For those with an interest in recent history, and indeed surrealism, a catalogue of progressive cancel culture.

Among the sins punished with both swiftness and eyebrow-raising severity – questioning the benefits of rioting; questioning overt racial favouritism at the University of California, Los Angeles; saying that George Floyd wasn’t actually a moral exemplar; liking tweets in support of Donald Trump; questioning the methods of Black Lives Matter; showing the 1965 film of Laurence Olivier’s Othello to students at the University of Michigan; and teaching students of Chinese how to pronounce Chinese words.

And regarding the above, this:

And also, from recent comments, this by Mr Wanye Burkett:

Readers may wish to ponder whether the sins mentioned above – expressing doubts about rioting, or teaching Chinese pronunciation to students of Chinese – exist on the same level of inaptness as, say, a public-school teacher showing ten-year-olds shockingly graphic video of a man being shot in the neck, and killed, in front of his family, and showing that footage repeatedly, “numerous times,” while hectoring those same ten-year-olds on the merits of so-called “anti-fascism.”

Answers on a postcard, please.

Update, via the comments:

Regarding the example immediately above, John D adds,

It does, I think, invite questions as to the vetting of public school educators and the kinds of personalities the job seems to attract in high concentrations. It also invites questions as to what kind of environment, what kind of workplace assumptions, might make a teacher of ten-year-olds think that such behaviour would be considered acceptable.

I mean, if nothing else, and even absent any conventional moral inhibition, you’d think that one of the obvious considerations for a teacher of ten-year-olds might at least be the assumption that parents will find out. In this case, when their children arrive home bewildered and distressed. And to therefore behave accordingly. And yet.

Update 2:

Regarding this,

Liz adds,

Or sufficiently sympathetic, politically, to not mind too much, or maybe just accustomed to politicised overreach and inapt behaviour in general. Those would seem to be among the more obvious inferences. And as so often, it appears that shocked parents, rather than colleagues, were the ones to object.

On the subject of parents being shocked to discover, belatedly, what their children are actually being taught, these three incidents came to mind. Among many others. Note, in the third link, the casual invention of a fake curriculum – yes, a fake curriculum – so as to deceive any curious parents.

And all while insisting, “This is not being deceitful.”

In light of which, the “anti-fascist” snuff-video session mentioned above doesn’t exactly scream anomaly or aberration, or some unfortunate misreading of the room, so much as a ratcheting upwards.

With a hat-tip to Darleen.

Apparently, and this may be news to you, littering isn’t a moral shortcoming of the people actually dropping the litter:

Which seems awfully convenient, for a certain kind of person, if not entirely convincing.

Litter – and its inegalitarian distribution – is a topic we’ve touched on before. From which, this came to mind:

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

From the pages of Metro, some highly emotional news:

I’ll give you a moment to steady yourselves. What with the brutality of it all. Namely, a supermarket aisle with – and I quote,

Apparently mere proximity to such a thing – again, a shelf of houmous in a supermarket – can traumatise grown men of a progressive persuasion. Including Mr Amro Tabari, whose dip-induced agonising unfolds before you now:

No, the relevance escapes me, too. Perhaps something will be made of this later, given sufficient contrivance.

I go for the red pepper variety, myself. Hey, I’m just sharing, too.

No laughing at the back. This is a tearful tale.

Stunned by houmous options. When not sobbing, I mean, or filled with a sickening outrage. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Mr Tabari’s emotions, or professed emotions, incline towards the operatic. One might say baffling.

I suspect an explanation of a sort may be looming.

Ah, the aforementioned contrivance. Houmous as a political identity. I think this is where the credulous are meant to feel guilty, or deferential, or something.

I would guess that at least some of those baristas, flower shop owners and amateur theatre actors are just being polite. Not everyone needs a sermon with their dip. Even in Brighton.

You see, that’s where we’re going. Because of course we are. He’s had photos done and everything.

This is starting to sound like one of those fabulist anecdotes in which the speaker is supposedly always being asked, “But how do you cope with being so slim and pretty and loved by everyone?”

One more time. Dip.

And finally, inevitably, the demand:

Or you could just, you know, dial back the pretentious, self-involved whining. Three or four notches should do it.

Update, via the comments:

John D quotes this bold claim,

And adds, drily,

Liz asks,

It does seem to involve a lot of needless drama. Such that one can be traumatised and outraged, reduced to sobbing, by the availability of a savoury dip. It all sounds exhausting. And I think we’re expected to admire this emotional self-indulgence and the cack-handed attempt to manipulate.

And ComputerLabRat speaks for many with this:

I suppose we might, in theory, feel sorry for Mr Tabari, whose time in leftist circles has led him to believe that his self-involved dramas are a basis for being taken seriously. As someone for whom houmous is an identity and a basis for attention and deference. Someone who invokes the alleged injury of “cultural appropriation” and consequently bursting into tears, as if this would be a good look. A basis for status and applause.

I mean, to imagine that this is the look to go for, in a national newspaper, where people can see, does suggest a level of loserdom.

From the pages of Business Insider, more progressive-woman-lifestyle news:

What those values might be will, perhaps, become clear, if only by implication.

That’s the article’s headline. The star of this drama is Ms Cindy Sheahan, a former real-estate agent. Judging by the tone and triumphant photograph, I’m guessing we’re supposed to regard Ms Sheahan as some kind of inspirational figure. No explanation is offered for Ms Sheahan divorcing her husband, taking half his stuff, and then putting half a planet between her family and herself. There are no mutterings of neglect or infidelity. No hardships of any kind.

