March 31, 2024 - 1:30pm
When babies are born, they embody all the hopes and ambitions of their parents. Death is the extinguishing of that hope. It is a profound statement about humanity’s loss of ambition that we can see no issue with hastening death; that so many babies born today can expect an unprecedented length of life is seen not as a triumph, but instead as a problem that requires a dark solution.
Hence the distinct sinking feeling I got when reading Matthew Parris’s now viral Times article headlined: “We can’t afford a taboo on assisted dying.” In it, Parris attempts to deal with what he feels is the strongest argument held by opponents of assisted dying — that the terminally ill would be pressured to hasten the ends of their lives. He greets this possibility with open arms: “I believe this will indeed come to pass. And I would welcome it.” You see, there are simply too many old and infirm and it should be their social duty to ask themselves, “How much is all this costing relatives and the health service?”
More chilling than the notion that the NHS is now a hallowed church which the sinful should never enter is the notion that Parris feels no reticence in saying the quiet part out loud. For decades, campaigners for assisted dying have hidden behind calls for compassion, dignity and autonomy. Only sometimes did they let the odd quip about certain lives being “unaffordable” slip out. Usually, advocates shy away from a macabre calculus between life and the bottom line. But for Parris, slashing this taboo is progressive: “It will become common practice to pose the question without embarrassment, and to weigh the answer up.”
The problem is that people are increasingly posing that question, and the answer has not been good for the poor, the homeless, the disabled and even simply victims of injustice. In Canada, where what we call MAiD (medical assistance in dying) has been legalised since 2016, something that was once a stringent law intended only for the terminally ill has been gradually expanded.
People are requesting MAiD not because they want to die but because they can no longer afford to live. And incredibly, a growing portion of Canadians have no qualms offering MAiD to those whose only “affliction” is poverty. Academics suggest withholding MAiD from victims of injustice only causes “further harm”, since those injustices probably aren’t going away any time soon.
At first I thought that Parris just wasn’t considering the fact that legislation inevitably expands in these ways. Initially stringent safeguards inevitably fall on grounds of discrimination, pushing more and more groups into its purview. Urging the terminally ill to hasten their demise lest they be a “burden” on their families and society is bad enough.
But Parris doesn’t seem to mind the idea that it would eventually expand and come to be “seen as the normal road for many to take, and considered socially responsible — and even, finally, urged upon people”. He doesn’t qualify this last “people” with “terminally ill”. This is precisely what’s happening in Canada. It is not an example we should wish to follow.
We once dreamed of so much more. The Marquis de Condorcet, writing at the end of the 18th century, dreamed of a world in which the human lifespan would know of “no upper limit”. He could see the possibilities of a world just beyond the horizon in which humanity would realise its obstacles were not engrained in its nature nor inscribed by God, but out there in the world waiting to be understood and rooted out. Enlightenment philosophers had looked down into the cradle of the human subject at its birth — that subject that would be the bearer of liberty, equality, fraternity; that subject that for the first time in human history would decide its own fate.
But now it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this policy and the unabashed devaluing of “costly lives” is the final nail in the coffin of that hopeful era. In this world, there is no purpose beyond keeping the administrative machine rolling over from one year to the next.
I am glad for arguments like Parris’s that lay bare what the debate about assisted dying is really about. It’s not about compassion and it’s not about autonomy. It’s about hastening the demise not just of the terminally ill, but of the subject that was born with all the hopes of the future in front of it.
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SubscribeAnd thank goodness for that. There may be hope after all…
Not really. You’re mistaking being against something as being for something.
These people are just fashionable and they’re moving with the fashion, they’ll move onto the next thing when that comes along. Anti-woke and woke are one in the same in that they are both forces of repudiation, both will lead to vapid, superficial and materially oriented societies. That is why the woke convert so easily to the anti-woke, they quickly realise that not much changes when you do.
The pessimist
The optimist.
