In many western societies offence is functioning is an epistemological virtue in as much as it has somehow, by some, been accepted to be a winning move during a conversation. I don’t necessarily expect people to read what I have to say and immediately believe “being offended” to be entirely useless, but I hope to at least make the argument that there is an unnecessary suffering almost being wilfully generated by those who believe that being hurt by another person’s words is the “correct” reaction.
Read moreEven Brexit Takes a Back Seat to Identity Politics
It's the game that everybody wants to play, but it's a game that no-one can win
Illustration on the conscience at work in even athiests by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times
Today the nation bore witness to the devolution of real debate in exchange for a demonstration of fake offense and virtue signalling. What is the only thing that could put the relentless conversation over Brexit on pause? Apparently it is the ever-toxic arrival of identitarianism.
Allegedly Jeremy Corbyn called Theresa May a stupid woman. He says that he didn't. A lot of people say that he did. I couldn't care less. Here, I'll say it for you; Theresa May is a stupid woman. I don't even know that I believe it to be true, but I certainly know that my saying it shouldn't now take pride and place as the highest priority in any discussion I have for the next week.
Rational conversation is frequently destroyed when one of the participants is willing to scare people into silence with the introduction of victimisation, claiming the other person is "racist", "sexist", or any other such slur. We should welcome almost everybody to the table of reasoned discourse, but if people cannot be adult enough to avoid bringing it to such a premature end they should not be invited. I would not invite a Jihadist to a dinner party because I'd rather like to get to dessert before we were all blown up.
While this takes place amongst colleagues or family it is one thing, but when our MPs are no longer considering serious issues (like what the hell we are going to do when we leave the European Union) because too many people are having fun pretending to be offended, then it has surpassed an "annoyance" and is now potentially devastating on a national level.
The formation of "intellectual dark web" has often been called into question by even those likely participants in such a movement as unnecessary or self-congratulatory. Therefore this is as good a time as any to point out that this is exactly why it exists. With the Overton window having shrunk and moved so far left so as to not even intersect with majority public opinion there are those who find one another and agree on the very basic principle that they will be generous in their interpretation of opinions and brave enough to talk about risky topics.
I have been struggling to bring this article to an encouraging end, perhaps appealing to our shared ability to be more charitable to one another and avoid public discourse becoming an ouroboros with everybody appealing to all of the ways in which they are more of a victim. I don't know though. Many intelligent people have been screaming about this for years now, and yet here we are, where our elected public representatives are playing the "sexism" card instead of making sure we still have some semblance on a United Kingdom at the end of 2019.