I’ve never reviewed a book before, and I fully intend to follow my editor’s advice and be as impartial as possible. But just to make it clear from the outset, Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds is an abomination. It’s a sustained invective against woke culture, an attempt to reverse all the hard work of passionate civil rights activists such as Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi and Lily Allen.
It’s essentially an Alt-right handbook, and I don’t think it’s too much to suggest that every copy ought to be incinerated. Preferably in a public square or something so that we can all see what happens when fascists try to spread their wicked ideology.
For the best part of 300 pages Murray spews his hateful bile – on white paper, no less – denouncing social justice, identity politics and intersectionality. Even the font has a certain heteronormative quality about it. He rails against “millennial snowflakes” who all “identify as attack helicopters” and how “you can’t say anything anymore” and that “you can go to prison for singing the national anthem these days”. I mean, he doesn’t actually write any of these words, but we all know that’s what he’s thinking.
The book is divided into four sections: “Gay”, “Women”, “Race” and “Trans”. These are all wonderful subjects – coincidentally, they also happen to be the names of my tropical fish – and so it is heart-breaking to see such noble ideas befouled in Murray’s grubby paws.
Needless to say, the last thing the world needs right now is yet another book by a straight white cis male. I’m told that Murray claims to be gay, but as journalist Jim Downs said of gay entrepreneur Peter Thiel after he appeared at the Republican National Convention, he “is an example of a man who has sex with other men, but not a gay man”. The idea that you can be gay and have conservative opinions is absurd. It was the same with Kanye West, who gave up being black once he’d put on that MAGA hat.
Murray seems to believe that, as a society, we have gone “through the crash barrier” (a typically male Top Gear-style analogy) and messed everything up through our supposedly divisive obsessions with race, gender and sexuality. “It is a curiosity of the age,” Murray writes, “that after the situation appears at the very least to be better than it ever was, it is presented as though it has never been worse”. What the hell would he know? As an ecosexual vegan intersectional feminist, I am surely better qualified than anyone to understand that ours is the most oppressive society on earth.
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SubscribeI was relieved to read that this woman is a satirist, as I couldn’t believe the juvenile rantings I was reading. I thought “You cannot be serious!” and was glad to find out she was not. Phew!
I have no sense of satire. I take things literally. I am gullible beyond belief. Thanks for pointing this out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
Interesting. You’re comment that ‘every copy ought to be incinerated. Preferably in a public square or something so that we can all see what happens when fascists try to spread their wicked ideology’. Have you heard of the book burnings carried out by the German Students Union in 1933? They should give you a clue.
This girl is crazy, typical nazi and rasist. Titania wants to use same methods the guys like nazis and communists used in 1920-1950s. Murray is right 100 times: the woke culture became the mirror of what it fights against. I deeply dont agree with this radical gal, but i want neither burn her nor send her to jail. Let her tweet and write this stupid things unless she wouldn’t start to act as she writes.
Uh… Guessing you don’t know TM is a satirist?
She had me fooled at first!
Brilliant, the “nothing about me is white” bit was fantastic
So many commenting here didn’t spot it was satire until told, oh dear what does that say about the world in 2020. I know that Andrew Doyle has had difficulty being rediculous enough to keep ahead of real life, so much of what Titania has said has turned out to be prophetic.
Hilarious. Perfectly captures the pseudo-literary, pseudo-scientific conventions of woke culture. Nice tits too.
I am glad that this is a satire. I have no sense of satire (and I have no appreciation for poetry either…I call myself “poem deaf”). I take things literally. I am gullible beyond belief. That is why I usually fact-check things before responding. I almost didn’t here, but Pauline K’s comment got my attention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
I reckon it’s not beyond the bounds of reason to suspect Douglas and Titania were having it off with each other quite regularly on a recent talking tour…
Private Eye- on the one hand- is a clapped-out rag run by arrogant liberal-fascists who think they know what’s good for the rest of us, and urgently needs a change of direction and of editor.
Titania McGrath- on the other hand- is genuine satire.
I can see no indication in the postings made to date that any of the contributors understand that she is a fictional character invented by Andrew Doyle, so I hereby point the fact out.
Hilarious. Thanks, Andrew Doyle; TMG is a fine creation.
I read her book. Tops for taking down the Protocols of Woke Narcissists a peg or two.
Oh f**k, on closer reading, it’s a parody. I do apologise.
We need to hear from you t*t ania about the semiotics of bleach as a racist trope within the white saviourist discourse of Trumpist hegemony…even though its not a bad idea in terms of beating this awful virus.
I enjoy Douglas Murry’s views.
I think it is your own view of yourself that makes you so angry at what he writes.
Gay, trans, black, white, yellow whatever, everyone should just be treated equally.
When you are making a big political scene about it you are basically doing the opposite of what you wish to accomplish.
A radical feminist turning to her white daddy for help? Grow up. Your lack of command of the written word explains your being a slam poet. You seem to be very totalitarian in that you are in charge of who can be gay and who cannot. If “The Madness if Crowds” did you in then try reading Murray’s “The Strange Death of Europe”. It will finish you off, hopefully.