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The diagnosis of a split in society is commonplace today societies are shaken by discord and divisions are intensifying. The claims differ in details but on some basic assumptions, there is usually agreement.

First, there are increasingly testy disputes, largely along a traditional left-right axis but sometimes deviating from it. Culture wars break out over gender issues, racism and anti-racism, immigration and who belongs to the us even lifestyles. Pundits talk about societies breaking into hostile tribes.

There is also a degree of unanimity in the analyses about alienation from the conventional political system anger that they are not interested in us at all especially in underprivileged segments of the population, including the old working classes but also the marginalised lower middle class and the underclass.

Those who are victims of growing insecurity feel that they can no longer rely on solidarity: You cant count on anyone anymore. Many people say I just look out for myself now in a depressed, negative individualism. These social milieux are then particularly appealing to right-wing populists and extremists who proclaim: Yes, no one listens to you but I am your voice.

This is a particular challenge for progressive political parties: the social democrats, the Labour Party, the American Democrats, the vast majority of traditional labour and left-wing movements. On the one hand, left-wing parties have a great deal of sympathy with popular revolts against ruling elites and systems of chronic injustice indeed, for many decades of their existence, they were the bearers of them. Yet, on the other hand, in the eyes of many who turn away in disappointment, they themselves are part of that detested elite. Even if they the parties see themselves as part of the solution, many of their potential voters see them as part of the problem.

Those who are under economic pressure, who struggle with job insecurity and who generally see themselves as losers of economic transformations easily feel politically unheard.

This is by no means to say that the supporters of right-wing, anti-system parties are primarily part of a working-class that has become politically homeless but they do also come from this group. Those who are under economic pressure, who struggle with job insecurity, who are confronted with stagnating wages and who generally see themselves as losers of economic transformations easily feel politically unheard, no longer represented, disrespected and left behind as innocent victims of injustice. I have analysed all this in my bookThe False Friends of the Ordinary People, including how right-wing populists appeal successfully to the traditional values of the working classes.

The left-wing and progressive parties have, of course, already recognised the problem and are responding to it in a wide variety of ways: shifting to the left, managing a gradual course correction, or dissolving into hopeless debates about strategy. The fact that the German social democrats went into the recentBundestagelection campaign with the slogan Respect is due to this diagnosis, and at least it led to the SPD regaining first place and the chancellorship.

It is remarkable that, while different countries on different continents have strikingly different political cultures and traditions, these discourses and rhetorics are astonishingly similar. The structural transformation of debate in the public sphere through the internet, blogs, and social media of course contributes massively here and yet this is oftendramatically underestimated.

These days, however, the diagnosis of polarisation is being invoked almost daily in a specific context. That is the anti-virus regime, with the disputes over lockdowns, rejection of vaccination, denial of the pandemic or its danger and the rise of conspiracy theories. This, too, is global, but there are nonetheless notable national differences.

In the United States, opposition to measures to contain Covid-19 is a common slogan of the radical right under its front figure, the former president, Donald Trump. In other countries, this is less pronounced.

Scepticism and rejection of modern medicine and thus of vaccination also varies widely. Portugal has a vaccination rate of around 90 per cent and Denmark 87 per cent but, of the traditionally western European countries, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have the lowest rates. Theystagnatedfor a long time at just around 65 per cent.

These countries have far-right and right-wing populist parties mobilising against vaccination. The same groups which score points on the culture war issues claiming to be the voice of the common people, the regular guy are now saying: the elites, the government, want to poison you with a vaccine. They are establishing enforced vaccination, a corona dictatorship. They are bought by Big Pharma, street mobsters of sinister world rulers. And they are exploiting an invented or exaggerated disease to destroy freedom and bully the common people.

There is evidently a massiveloss of trustin the entire political system so that many no longer believe anyone perceived in any way to be part of an imaginary establishment.

Given its obvious madness, the astonishing thing is that a not insignificant part of their followers buy into all this craziness. Those who believe the whole radical nonsense are rather few. But a much larger group have doubts about medical science and are less willing to believe the experts than people who pontificate on the internet. Whats happening here?

