A new Netflix show makes regime propaganda, because not even the brutal murder of society’s most innocent and vulnerable members can be justification for Wrongthink
As an American, I wonder how much you feel you need to pull your punches, self censor, and parse your words, when posting on Substack. The ability of an elitist establishment to so effectively slant an issue is scary. Perhaps the next show will be about honor killings among Church of England types.
Do you mean me, personally? I have to admit, even though I'm not a pull my punches type of person, it does cross my mind. And the thought of honour killings by CoE types is hilarious. Would make a great dark comedy.
I watched and enjoyed Adolescence. I took from it that it’s false to think that the kids are “safe at home” when they have unsupervised access to computers and phones. It seems like a reasonable message.
But, being a Yank, I had to look online to learn about the stabbers that inspired the show. It then became clear that the show is a liberal propaganda piece. And I was saddened. Must everything be political nowadays?
I watched the show. It is well crafted. The one-take style creates an urgency that works beautifully. The acting is strong, especially by the lead boy.
It's beguiling. But beguiling is not enough.
The underlying story and messages are simply not believable. There is no credible exploration of why the boy does what he does. Why?
The writers have a morality message cloaked in melodrama: online influencers and porn will turn a normal, smart 13-year-old boy into cold blooded killer. And surrounding that message is a pervasive culture of "toxic masculinity." It's everywhere. Dad has bulging muscles. So does the lead cop. Dad also has a hot temper. The other boy characters are all heartless and cold. They have no “empathy.”
In a weird way, it backfires. The story rings false. Which makes you doubt the message that has been so expertly dramatized.
It’s a work of fiction, possibly it’s entertaining? I can’t see past the propaganda and where it fits into the current UK social political climate.
The most simplistic way to deal with any of it’s “fan base”, ask them, if they can find any criminal cases, either ongoing or in the recent past, where a 13 year old boy has been driven to commit murder via online “manosphere” ideology.
If you pay a close attention to the recent illiberal media’s output on “misogyny”, you’ll see a growing body of: negative, divisive, manipulative narratives around; working class boys, misogyny in schools, the promotion of bad actors such as Andrew Tate, drip feeding the idea, that the next terror incident, will be carried out by working class boys, radicalised online.
This work of fiction only functions as a blunt instrument for hysterical, illiberal, Labour voting school teacher types, to hit young men over the head with.
The contemporary, comprehensive state school system, is basically an ongoing experiment, somebody aught to suggest that the over feminisation (females out ratio men in every state secondary) of mixed sex schooling is possibly a complete failure for both staff and pupil?
People obsess over "gender parity" when it comes to corporate boards, ministerial cabinets, the judiciary and so on. But if it were a truly principled stance then there would be equal concern about the huge skew in the other direction within sectors that are no less important or influential (in a soft power sort of way) like education or university administration.
No need to worry about 'toxic masculinity' - they've got drugs and surgeries now that can turn those awful men into women. In the transhumanist future into which the present is creeping, there won't be anyone with bad views or bad emotions.
More and more I’m seeing people question the rationale of this tv series. The fact the murderer has two loving parents engaged with in his life, while not impossible, is so far from the reality. The narrative on the left seems to be that parents need terrified of what is happening to their children - and it’s true that they should be aware of what their children watch online (though very difficult at time quite frankly) but this seems to be an engineered moral panic. A few years ago I started hearing phrases like boys being radicalised by the ‘manosphere’ and I noted the connotation to terrorism and thought ‘what rubbish!’. I see they have been somewhat successful in embedding this fanciful idea.
Well the irony is that lots of kids are being radicalised by toxic online subcultures -- but in ways -- ie gender craziness -- that the regime can never grapple with.
It is, in fact--and not somewhat successful--"an engineered moral panic." I see and hear it every day when I meet up with someone who reads NYT/Guardian, listens to NPR, scrolls thru their FBXTikToksetc. Full on hand-wringing terror and panic. I'm so tired of it, I call them on it. Often turns ugly, but that's what we have to do. Sanity depends on the voice of reason. Every time I encounter someone wringing their hands over the "unconscionable" cuts to the Federal government, I come back with $37 TRILLION deficit, which costs us $880 BILLION annually in interest payments. Where would YOU start cutting? I get alot of but, but, buts, and yet the seed is planted. Challenge, just as we are being manipulated. I know this example is far from the debacle you have outlined above, Jenny, but starting with folks' back pockets might even wake up the Guardian editor vegan. We can only try!
