The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity

by Douglas Murray
2019

It's the best testimony to the power of  Murray's thesis in this thoughtful and thought-provoking book that I write this review tentatively. "We are going," he writes in his introduction, "through a great crowd derangement. In public and in private, both online and off, people are behaving in ways that are increasingly irrational, feverish, herd-like and simply unpleasant." Haven't we all read or seen something on the news, or just driving down the road, that evokes the "what the heck was that?" reaction in us - and generally speaking, most of us prefer to not be part of the crazy.

But it's the second part of Murray's thesis that is increasingly inescapable: the "derangement" seems to touch most of our lives, directly or indirectly, all the time. We must deal with it, no matter where we fall on the spectrum of right to left, conservative to liberal, young to old, this to that. The purpose of his book is to explore why this is happening, and what, if anything, any individual or group can do about it other than endure. And, most confoundingly, if there is anything we should do - is it possible to find the "right" answers?

In a way, Murray has taken a stand in the simple act of decrying it. It might be supposed that there are individuals who like the conflict, or feel that the time has come to, as one group insists, "Resist." And anyone who's a student of history will agree that there have been times when, even if only in retrospect, it was necessary to rebel or fight back against a "sea of troubles." Murray would prefer to understand it, and in understanding, perhaps find ways to reach if not agreement, then at least peaceable co-existence. And above all, to have a means to walk away from the crowd - any crowd - and choose independent thought.

Murray is the ideal writer to take on a subject so fraught. He can't be categorized. He is a young (40), atheist, self-described "Cultural Christian," conservative, gay, brilliant writer who has been described by French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy as "one of the most important public intellectuals today." In a way, Murray is the individual embodiment of the discomfort and uncertainty he describes in this book.

Murray suggests that one - and perhaps the principal - cause of this unrest is that "we have been living through a period of more than a quarter of a century when all our grand narratives have collapsed. One by one the narratives we had were refuted, became unpopular to defend or impossible to sustain."  Religion, family, politics, nationalism, social order - one by one the things that we took for granted fell away, leaving a vacuum into which new "ideas began to creep." "When you believe in nothing, you'll fall for anything." (variously ascribed)

One element that is new and that has added jet fuel to the "creeping" is, of course, the computer and the Internet. I'm reminded of the printing press and how it added tinder to the fire of the Reformation - a change that swept the Catholic Church from the centerpiece of the home, town, art, architecture, language, even the calendar, and replaced it with a splintered approach to life and eventually a reliance upon science and "the Enlightenment" for Truth. Our instant, many-to-many communication style has certainly resulted in the current struggle for cultural control seeming more important, if not actually making it so.

Murray divides his book into four primary "crowds" of dissonance: Gay, Women, Race, Trans, with a reflection in between each section.

On the topic of "Gay," Murray deals with such issues as the actual numbers (how many people are distinctly and singularly gay?), hardware vs. software (are you born that way, or programmed that way, or perhaps some of each?), once gay was accepted as an open option was the continuation of the battle needed (political driver, marriage, parenthood, praise?). Or perhaps gay isn't as accepted as we'd like to think?

In his first reflection, he considers the political forces behind our current way of thinking, delves into Post-Modernism in the classroom, and calls out Marxism as one powerful source of our discontent. A central tenet of Marxism is that an imbalance of power will result in exploitation, and an imbalance in power is a basic evil to be defeated. His argument suggests that if we are all convinced that we belong to some group that has been exploited in one way or another, we will want to crash the system that has allowed it.

His section on "Women" is equally challenging. What is a woman? Is it merely the physical, or something unique to the experience of that physical being? How do we reconcile the blatant sexuality that has gone far beyond the "bullet bra" of the 50's to the apparent current demand that a woman be able to "lap dance before... any man she chooses... then change the game completely." If it is true, as IMF head Christine Lagarde has said, that "if it had been the Lehman Sisters rather than the Lehman Brothers, the world might well look a lot different today," then does that mean women are not the equal of men but their betters? And what about the aims of the various waves of feminism: once women could vote, live alone, and earn competitively, was there really another mountain to climb, or is occupying the control center the real aim of modern feminism? And, if so, is it not only fair that those who once were merely passengers get a chance behind the wheel of social order?

His next interlude addresses the idea I mentioned early in this review: the impact of Tech on what we think, why we think it, and even how we think. He warns that just because it's technologically delivered doesn't mean that an idea isn't biased - deliberately or because the AI has been taught to "think that way." He addresses the fact that we have a world of information in our hands at all times, yet perhaps lack the ability to be discerning in ingesting it, careful about trusting it, and falling for our own natural propensity for confirmation bias.

"Race" is yet another problem many had thought we'd put to rest when a generation grew up working hard to see beyond the color of skin and into the "content of character," yet which remains a problem because, as he quotes one professor, "white people who are avowedly anti-racist may still be racist. It is just that they are racist in ways that they have not yet realized." He contends with the question of whether or not the race question can ever be fully settled to everyone's satisfaction, whether it's a "hardware or software" issue, and whether it's been adopted as a political football to keep tossing around to determine advantage and "right-think." Can someone who has lived as a person of one race even understand how it would feel to be another, and make just evaluation of the situation?

Murray's next interlude is perhaps his most powerful: Forgiveness. He writes: "...we have allowed ourselves no mechanisms for getting out of the situation technology has landed us in. It appears able to cause catastrophes but not to heal them, to wound but not to remedy." Technology, he said, has allowed for the "pure gold for a network addicted to shaming and schadenfreude. We all know the glee at watching someone fall from grace; the righteous feeling that can come with joining in the punishment of a transgressor." With the unmovable memory of the Internet, and the joint disdain of millions who "see" our errors, any hope for our sins being erased is lost - especially when groveling publicly seems to fail where private confession could once heal. Worse, we cannot really believe what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears, because technology has enabled a lie to live on as a truth.

His final "difficult subject" is "Trans." In spite of what we think, sexual/gender ambiguity isn't something just invented. Murray goes back to Ovid, and the character Tiresias, who could shift between sexes, and reminds us of the many references throughout time and across cultures to those who are neither this nor that gender, but something in between. He then explores the difference between "intersex," a biological variant of XX/XY, and the decision to adjust one's biology to conform to one's sense of oneself. And he raises the issue of how feminism deals with the question of - again - hardware vs. software, and what it means to be "male" and "female." If there is nothing unique about the experience of being female or male, then why the need to change into the "other," and what becomes of the wrongs done in the name of gender?

Murray ends with a thoughtful Conclusion. Nothing is tied up neatly with a bow; he doesn't have a prescription for solving these complex and confounding problems - other than urging compassion. He does offer his own way of approaching, if not fixing, issues that are big and made bigger by the constant angry discussion-for-discussion's-sake surrounding each of them. Perhaps the wisest insight he offers is under the heading "Recognize Where We May Be Going." Looking ahead is always wise counsel before setting out on any journey.