There is evidently a massiveloss of trustin the entire political system, so that many no longer believe anyone perceived in any way to be part of an imaginary establishment. How alienated and frustrated must they be if they simply dont believe anything anymore and, on the contrary, are willing to take at face value what they read in some weird group on Telegram or WhatsApp?

Rebellion has traditionally connoted emancipation. But this is a revolt against reason.

Especially in the German-speaking countries, where enlightenment rationalism took less deep roots romanticism with its anti-rationalism rather more hostility to science is probably even more widespread than in other cultures. The Nazi movement and its totalitarianism, too with its penchant for the occult and the obscure as well as its contempt for reason may have left deeper traces in this respect than one might think.

Progressive and left-wing parties have always been in the traditional stream of the enlightenment, acting as educational movements. But they too have seen simplifications and conspiratorial ideas among their followers: in 1890 Ferdinand Kronawetter described anti-Semitism as the socialism of the stupid guys (der Socialismus der dummen Kerle).

Also, the environmental movement, considered by many to be alternative and somehow a product of the rebellious counter culture of the 1960s, has its questionable traditions. It upholds the natural and the feeling, life in balance with nature, and has a scepticism of the rationality of science and technology. Natural healing methods, homoeopathy, alternative medicine, and obscurantism of all sorts are quite popular here and are opposed to orthodox medicine, which primarily wants to cram chemicals into people.

Anyhow, if we want to understand current, extremely weird and yet still unclear events, then we should start to bring these elements together. The alienation from the system of politics caused massive annoyance even before the pandemic and is now making the fight against the pandemicdifficult. There is an exasperation with the system on the part of people who often rightly no longer feel represented or even noticed by it.

The popularity of right-wing populism and extremism is certainly a revolt with legitimate aspects but in perverse forms. The depth of this loss of trust is also evident in anti-rationalist revolts against management of the pandemic and even against medical science.

Those who fall into the clutches of such an ideology and an entire system of misinformation come to believe ever more absurd things. They remodel themselves, so to speak, and fall into a dynamic of self-radicalisation which can very soon become truly dangerous.

This is a joint publication by Social Europe andIPS-Journal

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The revolt against reason Democracy and society - IPS Journal

Watch 'Eye on NW Politics' at 6 p.m. Sunday on KOIN

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Newberg is a gateway to Oregons world-class wine country, but its also a place where the culture wars are in an all-out political battle being mostly waged in the citys school system.

The national spotlight on Newberg began in August, when a majority of the school board voted to ban Black Lives Matter and Pride symbols on school campuses, leading to an immediate backlash as students voiced their opinions against it and residents started putting up their own symbols, leading to more than a few heated school board meetings.

Now, there are recall efforts against School Board Chair Dave Brown and Vice-Chair Brian Shannon, who also used to be the boards chair, and lawsuits are being filed across both groups.

Shannon and the three other conservatives who make up the school boards majority fired the districts superintendent in early November. Meanwhile, the school board members are suing a group of constituents for doxing, or making their personal information public, and the Newberg teachers union is suing the board, saying the ban on symbols is discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Tai Harden-Moore, who recently announced her candidacy for Yamhill County Commissioner, is a diversity and equity consultant who lives in Newberg and has a child in the school district. She also previously ran for the school board.

Harden-Moore said shes running to bring new ideas and fresh perspective after seeing push back against diversity and inclusion in the community amid the ongoing school board controversy.

I think thats due to a lack of information and education really around these issues and over-reliance on trigger words, like CRT that folks are hearing on their media stations or from other folks in the community and its really disappointing to see, she said.

