Delirious Hatred: The Dystopic Tendencies of Twenty-First Century Progressivism.

Fighting Mad: That which Twenty-First Century progressives most feared, Twenty-First Century progressivism has become. No one old enough to have experienced the emancipatory power of true progressivism: in the factory or on the streets; in the university quad or in the “old school” newsroom; could possibly vote for the parties it has taken over.

I THINK I’VE WORKED IT OUT – why writing about today’s version of “progressive” politics leaves me feeling so depressed. In the end, the reason I cannot bring myself to vote for either Labour or the Greens is very simple: it’s because they are joyless; because the logical end-point of the ideology they espouse is one of universal dissatisfaction and unending conflict. In other words, their direction-of-travel is dystopic. That’s why so many voters are pulling away from parties they’ve supported all their adult lives. They don’t like where Labour and the Greens are going, and they’ll be damned if they’ll go there with them.

Chippy can talk about “bread and butter” all he likes, but everybody knows that he and Grant Robertson have already committed themselves to less butter and thinner bread for at least the next three years. We also know that if, by some miracle, Labour-Green wins the election, then none of the initiatives which both parties signed-up to over the past six years: radical ethnic nationalism, censorship, transgenderism; are going to be abandoned. What looms ahead of New Zealand if Labour-Green wins is grinding economic austerity and relentless cultural warfare. Thinner bread and bloody roses.

The cynicism of the Greens is particularly galling. As the election looms ever closer, the party’s dominant ultra-progressive faction has been careful to remove the most off-putting of their policies from the party’s shop-front window. Barely tolerated by Green activists for most of the past three years, James Shaw has been thrust forward to sell the party’s popular and genuinely progressive policies to the electorate. Unfortunately, everybody who understands just how radical the Greens have become, also knows that the moment the votes are counted Shaw will be pushed aside and the party’s ultra-progressive priorities reclaimed from the backstage area and reinstated.

It is precisely this sort of conscious deception, this deliberate “fooling” of the voters, that has transformed progressive politics from what used to be a joyful affirmation of idealism into a joyless exercise in dishonesty.

According to this sort of progressive politician, the liberation of the oppressed cannot be achieved if their would-be liberators are open and honest about their intentions. Just look at the trouble that Marama Davidson’s frank identification of “White Cis Males” as the ultimate cause of societal violence got the Greens into. In a world where White Cis Males still hold sway, such frankness is self-defeating. The trick, they say, is to keep all these progressive truths safe in one’s heart, while telling those not ready to hear them a pack of lies.

Far better to send out James Shaw – a White Cis Male – to sell the party’s Wealth Tax, its Universal Basic Income, and all the other inspirational policies on offer from the Greens in 2023. That way the voters will be much less likely to remember that the Green Party also favours sending those found guilty of uttering or publishing “Hate Speech” to prison for three years.

Not that Labour is guiltless in this regard. One has only to recall the secretive process by which the He Puapua Report was prepared and presented. Once again, it was assumed that Pakeha New Zealanders couldn’t “handle the truth”. Why else was the Labour Government so insistent that the report in no way represented a blueprint for New Zealand’s transformation into a bicultural state, when a steady stream of official policy decisions confirmed that’s exactly what it was?

Part of the answer lies in the fact that as far as today’s progressives are concerned the “truth” has changed. The unifying vision of human emancipation and equality which, for centuries, possessed the power to mobilise the downtrodden and oppressed is no longer considered to be either achievable or desirable.

Progressive politics has moved beyond the idea of uplifting and overcoming; of building a society in which there are no masters, no servants; no rich, no poor. Envisaged now is what can only be described as a perpetual theatre of cruelty, in which those to whom evil has been done, are encouraged to do evil in return. Far from serving as the emancipating “vanguard” of the Proletariat, as Karl Marx hoped, the intelligentsia of the Twenty-First Century are claiming for themselves the role of Grand Inquisitor. They have made themselves the pitiless torturers of all those whose “privilege” cannot be overcome or abandoned, only confessed to and punished.

