Culture is, and should always be, at the forefront of societal change, and as writers, editors, agents, journalists, and publishing professionals,
Why should the people who put words in order be the vanguard of revolutionary change?
Why not be standing athwart the path of history shouting stop? Or any other place on the spectrum?
Because after the Revolution the culture makers will get more of everyone else’s money.
Face it, the appeal of socialism is that wealth creators have a lot of wealth. So naturally it is only fair to kill them and give most of that money to the people supporting socialism. It works as long as the socialists are vague about how they are going to divide the loot. Everyone can think they will benefit.
Until they don’t.
Says it all that the multitude of signatories have to add in brackets what it is they actually do as 99.99% (and even that’s being charitable) of the population will have no idea who they are and couldn’t care less about who they stand with.
“Culture is, and should always be at the” Religion is culture too. Discuss. (said in the Meet the Fokkers style I have nipples too, can you milk me?”)
What is best in life?
They switched from being reporters to being journalists. They make the news, they don’t report it.
As reported by Rush Limbaugh, when you ask a journalism student why they are taking journalism, they say they “want to change the world.” Objectiveism is gone. Journalist is a cuss word.
SMFS, I often ask the
jealoussocialist members of my acquaintance “How about we take all Jeff Bezo’s wealth ($175B) and divvy it up amongst the rest of us”, to which they nod enthusiastically.I then ask, “OK, what are you going to do with your $25”?
“what are you going to do with your $25”?
take his ex out for a drink.
Given who they purport to be, it looks like they are attempting to poke JK Rowling in the eye with a sharp stick.
I wonder when trannydom will get thrown under the bus and for what next. Perhaps they should run a “Britain’s got Social Hustlers” contest to find the next not-deserving minority.
@timmy,
The link is borked or it’s been taken down
Culture is, and should always be, at the forefront of societal change
This is a bad start. Society and its culture are inseperable: where they change they change in tandem.
…and as writers, editors, agents, journalists, and publishing professionals
Most decent writers (and the rest) reflect society and culture, activists seek to direct.
…we recognise the vital role our industry has in advancing and supporting the wellbeing and rights of trans and non-binary people.
Our society and culture are broadly tolerant and we tend to accept the freaks in our midst because it’s good manners to let people be as they will as long as they don’t make themselves a nuisance.
The difficulty now is that all the freaks band together into their separate increasingly strident “communities” because tolerance and good manners are no longer adequate and each “community” requires celebration, special treatment and a distortion of the values of the majority in order to suit their world-view.
Addolff October 1, 2020 at 10:20 am – “I then ask, “OK, what are you going to do with your $25”?”
Amazon provides me with a lot of benefits. I have got rare books that I would never have been able to access otherwise. It has stopped me searching dozens of shops for obscure Japanese DVDs. Not all of them porn.
So you should ask them – is the convenience of Amazon worth more than $25 to you? Has it saved you that much yet?
Hallowed Be October 1, 2020 at 10:39 am – “take his ex out for a drink.”
Ugh. Not for all the palimony in the world. But I am sure someone will.
gunker October 1, 2020 at 10:59 am – “The link is borked or it’s been taken down”
I bet TW has sent them so much traffic they could not cope. It was a Worstalanche. That and the threat of mockery.
Maybe 50% of the signatories chose to log in at the same time. Traffic like that would be enough to send most sites crashing.
Dear Mr Worstall
Their list includes you. Keep going.
As noted by gunker October 1, 2020 at 10:59 am, de-linked and a search on their website does not find it. Perhaps they are keen followers of your blog, though not necessarily for the right reasons.
DP
https://www.thesecondshelf.com/digest/a-message-from-members-of-the-uk-and-irish-publishing-community
“Culture is, and should always be, at the forefront of societal change”
But actually, it isn’t. It’s the inventors.
People had done English bibles before Tyndale, like Wycliffe 150 years earlier, but Tyndale’s worked because it was printed, it could be produced in huge numbers like Wycliffe’s couldn’t. Women’s liberation was about washing machines, freezers, cars and microwaves. The civil rights movement was a great deal about cars giving black people more mobility. Yes, I know MLK did some good speeches, but the car gave black people real power – they could drive out of racist states. The amplifier and electric guitar gave black musicians a way around the racist city orchestras. Slavery was abolished because of industrialisation.
I mean, isn’t it obvious? If it isn’t about invention, why didn’t it happen earlier?
I think it was Andrew Breitbart who said said years ago that politics is downstream of culture. He’s right to the extent that cultural ‘gatekeepers’ get to decide what are ‘proper’ subjects for discussion in the Academy and in the Media. By ignoring, misrepresenting or ‘cancelling’ ideas, scientific evidence or even people who disagree with you, it’s quite possible to bend the general public’s attitudes towards your own political viewpoint.
Culture is, and should always be, at the forefront of societal change, and as writers, editors, agents, journalists, and publishing professionals, we recognise the vital role our industry has in advancing and supporting the wellbeing and rights of trans and non-binary people.
So you take an hour to write a post and put it on an obscure website that nobody who isn’t a writer, editor, agent, journalist or publishing professional will read. Then you all congratulate yourselves for a job well done and knock off for drinks at the pub.
If that doesn’t bring about societal change, I don’t know what will.
Jonathan,
“I think it was Andrew Breitbart who said said years ago that politics is downstream of culture. He’s right to the extent that cultural ‘gatekeepers’ get to decide what are ‘proper’ subjects for discussion in the Academy and in the Media. By ignoring, misrepresenting or ‘cancelling’ ideas, scientific evidence or even people who disagree with you, it’s quite possible to bend the general public’s attitudes towards your own political viewpoint.”
For a time. But cultural gatekeeping is hard in the 21th century because it’s not that hard to work around, to build new sources of content or aggregators of content. Mark Zuckerberg is getting a lot of heat from the old gatekeepers for not blocking WrongThink on Facebook, but I think he grasps that kicking anyone pro-Trump off or running anti-Trump media will just see people leave and a new social network will get built.
@ Bloke on M4
” But cultural gatekeeping is hard in the 21th century because it’s not that hard to work around,”
True, which is why we’ve seen so much wailing and gnashing of teeth from those very gatekeepers about social media.
As for creating alternatives; those who try it have had a very difficult time. Many have been dropped by Banks and Credit Card companies, or booted by various platforms.
Isn’t change the antithesis of culture? Hence all the blah-blah about loss, damage, destruction and appropriation of culture.
We should listen to this geezer.
https://youtu.be/CBr6vDCj3Qw
“Culture is, and should always be, at the forefront of societal change, and as writers, editors, agents, journalists, and publishing professionals,”
Add to that list lawyers (sorry M’Lud) and you have the reason why every revolution from the French, through 1848 all over Europe and on to the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1919 failed to do anything for the working class. As soon as revolution was in the air those fuckers co-opted it for their own political ends.