A Free Left Blog

Here I have pasted in a lengthy series of questions  and answers  I conducted with  the journalist Sylvie Perez for an article t hat has appeared in the March issue of the French magazine L'Incorrect .  The article discusses the transgender-feminist war that is raging away now in Britain. My comments put this in the context of what I call 'the system of diversity' in my book The Tribe . Obviously, only a few of those comments can appear in the article and I thought they were worth pasting in full on here. Questions and Answers 1/ What does the conflict opposing feminists to transgender activists tell us about the escalation in the victimhood status and overall about the leap forwards of identity politics ? Victimhood is the base of knowledge which all claims to identity group favouritism rely on. The transgender activists seem to have realised this, learning their lessons from other identity activists that maximising how victimised they appear ...

I just wanted to flag up this fascinating conversation between the public psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Jordan Peterson on 'the perilous state of the university' and draw out some parallels with my work on diversity and institutions in  The Tribe . Jordan Peterson interviewing Jonathan Haidt on 'the perilous state of the university' The video, which I was drawn to by an effusive tweet from David Goodhart, is more than an hour and a half long. However, unusually for such a thing, I found it didn't drag at all. In fact at the end of it I was left wanting more.  Goodhart picked up on the point the two discussed about how "any good society must be open AND closed", but there is a lot more to chew over. I was perhaps most interested in Haidt's idea of the 'social justice' university that is dedicated to the promotion of social justice and opposing the Right above other considerations - notably the pursuit of truth. This has a lot...

Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna has gained a whole load of plaudits with his unequivocal opposition to Universities UK’s advice on gender segregation at events hosted by universities . Umunna, whose brief covers university education, told the website Left Foot Forward : “It is deeply troubling that Universities UK has issued guidance suggesting that segregation would be tolerated at higher education institutions. It was mistaken to do so,” he said. “A future Labour government will not tolerate segregation in our universities – it offends the basic norms of our society. People should, of course, be free to practice their religion privately, at places of worship and religious events, but universities are publicly-funded institutions of teaching, learning and research and state-sponsored segregation would be utterly wrong .” So, ball placed firmly in the political net there by Umunna amidst the gathering outcry, which David Cameron and Michael Gove ...