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→ Michel Houellebecq: I don’t care about Ukraine
Michel Houellebecq has been accused of many things: pornography (of both the literary and the literal kind), misogyny, Islamophobia, and — most damagingly for him, perhaps — banality. Now the French writer has revealed another stick with which his critics can beat him: Ukraine realism.
Michel Houellebecq: ‘People who have humanitarian ideas are a catastrophe’ https://t.co/yfLkkRmqgE
— Financial Times (@FT) September 13, 2024
In a new interview with the Financial Times, the author of Atomised and Submission also reaffirmed the support for Donald Trump he previously expressed in a 2019 essay. “Trump won’t start wars,” Houellebecq told the FT, adding that it would be “good” if the Republican candidate stopped supporting Ukraine once in office. “What do I care?” he responded when told that Ukrainians want to liberate their own territory. “At the start of the war, I was surprised because I thought Ukraine was Russian. It’s better for nature to take its course.” This is followed by a Houellebecquian bon mot: “People who have humanitarian ideas are a catastrophe.” Nihilistic as ever…
→ Young women more liberal than ever — survey
The political opinions of American women have become significantly more liberal since the turn of the century, especially in relation to men. New analysis from Gallup has looked at surveys from the period and found that from 2017-2024 an average of 40% of young women identified as liberal, 15 points higher than young men. This is compared to the years 2001-2007, when an average of 28% of women aged 18-29 identified as liberal, only three percentage points higher than young men. Meanwhile, young men’s views have been much closer to moderates’ than to liberals’ views over the same period.
Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency, young women have been: 16 points more likely to support stricter gun laws, 20 points more likely to say human activity causes global warming and 19 points more likely to choose protection of the environment over economic growth. All good news for Kamala Harris…
→ Antiracist leaders respond to Matt Walsh mockumentary
America’s leading antiracist thinkers have finally spoken out against Matt Walsh’s documentary Am I Racist?
The conservative commentator, cloaked in wire-rimmed spectacles and a man-bun wig, infiltrated one of Saira Rao and Regina Jackson’s famous dinner parties, during which they berate white women and accuse them of racism over Chardonnay. He also scored an interview with White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo, at one point successfully convincing her to give some of her own money to a black producer on the film as a form of reparations.
Many on the Left are criticizing the tactics we used to make our film. Notice how they made no such criticisms about Borat. The difference is that Borat was meant to embarrass normal working class Americans. Our film embarrasses DEI grifters, academics, and upper class liberals.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 13, 2024
DiAngelo has come out with a statement explaining how the Daily Wire spent thousands of dollars duping her into the interview, and said the documentary was “designed to humiliate and discredit anti-racist educators and activists”. Rao called the movie “Nazi shit” during a recent call co-hosted with Jackson. Rao and DiAngelo have both nuked their X accounts as well. Surely all press is good press.
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SubscribeSo-called anti-racists really are stupid woke munters.
Why should anyone care about Houllebeq?
The so-called “thinker” sounds like a creep.
because he’s funny
At least he is honest about his own illiteracy
“At the start of the war, I was surprised because I thought Ukraine was Russian.”
It is Russian land. It always was.It is Russias most vulnerability area because it is flat with no natural.barriers like mountains or rivers. And it’s peopled by ….Ukranians oh yuk.
deleted
You are absolute idiot.
You cared enough to comment
There is literally nothing too trivial for him to comment on
But he is still saying what most “ordinary’ people think.
Well, quite…there’s the ignorance, the misunderstanding of ‘humanitarian idea’, the comb-over… the FT could more usefully interview Matthew McConaughy’s goldfish.
I’m glad a “famous person’ even though I don’t know a thing about him has said exactly what I feel. I do not care about Ukraine one jot. This so called War is fomented by USA in order to take over ALL the territory of Russia and own all the rich resources.
Fool
Who-the-heck: a typical French literary attention seeker.
“What do I care?” he responded when told that Ukrainians want to liberate their own territory. “At the start of the war, I was surprised because I thought Ukraine was Russian. It’s better for nature to take its course.”
The bleakest ignorance.
‘People who have humanitarian ideas are a catastrophe’
Some of those people put their life on the line to protect your national security and freedoms.
What a d*ck.
To some degree he’s right, Humanitarians are always calling on us to fight oppression wherever it appears. It never ends for them because they think we should fight every battle on every front. I’m not really aware of humanitarians putting their life on the line to protect our security and freedoms. How do you mean that?
From Google:
Humanitarian means relating to the value of human life, and the practice of helping others to improve their lives and reduce suffering. It can also refer to:
Humanitarian aid
Short-term material and logistic assistance given to people in need, such as refugees, the homeless, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines. The goal of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity.
Humanitarian careers
Jobs that work on global issues, such as food and water shortages, malnutrition, environmental disasters, political unrest, and health care emergencies. Humanitarians can be volunteers or paid employees.
Digital humanitarians
People who use social media to map areas in need of support. For example, during the 2010 Russian forest fires, Russian bloggers used social media to coordinate relief efforts after the Russian government was unprepared to deal with the disaster
So I understand what you are saying, too much humanitarian utopian type thinking can be too much and go too far, ending up in the rise of the nanny police states, however people that work in state sectors like the police, army, security sectors are humanitarians of sorts and the institutions they work in come from humanitarian ideas, ie they are concerned with protecting human life and improving living conditions. If you believe all humanitarian ideas are a catastrophe then you can say goodbye to the rule of law, state education, state healthcare, an army to protect your country and police to protect your property and person. These people do put their lives on the line and do these jobs to protect other people, as far as I know, this is a form of humanitarianism.
You’re not? How about WW2? How about the Berlin airlift? How about post WW2 with the Soviet Union slowly swallowing up as much of Europe as it could? The only thing that prevented all of Europe from becoming soviet states was the ‘humanitarianism’ (or whatever one wants to call it) of the US.
Of course, that’s all old news. It’ll never happen again. Europe and Russia are over that kind of silliness.
The USSR controlled only what had been agreed at Yalta as being in its control. It had no plans to take Western Europe, and couldn’t even if it had wanted to, let alone hold it.
The USSR was utterly devastated. It had a huge army but its economy was in ruins and had lost twenty million people. Furthermore it didn’t even support the Greek Communists in their attempts to take over the country.
Regrettably the reality is that the USSR was a “paper tiger”, as Mao would have it, in comparison to the Western Allies, as led by the colossally wealthy USA. The real surprise is that it actually lasted so long given its utterly ineffective economic system.
The Greeks, Italians, Austrians, Koreans and Vietnamwse, as well as Cubans might dare to disagree.
“DiAngelo has come out with a statement explaining how the Daily Wire spent thousands of dollars duping her into the interview, and said the documentary was “designed to humiliate and discredit anti-racist educators and activists”.”
Well someone had to do it. ‘Robbin de Anglo’ and her fellows need all the discrediting they can get.
Good man (MH). Personally, I patently don’t like the Ukraine; all those nationalists collaborated with the N-zis during the war and significant numbers of concentration camps were built in their terroritory.
Fool
Matt Walsh is brilliant and his comedic timing is spot on. If his new film is anything like “What is a Woman” then I can’t wait to see it. Would UnHerd host a screening?
Geography and history seems to have avoided him, otherwise he would recognise that one can cause a war without starting one.Alas, yet another cultural heavyweight seemingly out of his league when he leaves his sphere.
Houellebecq is French. It is no surprise that he doesn’t care about Russia invading Ukraine. The French barely cared when Germany invaded France (not enough to put up a credible fight anyway).