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Breaking down the spotlight on Newbergs school board - KOIN.com

I idolized Candace Bushnell without knowing the facts. I grew up watching Sex and the City, and really, that was enough for me. She was the real Carrie Bradshaw, the writer behind the 90s New York Observer columns whod accidentally struck print oil (those columns made up the 1997 best-selling essay collection) and reaped HBO gold. Then finally, after 94 episodes (multiplied by at least seven rewatches), I sought out a first edition of her original Sex book (easier than youd think) inspired by the news of her upcoming one-woman show, Is There Still Sex in the City?, opening Tuesday and devoured it. It was gritty, darkly humorous, and keenly anthropological. Unlike Carrie, who floated from brunch to brunch without much attention to deadlines or finances, Bushnell was a hardworking freelancer with an eye on the bottom line. Watching the stage show during previews, I was struck by the 62-year-olds impressive career: a life made up of leveraging the natural talent and right-place-right-time fortune that got her writing gigs at 19 into a lasting aesthetic empire of up-front sexuality and social acuity.

Her 2019 book (also titled Is There Still Sex in the CIty?) detailed Bushnells return to dating after her divorce from New York City Ballet principal Charles Askegard and saw her leave the Manhattan shuffle, at least partly, for the tranquility of Sag Harbor. And, well, just like that (sorry) shes back. Its not quite the Hello, Dolly! return to the lights of 14th Street, but its close enough: eight times a week, for the next ten weeks, shes inviting close to 500 people into a variation of her living room remounted at the Daryl Roth Theatre on 15th Street (and Park Avenue, of course).

At a nearby brasserie, between rehearsals and her 7 p.m. preview performance, we meet for a quick bite, as her publicist put it, that turns into a leisurely meal. The two of us take up a table for four alongside the restaurants mirrored walls, her arm slung around the empty seat next to her, practically cradling an invisible cigarette. She looks stunning with her sleek legs crossed delicately to her side, though she complains not fishing but not accurately about the flatness of her hair. Its easy to see exactly why and how she hypnotized her way to the top following her arrival to the city in the late 70s. When she listens, she has a look: Its piercing, knowing, and somewhat skeptical. The sort of look that makes people continue speaking until they say something she would hopefully deem important or impressive.

Its what she used to get all of the gory and glorious insight into the sex lives of New Yorkers for that now-iconic column, the on-the-ground hookup reporting we all do for free on Twitter now. Whenever her answers to my questions turn into queries about my own life Everyone used to be at restaurants, but now its clubs? its hard to resist indulging her sparkling curiosity. She seems disappointed that the gash on my forehead Id sustained from walking into the steam-room door at the gym earlier did not involve any loose-toweled friskiness. Shes also visibly concerned I might have a concussion. I told her I wasnt sure.

That active inquisitiveness may be part of the strategy. On the one hand, Bushnell is refreshingly open and self-aware at one point she tells me point-blank, Darling. Babe. Ive written 150,000-word novels. This show is less than 10,000 words. I can write 10,000 words in two days. (In the years since her 1997 literary debut, Bushnell has published nine novels including The Carrie Diaries and Lipstick Jungle, which were also adapted for television.) Still, shes wary of questions that appear to her like traps despite my reassurances of the opposite. Some variation of Theres no hidden meaning made its way into the conversation no fewer than four times during our dinner.

I tell her theres a line from the show that has stuck with me in the week since I first heard it: We all know there are more than just four types of women, Bushnell says onstage, referencing the now-landmark prototypes of the Carrie, the Miranda, the Charlotte, and the Samantha that the HBO adaptation created. But its easy to organize in case theres a war.

Its the kind of incisive, funny remark that shoots naturally from her, but I wanted to know if there was some stinging societal disappointment behind it. At one time, she tells me, there were only two types of women: the Madonna and the Whore. Now there are four. Beat. This is an improvement. She doesnt sound weathered by this observation but almost contradicts herself when discussing the impulse to categorize. Echoing another onstage line that all women on TV are written by men, she informs me, The first thing men do is categorize women into types. Thats how you sell things you put it in a package. I ask about her own system of classification, especially in her columns mentions of modelizers and toxic bachelors, which contributes to so much of her writings sociological wit. You go out with different typestheres that word againof men: the banker, the artist, she says between bites of her steak frites. Of course, I put people into categories, too, because thats what I do as a writer.