“The strategy has worked. When one partygoer tells New York that she’s excited about “rounding up illegals”, the laughter conceals a truth that many progressives find hard to swallow. Recent polling shows 66% of Americans now support deporting illegal immigrants, including shocking numbers of young urban voters who would have rushed to cancel each other for supporting such policies a few years ago.”
It’s really not that difficult to understand and not shocking at all. It was perfectly predictable. We have witnessed one catastrophe after another. Keeping the border open for four years, has finally exposed the progressive woke crowd and others who had been insulated from those consequences, from the everyday realities produced by their policies. They live in New York and San Francisco, Boston and Chicago where the crime rates have exploded–even as they’ve been hidden from official crime statistics by district attorneys who routinely redefined crime making felonies misdemeanors and eliminating cash bail, where the money to rebuild highways, electrical grids, and housing has been siphoned off to provide illegal aliens with comfortable hotel suites.
Thus, it’s not simply elections that have consequences. So do the uber left policies that have been pursued by the authoritarian left, even as they have the temerity to chastise Donald Trump as a fascist. The people who have been hurt by the harm that ideologically driven political decisions taken by Joe Biden’s handlers are not only working class folks, but middle class former cheer leaders of the scolding, irrational extremists who insisted on open borders.
It’s been easy for anyone to see the evolution of far left institutional dominance that’s led to the emerging backlash, led almost entirely by those talking “common sense” while asking those formerly inclined toward the woke crowd to reconsider their voting decisions. It’s not a stretch to say that those extremist policies have led to an entire city in California being burned to the ground, to daily occurrences of murders and stabbings, and widespread housing shortages. An overbearing and condescending progressive “leaders” who have accomplished the ubiquitous institutionalizing of DEI political philosophy.
Under those circumstances, it’s not difficult to explain what appears to be a cultural and political shift underway. Thank goodness!!
Try to be concise so people might read your comment.
Agreed, it’s too long.
I read it, and thought it pretty good.
Me, too.
If it split into many smaller paragraphs, it would have been more readable. Small chunks is the key!
Where do you think the wealthy conservative radical right lives?
Texas.
One can certainly see the attraction – bright, beautiful, positive and happy young people versus the depressing woke scolds.
Not sure about the “crypto nerds” though. Probably my least favorite people on the planet.
Yes, Greeta t**d wouldn’t fit in.
You’ve been watching the scowls on the right, right? The haunted victimhood of having all the power and money while still ceaselessly whining?
I don’t buy it. This was all 100% the opposite less than 90 days ago when these hipsters were all being scolded into voting for the joy vibe of Kamala. No such trend was disclosed or even hinted at. Now all of a sudden this has been clandestinely taking place for over a decade?
I believe that it is simply a fact that many of these young people now feel the freedom to think out loud. Everyone knew we were all being gaslit for the last 8 years and now we are free! Free at last!!
Yep, that just about sums it up.
Your final words, referencing MLK, are echoing Trump’s own allusions to MLK during his inauguration speech, re: being judged by the content of character, before sweeping DEI into the dustbin of (US) history.
This has been building for some time Warren.
I was at a sold out Jordan Peterson lecture back in 2019, most of the young attendees were well turned out and positive; very different to the types you see at “progressive” get-togethers.
Will the Peterson Bros save the world?
Agreed. I first noticed it nearing eight years ago after several attacks on freedom of speech culminating in the Count Dankula case which was around the time of Trump winning first time which galvanised younger blokes to out themselves although they were quickly destroyed by the left. It won’t be so easy this time round, hopefully. But I went to see JP at the O2 with Sam Harris and Douglas Murray and it was a sea of youth. After JP’s breakdown Decca Aitkenhead did a massive hit job on him in the Sunday Times and when I called up to cancel in protest was told they’d been inundated. These people have always been there, just scared to come out thanks to the tyrannical despotic left.
Tell us, what do you see at progressive get together?
