Douglas Murray on The Realignment #65: books mentioned

“every single one of these cases every single one of these issues however has at some point fulfilled the famous quote of eric hoffer who said that was 80 years ago now said every good cause begins as a good cause becomes a business and degenerates into a racket”

“I'm very keen that people realize the two things: first of all, I completely agree with you, and it’s very important to state—I stated at the opening of The Madness of Crowds—every single one of the rights issues I'm talking about starts not only in a good place but an exceptionally admirable place.”

“now here's here's if i may say so one way of doing that i say in the madness of crowds”

“Now, here's one way of doing that—I say in The Madness of Crowds, what if we could agree on a certain definition and, indeed, objective?”

“And it's certainly fair to say that elements of the left were more vocal, more involved in each of the rights movements that I'm talking about in The Madness of Crowds than they were on the right.”

“and as i know in the manners of crowds i use at the opening a metaphor that i take from the late australian philosopher ken minogue”

“And he, in his extraordinary perception on this, is something I pick up and run with in The Madness of Crowds where I say the civil rights fight in the 1960s was a real dragon slaying.”

“now some people say to me douglas we are not in a situation yet where we are swinging the sword of social justice and much more at thin air”

“And one of the oddities of the situation in America in particular is—and I say this in The Madness of Crowds—the extent to which, after these battles are won, the wannabe dragon slayers who would have loved to have been with them with Martin Luther King in the march on Washington, who would have loved to have been the Stonewalling,”

“I say this in The Madness of Crowds: to read a hugely celebrated black writer today like, like Toni Morrison is to read somebody who writes more angrily about America than James Baldwin did when there were many, many more things to be angry about.”

“uh and i would say this first of all i mean by the way i say in the gay chapter and i say in the trans chapter in the madness of crabs that the lgbt bit i said i said this ahead of dave chappelle”

“I would say this, first of all, by the way, I say in the gay chapter and I say in the trans chapter in The Madness of Crowds that the LGBT issue—I said this ahead of Dave Chappelle, I might add by the way—I said the LGBT bit of the alphabet doesn't add together.”

“And I explain in The Madness of Crowds why the trans issue is quite unlike all the other bits of LGBT.”

“That doesn't mean that we shouldn't treat trans people with respect, but the trans question—and I say this in the last chapter of The Madness of Crowds—is a very little-known question.”

“one of the things that i say at one point in the madness of crowds is if you play the intersectional game including the representation game on the terms of the intersection list you actually may get yourself to a situation where all you've done is create a new hierarchy”

“The intersectionalists, who I critique in The Madness of Crowds, have always had a problem with class.”

“One of the things that I say at one point in The Madness of Crowds is, if you play the intersectional game, including the representation game, on the terms of the intersectionalists, you actually may get yourself to a situation where all you've done is create a new hierarchy.”

“and this is why we have the weird thing of people being thrown out of their character group if they think the wrong things”

“By the way, a very quick example of that, if I may say this in The Madness of Crowds, is why we have the weird thing of people being thrown out of their character group if they think the wrong things.”