A welcome piece by Toby Young in the new edition (16 September) of The Spectator, of which he’s an associate editor. My posted comments include these.
Toby was a key founder of the Free Speech Union.
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Toby Young rightly identifies the effect of making everything “safe” . And the feminine tendency to think of words as a reality rather than just a way of describing reality. But I think the malaise in swathes of our formerly professional services and occupations reflects feminist and maybe feminine resistance to taking responsibility. This shows itself in the feminist “accusation” that males say “I did ” and claim individual credit while women are more collective and take “group responsibility” but as we know if everyone is responsible then in fact no one is while if men do put their name to actions then though they get credit in success it’s hard to evade responsibility for failure. This sense of personal commitment was crucial to “respected professions” where a culture of “vocation” was encouraged, which meant going beyond “the day job”. On a practical level meaning Doctors, Teachers, Police, Lawyers and so on were involved in doing more than simply “the job”. And consequently these people held a respected place in their community. However focussing on “family friendly hours”, “work life balance”, “time off for other things such as “me time” “wellness” etc. Has eroded the professionalism of these occupations as they become “jobs” with no obligations and which can suit the workers other interests. So schools extra curricular offers have dwindled, Police involvement with diversionary activities for listless young men is a shadow of its former strength, the “family doctor” will die with the few older GPs who concerned themselves with the health of “their” patients rather than the fewest appointments they can get away with. Etc. And my experience of the health services and civic services including social care is that this shift is not confined to the women but gradually the men too, as doing more or taking responsibility is seen as showing up colleagues who far less dedicated or where doing extra looks like being a “mug” when others get away with just turning up ,like working in a supermarket. Eventually we end up where formerly respected professions behave like “it’s just a job” and gradually this means they lose respect and those things that relied on people who believed professional meant being personally responsible increasingly weaken. As boy and young man my “family doctor” delivered me, new who I was and my history with finding a file, signed my fathers death certificate why he died suddenly, visited my aged grandmother once a month at her old peoples bungalow once a month to check her health and always ensured he or one of his two other partners in the practice covered nights and sundays (the surgery was open on Saturdays). All this in a working class suburb where the doctors houses were the grandest in the district. No doubt he and his two partners didn’t have the best “work life balance” but they were respected for the vocation. When I talk about this to my three grown up offspring it’s as if this was another planet.
Heavens, very welcome. He’s brave. I wonder if he’s been emboldened by his Free Speech Union’s support for TERFs, but I suspect writing such heresies will not be forgiven by the feminists. I expect at some point some woman/women will accuse him of “inappropriate behavior” at some time in the past, as a student at Oxford perhaps Vanity Fair, long enough ago that the truth is impossible to establish, but the accusation is juicy enough to cause a social media mobbing. For its from the feminists that the “trans.” learned their tactics.
In the meantime well done the Hon. Toby Young!