Douglas Murray (1) (1979–)

A very well written book that clearly describes the cultural and political challenges that the west is undergoing and exposes the nature of the Marxist approach to deconstruct and the destruct all western institutions, beliefs, etc. the brief concluding chapter offers 2 ways forward to reverse the negative trend, of which only one preferred by the author, my view is unfortunately, the option that is to be avoided looks far more likely to be realised.
The 4 star rating was die to the brief and less than convincing conclusion, again a well written book describing the ills facing the west but very little on how to truly combat the threats faced.… (mere)

This is my second book by Douglas Murray, after [b:The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam|33584231|The Strange Death of Europe Immigration, Identity, Islam|Douglas Murray|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1497968929l/33584231._SY75_.jpg|54396772]. I first learned about him several years ago when he organized a poetry competition on the topic of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in response to the Böhmermann affair. He is very British in his defence of liberal values, free speech above all, with a great sense of humour, a true product of the British academia.

Again, I may not agree with everything he says, but I like books by provocative authors, as long as they make some sense. This was a thought-provoking and very on point book about the state of things in academia and the majority of media today.

Douglas Murray is not a typical conservative, he is gay and an atheist. That is why I was really interested in what he has to say on this topic. Some chapters were better ("Gay") than the others ("Race"). The thing I found lacking was that a lot of the argument was anecdotal and based on the black hole that is social media, esp. Twitter. The truth is, many leftist authors fall in the same trap.
I expected a deeper dig into the causes of the rise of the new SJW "orthodoxy". Still, I think Murray is very brave to have published a book like this. For the traditional right, this book is way too liberal, and it is very critical of the left, which leaves Murray with few allies (even though his other book got him a lot of right-wing fans).… (mere)

The author raises many interesting points at the heart of our contemporary moral landscape, he identifies logical inconsistencies between values and scientific fact, and he makes a strong point about how media, culture and politics are driven by the sensational rather than the useful and reasonable.

However, I remain disappointed in the half-baked thinking. Here we have neo-rationalist thinking that does not think beyond its tools. What you are reading and learning about is the instrumentation of words, the discussion about what they mean, without acknowledging that everything we do is made of the same words.

Specifically:
- While the author complains about sensationalization of information as distorting our reasoning, he himself leverages the same mechanism when identifying moral contradictions. And he never admits that perhaps his own sensationalization might lead to even more of a fight rather than the reasoned practical solutions he advocates.
- He takes on board research such as IQ and race without even for one moment worrying about definitions. This research is not problematic because of its methodology, it is divisive, unproductive and confusing because it relies on language that is not well defined. Most people do not realize we do not have clear definitions of neither intelligence nor race. So ultimately we are measuring cultural stereotypes ability to give rise to cultural stereotypes.

I believe the author has the potential to be a great informer and transformer if he were to work from establishing operational consensus definitions of his terminology rather that spending a book trying to give rise to inflammatory counter cultural exploits.… (mere)