The historical precedent which springs to mind most readily is the extreme form of Maoism promulgated by the murderous Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s. Starting where Mao’s “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” left off, the “Red Khmers” constructed an ideological system grounded in deception and death. Having been marched out of the cities and into the countryside, “bourgeois” Cambodians were encouraged to confess their “crimes against the people”. By no other means, the commissars told them, could they be welcomed into the rural utopia which the Red Khmers were bringing into existence. The moment they stepped forward, of course, they were denounced and suffocated.

Over the top? Barking mad? Grossly defamatory of activists who only want people to be free and equal? How I wish it were true! But one only has to visit the febrile world of social media to grasp the perverse enjoyment contemporary progressives derive from “flaming”, “de-platforming”, and “cancelling” – oh, what an ominous word that is – those who refuse to step forward and confess.

A woman like “Posie Parker”, perhaps?

Those who were in Albert Park on 25 March 2023, and those who watched the many video recordings made at the scene, could not help but note the delirious hatred of the mob, and the brutal behaviour it spawned. Such is the praxis of the post-modern progressive: telling the news media that theirs was a gathering of peace and love – while punching a 70-year-old woman in the face. And then, shamefully, having their lies accepted by the supposedly “independent” intellectuals appointed to expose and condemn media falsehoods.

Have a care when fighting monsters,” warned the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, “lest ye become a monster yourself.” Adding: “Stare not too long into the abyss – lest the abyss stare back into you.” Well, the horrific abyss of the bloody Twentieth Century has indisputably left its impression upon the children of the Twenty-First. Terrified that the monsters it spawned are returning to plague them, contemporary progressives have pre-emptively adopted the tactics of the fascists they profess to abhor.

That which Twenty-First Century progressives most feared, Twenty-First Century progressivism has become. No one old enough to have experienced the emancipatory power of true progressivism: in the factory or on the streets; in the university quad or in the “old school” newsroom; could possibly vote for the parties it has taken over.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 15 September 2023.

Debating Debating.

Arguments-To-Go: Trained to espouse only the “correct” version of reality, the idea of giving “incorrect” ideas access to the mass media, must strike a large number of young journalists as just plain wrong.

THAT TELEVISION NEW ZEALAND saw fit to run a news item on the subject of political debate tells us something. Unfortunately, it is that we have a very big problem on our hands.

A generation has grown to adulthood for whom the idea that all important issues have at least two sides has acquired a counterintuitive aspect. It is a generation raised to believe that all the great questions that formerly divided society have been resolved.

To indicate otherwise, by affirming ideas that have been consigned, with extreme prejudice, to the dustbin of history, is to signal a form of individual and social pathology. Such persons may merit treatment, but what they absolutely must not be given is an audience.

What was it, then, that prompted TVNZ’s Laura Frykberg to pull together an item on political debate? The answer would appear to be the events surrounding the visit to New Zealand of the controversial women’s-rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull – also known as “Posie Parker”. Those events have clearly caused a number of journalists to re-examine the way New Zealand’s mainstream news media responded to Keen-Minshull’s visit. A much smaller number may even have asked themselves whether the media’s response played a part in stoking the violence which Keen-Minshull’s presence unleashed.

Frykberg’s framing of the item was, however, rather curious. Viewers were introduced to a clutch of high-school debaters – as if their highly formulaic “sport” in any way resembles genuine political debate. Skilled debaters are expected to acquit themselves effectively regardless of the subject matter. Being on the “Affirmative”, or the “Negative”, team should be a matter of supreme indifference to these “sporting” debaters. They expect to be judged solely on the organisation and delivery of their team’s arguments.

Genuine political debate could hardly be more different from this argumentative cleverness. When real human passions are engaged, debates can become extremely fraught affairs. One has only to encounter the fiercely committed protagonists and antagonists of abortion in the United States to gain some appreciation of the powerful emotions that are all-too-easily aroused by profound differences of opinion.

