British intellectual Douglas Murray, the author of The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity
London-based public intellectual Douglas Murray is in Montreal this week to promote his new book. I was afforded the luxury of a rambling conversation over coffee with him about
The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity.
A "clubbable conservative," as one reviewer accurately describes him, Murray hit his intellectual stride early, publishing his first book at 18, which attracted the attention and mentorship of polemical giants Christopher Hitchens and Roger Scruton. Quite different in personality from Jordan Peterson (less intensity, more suavity), he's equally erudite and similarly crowd-pleasing (they've done joint appearances in the U.K., attracting massive audiences).
Murray shot to international celebrity with his powerful, if depressing 2017 book, The Strange Death of Europe, which opens with the words, "Europe is committing suicide. Or at least its leaders have decided to commit suicide." Joining frontline reports from unpleasant way stations in the 2015 migrant crisis to insightful analysis of the West's present malaise, Murray painted a gloomy picture of continental passivity in the face of momentous cultural change.
In
The Madness of Crowds, also inspired by the West's loss of a "grand narrative," Murray applies his formidable exegetical skills to the proliferation of identity politics "tripwires" that corrode civic life and wreak havoc with individual lives.
Murray writes:
"The interpretation of the world through the lens of 'social justice,' 'identity group politics' and 'intersectionalism' is probably the most audacious and comprehensive effort since the Cold War at creating a new ideology." Christianity has been spurned, but the religious impulse is inherent and abhors a vacuum. The "religion" of social justice, Murray observes, poured itself into the handy campus vessel of Marxism with remarkable speed.
Comment: The video has since been re-instated by YouTube, but you'd probably be better off watching it on BitChute here.
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