Reading should be a pleasure, but the content in the book made me angry. And even angrier that such a book had to be written. Musical notation is considered to be changed because it's of Western legacy and upsets some people of color? Tate mural should disappear because it is racist? Kew Gardens should "decolonize"? Aristotle is considered "the granddaddy of all racial theorists?! And Shakespeare's works are "race plays" and contain "racialized dynamics"? And these are only mild examples. I do hope that these are just extremist opinions and they do not become the norm. Douglas Murray begins his most recent polemic with a blunt, clear opening. It is both a warning and a lament for the state of the modern world and contemporary politics: Before the modern era, the whole history of our species was one of occupation and conquering. One group of original peoples were replaced by another group of other peoples.”

By now, I've learned what to expect from Murray. For this detailed study of ‘western anti-westernism’, he uses deft and carefully considered arguments to make his points; always careful to avoid unsubstantiated generalisation or straw-man arguments, with a wide range of real-world examples and points that leave you wondering how on earth intelligent people can be so twisted. I would have given zero stars to the book if it had been an option but can give one star as there is one statement of Murray I agree with : we should never generalise e.g in saying all White people are racists.And just to comment on the framing of Murray himself. I can’t really see how the progressive project is projecting their own failings out to everyone else. What is most prevalent in the progressive discourse is that the failing of the individual is not down to the individual, rather that the system, within which the individual is forced to act, is acting against the individual. The progressive doesn’t want to change the system because they can’t succeed in it. They want to change the system because the system won’t let them succeed.

This also flies in the face of the previous chapter, as that chapter listed plenty of academics, some of which are historians and most which have written book about history, who all disagree with Murray’s position. Is Murray really suggesting that these people know less about history than he does? I felt he sidestepped the history of native American-settler relations, yes there was unintended disease spread but there were many massacres to consider as well and he sidesteps tougher questions around Churchill and racism. I also find his moral approach to history of weighing good and bad unconvincing.Perhaps the title is a little misleading. There really isn't much in here about how to prevail in the age of unreason, unless you count joining the insane anti-western witch hunt and screaming DARVO every time a newly-found heretic protests their innocence. Most of this chapter just continues with Murray listing off things he doesn’t like and expecting that his readers won’t like them either. By this point the War on the West is less of a book and more a compendium of things that have happened. To my mind, a lot of what’s going on today, such as corporations giving seminars on how utterly and completely toxic “whiteness” is, actually boils down to whether or not two wrongs ever make a right. Many of the current policies and attitudes which aim to correct said wrongs are openly racist and sexist. Which I believe is deplorable no matter which group(s) you’re targeting. But whether you agree with me or not, I’d urge you to simply do as Dawkins suggests and read this book with an open mind. Make up your own mind as to whether what Murray has to say has any validity or not. Because this is truly an impressively well-reasoned, evidence-supported, earnest attempt to examine the current m.o. and analyze its shortcomings in a sensible, rational manner. It's not just dishonest scholars who benefit from this intellectual fraud but hostile nations and human rights abusers hoping to distract from their own ongoing villainy. Dictators who slaughter their own people are happy to jump on the "America is a racist country" bandwagon and mimic the language of antiracism and "pro-justice" movements as PR while making authoritarian conquests.

I've caught at least three inaccuracies (or oversimplifications) - the most obvious is probably the statement about the Slavery Abolition Act: the reasons behind the decisions were obviously more complex than what is presented in the book (e.g., "it will harm our enemies more than us") Like Murray, Bezmenov spoke of academia being the breeder of the poisonous anti West ideology and highlighted demoralization and confusion as Soviet subverters’ weapon – bring the West to a point where void of patriotism, it stops defending itself. Create deep confusion over shared values and terminology. Indeed, according to Murray, part of the reason Westerners were so slow to recognize the scale of the attempted assault is because “even the language of ideas was corrupted – words no longer meant what they had until recently meant.”As Murray points out regarding the British Empire – Britain wasn’t the only country to have one. And Britain wasn’t the only country to be involved in slavery: Some Enlightenment thinkers did, sadly, reflect ideas about other cultures that few would share these days. Yet the history of the Enlightenment and associated thinkers is also more complex that some would admit. Network FOX News Duration 01:00:58 Scanned in San Francisco, CA, USA Language English Source Comcast Cable Tuner Virtual Ch. 760 Video Codec h264 Audio Cocec ac3 Pixel width 1280 Pixel height 720 Audio/Visual sound, color Notes Douglas Murray breaks down “The War on the West” by showing how the basic tenents of America’s foundation have been eroded. He looks at race, reparations, crt, religion, history, education, China, art, music, health care and more. Not only are these subjects spoken about but Murray gives specific examples that demonstrate his claims. There’s an interactive notes section in the Kindle edition that makes this an easy function to follow up on. The main thesis of this chapter is that it doesn’t make sense for people that haven’t directly committed atrocities to pay reparations to people that haven’t directly been the subject of atrocities.