It is possible that the increasing disinclination to debate contentious issues, a trend already evident in the nation’s universities, is a reflection of the emotional frailty of many younger New Zealanders. More and more we hear the argument that free speech causes real harm to persons of a sensitive disposition. Certainly, hearing one’s cherished beliefs trashed by someone in possession of finely-honed rhetorical skills can be a devastating experience. Especially so, if one’s personal identity has been, to a large extent, constructed out of those beliefs.

In order to avoid upsetting their paying customers, universities have begun to downplay the idea that there are multiple ways of looking at contentious issues, in favour of the notion that there is only one “correct” viewpoint which, if not acknowledged by students, may severely limit their academic success. From this position it is but a short step to denying those with “incorrect” views a “platform”, or to the shouting-down of any dissenters who make it as far as the stage.

Emerging from this environment, it is easy to see why university graduates – especially those from the liberal arts and communications studies – might find it both strange and intolerable to end up in institutions where the tradition of allowing all sides of an issue to be aired remains deeply entrenched. Trained to espouse only the “correct” version of reality, the idea of giving “incorrect” ideas access to the “bully pulpit” of the mass media, can only strike a large number of these youngsters as just plain wrong.

But, what to do about it? The experience, both overseas and here in New Zealand, is for younger journalists to stage in-house uprisings against what they see as excessive editorial tolerance of incorrect ideas and practices. Rather than defend the tradition of ideological diversity in journalism, most editors, publishers and broadcasters are opting to bow to the will of the young people destined to replace them.

Thanks to the events surrounding Keen-Minshull’s visit, however, at least some journalists have been given cause to re-think their attitudes. The news-media’s repetition of the charge that Keen-Minshull was an “anti-trans activist” – rather than a “women’s-rights campaigner” – contributed significantly to the aggressive temper of her opponents. Educated to regard the exercise of the “Heckler’s Veto” as an entirely legitimate tactic, trans-gender activists felt morally entitled to monster Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull off her stage and out of the public square.

That this led directly to serious assaults against those who had gathered to hear Keen-Minshull speak (much of it captured on video) only made it harder for mainstream journalists to square their consciences with the behaviour a growing chorus of critics has condemned as overtly partisan media incitement.

Frykberg is to be congratulated for addressing the pros and cons of political debate on the Six O’clock News. Traditionalists might quibble that it would have been more enlightening to examine the way in which Members of Parliament deal with the passions aroused by genuine political debate, rather than the amoral artifice of school debaters. She might also have touched upon the highly contestable claims of Sarah Hendrica Bickerton of Tohatoha – a not-for-profit outfit dedicated to a “just and equitable Internet” – and Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s discombobulation at social media’s subversive mobilisation of non-elite opinion.

Taken as a whole, however, Frykberg’s item constitutes a welcome indication that the mainstream media is finally engaging in a little self-reflection. And it’s catching, at least within Television New Zealand. Frykberg’s Saturday item was followed the next morning by the Q+A programme’s decision to interview the former head of the American Civil Liberties Union, Professor Nadine Strossen, whose forthright defence of freedom of expression – even Keen-Minshull’s – left the host, Jack Tame, looking ever-so-slightly (and uncharacteristically) contrite.

Back in the 1970s, the Right used to joke that a liberal was a conservative who had yet to be mugged by reality. Both Frykberg and Tame, while not exactly the victims of a mugging, show signs of having, at the very least, witnessed something uncomfortably close to one.

As an old lefty, I can attest to the emotional wrench involved in having to own-up to the wrongs of people you once believed were doing the right thing. It took me a long time to realise that exposing bad behaviour – especially by those who purport to share your values – is by far the best way to ensure the survival of those values. Journalists, in particular, must never play favourites. There will always be two sides to an important story – usually more than two. The trick is to give every side the opportunity to present its case – and then allow the audience to make up its own mind.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 17 April 2023.

An Ugly Demonstration.

