It’s ironic that Murray criticises social justice movements for an overcorrection, because he seems to overcorrect back to the right in turn.

The only cure for the warped and pathological view of justice that emerges from such resentment is gratitude.

He also becomes rather exercised about antiracist training in the workplace—has anyone ever paid attention or cared about what was said during a training day? This ignores the fact that they’re part of an incredibly venal, corrupt and incompetent cabinet of banally evil morons, but we’ll let that slide, shall we? In exploring the case for reparations, Murray is far more lucid, perhaps because it’s a far messier topic that he can wade into without needing to make embarrassingly unsourced claims.

Bound up in all of this is the same idea that, by reanimating the past, the present can be ennobled—Spengler confounded by Eliot. He doesn’t provide much in the way of evidence, just some Australian scheme that didn’t make much headway.The toolkit claims that "expressions of racial prejudice often peak at ages 4 and 5" but that while "Black and Latinx children" at the age of five show "no preference towards their own groups," "white children at this age remain strongly biased in favor of whiteness. Yes, to act as though these institutions are irredeemable is ridiculous, but only fringe lunatics want to dismantle science as a whole, and Murray’s silly act of pretending the views of these people are significant is tiresome.

During the Cold War, the notion of “east vs west” made sense as a statement of geographic fact, and Putin’s war in Ukraine has reanimated the idea of “the west” as a unified military bloc. Also I couldn’t reconcile the fact that I would wear the label of being inherently racist no matter what I did simply by virtue of being white. What remains of the culture war then, is an empty shouting match that gives only the illusion of conflict.These numbers are low, but it discounts anyone who might be armed in a country known for a extraordinary levels of gun ownership. Murray’s problem consistently is that he doesn’t seem to want to contextualise anything: you either accept the west as it is or you leave, there’s no inbetween.

We are written over our ancestors in a sort of invisible palimpsest, and with a bit of poetic imagination, it is possible to read between the lines.Murray, I think, is right to say that art is art and it sometimes depicts unpleasant things but that doesn’t mean it condones them. It’s not that Murray doesn’t make valid points, because he often does, and I do agree with him when it comes to ahistorical analysis of political and philosophical figures and the ineffective (not that Murray would admit it) attempts to cancel them, but he makes most of his points in such a condescending and immature manner. He argues, quoting Nietzsche in support, that a deficiency of gratitude breeds resentment and a heightened desire for revenge.