Our age may think of itself as open minded. But if a taboo is something that everybody knows to be true, but which nobody is meant to say, then this age has as many as any other. On a huge number of matters from gender to sexuality and race to mental health our age is undergoing a set of transformations in attitudes. Social media and online networks far from freeing up dissenting speech have emboldened the mob and exacerbated group think.
In his first book since the author' s sparkling bestseller (The Strange Death of Europe), Douglas Murray examines some of these taboos and in the process describes the underlying issue to be what he terms Intersectionalit' . It turns all identity groups into one camp, turns morally neutral character traits into virtues and goods in themselves. And these are then used as weapons against the real enemy- patriarchy, whiteness, heterosexuality and so much more.
Diving in at the deep end, Murray launches into the transgender debate where non-binary and gender-queer abound. This has become the right-on agenda after gay liberation has accomplished its aims.
Are women the same as men? What about people of colour? Anti-Imperialism - the statue of Cecil Rhodes being a case in point. The crisis in mental health - the fight for recognition of genuine mental health problems. Can the stampede to medicalise society be halted?
The task of this book is to suggest some of the things we are currently doing which our descendants will look back at with bafflement and wonder. The book ends with a quote from H. L. Mencken- The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who have heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world' We are overdue for some cat heaving.
