Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
… where he has said something he knows is liable to wilful misunderstanding, and has therefore explicitly drawn attention to the likely misunderstanding and provided added reassurance that this is not what he means, but you go on and insist that he means what you need him to mean anyway, because he’s dared raise a subject which is verboten amongst metropolitan lefties.
|
Well, we have a difference of opinion on his motivations. You think he was making a point about groups integrating into wider society and the danger of them forming enclaves away from everyone. I think he was tapping into a rising ethnonationalism within the UK.
This wasn't the first time he reached for 'white' as a shorthand for talking about integration, and I don't think it will be the last.
Quote:
|
It seems to me you’ve been so careful to curate your acceptable beliefs and opinions that you’re quite unable to believe Jenrick might simply mean what he says.
|
I curate my beliefs the same as everyone does. My politics have changed over time, but not as much as Jenerick, who's gone on quite the political journey over the last 10 years. Maybe it's genuine, or maybe he is the one curating his opinions based on what's politically expedient for him at the time.
Quote:
|
There has been a sea-change in public discourse over the past few years - I refuse to believe you’re so deaf you can’t hear it. But until you’re ready to engage with it as opposed to labelling it ‘gaslighting’ (and by making that accusation you’re actually doing the very thing you’ve accused Jenrick of doing), you’re going to be powerless to stop it. At this point by the way I mean ‘you’ very much in the plural, i.e. all those whose instinct reply along the lines of ‘you can’t say that’ when forced to confront the protests of the lumpen proles.
|
I know there is a sea-change in discourse, it's just I disagree with a lot of it. I don't think it's wrong to want to stop illegal migration. I don't think it's racist to say that. What I do disagree with most at the moment is the talk of going after migrants who have Leave to Remain, and discussions on who counts as English. The latter was never on the table when I was growing up, and now it's relatively common in the right-wing 'commentariat. It's that argument I think Jenerick is trapping into.
A popular view into why this sea-change happened is that the left got too confident, got too wrapped up in its own bubble, lost connection with the wider public and pushed views totally alien to them. I think the online right is starting to make the same mistake, giddy on how much the cultural pendulum has swung back in their direction, and Jenerick is too encased in that world.
I am not really sure what else to say, other than to see where he goes next.