Eccentric times call for eccentric measures

Ben Sixsmith has a fine Critic piece on the value of eccentric thought.


Britain needs eccentric thought

Lewis Goodall is wrong about the “radicalisation” of the Tory right

There’s a fascinating sentence in a recent article by Lewis Goodall in the New Statesman. This is itself an interesting sentence, because you don’t expect to find fascinating sentences in articles by Lewis Goodall. But fascinating it remains...

Here’s the sentence that interested me. Goodall is talking about how the “PopCons” have “positions” like “obsessive culture wars”:

"The media, both new and old, which should act as a guard against eccentric thought, is often where these ideas germinate."

A guard against eccentric thought? Interesting. Perhaps it’s just a thoughtless choice of words — and we’ve all been there — but it could also be deeply wrong-headed and revealing. A guard against irrational thought? That would be fine. A guard against hateful thought? Understandable. A guard against eccentric thought? Weird.


The whole piece is well worth reading as it does highlight the stultifying narrowness of modern progressive thought. Even its banal conservatism.


I’m not saying it is untrue that anti-establishment thinking can mutate into irrational and destructive forms. I’m not pining for a British Marjorie Taylor Greene (entertaining as that would no doubt be). Right-wing Conservatives should remain truthful and principled, because there can indeed be tantalising incentives to demagogic behaviour in opposition. (If their leader is the very liberal Liz Truss then I suspect this will not be an issue but it is worth saying nonetheless.)

Yet however British institutional life can be restored, the solutions are bound to seem “eccentric” to someone whose idea of normality is so cramped. Eccentric times call for eccentric measures.