It seems that this show conflates and distorts various issues. In the end the result is that one sector of society embraces wrongheaded solutions (e.g., greater censorship of online speech or the criminalisation of "misogyny") while another sector of society dismisses real problems (e.g., screen addiction in the young).
The fact is, screens and social media do not cause people to develop violent tendencies or psychopathic traits. But they do cause disassociation, demotivation, and depression, while dumbing down both our senses and intellect. More crucially, girls (and women) are more susceptible than boys/men.
At the same time, there is genuinely an increase in violence among young men. But screens are not the catalyst, nor is the internet the source of these predilections. If we look at knife crimes we see they can be roughly divided into two camps: those associated with gangs and/or a dysfunctional urban culture that prizes toughness, and those that are, for lack of a better word, ideological.
In the first camp, crimes tend to be relational. The knife-wielder is either targeting a specific enemy (a rival gang member for example) or impulsively reacting to a situation that has made them feel disrespected, resulting in the unleashing of violent fury against a girlfriend, classmate or acquaintance. Data shows time and time again that black and non-white youth, as well as fatherless youth with a history of behavioural problems, are vastly overrepresented as perpetrators in these types of crimes.
In the second camp, we see victims chosen because of what they represent to the killer. The acts may appear random but are usually planned or premeditated to some degree. These killers find meaning in the act of murder and derive fulfillment from it -- this is what I mean by ideological. The meaning could be derived from a structured belief system like Islamism or it could be highly personal. When not political or religious in their motivations, killers like Rudakubana still attach symbolism to the destruction they sow and find it righteous.
This second camp of killer might seek out material on the internet that can inspire or inform their M.O. But suffice to say that this material is very unlikely to be an Andrew Tate video. Moreover, online material is not so much a radicalising force as a reinforcer of views that are already held. Finally, data also shows that these killers are highly likely to be non-white.
Adolescence takes these three issues (screen addiction, urban knife crime, and ideologically-driven knife crime) and conflates them into a single story centred around someone who is not actually representative of any of them. It then scapegoats internet subcultures for a rare type of crime, further muddying the waters.
We *do* need a debate around adolescent use of the internet. We *do* need a debate around boys and knife crime. We *do* need a debate around extreme ideologies and violence. And this does nothing to enable it.
Agree 100%. Do you think there is any risk in screening adolescence in schools you throw fuel onto some embers that are lying smouldering here and there?
I know a family with two adopted boys and now two biological daughters. Eldest boy is odd and always has been since he was a very young child, he used to mercilessly bully his younger (non blood) brother and was capable of some acts of cruelty that went beyond normal behaviour for a lad of his age. He also had some weird compulsions, at one point he was collecting his own faeces in a jar in the garden, and lying about it when confronted. He eventually was expelled from his (private) school for bringing in a large kitchen knife - he was 8. A boy that had been trying to be his friend had 'annoyed him'. We have two daughters and used to hang out with them as a family, but had always been very wary of this boy - he was very manipulative and secretive. After the knife incident we kept away more and more and then really cut contact after he locked my eldest daughter in an out-house at their house one day after we let our guard down.
The thing was that his parents were both loving Christians, were part of a church, and the dad attempted to impose discipline on both the boys - so they were definitely not neglected or abused. Nor were they exposed to any violent materials or had unrestricted internet access. Great patience was always shown after incidents but punishments - removal of privileges etc were always meted out. The kid had been having therapy/counselling but the family emigrated and we haven't seen them for a while - although one of the parents had said that the kid had been stealing from shops seeming for kicks. (The kids never wanted for anything)
When the Southport incident happened and the details began to emerge it made me think of this family - I genuinely think that this boy was a psychopath/sociopath, and being a parent to that is an impossible task. Its also a hard thought because it makes one think that fates are predestined, is it right that someone is condemned because of their brain at birth.
