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Nearly
every meal you’ve ever eaten is the by-product of centuries of
cultural appropriation, to one extent or another. This column is
written in English, a language that contains hundreds of thousands of
words appropriated from other tongues. Just under two-thirds of our
language derives from Latin or French. About a quarter is Germanic in
origin. And about a sixth comes from Greek, Arabic and other
languages… We are living through the greatest period of poverty
alleviation in all of human history right now because countries in
Asia and Africa have appropriated many economic policies and
practices — free markets, property rights, etc. — that began as
quirky artefacts of English and Dutch culture.
Douglas
Murray on
race and casting:
In
an era that is witnessing the politicisation and polarisation of
absolutely everything, the realm of fiction and art – one of the
great barrier-breakers we have – is also becoming a battle-ground
for racial exclusivity and racial exclusion… Perhaps those who are
attempting to push such agendas will at some point wake up to the
fact that they are heading towards an almighty logical crash. For the
same logic that saw Sierra Boggess [hounded] off West
Side Story [for
not being Puerto Rican] can just as easily be used to insist that all
future Prince Hals or Isoldes should be white. Casting can
either be colour blind or colour-obsessed. It cannot be both.
Kristian
Niemietz on
the media’s tongue-bathing of Marxism:
If
your ideas require impossible standards of purity in implementation
in order to work, then maybe your ideas are not as great as you think
they are. A good idea will still work out okay even in a distorted
and poorly implemented version. That, arguably, is a big part of what
makes a good idea good… Political and economic theories are never
implemented in pure form, and their adherents are rarely impressed by
politicians who claim to be inspired by them. That’s just par for
the course. Marxists, however, are pretty much the only thinkers who
accept no responsibility whatsoever for real-world approximations of
their ideas.
What
in the twentieth century perhaps comes closest to the working class
revolution [predicted by Marx] were the events in Poland of 1980-81:
the revolutionary movement of industrial workers (very strongly
supported by the intelligentsia) against the exploiters, that is to
say, the state. And this solitary example of a working class
revolution (if even this may be counted) was directed against a
socialist state, and carried out under the sign of the cross, with
the blessing of the Pope.
