Salve,

Ita, ego sum iens ut scriberem Newsletter in hoc modo Latine.

Suus dicitur esse "trad".

Obligatory shilling. This week I wrote for the Spectator USA about how QAnonesque fantasies of child trafficking obscure the realities of small-scale and large-scale child abuse. (I should have mentioned the Dutroux Affair as a counter-example.)

I wrote for The Critic about the hard right turn of elements of the Black Lives Matter movement into Farrakhanite anti-Semitism - and how it was eminently predictable.

I spoke to Adrian Nguyen for his new “Lack of Taste” movie newsletter about the wonderful Three Colours trilogy.

Finally, I wrote a parody of diversity training and corporate anti-racism for paid subscribers to this platform.

Fetishism and frigidity. Will Self writes a dense, insightful essay for Prospect about the technologisation of relationships, though it is strange that he views therapy as a cure for the “mass neuroticism” it can produce and not at best a sticking plaster.

Self is rightly dubious about the artificiality of communication over Zoom and Skype. One thing I have thought about is the invasion of the private space by professional life. As at least something of a writer I am used to “working from home” but writing was hobby long before it became a “job”. “WFH” might be convenient for some but I fear that for many the destruction of the boundaries between “work” and “life” - with all of its intrusive emails, calls and meetings - will make home much less of a sanctum and a domain - much less, in other words, of a home.

Cancel “cancel culture” culture. Yes, people are still talking about the open letter to Harper's about “cancel culture”. Some of it is worth saying. Geoff Shullenberger, for example, has written a very good essay for Tablet about the economy of social media and the manner in which “cancellation” is incentivised.

One point I have wanted to make, though, is that talking about controversial speech in the abstract is easy. Speaking controversially is not. I talk about “cancel culture” mostly because I think it makes it difficult to speak the truth about subjects such as migration, “gender” and sex. There are people who discuss those subjects, of course, but there is also a temptation to encase oneself in rhetorical games that are as stifling as censorship itself.

Eternal suffering. David Bentley Hart and Edward Feser debate the existence of Hell. If one grants even the slightest plausibility to the idea that our worldly lives dictate whether or not our souls will writhe in endless agony it seems eccentric to debate anything else. “We might be condemned to eternal agony but what I really want to talk about is video game journalism.”

Working out. James Bloodworth writes in praise of the gym while Addison Del Mastro writes in opposition to aspects of workout culture. Some critics insisted that Del Mastro was excusing laziness but I don't think the two have contradictory takes. If I like a product that doesn't mean I like the advertising.

Americanization watch. Helen Andrews writes about America exporting its racial politics. Ed West touches on it as well. I wrote about it here. If you want a great example, check out the leader of Oxford Black Lives Matter dressed up like a Black Panther in the city of dreaming spires.

Worst Op-Ed of the Week Award. God bless David Brooks, who is no doubt a personable bloke and kind to animals, but his new column about freethinking and non-conformity was so b0RiN9 it made me want to read White Fragility just to feel something. Could Christopher Hitchens get a job today? I don't know, Mr Brooks. How far can this pencil go down my nostri---

Pulchra sunt enim octo,

Bena

The Zone

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