I think it's a key fact of your story that this boy was adopted.
Your friends are Christian, loving adoptive parents but the boy had already gone through an initial trauma (the so-called "primal wound" of being separated from his birth mother). Adoptees are often troubled (my ex was one) and depending on the level of trauma suffered prior to adoption I can see how in some very specific cases it could cause psychopathic tendencies (or similar).
Yeah, I think he knows he’s adopted. His maternal grandmother has some involvement in his life. He was adopted by my friends when his mother got ok pregnant in her late teens which would have stopped her going to college in the US (presumably a good school as her parents are loaded) and she asked my friends who knew them professionally and who were struggling to conceive if they would consider adoption. It’s not a great start to life, and it must hurt to be not with one’s birth mother, but it’s not like he’s been through the care of state facilities waiting for adoptive parents nor has he known anything else.
Attachment theory suggests that disruption of a child's early life can be damaging even if there is no abuse. There may also be effects on child behaviour from maternal drug use, or genetic effects from the father's line, both of which can affect teenage girls from 'respectable' families.
I haven't seen "Adolescence" either, but I think all TV, film, books -- culture generally -- nowadays is regime propaganda. "Adolescence" sounds particularly egregious, but it's far from unique. Everything is pro-multiculturalism-trans-secularism-DEI and any characters opposed to this are strawmen, either stupid or evil, if they appear at all.
It can be hard to remember that this wasn't always the case.
The really shocking thing is that those producing this "art" genuinely believe that they are at the cutting edge, promoting "subversive" ideas that are under threat from The Establishment. They don't realise that they *are* The Establishment and have been for twenty years or more.
That's really the most annoying thing, watching these elites posture as oppressed and brave when they are the polar opposite. If anything, they are the oppressors and the cowards. Lie pay, truth is punished.
Abigail's Party? He has a new film currently on release the title escapes me. Yes agree with the faux accents but at least they're speaking english. What saddens me more is walking through parts of London for a mile hearing all sorts of languages apart from english.
Long ago, when I was a child, I didn't know anybody who didn't go to church, most (at least in my neighborhood) went to parochial school, mothers were normally home with the kids, TV shows were required to be reasonably harmless, there was no Internet, kids did not have phones, etc. It's a different world out there now. And that doesn't even begin to get into the issues of massive immigration or of the ever more obvious wokeness and smug authoritarianism of those who consider themselves superior to the rest of humanity.
I am with you. I can’t bring myself to watch it. I can’t bring myself to watch anything. And I worry that my refusal to engage with this stuff isn’t fair. I mean there are performances and actors with seeing (not so much with this — more with films) but I have this visceral reaction against being lectured to and part of me thinks it would be better to revisit in a few years when I’m not so annoyed.
Class impregnates Britain - should I say 'England' - fiendishly invisible even to those who's actions and opinions reproduce its ironclad character. Like a landed fish learns about water, I had to live and work for 5 years in USA to learn about by its absence in a country where rank thrives but is based on v different criteria. My learning came equally strongly from my long marriage to a woman from a coal mining family, who's occasionally joked, unamused, that she'd like to check me in for a 'superciliectomy'. It's strongest manifestation in America is around being a 'winner' or a 'loser'. I, and Englishman, recall blank reactions to the famous British saying I'd imbibed as a child "It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game." This is not a maxim among our lower orders or the arrivistes who know the vigour and determination needed to rise through our discreetly maintained castes without being assimilated into their social mores. 'Adolescence' was brilliant. It was only reading yours and others reflections on it, that I realise that part of its power was that even I, with a practised ear and eye for the points you and other critics have made about class, did not see the slant.
One of the reasons my dad loved America -- and not the UK/Northern Ireland where he was from -- was because he always said it was not class obsessed. It gave everyone a fair shot. I don't think that is true anymore, though. The ideological possession of the PMC is everywhere now.
True. But we (Americans) are fighting the PMC tooth and nail. We don’t like being told what to do by our “betters.” You won’t see American cops hassling people in their own homes at 2:00 am about their social media posts. And if that did happen, it would blow up into a huge furor.