Mobbed! As Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s (Posie Parker’s) opponents surged forward, her only protecters were a handful of burly security guards who surrounded their client and began forcing a path through what was now a howling mob. At least one video recording shows the diminutive Keen-Minshull, a terrified rag-doll, eyes dulled by the effects of shock, being heaved past individuals with faces contorted by fury and hate.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED on Saturday morning, 25 March 2023, in Auckland’s Albert Park is easily described.

At 11:00am, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (a.k.a “Posie Parker”) a small (just 155 centimetres tall) bottle-blond mother of four from the United Kingdom, would have stood behind the microphone set up in the Albert Park band rotunda and delivered a speech.

To a small crowd of about 250 people, she would have detailed her objections to transgender women (i.e. persons born biological males and, in some cases, retaining their male reproductive organs) having the right to enter spaces hitherto reserved for biological women and girls; being incarcerated in biological women’s prisons; and permitted to compete against human females in sporting events intended for biological women only.

Keen-Minshull would have been followed by a line-up of New Zealand speakers (most of them biological women and feminists) concerned about the linguistic erasure of their sex from official discourse (as in the expression “pregnant persons”) and alarmed at the efforts of transgender women and their supporters to silence the public expression of their concerns.

At a distance of about 50 metres, a much larger crowd of transgender persons and their supporters, safely corralled behind sturdy barriers, and a cordon of police officers, would have kept up a noisy barrage of objections to the content of the speakers’ speeches. Above their heads, banners and placards proclaiming their support for the rights of transgender New Zealanders would have been clearly visible to the “Let Women Speak” organisers in the rotunda.

The news media would have been there in force to record the confrontation for posterity. When the meeting came to an end, roughly 90 minutes later, and the crowds began to disperse, journalists would have been seen interviewing participants from both sides of the barriers for their media employers.

Spokespersons for the Transgender community would have set forth their objections to Keen-Minshull’s claims, drawing the journalists’ attention to the lack of evidence for any widespread abuse of women and girls by transgender women in toilets, changing-rooms, women’s refuges or prisons, and pointing out how extremely hurtful such suggestions are to the members of one of society’s most fragile and vulnerable communities. The journalists’ professional commitment to fair and balanced reporting would have ensured that the views of both groups were presented to the public.

By 2:00pm, Albert Park would again have become the preserve of Aucklanders enjoying a sunny autumn afternoon.



WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED on the morning of Saturday, 25 March 2023, bore very little resemblance to the civilised political ideal described above.

As Keen-Minshull stepped forward to speak she was physically assaulted by a person pretending to be a supporter. This attack caused the counter-protesters, estimated at more than 2,000, to surge forward, thrusting aside the flimsy barriers erected to separate them from the much smaller crowd which had gathered to hear the speakers. They were able to do this because there was no police cordon to enforce that separation. Within seconds, the counter-protesters were pressing in on Keen-Minshull’s audience, screaming abuse, hurling projectiles, and lashing out with fists and placards.

Fearing for the safety of Keen-Minshull and her audience, one observer implored a nearby police officer, who was looking on impassively, to intervene. He refused, allegedly declaring that Keen-Minshull: ‘is in a public space. If she feels unsafe she needs to leave’.

At this point, Keen-Minshull’s only protecters were a handful of burly security guards who surrounded their client and began forcing a path through what was now a howling mob. At least one video recording shows the diminutive Keen-Minshull, a terrified rag-doll, eyes dulled by the effects of shock, being heaved past individuals with faces contorted by fury and hate.

Only when the police present realised that if they did not place Keen-Minshull under their protection, then her bodyguards would be forced to exit the melee by driving through it in their own vehicle – with all the attendant risks to the counter-protesters’ health and safety such a manoeuvre would entail. Keen-Minshull was, accordingly, bundled into a police car and driven from the scene.

Not all the scheduled speakers were so lucky. This is how Ani O’Brien, from the group Stand Up For Women, described her experience:

No sooner had Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull arrived at the Rotunda, a protestor (who had managed to get past the barrier) ran at her and threw a red substance all over her and a security guard. As she attempted to clean up, the protestors pushed over, crushed, and dismantled the barriers and swarmed around her.