This is the same as the 80s with Reagan and the preppies into the yuppies and lying demented reagan. James spader made an early career playing who these young people are playing now
Last year an acquaintance of mind went on a two-month road trip across the USA. His wife, being the nosy sort, asked a lot of the locals about their politics and was surprised at just how many of them were supportive of Trump and his policies but felt they couldn’t openly discuss it for fear of being ostracised socially. In other words, just what me and a lot of friends on the other side of the Atlantic had long suspected.
So yes, I’m sure you’re correct.
And I am sure that you just completely made this story up.
If you are going to fabricate thigs out of nothing then at least try to make them interesting or funny.
Not nice is it, finding oneself so unexpectedly on the wrong side of History?
It’s over, dinosaur. RIP.
Oh. You again
Guess I’ll have to mosey over to the other side.
I think the author is maybe overthinking it by describing as some kind of grand plan. To me it simply appears to be the normal order of things.
Kids will always rebel against the dominant structures in society, and every few decades those rebelling then become the dominant ones themselves.
The 60’s saw the hippy culture which was largely a reaction to the very conservative one that preceded it. This lefty group were then usurped by (financially) hard right Reagan/Thatcherism and City excess. This in turn was then replaced by Blair/Clintons Third Way which went back to being much more progressive (in the political sense), and has arguably been the dominant political philosophy ever since (despite the Tories being in power for the bulk of it). After being the establishment long enough it’s now cool again to rebel and move back towards the opposite direction.
It’s a story as old as time. England has veered massively during its history between times of dull Puritanism and wild hedonism. Even the boring youngsters today are simply a reaction to the laddish/laddette culture that was the norm when I was younger. Give it a decade and they’ll all start misbehaving again
Exactly, social and political movements are pendulums, swinging first one way and then the other, through generations. They have to go too far one way before they swing back (we certainly went too far with progressivism, the group think craziness became utterly intolerable – cancel culture, BLM..).
There was certainly no grand plan that brought this about – it’s a natural social phenomenon.
Precisely. No political system or movement is perfect, all have tradeoffs and over time in any system the negatives become more prominent thus pushing people back towards the other direction
Pathetic, ham-fisted attempt to somehow imply that conservative money is the impetus behind this long-time-coming, utterly organic vibe shift.
Yeah, it’s like training to claim credit for the sun and the rain.
“Anti-woke art festivals? I’m sorry I missed those!
Yeah. It stills feels like close to 100% of art is not right wing.
Practically all gallery owners are liberal and will not exhibit ‘conservative artists’….fact
It’s pretty easy to make your opponents look like establishment squares when they are establishment squares.
My thought exactly.
Jimbo, you even manage to sound old when you are trying to be cool!
I just love how clueless you people are!
Poo Fash, you even manage to sound old when you are trying to be cool!
I just love how clueless you people are!
You know who’s the coolest? Middle aged, menopausal women like me who summoned the courage to speak up in 2021 – 2023 against trans/vaccine passports/land acknowledgements/masks etc, when doing so was not cool.
Being a male who behaved like you, I’m concerned that I need to identify as menopausal if I want to be considered the “coolest” …
If you didn’t speak up on transgenderism til 2021 you’re part of the problem; the really cool brave women had been doing it for five years by then. Women of your vintage of entry into the debate joined in when it was fashionable and easy.
Dionne is also part of the problem because she has lumped together four different issues under one umbrella. All of these topics are nuanced in their own way.
What’s important is they share common sense.
The bile the left has been promoting reminds me of an old blues song – “Grits ain’t groceries. Eggs ain’t poultry. And Mona Lisa was a man.”
Okay, remove cool points, take them for yourself – but it certainly was not fashionable or easy to sit across from the Principal of the elementary school in my small community and voice concerns about the large Trans flag that had just been raised in 2021 (still hanging). Or to be cancelled by my woke daughter for not being vaccinated (still not talking to me) nor to be kicked off my community forum for speaking up (still banned). Not easy at all.