We have guns and free speech and our regressive left is currently losing ground as more and more people wake up. Populism is working over here at present.
I have watched it, and it is exactly how you describe. Stephen Graham (the actor who plays the dad) and his wife were instrumental in the show being made. Which is disappointing after Graham has spent years talking about working class issues.
I don't think any person with working class roots will get anywhere in the regime approved industries unless they toe the line. So they do, and they are rewarded. Pretty shit behaviour.
It makes me so fucking angry at the way white working class people are being treated (and have always been). I’m an old skool lefty, used to go on anti-Nazi league protest marches. Thankfully the REAL ring wing have mostly disappeared (NF/BNP/Combat 18). Scum everyone of them. But this is who KS and the elites are treating people who merely want to talk about concerns that are impacting their lives and not the lives of the elites who are creating these problems 🤬
I’m surprised they didn’t go Full Monty and have the character kill someone of the minority to further villainize the majority overlord’s kids. if they had done this based on a complete work of fiction, then it would’ve been about the writing. I doubt very seriously anyone on the far left will say anything about the white washing of villains. Bad people come in all colors just like good people.
This article absolutely hits the nail right on the head. If they had any understanding of the concept, the likes of Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham should hang their heads in shame. They are contemptible.
As an American, I wonder how much you feel you need to pull your punches, self censor, and parse your words, when posting on Substack. The ability of an elitist establishment to so effectively slant an issue is scary. Perhaps the next show will be about honor killings among Church of England types.
Appreciate your work.
Do you mean me, personally? I have to admit, even though I'm not a pull my punches type of person, it does cross my mind. And the thought of honour killings by CoE types is hilarious. Would make a great dark comedy.
I've wondered and worried about the same thing. You tell it like it is, and that doesn't seem to go over well with the authorities where you are.
LOL to your last sentence. I can feel a short film coming on…
I watched and enjoyed Adolescence. I took from it that it’s false to think that the kids are “safe at home” when they have unsupervised access to computers and phones. It seems like a reasonable message.
But, being a Yank, I had to look online to learn about the stabbers that inspired the show. It then became clear that the show is a liberal propaganda piece. And I was saddened. Must everything be political nowadays?
Apparently, yes! That is why cultural output is so degraded and untrue.
I watched the show. It is well crafted. The one-take style creates an urgency that works beautifully. The acting is strong, especially by the lead boy.
It's beguiling. But beguiling is not enough.
The underlying story and messages are simply not believable. There is no credible exploration of why the boy does what he does. Why?
The writers have a morality message cloaked in melodrama: online influencers and porn will turn a normal, smart 13-year-old boy into cold blooded killer. And surrounding that message is a pervasive culture of "toxic masculinity." It's everywhere. Dad has bulging muscles. So does the lead cop. Dad also has a hot temper. The other boy characters are all heartless and cold. They have no “empathy.”
In a weird way, it backfires. The story rings false. Which makes you doubt the message that has been so expertly dramatized.
The absolute loathing of masculinity, and the total lack of understanding of it, is the real danger.
It’s a work of fiction, possibly it’s entertaining? I can’t see past the propaganda and where it fits into the current UK social political climate.
The most simplistic way to deal with any of it’s “fan base”, ask them, if they can find any criminal cases, either ongoing or in the recent past, where a 13 year old boy has been driven to commit murder via online “manosphere” ideology.
If you pay a close attention to the recent illiberal media’s output on “misogyny”, you’ll see a growing body of: negative, divisive, manipulative narratives around; working class boys, misogyny in schools, the promotion of bad actors such as Andrew Tate, drip feeding the idea, that the next terror incident, will be carried out by working class boys, radicalised online.
This work of fiction only functions as a blunt instrument for hysterical, illiberal, Labour voting school teacher types, to hit young men over the head with.
The contemporary, comprehensive state school system, is basically an ongoing experiment, somebody aught to suggest that the over feminisation (females out ratio men in every state secondary) of mixed sex schooling is possibly a complete failure for both staff and pupil?
