Right but Repulsive or Wrong but Wromantic?
by Melanie Phillips:
One of the many paradoxes about our frightening culture wars is that western society, which constantly congratulates itself on being the acme of rationality and freedom, has in fact abandoned reason for emotion and freedom for coercion.
We can see this on display all around us. It’s in the baleful grip of identity politics, based on the dogma that people’s feelings trump objective truth. It’s in the witch-hunts against ideas or opinions which dissent from approved left-wing positions. It’s in the widespread following for loopy conspiracy theories, whether against the Jews or politicians said to be inflating the dangers of Covid-19 purely to seize control of people’s lives.
It’s in the widespread support for Black Lives Matter as an “anti-racist” cause, whereas it is in fact an anti-white, anti-west revolutionary movement. It’s in the widespread support for Extinction Rebellion as a campaign to “save the planet” from man-made global warming, whereas in fact there’s no reputable scientific evidence that anything is happening to the climate that diverges from warming and cooling patterns over the millennia while Extinction Rebellion is an anti-west, anti-capitalist revolutionary movement. And so on, and on.
A new series on BBC2 by Sir Simon Schama, The Romantics and Us, tells us correctly that our current trends aren’t new but have roots in the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This was a revolt against convention and authority, elevating the rights of the individual and downplaying reason in favour of emotion and sensibility.
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