At this point, I was caught in the angry crowd. I had whistles blown in my face, abuse screamed at me, and I was fearful for my own safety. This was nothing compared to what Kellie-Jay endured. She was trapped and surrounded by a mob screaming abuse and trying to get past her security guards.

Chris, there were no police in sight. Despite widely publicised threats of violence, the police were nowhere near the protest frontlines to prevent the event from devolving into chaos as it did. I had to call the police from the middle of the screaming crowd! And even then they weren’t particularly concerned that a woman was trapped in the midst of a mob determined to get to her.

Keen-Minshull’s rally was over before it had even begun – victim of the Thug’s Veto. Her right to free expression had been illegally and violently curtailed. Left in possession of the park, the elated counter-protesters took to Twitter to celebrate their historic victory over bigotry and hate.



WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE of the events of Saturday, 25 March 2023? The most urgent questions are those that will, over the coming days, be levelled at the Police. Who was in command? What intelligence did they have regarding Keen-Minshull and her increasingly vocal enemies? Why, in the face of credible threats to her person, was police protection denied to Keen-Minshull and her followers? Why, as the situation spiralled out of control, did the police officers present not intervene?

Predictably – and entirely appropriately – the Free Speech Union, has raised these issues in a letter to the new Police Minister, Ginny Andersen:

We call on you, and the Police Commissioner, to acknowledge the lack of action to defend the basic speech rights of those who turned up to the ‘Let Women Speak’ rally, and reassert that those who express unpopular or controversial views in public are entirely in their right, and deserve to be protected from threats, intimidation, and violence.

There will be considerable public scepticism, however, concerning the willingness of the Labour Government, and Party, to defend New Zealanders’ freedom of speech and assembly. There will be scepticism, also, that the Minister and her colleagues are any longer capable of perceiving the ethical issues which Saturday’s ugly demonstration laid bare.

All through the preceding week, Labour Ministers, Members of Parliament, and activist party members were telling those seeking to silence Keen-Minshull that, as far as Labour was concerned, they were doing the Lord’s work. In this they were echoed, even more vehemently, by the Greens. When the governing parties of the day publicly back a political movement, its followers may be forgiven for believing they have been given the green-light for coercion. The parliamentary Left did not balk at describing Keen-Minshull’s views as “abhorrent” and “incorrect”. Not quite in the same league as King Henry II’s “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest!” – but close.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this incident is the crucial role played by the mainstream news media in creating the preconditions for the violent suppression of free speech which ensued. Throughout the preceding week, journalists had denigrated Keen-Minshull – who describes herself as an “advocate for women” – as “an anti-trans activist” – finding her guilty, by association, of endorsing far-right, even Neo-Nazi, groups. That she, and people who shared her concerns, had a case to make was simply not acknowledged journalistically. In a synergy worthy of Putin’s Russia, the views of the Government, and the views of the mainstream media, had become interchangeable.

Certainly, the state media appeared incapable of perceiving the role it had played in the events of Saturday, 25 March. Television New Zealand’s Jack Tame even offered the violence unleashed by Keen-Minshull’s opponents as an ex-post-facto justification for denying her entry to New Zealand. In other words, allowing those threatening to exercise the Thug’s Veto to determine who should be allowed to speak in New Zealand, and who should not. Nothing could better illustrate the yawning generational gulf into which journalistic ethics has disappeared.

Over the next six months, the New Zealand electorate will discover just how effectively the parties of the Right are able to exploit the Labour-Green failure to uphold the Bill of Rights Act and the democratic polity it underpins. Chris Hipkins may soon regret that he did not step in immediately to set the political tone on Keen-Minshull. Because, whatever the reasons that set New Zealanders against one another so aggressively on Saturday, 25 March 2023, they had absolutely nothing to do with bread and butter.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 27 March 2023.