’s exposure of the pseudo-intellectual idiocy and his citing of spoof examples. The second chapter, titled “Women,” covers a range of issues: differences between men and women, mixed messages about acceptable sexual behaviour, the claim that women are not only equal to men but better, appropriate relations in the workplace, unconscious bias in hiring, “intersectionality,” affirmative action favouring the already privileged, the misandry of 3rd- and 4th-wave feminism and the influence of social media. A post-chapter interlude on technology claims that the communications revolution is accelerating the problems. Chapter 3 is on “Race.” Murray criticises the anti-racism that becomes racism against whites, the double standard where being non-white is a carte blanche (yes, I note the colour irony) to write or say anything about white people, especially white males, but being white, especially male and heterosexual, automatically dismisses what you write or say. (The title of Renni Lodge’s recent hit, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race, exemplifies the attitude.) Murray discusses the intrusion of racial obsession into areas such as academia, theatre, film, music and sports, criticises the concept of “cultural appropriation” and its absurdities, the expulsion of people from group identity if they express conservative political views, the difficulty of expressing beliefs in public forums where the slightest deviation from the most current version of political correctness and its prescribed language attracts violent abuse, and the taboo on the issue of race and IQ. The final chapter, on transsexualism, recognises a degree of gender ambiguity across different cultures and periods, defines the difference between intersex and transsexual and, especially, acknowledges the complexity of transsexualism and our limited understanding of it. Murray also points out the dangers and irreversibility of trans surgery and even hormone therapy, and suggests the need for caution, particularly with children who claim they experience “gender dysmorphia.” As throughout, his discussion of these difficult issues is reasonable and honest. Obviously, as with any book, particularly one that addresses current controversies, readers’ responses will vary. For myself, I sometimes wonder how important some of these issues are. Race, and women’s rights, are clearly important in contemporary Britain, but how many people are transsexual, or even homosexual? This is not to dismiss the rights of these minorities but to wonder if these specific groups get too much attention. Aren’t there bigger and, frankly, more important issues? Most people worry about unemployment, paying the mortgage, their own and their families’ problems, which don’t usually focus on homosexuality or transsexualism. And wider problems such as overpopulation, pollution and global warming are surely more urgent. A possible response to such observations would be that the issues Murray discusses are central if you’re in one of the relevant groups, a point that suggests a critical feature of reading and reviewing this book: the importance of the reader’s race, gender and sexuality in influencing his or her response. The issues discussed are tribal and, where a heterosexual white male may agree with Murray’s criticisms, another demographic may not, though, in a clever tactic, Murray reveals very late in the book that he himself is gay (262). A large part of Murray’s point is the difficulty, even impossibility, of a reasonable, evidence-based, tolerant dialogue about these issues. Perhaps time will make such a dialogue possible, but that hope may well be the triumph of optimism over experience, as the most recent events described in Murray’s afterword suggest.

Se me hace un libro muy completo, lleno de información acerca de los temas de actualidad, centrado principalmente en "Identity Politics" o coloquialmente dicho "Mis problemas son ahora los problemas de todos". En México distamos un poco de lo que el libro expone, no obstante, con leyes "Antichancla" esencialmente los padres ya no pueden educar a sus hijos de acuerdo con lo que ellos consideran correcto, en cambio ahora, al no poderles reprimir nada, ellos no tendrán otra referencia más que la de ser adeptos a la nueva religión expuesta en el libro, también conocida coloquialmente como el nuevo orden mundial. Esto no sé puede aplicar a toda la población, porque ¿Cómo el gobierno vigilaría a todos los niños en México? No se puede. Lo que sí puede pasar, como yo personalmente he atestado en mi vida, es que un niño o niña ruegue a un profesor subir la calificación porque “Sus padres le pegan”. Claramente algo que el maestro o maestra pueda reportar a las autoridades dependiendo de su criterio, esencialmente volviendo a los padres contra la ley, sea que el niño o niña diga o no la verdad. En México con el feminismo va al alza, bastando solo con ver los medios: la “Inge” que recientemente salió de Masterchef Mx, la jefa de gobierno de Ciudad de México Claudia Sheinbaum o la secretaria de estado Olga Sánchez Cordero que se declaran así mismas feministas. No obstante, esto lleva a ciertas contradicciones, por ejemplo, Sheinbaum permitiendo vandalismo disfrazado de activismo en él Estado de México ó el gobernador Francisco Domínguez en Querétaro, que hasta la fecha ha permitido que un patrimonio de la humanidad (los Arcos) se encuentre vandalizado por activistas feministas sin ninguna penalización a nadie. Las tendencias apuntan a que más allá de que se busque equidad, el feminismo lo que busca es supremacía, dejando sin plantear una opinión a cualquier hombre, ya que en cuanto el mismo lo haga, se le puede tachar de “Masculinidad Tóxica” o de “Mansplaining”. Lo mismo, el libro describe, ha hecho que la mayoría de la gente no le guste describirse como en favor del feminismo (puesto que ya tiene fuertes connotaciones negativas), si no a favor de la igualdad o equidad de género al menos en países como US o UK. EL libro no solo se centra en este grupo no obstante, sino que también menciona a las razas, los homosexuales y los transgénero, contándonos su relación intrínseca entre ellos lo cual puede llegar a ser perjudicial, por ejemplo los homosexuales y transgénero mencionan que no es un problema de Hardware (el hecho de nacer hombre o mujer) si no de Software (cualquiera puede pensar ser lo que sea que se quiera ser) y esto choca principalmente con el feminismo, porque entonces el feminismo está en cierta manera culpando al Hardware, mientras que los otros grupos claramente exponen que es un problema de Software. Lo dicho, es un buen libro que reafirma lo que muchos llevamos pensando sin poder hacer mucho al respecto, puesto que el mismo gobierno en México y en varios países del occidente parece ser parte de esta nueva religión. Lo interesante es que el libro lo fundamenta bastante bien al haber una cantidad generosa de referencias para poder consultar varios datos expuestos en el mismo libro.

Whatever happened to judging one on their actions and selecting them on their skills and talent? This question among others was continually on my mind as I read Douglas Murray's brilliantly written, thoroughly researched book. He confirmed what I have seen on the outside watching these crowds stomping on all that the people who came before us fought for and achieved. I have observed these crowds at a closer level. Being refused "something" because I'm not black or being forced to address someone a certain way or else. Murray also made me discover other fascinating characters in their quest to push their ideology instead of celebrating progress and achievements and working on current issues. All this does is divide rather than unite us. It's a long road and given when the book was published to what's happening now - Queers for Palestine - I sigh and think the road is long, very long. But there's a positive. Fact, truth, biology, play-fair no matter what, no matter who you are will win again. I appreciate the enormous amount of research that can be easily looked up - just check out the references in the back of the book. I can't take info by finger-pointing so-called writers, commentators claiming this or that without providing one shred of evidence and most dangerously, if they have a louder voice than the rest of us, build crowds, huge crowds. Douglas Murray is the opposite. This book has got it all and I suspect it would be one in which will go down, if it hasn't so already, as a modern classic.