The nearest we come to a justification is,

And, er, so,

Again, the whys and wherefores of this radical uprooting remain oddly nebulous. Beyond, that is, the intrigue of unfamiliar food. We are, however, informed,

So says our woman of high progressive principle – the woman who abandoned her husband and family, and her job, seemingly forever, despite promising to return:

Quite what Ms Sheahan’s employers made of this, or indeed her husband and four children, is, alas, not disclosed. Evidently they were deemed of no importance in this tale of progressive empowerment. And so, Ms Sheahan went searching for herself in Cambodia, and in Vietnam. And Laos. And Madagascar. And Turkey and Cyprus. And France and Spain and Portugal and Greece. Indeed, this quest for self – this attempt to find an alignment of values – spanned “nearly fifty countries.”

Before – presumably thwarted – trying Italy:

And as you can imagine, Ms Sheahan is so into authenticity.

And being so authentic, so attuned to higher matters, her days are now spent eating alone in restaurants:

Oh, and grocery shopping. Specifically,

Ah, the inexhaustible romance of buying tomatoes. It’s all about personal growth, you see:

For some reason, the abandoned husband and four distant children come to mind.

Ah.

So screw those guys. Madam has tomatoes to buy.

If the above sounds vaguely familiar, you may be thinking of this.

Via Dicentra.

And in thriving multiculturalism news:

Exactly zero men who would loiter near schools to harass or sexually assault young girls will be deterred by a power point presentation. If that’s not innately unthinkable to you, no amount of talk will make it so and you simply have no place in civilization. https://t.co/5Beehg9EGK

— Hunter Ash (@ArtemisConsort) June 27, 2025

From the Telegraph piece in question:

Ah, capital letters. That should do it.

The unhappy statistics quoted in the article – say, that illegal migrants from Afghanistan are 22 times more likely to commit sex offences – will melt away in no time. And the fact that remarkably similar patterns are found in other European countries suddenly drenched in vibrancy is something that will doubtless just sort itself out.

The uninvited newcomers – chiefly, it seems, men of fighting age and all mysteriously unencumbered by identifying documents – are given helpful pointers on the customary use of pavements and pedestrian crossings, and are warned about the hazards of randomly strolling through moving traffic on busy roads. They are also introduced to the novel concepts of avoiding foul language in public and not abusing animals for amusement purposes.

Other teething problems have, it seems, arisen:

Not loitering at the gates of primary schools in order to film small children being another cultural subtlety requiring clarification.

As I’m sure you’d agree, it’s all going terribly well.

Readers will, of course, recall Finland’s answer to such sudden-onset vibrancy – namely, the please-don’t-rape-me dance, performed below.

Finnish socialist women dance to ask fake asylum seekers not to sexuaIIy abuse European women. Socialist women are a problem. pic.twitter.com/PtIwNRpwx9

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) April 27, 2025

As a yardstick of civilisational self-destruction, and dark farce, it’s quite a thing. As is the pernicious conceit, so fashionable among Our Betters, that if only we were kinder and more thoughtful, if only we fretted more and were somehow more accommodating, and if only we’d stop noticing, these things would just go away.

As illustrated during last year’s tribal rioting:

And from the same, what one might regard as a telling detail:

The unrealism of such people and their peers, Our Betters, has created a problem on a vast scale and which is dire in its implications – a problem that they are apparently unwilling to fix or even clearly identify. And so, they retreat further into unrealism and absurdity – with PowerPoint presentations on not abusing animals and please-don’t-rape-me dances – while expecting others – those on whom they’ve inflicted the problem – to become unrealistic and absurd too.

It’s the progressive way. In this and so much else.

Update, via the comments:

One of the consequences of massive, indiscriminate immigration – equivalent to the entire population of Sheffield, every year – is that it radically alters the general mood of those on whom this demographic transformation is being imposed. One might, for instance, aspire to the role of gracious host, as it were, of making newcomers feel welcome. But this ideal presupposes an immigration policy that is limited and selective, and in which newcomers have good reason to feel lucky – and grateful.

The graciousness of the locals, the ideal, depends on the notion that the host country is regarded as something special, a desirable thing, something worthy of respect.

But massive, indiscriminate immigration undermines that ideal. If seemingly anyone can walk in and demand goodies, any ill-mannered flotsam of the world, and if they can do so with no discernible sense of gratitude, or any expectation of such, and with no apparent regard for the norms and values of the host society, as if they were unimportant, then the indigenous population may feel they have little reason to be gracious. Indeed, being gracious may be something of a struggle.

I realise that even the idea that the locals might dare to think in such terms – of being the gracious host – is, for some, anathema, a basis for tutting and scolding. But the sense that the value of one’s society – one’s home – is being pissed away, sold off cheap, is not a promising basis for coexistence.

And yet here we are.

Doubtless there are progressives who would regard the ‘gracious host’ attitude as wickedly hierarchical and ‘othering’, or even racist. But I suspect it’s how quite a few people process a sudden influx of newcomers, regardless of the gasping of lefties. I suspect that something along those lines is a necessary precondition of any subsequent coexistence. A social lubricant.

And were I to relocate to, say, South Korea, I think I would feel much like a guest – and feel a corresponding obligation to be on my best behaviour. Possibly on an indefinite basis. I very much doubt I’d feel entitled to disregard queueing norms, or to, quite literally, shit on the doorsteps of the indigenous.

But hey, maybe that’s just me.