People obsess over "gender parity" when it comes to corporate boards, ministerial cabinets, the judiciary and so on. But if it were a truly principled stance then there would be equal concern about the huge skew in the other direction within sectors that are no less important or influential (in a soft power sort of way) like education or university administration.
No need to worry about 'toxic masculinity' - they've got drugs and surgeries now that can turn those awful men into women. In the transhumanist future into which the present is creeping, there won't be anyone with bad views or bad emotions.
Phew!
More and more I’m seeing people question the rationale of this tv series. The fact the murderer has two loving parents engaged with in his life, while not impossible, is so far from the reality. The narrative on the left seems to be that parents need terrified of what is happening to their children - and it’s true that they should be aware of what their children watch online (though very difficult at time quite frankly) but this seems to be an engineered moral panic. A few years ago I started hearing phrases like boys being radicalised by the ‘manosphere’ and I noted the connotation to terrorism and thought ‘what rubbish!’. I see they have been somewhat successful in embedding this fanciful idea.
Well the irony is that lots of kids are being radicalised by toxic online subcultures -- but in ways -- ie gender craziness -- that the regime can never grapple with.
It is, in fact--and not somewhat successful--"an engineered moral panic." I see and hear it every day when I meet up with someone who reads NYT/Guardian, listens to NPR, scrolls thru their FBXTikToksetc. Full on hand-wringing terror and panic. I'm so tired of it, I call them on it. Often turns ugly, but that's what we have to do. Sanity depends on the voice of reason. Every time I encounter someone wringing their hands over the "unconscionable" cuts to the Federal government, I come back with $37 TRILLION deficit, which costs us $880 BILLION annually in interest payments. Where would YOU start cutting? I get alot of but, but, buts, and yet the seed is planted. Challenge, just as we are being manipulated. I know this example is far from the debacle you have outlined above, Jenny, but starting with folks' back pockets might even wake up the Guardian editor vegan. We can only try!
Yes, challenging the hysteria person-to-person is actually very important. More important than writing think pieces, I'd say, so good for you!
It seems that this show conflates and distorts various issues. In the end the result is that one sector of society embraces wrongheaded solutions (e.g., greater censorship of online speech or the criminalisation of "misogyny") while another sector of society dismisses real problems (e.g., screen addiction in the young).
The fact is, screens and social media do not cause people to develop violent tendencies or psychopathic traits. But they do cause disassociation, demotivation, and depression, while dumbing down both our senses and intellect. More crucially, girls (and women) are more susceptible than boys/men.
At the same time, there is genuinely an increase in violence among young men. But screens are not the catalyst, nor is the internet the source of these predilections. If we look at knife crimes we see they can be roughly divided into two camps: those associated with gangs and/or a dysfunctional urban culture that prizes toughness, and those that are, for lack of a better word, ideological.
In the first camp, crimes tend to be relational. The knife-wielder is either targeting a specific enemy (a rival gang member for example) or impulsively reacting to a situation that has made them feel disrespected, resulting in the unleashing of violent fury against a girlfriend, classmate or acquaintance. Data shows time and time again that black and non-white youth, as well as fatherless youth with a history of behavioural problems, are vastly overrepresented as perpetrators in these types of crimes.
In the second camp, we see victims chosen because of what they represent to the killer. The acts may appear random but are usually planned or premeditated to some degree. These killers find meaning in the act of murder and derive fulfillment from it -- this is what I mean by ideological. The meaning could be derived from a structured belief system like Islamism or it could be highly personal. When not political or religious in their motivations, killers like Rudakubana still attach symbolism to the destruction they sow and find it righteous.
This second camp of killer might seek out material on the internet that can inspire or inform their M.O. But suffice to say that this material is very unlikely to be an Andrew Tate video. Moreover, online material is not so much a radicalising force as a reinforcer of views that are already held. Finally, data also shows that these killers are highly likely to be non-white.
Adolescence takes these three issues (screen addiction, urban knife crime, and ideologically-driven knife crime) and conflates them into a single story centred around someone who is not actually representative of any of them. It then scapegoats internet subcultures for a rare type of crime, further muddying the waters.
