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Anthropology Politics

Explaining Civilisation

July 1, 2025 121 Comments

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:

Officers have drawn up a PowerPoint presentation for asylum seekers in hotels on the key points of “UK culture” which they are told they should respect. It includes recognising that women “have the same rights as men,” so “must be treated with respect and courtesy.” They are also told that violence of any kind is “not acceptable,” which is emphasised by being capitalised in the presentation.

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:

The initiative by Northamptonshire Police followed community and parental complaints over young male asylum seekers loitering near a primary school in the county, including claims of filming.

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

The police presentation, obtained under freedom of information laws, warns migrants against taking photos and videos. Its disclosure comes just days after a 29-year-old Afghan asylum seeker tried to defend his rape of a 15-year-old Scottish schoolgirl by citing cultural differences and a language barrier.

Lawyers for Sadeq Nikzad, who entered the UK illegally on a small boat in 2023, told the court that he had not been educated about the significant cultural differences between the UK and Afghanistan. He was jailed for nine years for the sex attack, in Falkirk town centre.

Last week the Telegraph revealed that foreign nationals are responsible for more than a quarter of convictions for sex assaults on women.

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:

There’s also a weird air of displacement, of vehemently resenting those who notice the problem. And so, we get claims like this one, in which BBC broadcaster Dan Snow denounces as “stunningly racist” even the suggestion that incompatible tribes exist. Because Mr Snow feels they shouldn’t exist, that they somehow ought not to. And so, magically, they don’t. And only Very Bad People would say they do.

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

The idea that there may be very real physical constraints on some favoured policy – that reality may not comply with half-baked theory – seems entirely alien to Mr Snow. An attitude not uncommon among his progressive peers, and which may help explain the lively events currently underway in several British cities.

Mr Snow, since you ask, is married to the philanthropist Lady Edwina Louise Grosvenor, daughter of the sixth Duke of Westminster, one of the country’s richest landowners, with an estimated fortune north of £7 billion. Needless to say, Mr Snow does not live in, or anywhere near, the kinds of “diverse” neighbourhoods now being trashed and terrorised by competing tribes.

Tribes that apparently shouldn’t exist.

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.

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Written by: David
Agonies of the Left Film Politics

Dumb, Yes, But Fashionable

June 21, 2025 90 Comments

From the world of cinema and pretentious agonising:

The world is big and different people will be interested in different things, but this seems like a really stupid thing to think about for more than two seconds https://t.co/qWAKhVNMKG

— wanye (@wanyeburkett) June 20, 2025

The implications of Mr Boyle’s modish piety, presumably unintended yet implied nonetheless, are explored quite pithily in the replies.

Among which, the implication that white writers and directors should only concern themselves with suitably pale-skinned characters, carefully excluding non-white characters, and non-white actors, lest they appropriate or colonise something or other.

Likewise, the implication that a white person couldn’t possibly comprehend the inner life of a brown person – these magical, put-upon beings – which itself rather implies that white audiences needn’t turn up to films in which non-white people appear prominently. Due to their alleged incomprehensibility.

Strange basis for a global film industry, if you ask me. But there we are.

Update, via the comments:

Previously in the world of pretentious agonising:

Setting aside the small matter of, er, assault and strangulation, readers may wish to ponder the notion, advanced by Mr Rivera and his numerous supporters, that white people, especially white people with blonde hair, shouldn’t be allowed to serve Japanese food.

Do follow the link for the inevitable twist and colossal hypocrisy.

And from the comments following which, this:

The dogmatic scolds who bang on about “cultural appropriation” rarely display much understanding of how culture comes about. Perhaps they imagine that the world would be richer and more pious without Akira Kurosawa’s vivid reworkings of Shakespeare, or his ‘appropriation’ of American band music of the 30s and 40s, and without Kurosawa’s own films inspiring Sergio Leone and George Lucas, etc. The riffs and copying, the to-and-fro, are to a very large extent what culture is.

But no, we must all become twitchy and neurotic. That’s bound to go well.