The HBO series, like Bushnells book and column before it, are products of their time, a post-Reagan 90s still clenched by the rule of H.W., when bisexuality and (groan) metrosexuality were news to many. Media coverage unsurprisingly went through the usual cycles of backlash and appreciation, so weve gotten just as many endless think pieces on why actually the series portrayal of womens friendship is feminist as we have on why Carries vanilla tendencies are anti-feminist. If the discourse is exhausting enough online, it is perhaps draining for Bushnell to see her work as reimagined through showrunner Michael Patrick Kings glitzy eye for Manolos and cosmos recycled by tired culture wars.

I expect people to be flawed, and not a lot fazes me, she tells me. I ask if this is a hard-won lesson, but she assures me she has always been this way. In fact, its that steely determination that drove her from a quiet Connecticut suburb into a New York that, according to her, was full of characters people came to see and among whom she felt seen. New York City was one of the few places probably in the world where you could see women who were genuinely successful, she says. And it made you feel like you could do it. People were saying, Hey, if this person can do it, how come I cant? And, well, thats the internet now.

Shes puzzled at her perception so many people can have 20 million followers on TikTok and laments the transition from physical to online persona-building. There used to be so much posturing. Now theres a lot of posturing online, but there used to be a lot of posturing in person. Isnt being online at the club just another way of documenting social scenes, much as she was doing with her column? No, she explains (correctly) because now the cameras are turned inward instead of out, and she questions what its like going out in the age of Instagram.

At this point, I couldnt help but wonder (again, sorry): For many of us especially the youngs whose public horniness this summer has been chronicled by just about every single publication sex is definitely still in the city, but is there room for a Candace Bushnell type? Is there room for Candace Bushnell herself? Both her book and her one-woman show make a strong case on her behalf, even if only as the chronicler of how her zippy generation has grown into the older crowd they once dated. She may not be tearing up the downtown scene as she once did, but she remains the blueprint for anyone seeking to find a dash of glamour to their narratives. Glitzy costume changes and behind-the-scenes deets aside, the strongest part of her show is her own story; she asserts as much onstage, and doubles down at dinner: When I say Sex and the City is my lifes work, thats the reality.

That life-spanning work is now our own reality as we eagerly call our no-nonsense friends the Miranda of the group or use a Samantha sexcapade as a vivid point of reference my own go-tos are the two times in the series her orgasmic moans are paralleled with opera singers. As the world quite literally (and not at all glamorously) comes to an end, who wouldnt want to instead reimagine a bathroom-stall encounter that left you locked out of your apartment because the toilet swallowed your keys through a cosmo-colored lens i.e., as just another fabulous tale of city life gone hilariously, beautifully wrong? (Yes, this is a true story; no, I did not tell Candace any more of it I have to have some respect!)

Filling her in on some of my nightlife adventures, I begin to realize I have no idea who Bushnell would be at the party. The sharp insights imply a wallflower, but the vitality and immediacy of the stories suggest an active, if almost chaotic, agent. Ive always been able to be a participant and an observer, she tells me, and I believe her. It would be ungrateful of me not to as a young gay on the go whose love of partying is matched by a love of talking about it. But if I do end up in the corner watching, she says, just to watch people is endlessly fascinating.

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This Is Still Candace Bushnells City - The Cut

Dec 4th 2021

TO UNDERSTAND THE culture wars, it is worth considering what happened between Jordan Peterson and a large red lobster in Cambridge University on a recent evening. Namely, nothing. Which doesnt mean it wasnt important. On the contrary: how it came to pass that nothing was allowed to happen between Mr Peterson and a student dressed as a lobster matters a lot.

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First, the lobster. For those (non-lobsters) who have been living under a rock for the past five years, a primer. Mr Peterson is a Canadian academic who, depending on your viewpoint, is either monstrous or magnificent, but who is, all agree, a phenomenon. His book, 12 Rules for Life, has sold over 5m copies and is an intriguing read. It passes briskly from the biology of lobsters to Eden, original sin, Buddhism and the suffering soul. It is peppered with admonitions to stand up straight with your shoulders back and tell the truth. The effect is as if St Augustine had been reincarnated as a life coach, with added input from your mum.