We *do* need a debate around adolescent use of the internet. We *do* need a debate around boys and knife crime. We *do* need a debate around extreme ideologies and violence. And this does nothing to enable it.
Good analysis ….
Agree 100%. Do you think there is any risk in screening adolescence in schools you throw fuel onto some embers that are lying smouldering here and there?
I know a family with two adopted boys and now two biological daughters. Eldest boy is odd and always has been since he was a very young child, he used to mercilessly bully his younger (non blood) brother and was capable of some acts of cruelty that went beyond normal behaviour for a lad of his age. He also had some weird compulsions, at one point he was collecting his own faeces in a jar in the garden, and lying about it when confronted. He eventually was expelled from his (private) school for bringing in a large kitchen knife - he was 8. A boy that had been trying to be his friend had 'annoyed him'. We have two daughters and used to hang out with them as a family, but had always been very wary of this boy - he was very manipulative and secretive. After the knife incident we kept away more and more and then really cut contact after he locked my eldest daughter in an out-house at their house one day after we let our guard down.
The thing was that his parents were both loving Christians, were part of a church, and the dad attempted to impose discipline on both the boys - so they were definitely not neglected or abused. Nor were they exposed to any violent materials or had unrestricted internet access. Great patience was always shown after incidents but punishments - removal of privileges etc were always meted out. The kid had been having therapy/counselling but the family emigrated and we haven't seen them for a while - although one of the parents had said that the kid had been stealing from shops seeming for kicks. (The kids never wanted for anything)
When the Southport incident happened and the details began to emerge it made me think of this family - I genuinely think that this boy was a psychopath/sociopath, and being a parent to that is an impossible task. Its also a hard thought because it makes one think that fates are predestined, is it right that someone is condemned because of their brain at birth.
I think it's a key fact of your story that this boy was adopted.
Your friends are Christian, loving adoptive parents but the boy had already gone through an initial trauma (the so-called "primal wound" of being separated from his birth mother). Adoptees are often troubled (my ex was one) and depending on the level of trauma suffered prior to adoption I can see how in some very specific cases it could cause psychopathic tendencies (or similar).
Not just in the brain at birth, but in the early childhood experiences which led to the adoption. Adults can do a lot of damage to a young child.
Yeah, I think he knows he’s adopted. His maternal grandmother has some involvement in his life. He was adopted by my friends when his mother got ok pregnant in her late teens which would have stopped her going to college in the US (presumably a good school as her parents are loaded) and she asked my friends who knew them professionally and who were struggling to conceive if they would consider adoption. It’s not a great start to life, and it must hurt to be not with one’s birth mother, but it’s not like he’s been through the care of state facilities waiting for adoptive parents nor has he known anything else.
Attachment theory suggests that disruption of a child's early life can be damaging even if there is no abuse. There may also be effects on child behaviour from maternal drug use, or genetic effects from the father's line, both of which can affect teenage girls from 'respectable' families.
Stalin’s foster child is running Britain!
I haven't seen "Adolescence" either, but I think all TV, film, books -- culture generally -- nowadays is regime propaganda. "Adolescence" sounds particularly egregious, but it's far from unique. Everything is pro-multiculturalism-trans-secularism-DEI and any characters opposed to this are strawmen, either stupid or evil, if they appear at all.
It can be hard to remember that this wasn't always the case.
The really shocking thing is that those producing this "art" genuinely believe that they are at the cutting edge, promoting "subversive" ideas that are under threat from The Establishment. They don't realise that they *are* The Establishment and have been for twenty years or more.
That's really the most annoying thing, watching these elites posture as oppressed and brave when they are the polar opposite. If anything, they are the oppressors and the cowards. Lie pay, truth is punished.
One I absolutely can't stand is anything made by Mike Leigh. The absolute epitome of smug, north London, bourgeois liberal sneering.
Never seen one! 💪🏼 But my pet peeves are those new bands who LARP about with East End accents but are always defending the EU or something. Get bent.
Abigail's Party? He has a new film currently on release the title escapes me. Yes agree with the faux accents but at least they're speaking english. What saddens me more is walking through parts of London for a mile hearing all sorts of languages apart from english.