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Written by: David
Anthropology His Pretty Nails Politics

Drag Queen Incongruity 2

June 19, 2025 30 Comments

Further to this, which some of you are still processing – understandably, I suppose – I do have more. Complete with wearied question:

Who actually enjoys this? Serious question, who enjoys watching this stuff? It’s not even a morality question or whatever. It’s who the hell finds this entertaining? https://t.co/f3sA7wytqx

— Gary (@plzbepatient) June 18, 2025

In the subsequent thread, the term humiliation ritual is deployed.

Not unfairly, I think.

Other questions include “Is this real?”

Update, via the comments:

In reply to the question immediately above, EmC notes this,

It occurred on June 18, 2025, celebrating a resolution honouring Black drag history,

And asks,

Er… why?

It does, I think, raise the question of whether further resolutions, and further transvestite vamping, will be required for drag queens of other racial and ethnic groups. Lest some drag queens feel insufficiently included and affirmed.

Hm. I suspect today may be a day of many questions.

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Written by: David
Politics Those Poor Darling Burglars

Have You Tried Storing Them Upright?

May 25, 2025 94 Comments

From the Telegraph, on crime, incarceration, and dubious conclusions:

Up to 43,000 criminals are set to avoid prison each year under Government plans to combat jail overcrowding, an analysis of official figures by the Telegraph reveals. The criminals, including burglars, shoplifters and knife offenders, will instead face community sentences under the plans to scrap most jail terms of under 12 months.

The law change, recommended by an independent review headed by David Gauke, the former Tory justice secretary, will order courts to only jail offenders for less than a year in “exceptional circumstances,” including domestic abuse, stalking, and breaching orders linked to violence against women and girls.

The analysis also reveals that up to 1,500 killers, rapists and other serious sexual and violent offenders will be eligible for early release each year under the shake-up, which is designed to free up nearly 10,000 prison spaces.

Readers will note the odd implication that the level of serious criminal behaviour at any given time should somehow conform to the amount of prison space you have at that time. As if the moral gravity of a criminal act, and likelihood of recidivism and danger to the public, should be determined by whether or not you can be bothered to build another dungeon.

Speaking of recidivism, it’s perhaps worth revisiting this:

UK data show that 70% of custodial sentences are imposed on those with at least seven previous convictions or cautions, and 50% are imposed on those with at least 15 previous convictions or cautions.

Other, related statistics, linked above, may widen the eyes.

Update via the comments:

Regarding burglary and its devotees, this came to mind:

For readers curious as to exactly how much misery, fear, and social degradation a very small number of burglars can inflict on the world, on the better people around them, this item here may prove illuminating. In it, three prolific burglars, who between them had accumulated over 200 convictions, met their not-entirely-tragic end after colliding head-on with a lorry, while driving down the motorway at more than twice the speed limit, in the wrong direction, in a stolen BMW. Their fiery ceasing-to-be resulting in a rather significant drop in the local burglary rate.

An illustration, one of many, of how a very large fraction of crime could be prevented by dealing decisively with a surprisingly small number of persistent offenders.

Needless to say, there’s more to chew on in the linked piece. Likewise here, where friends and relatives of the three burglars – the ones with over 200 convictions between them – claim, somewhat improbably, that the deceased were “too good for this stupid, shitty world.” As if the trio – whose other activities included assaulting and mugging elderly couples and bedridden cancer patients – were, unlike their numerous victims, somehow deserving of public sympathy.

And which, I suspect, tells us something about the quality of those friends and relatives, their moral orientation.

In the comments, Geoff quotes this from the recidivism link, above:

before ending up in prison, the vast majority of the perpetrators, our supposed victims, have at least five prior arrests, with almost half having 10 or more, and one in seven, 20 or more.

Then adds,

I don’t think people understand it takes a lot of work to end up in prison.

Well, indeed.

Via Tim Worstall.

Previously in the world of crime and punishment, a trilogy of sorts – parts one, two, and three.