For those who like this sort of stuff (mainly young men), it is wonderful: bracing; inspiring; manly. For critics (of whom there are many) Mr Peterson is propping up the patriarchy with cod biology about lobsters. (At one point he uses lobster hierarchies to explain why men should walk tall.) While the sides bickered, Mr Peterson became a sensation. He speaks in arenas, appears on talk shows and news programmes and almost always manages to annoy. His interviews (one in 2018 with Cathy Newman, a news anchor for Channel 4, was particularly excruciating) are tense, taut and watched by millions.

In 2018 Mr Peterson happened to sit opposite Douglas Hedley, a Cambridge professor of the philosophy of religion, at dinner. Mr Hedley invited him to take up a visiting fellowship. It seems likely that neither quite knew what they were getting themselves into: the invitation was prompted not by lobsters or talk shows but a shared interest in Jung and Biblical symbolism. What happened next was a textbook cancellation.

Not many complaints are needed to constitute the quorum of a controversy today. Earlier this year a podcaster criticised Brian Wong, Who was Never, Ever Wrong, a story by David Walliams, a comedian turned childrens author, for reinforcing harmful stereotypes about Chinese people. His publisher, HarperCollins, said it would remove the story from reprints. Mr Walliamss series has sold 2m copies, and that book had 6,691 reviews on Amazon, almost all five-star. Yet a single complaint ended in censorship.

In Cambridge, problems began when some students complained about Mr Peterson. The faculty reneged on the invitation in an inept Twitter announcement before Mr Peterson had even been told. The pretext was that he had been photographed next to someone wearing a T-shirt reading Im a proud Islamophobe. When asked to clarify, the divinity faculty remained silent; a press officer for the university explained that they dont wish to be interviewed about events that happened nearly three years ago. The department is home to students of Thomas Aquinas, original sin and early Judaism. Perhaps three years ago was just too fresh.

Little of this is surprising. British universities are, as is clear from the treatment of Kathleen Stock, hardly distinguishing themselves as bastions of free speech. Ms Stock recently resigned from a professorship in philosophy at Sussex University after a years-long campaign of harassment by students and faculty. But in Cambridge there are signs of a pushback. In 2020 a group of academics led by Arif Ahmed, a philosophy professor, rejected an amendment to university regulations that would have restricted their free speech. They forced the university to accept that academics should not have to respect everyones views, but merely tolerate them. More recently they kicked an attempt to set up an anonymous online-reporting tool into the long grass.

Then a handful of academicsincluding Mr Ahmed and James Orr, a divinity lecturerturned their attention to Mr Peterson. Not because they are diehard fans (they arent) but because, as Mr Ahmed says, there had been a grotesque violation of academic freedom and a stain on our reputation. Bureaucratic cogs started to turn. Committees were dealt with, halls booked, security organised and invitations issued. The vote to ensure tolerance helped: now critics had to put up with Mr Peterson. Nonetheless, says Mr Orr, it took an awful lot of time.

The bloody history of the 20th century can lead to a misapprehension about free speech. It is thought to be lost suddenly, to stormtroopers in the night. In fact, freedoms are almost always first removed bureaucratically, with processes made steadily more onerous, whisper campaigns started by colleagues, a word in the bosss ear. Bertrand Russellanother academic kicked out of Cambridge, in his case for pacifismwrote that the habit of considering morality and political opinion before offering a person a post is the modern form of persecution, and it is likely to become quite as efficient as the Inquisition ever was.

The academics persisted. The cogs turned. And on a cold, clear Tuesday evening, a talk took place. There were trestle tables and people ticking off names. Mr Peterson, slender and brittle as a blade in a sharp blue suit, spoke for over an hour to a satisfied audience. The lobster appeared, shouted something about feminism and scuttled through a side door. No one expired from offence. The sky did not fall in. Votes of thanks followed. Mr Peterson was thanked. The audience was thanked. The lobster was thanked.