I hope that your insane anti-science cult beliefs are worth it.
I guess you can continue to worship a buffoon like Trump from afar while your family and community disown you. Great choices…
I don’t like Trumps leadership style, too divisive and rude mannered. I’m on the West coast of Canada so he’s not my leader to worship. My beloved daughter will come around and my three sons adore me. Our community consists of more than cancel happy radical lefties – all the trades folk know where it’s at, they are still good for a laugh.
I am sure your three sons tolerate you and your fringe views. Your daughter shows more strength.
Assuming your kids are grown, or at least teenagers, why are you haranguing the local elementary school about whatever flag they chose to fly, Karen?
And as for being “still good for a laugh”, one has to assume that you mean they will still pretend to laugh at your racist and weird comments, probably just to shut you up for a little while.
Every community, even small ones on the west coast of Canada, has someone like you who thinks what they read from a stranger on Facebook or what some dimwit on Joe Rogan tells you is gospel and everyone else is lying. You are tiresome but can be easily ignored as I will now demonstrate!
Why are her views “fringe”? She represents the majority in USA and UK, not sure about Canada. You mean you disagree with her; why not be honest and say so? There is no shame in being in a minority.
She hasn’t told you why she was at the school; you could ask politely instead of jumping to a conclusion based on your own prejudices. We do know she has 4 children, perhaps she’s a school governor?
And why do you use the sexist and racist term “Karen” when her name is Dionne?
In the US, the majority is a whisker, possibly; can’t say for sure due to those who chose not to vote and the piles of uncounted ballots
The majority is often a whisker of a few million in the popular vote, but more decisive in the electoral college…in the US. Trump won both, plus all seven of the normally Dem swing states. That’s major and a real repudiation of the radical socialist left.
Given that the left has virtually no bench, it could be the start of a long term trend.
Squawk away, sad little duck. Your side is losing ground with every passing day.
Meh. So what, you said you didnt think women had peni, no one asked for those little vaccine cards, you grew tired of land acknowledgements and probably questioned how fabric prevented covid and so, you… jumped on maga and, like, yay for you? Do you now feel the smallest whisper in your head begining to question yet again: maybe Hegseth lacks merit?, Could it be rfk jr isnt qualified nor well?, does it seem suspicious to allegedly before inspector generals?, not only has the war in Ukraine still going, is Putin ignoring trump? Blah blah blah if so, will you speak out now?
Wow- I thought I was the only one. It is a lonely feeling, being right.
Interesting article, thanks. Yes, all movements have a beginning and an end. I don’t think its ending is part of any clever right wing plan or came about by sponsoring cultural events. To borrow your wording, progressivism ate itself. It became too shrill, too self righteous and too self-absorbed – the writing was already on the wall. I would say the end started maybe 5 years ago, ironically when Biden got back in.
…turns out that NY Magazine clipped that cover photo, to cut out the black people in the crowd!!
That New York magazine photo is an object lesson in how Progressives are eating themselves.
Published against a scolding article titled “The Cruel Kids Table” it purports to frame this new conservatism as just another exclusive club for the scions of moneyed white privilege.
Progressive social media was of course quick to pick up on this theme: deriding the sea of white faces, suits, cocktail dresses, and MAGA hats.
Except it wasn’t. The picture is deliberately cropped to exclude a number of black attendees at the event who are just out of picture. The wider shot is available on social media and a number of black conservatives have come forward to say they were also present.
This was, at best, a misrepresentation of the event and at worst a deliberate falsehood presented with the intention of stoking racial division. And now we all know it.
New York magazine stoking racial division? Well I never! Whatever next?
Apparently the organizer and host is black.
What were the numbers in the full pic, white to black? You realize, yes, that class is the very issue that is rising, not race, so i’d be interested in the actual decision of why the cropping, bc how much racial division do you actually think that pic caused?