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Written by: David
Politics The Thrill Of Endless Noise

Aversions

May 6, 2025 99 Comments

A thread of possible interest:

This is followed by a non-trivial observation:

On this latter point, should an example prove helpful, readers may wish to revisit the unconvincing contrivance of Guardian columnist Zoe Williams – specifically, her scolding of those who’d prefer not to have sociopathic neighbours – say, the kinds of creatures who blast out loud music in the small hours, and who, for entertainment, hurl pets from upstairs windows.

An aversion Ms Williams denounced as a “demonisation of the poor,” a project of “extinction,” in which those who’d rather not have their ornaments rattled by another all-night next-door rave, are “trying to shunt people out of society for not being rich enough.”

According to Zoe, those who’d prefer not to be assailed by thunderous basslines at 4am, or to have their evenings enlivened by small, terrified animals falling from the sky, are merely being cruel, “dehumanising,” and needlessly judgemental. For Zoe, the problem with ‘problem families’ is simply that they’re poor, and nothing whatsoever to do with how they choose to abuse their equally poor neighbours.

In the world of our Guardian columnist, we – by which she means you – should be “unstigmatising,” which is to say, non-judgemental. Passive and accepting, on an indefinite basis. A process via which empathy, or feigned empathy, is shifted from the working-class victim of crime and antisocial behaviour to the working-class perpetrator of crime and antisocial behaviour, on grounds that the thug or criminal is in some way being oppressed and, unlike their neighbours, being made to misbehave.

Needless to say, this prompted some lengthy speculation as to how Ms Williams might react, should she wake one morning to find a family of violent morons moving in next door to her:

Presumably Ms Williams’ own neighbours have little in common with, say, the delightful Stuart Murgatroyd, a father of twelve who has never worked and boasts an extensive criminal record, not least for robbing the elderly in graveyards, and whose attempt to challenge an Anti Social Behaviour Order was cut short at the very last minute due to him being arrested for assaulting the mother of his children, herself a convicted getaway driver, on the steps of the courthouse.

And,

Imagine, if you will, a reality TV show of perhaps a dozen episodes, in which, having been banished from their current council-house digs, the Murgatroyds move in next door to our Guardian columnist and champion of the downtrodden – albeit, until now, from a safe distance. Would we be treated to heart-warming chats across the garden fence, and exchanged cups of sugar, while the families’ respective children – Zoe’s are named Thurston and Harper – have jolly times together?

As a real-world test of Zoe’s scrupulously progressive worldview, her professed concern for the common man, it would, I think, make for instructive viewing.

Update, via the comments:

Connor adds,

It’s always hypocrisy. None of it is real.

Well, the idea that Zoe, who lives far removed from rough council estates, would herself behave in the same way she demands that others do is quite laughable. It’s so transparently unconvincing, so absurd, that you have to wonder how these obvious dishonesties can go unchallenged in her world. Unless, of course, everyone in her world is pretending much the same things.

As I said here, with suitably vivid examples:

Guardian columnists, and progressives in general, don’t seem particularly interested in the functional working class. Their greatest enthusiasm, and their most ambitious contrivance, seems reserved for the feckless and dysfunctional, the pathologically selfish, the incorrigibly criminal. That’s when we get displays of what amounts to a perverse art form.

Part of the reason, I suspect, is that there’s little in-group status to be had in pretending to care about functional people of modest means. Instead, they pretend to care about more exotic demographics. And so, among progressives, we get pretentious compassion for unrepentant and habitual thieves, habitual burglars, habitually criminal drivers. Oh, and dog thieves and armed muggers, obviously.

It seems to me this is the level it typically works on. So, again, pretending.

And let’s not forget Peter Matthews, an Urban Studies lecturer ostensibly offended by “urban inequalities,” and who wants to ensure that more of us live next door to “the poor and marginalised.” Writing in the Guardian, Dr Matthews agonised over litter inequality and the fact that rougher neighbourhoods tend to be strewn with wrappers, cans, and food-smeared detritus. And so, we had lots of fretting about inequalities in litter density, while the question of how the litter gets there remained, rather oddly, of zero interest. With the words drop and littering pointedly not appearing.

Presumably for fear that these practical details might have inegalitarian implications.

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Written by: David
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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.