It was all quite humdrumand that was the point. When people think of defending freedom of speech, they also turn to the dramatic: to Voltaire and defending to the death. But that is rarely necessary. Speech can be silenced by bureaucracyor saved by it: by cogs turning; by trestle tables and people with lists; by insisting on clearly stated rights. And by votes of thanks to lobsters.

Read more from Bagehot, our columnist on British politics:Boris Johnson should pick fights with conservative institutions (Nov 27th)Britains establishment has split into two, each convinced it is the underdog (Nov 20th)How Boris Johnsons failure to tackle sleaze among MPs could prove costly (Nov 10th)

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Jordan Peterson and the lobster"

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Jordan Peterson and the lobster - The Economist

Yamiche Alcindor speaks onstage during day 2 of Politicon 2019 at Music City Center in Nashville, Tenn., October 27, 2019.(Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

Yamiche Alcindor, previously a White House correspondent for PBS, will be transitioning into a role covering Washington more broadly for NBC, the network announced Tuesday. She will continue to host Washington Week for PBS.

Over the years, Alcindor has built a reputation as one of the most partisan reporters in the mainstream press, using her seat in the White House briefing room as a soapbox for progressive politics, despite working for the taxpayer-funded, and ostensibly nonpartisan PBS.

Heres a taste of what NBC will be getting out of its newest employee:

-This summer, Alcindor said the debate around the Biden administration-backed For the People Act which would have federalized Americas elections systems was really an argument over what is American democracy and who should have access to it? and whether or not we want America to be the place that the Founders flawed as they may have been the Founders wanted it to be.

-Alcindor asked National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan,how President Biden plans to convince especially our European allies that former President Trump was an anomaly in some ways, all of the things that he did to in some ways traumatize those leaders calling into question the need for NATO? Whats the plan there and is there concern that those scars are gonna be deeper than his ability to address them?

-At Bidens first press conference as president in March, Alcindor preceded her question for the president on the border crisis by asserting that youve said over and over again that immigrants shouldnt come to this country right now. That message is not being received. Instead, the perception of you that got you elected as a moral, decent man is the reason a lot of immigrants are coming to this country and are trusting you with unaccompanied minors.

-On MSNBC last November, Alcindor said Bidens burgeoning cabinet, feltlike the Avengers, it felt like were being rescued from this craziness that weve all lived through for the last four years and now here are the superheroes to come and save us all.

-Alcindor praised Biden for characterizing Republicans as trying to bully people into being sicktrying to bully teachers into teaching in unsafe environments, on Joy Reids show in September.

-After Republican Glenn Youngkin won last months gubernatorial election in Virginia, Alcindor quizzed Biden on what Democrats should possibly do differently to avoid similar losses in November, especially since Republicans are now successfully running on culture wars issues and false claims about critical race theory?

-When White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefed the press for the first time in May, Alcindor noted that she pledged, Karine Jean-Pierre, to be truthful with the press, and that, of course, is a marked difference from Joe Bidens predecessor, former President Trump, explaining that it felt different.

-In August, as the Biden administrations plan for withdrawing from Afghanistan blew up in its face, Alcindor insisted that the president was not running away from the responsibility for its failure.

-Last September, Alcindor described those who defended Kyle Rittenhouse as the part of his [Trumps] base that think that its okay for a 17-year-old to shoot people in the street who are unarmed, who are at a protest, who are upset about the way that the federal government is treating African-Americans.

-Alcindor chided the Biden administration for not backing Congresswoman Maxine Waters and her advice that people become confrontational if Derek Chauvin was not convicted of murdering George Floyd, saying I wonder why the White House isnt coming to the defense of Rep. Waters given the fact that she is facing an onslaught of attacks by, I would say Republicans, I wonder why the White House isnt saying, We back what she said about being confrontational.

-After Biden took office, Alcindor pushed the administrations line that on vaccine distribution what you have is a Biden administration that is, as Vice President Harris said, starting from scratch, and that is really, really hard. That claim was disputed by even Dr. Anthony Fauci, an outspoken critic of the Trump administration.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.

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Remembering Yamiche Alcindor's Greatest Hits - National Review