The lesson for progressives is clear: keep the consequences of your policies away from the suburbs.
The lesson for UK conservatives is also clear: make sure the middle class suburbs experience the consequences of progressive policies. House the men from the boats in Richmond, not Rotherham.
Better still house the men from the boats next to the houses of the various mayors, police chiefs and Members of Parliament. And BBC presenters.
Especially BBC presenters!
Rub their noses in diversity!
Am reminded of PJ O’Rourke’s ‘Republican Party Reptile.’
I’m confident that when everybody seems to have embraced woke culture that the reaction against it is going to excite the young go getting types.
If a significant part of the status quo suddenly switches teams and starts supporting your counter culture, is it still a counter culture? Although it has to be said Thiel was an OG when it comes to this movement and didn’t really switch, as far as I know.
Fredric Jameson argued that postmodernism is the cultural logic of late capitalism. One interpretation of this assumption is the observation that these subversive cultural movements tend to be coopted and commoditied within the underlying dominant power structuren of big money and major corporate interests over time. This already happened with the postmodern left and now we might be seeing it with the postmodern right. Cultural shifts can certainly change the Overton window but in the end the status quo does not seem too affected. In fact, the culture war can easily be used to distract and divide as well.
And the many mediations can vary in their importance. For example, much of what has since been categorised as ‘progressive’, ‘woke’ or ‘cancel’ culture was put together by students from relatively comfortable backgrounds when they encountered others from less comfortable ones at college, in a kind of Dutch auction of guilt, e.g. ‘I’m not a privileged exploiter, I’m really not.’ So, a little bit more open access can have complex results, including demands for extensive counterbalancing of exclusions, depending on the momentary state of mind of the young privileged. Which can easily move on.
Important not to misrecognise or mischaracterise what passes as ideas, orientations or modes of talking. They aren’t necessarily based on what is claimed about them by others.
For example, much of what has since been categorised as ‘progressive’, ‘woke’ or ‘cancel’ culture was put together by students from relatively comfortable backgrounds when they encountered others from less comfortable ones at college, in a kind of Dutch auction of guilt, e.g. ‘I’m not a privileged exploiter, I’m really not.’ So, a little bit more open access can have complex results, including demands for extensive counterbalancing of exclusions, depending on the momentary state of mind of the young privileged. Which can easily move on.
As an Deplorable of longstanding this story warms my heart.
Agreed. And I’m not only a Deplorable. Earlier (Obama era), I was a Bitter Clinger To Religion and Guns (Constitutional rights). Given the sources of those slurs…I accept and welcome them. Too, those slurs did wonders the increase the number of Republican voters.
Desperate attempt to make Trump’s cruel absurdities seem cool. There has always been the Brocks and the Tuckers who think its funny to wear a bow tie and say that they think democracy is overrated and apartheid wasn’t that bad. Guys like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel in fact. Weirdoes to the rest of us.
The kids in the picture above are prime examples of this. Over privileged and not very smart, daddy’s money will insulate them from their own lameness but let’s not equate that with being among the cool kids – they aren’t.
Stephen Miller and that awful woman that is the new press secretary are the conservative kids – and they are the polar opposite of cool.
Let me know when Trump starts winning in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or anywhere else where tastemakers actually live and vote. Until then its just a bunch of asshole kids going to parties funded by super weird rich South African guys.
Has nothing to do with being cool. Has everything to do with following the Constitution and working in the best interest of the country as a whole. People vote their interests. In the recent election their concerns were soaring inflation, out of control spending, jobs, open borders, shrinking international influence and foreign threats, the weird trans agenda and parental rights.
Happily, the left (and you) are still focused on”tastemakers” … of which there are relatively few and far outnumbered by middle and working class folks. Reagan referred to them as the silent majority. I prefer ‘normals’.
I hope this is true….because if not, God help us all