Ben Sixsmith has a useful Critic reminder of the link between the EDI agenda and serious political failure.
The EDI agenda is worse than silly
It divides, obscures and inflames
Even critics of the HRification of everything — the influx of equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives — are liable to see it as just irritating flummery. They roll their eyes at new boxes to tick and training sessions to attend but don’t see it as much more than a silly fad.
This is a mistake. “Wokeness”, the American reporter Aaron Sibarium wrote at the weekend, “Isn’t just stifling free speech or inventing dumb neologisms; it is determining policy that affects millions of people.” Sibarium had the evidence of his own reportage to back that up, raising cases where COVID treatments had been allocated according to race more than diabetes or obesity, and where experts had insisted that 9-year-olds could be put on puberty blockers if they were “trans”.
That is true of the US and it is true of Britain. I can feel as tired as anyone of yet another stupid argument about whether to call someone “he”, “she” or “they”, for example, but then I remember the kids being drugged to irreversibly change their developing bodies and a sense of seriousness returns. I can feel myself nodding off when someone rolls out words like “multiculturalism” but then I recall that witnesses interviewed for the Casey report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham said the council took deficient measures because they were “terrified of the impact on community cohesion” and I wake up again.
The whole piece is quite short and well worth reading as a reminder of the headline - the EDI agenda certainly is worse than silly. Behind it here in the UK, is a failing political class, a failing bureaucracy and ultimately a failing state.
As well as cultivating complaints, and digging a gigantic hole into which millions of pounds can be poured, the EDI phenomenon allows a failing state to engineer the illusion of improvement. Sure, it can’t do much about chronic societal and institutional dysfunction. But look how hard it’s working to be more equitable and diverse and inclusive. Well done. Do you want a cookie?
5 comments:
Take heart. After Brexit - post Westminster.
I find myself heartened by the number of intelligent articles I am reading about this. Thank you for another good one. Follows Rod Liddle very nicely. I remember Ben S. when he was contributing to CIF in the Guardian. I just got banned - he's got more get up and go.
To add my £0.02, here is a very nice excerpt explaining woke and similar shite as resulting from the overproduction of academics. What would hitherto have disappeared back into academe and died in professorial obscurity has now been forced to look for jobs that actually impact upon our lives and laws.
https://www.isegoria.net/2023/01/it-is-the-exodus-from-the-universities-that-explains-what-is-happening-in-the-larger-culture/
Well worth reading, along with the links.
Tammly - yes, the beginning of the year ought to be a time for optimism.
Sam - thanks for the link - it's easy to believe that we have overproduced academics. It has probably been a minor problem for a long time, but we made it far worse in recent decades.
An American perspective:
https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/01/the-baleful-cargo-of-woke-diversity-worship/
"This fixation with constructing identities is one of the great pathologies of our woke era."
DJ - thanks, I've bookmarked the link - Victor Davis Hanson is always incisive.
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