I don’t like his style personally, but I disagree that his is bourgeois elite sneering.
Long ago, when I was a child, I didn't know anybody who didn't go to church, most (at least in my neighborhood) went to parochial school, mothers were normally home with the kids, TV shows were required to be reasonably harmless, there was no Internet, kids did not have phones, etc. It's a different world out there now. And that doesn't even begin to get into the issues of massive immigration or of the ever more obvious wokeness and smug authoritarianism of those who consider themselves superior to the rest of humanity.
I am with you. I can’t bring myself to watch it. I can’t bring myself to watch anything. And I worry that my refusal to engage with this stuff isn’t fair. I mean there are performances and actors with seeing (not so much with this — more with films) but I have this visceral reaction against being lectured to and part of me thinks it would be better to revisit in a few years when I’m not so annoyed.
I think your visceral reaction to being lectured to is a very healthy self-preservation instinct. Don't give them your attention!
cool way to hype yourself up for intentionally not consuming any of the media you’re talking about before spending an essay on how it missed the mark
I've watched very few stuff produced in the 2020s for the same reasons.
The spectacle leaves one wordless. Fanatical, mediocre leadership at every level.
Also Rob Henderson had a Substack live stream with Incel expert William Costello yesterday about this tv show - worth a watch …
Just watched. Very interesting. Thank you!
Class impregnates Britain - should I say 'England' - fiendishly invisible even to those who's actions and opinions reproduce its ironclad character. Like a landed fish learns about water, I had to live and work for 5 years in USA to learn about by its absence in a country where rank thrives but is based on v different criteria. My learning came equally strongly from my long marriage to a woman from a coal mining family, who's occasionally joked, unamused, that she'd like to check me in for a 'superciliectomy'. It's strongest manifestation in America is around being a 'winner' or a 'loser'. I, and Englishman, recall blank reactions to the famous British saying I'd imbibed as a child "It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game." This is not a maxim among our lower orders or the arrivistes who know the vigour and determination needed to rise through our discreetly maintained castes without being assimilated into their social mores. 'Adolescence' was brilliant. It was only reading yours and others reflections on it, that I realise that part of its power was that even I, with a practised ear and eye for the points you and other critics have made about class, did not see the slant.
One of the reasons my dad loved America -- and not the UK/Northern Ireland where he was from -- was because he always said it was not class obsessed. It gave everyone a fair shot. I don't think that is true anymore, though. The ideological possession of the PMC is everywhere now.
True. But we (Americans) are fighting the PMC tooth and nail. We don’t like being told what to do by our “betters.” You won’t see American cops hassling people in their own homes at 2:00 am about their social media posts. And if that did happen, it would blow up into a huge furor.
We have guns and free speech and our regressive left is currently losing ground as more and more people wake up. Populism is working over here at present.
Class is, and always has been, very much alive and 'well' in Scotland and Wales also.
I'm convinced a large part of the UK population is suicidal.
I have watched it, and it is exactly how you describe. Stephen Graham (the actor who plays the dad) and his wife were instrumental in the show being made. Which is disappointing after Graham has spent years talking about working class issues.
I don't think any person with working class roots will get anywhere in the regime approved industries unless they toe the line. So they do, and they are rewarded. Pretty shit behaviour.
It makes me so fucking angry at the way white working class people are being treated (and have always been). I’m an old skool lefty, used to go on anti-Nazi league protest marches. Thankfully the REAL ring wing have mostly disappeared (NF/BNP/Combat 18). Scum everyone of them. But this is who KS and the elites are treating people who merely want to talk about concerns that are impacting their lives and not the lives of the elites who are creating these problems 🤬
I’m surprised they didn’t go Full Monty and have the character kill someone of the minority to further villainize the majority overlord’s kids. if they had done this based on a complete work of fiction, then it would’ve been about the writing. I doubt very seriously anyone on the far left will say anything about the white washing of villains. Bad people come in all colors just like good people.
This article absolutely hits the nail right on the head. If they had any understanding of the concept, the likes of Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham should hang their heads in shame. They are contemptible.
Thank you, and I agree about the makers of the show.
Superb commentary
Thank you.