Trump and Musk v the working class:

Since the tech billionaire endorsed Trump on July 13, the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris has repeatedly attacked Musk for his anti-worker stances. The campaign has called Musk and Trump “self-obsessed rich guys” and reposted audio from an event on Musk’s social media app, X, in which the two laugh together about firing striking workers. 

Then there was the live one-on-one discussion on X, which Trump’s campaign billed as “the interview of the century.” Partway through the two-hour event, Trump brought up how much he admires Musk’s handling of labor unions. 

“I look at what you do. You walk in and you just say, ‘You wanna quit?’” Trump said while laughing. 

“Yeah,” Musk broke in, also laughing. 

“They go on strike,” Trump continued. “I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike, and you say, ‘That’s OK, you’re all gone. You’re all gone, so every one of you is gone.’ And you are the greatest.” 

Hur hur hur. There is a law against that though.

The episode snowballed. The United Auto Workers union filed unfair labor practice charges against Musk and Trump, alleging they interfered with workers who may want to exercise their labor rights. The UAW’s Fain pressed the issue in media interviews. Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su said at an event at the Democratic National Convention: “You can’t be pro-Elon Musk and pro-worker.” 

Sean O’Brien, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who spoke at the Republican National Convention in July, slammed Trump and Musk’s comments as “economic terrorism.” 

American workers’ right to strike is guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. 

And you know what happened after that? The whole damn auto industry unionized (and the Reuther brothers invented the sitdown strike). It was unionized labor that made all those thousands of planes and tanks and ships that turned the tide against the Nazis.

Labor union leaders have been harshly critical of Trump’s time in office, citing his appointment of conservatives to the NLRB and the federal courts. At the same time, Trump has sought to maintain some ties to organized labor, inviting some union leaders to the White House while he was president and continuing to court the Teamsters. 

Yeah well inviting some union heads to the White House is hardly the same thing as being a friend to union labor. Not even close.

Gee yes why would I not think Elon Musk is an admirable guy despite our different political orientations?

The “outfit” is of course fake.

Cheered me up for the moment.

Why are men?

A man has gone on trial in France for repeatedly drugging and raping his wife as well as arranging for dozens of other men to rape her. The defendant, named as 71-year-old Dominique P, is accused of recruiting strangers online to come to his home and sexually assault the victim for over a decade.

…

Police identified at least 92 rapes committed by 72 men. Fifty were identified and charged and are standing trial alongside the husband.

The victim, now 72, only learnt of the abuse in 2020 after being informed by police. The trial will be “a horrible ordeal” for her, said her lawyer Antoine Camus, as it will be the first time she sees video evidence of the abuse. “For the first time, she will have to live through the rapes that she endured over 10 years,” he told AFP news agency.

Uh yes, that will be a horrible ordeal.

Dominique P was investigated by police after an incident in September 2020, when a security guard caught him secretly filming under the skirts of three women in a shopping centre.

He seems like a really good guy.

Interesting in what sense, creepy guy?

Onlee hi stattus men kno how to think good.

Such an interesting observation.

Musk is more evil and alarming than I had realized.

Elon Musk is rapidly transforming his enormous wealth – he’s the richest person in the world – into a huge source of unaccountable political power that’s now backing Trump and other authoritarians around the world.

Musk owns X, formerly known as Twitter. He publicly endorsed Donald Trump last month. Before that, Musk helped form a pro-Trump super political action committee. Meanwhile, the former US president has revived his presence on the X platform.

Musk just hired a Republican operative with expertise in field organizing to help with get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of Trump.

…

At least eight times in the past 10 months, Musk has prophesied a future civil war related to immigration. When anti-immigration street riots occurred across Britain, he wrote: “civil war is inevitable.”

The European Union commissioner Thierry Breton sent Musk an open letter reminding him of EU laws against amplifying harmful content “that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation” and warning that the EU “will be extremely vigilant” about protecting “EU citizens from serious harm”.

Musk’s response was a meme that said: “TAKE A BIG STEP BACK AND LITERALLY, F*CK YOUR OWN FACE!”

Elon Musk calls himself a “free speech absolutist” but has accepted over 80% of censorship requests from authoritarian governments. Two days before the Turkish elections, he blocked accounts critical of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

And his friendly relations with authoritarians often seem to coincide with beneficial treatment of his businesses; shortly after Musk suggested handing Taiwan over to the Chinese government, Tesla got a tax break from the Chinese government.

None of this seems particularly benign.

Oliver Brown is icily clear:

“This was a dream,” says Valentina Petrillo, who today became a Paralympic sprinter at the age of 51, “that I had since I was a little girl.” Except this is an athlete who was never a little girl in the first place. The Italian is a father-of-two who was still competing at 45 as a male, who won national titles in men’s track and field, and whose self-portrayal in 2021 was of a “tough guy who would speak dismissively of women, who would have given you the idea he was sexist”. And yet on Monday morning at the Stade de France, Petrillo, courtesy of institutional cowardice at every level, lined up in the visually-impaired classification of the 400 metres as a woman.

There is no biological ambiguity about Petrillo. Here is a figure who, in a documentary aired this summer, announced to the interviewer: “You can see I’m a man.” Here is somebody who accepts that women are entitled to feel “astonishment, confusion and doubt” about this indefensible state of affairs, acknowledging: “These doubts and questions are legitimate.”

But he does it anyway, because he wants to and the god damn women-hating fools let him do it.

How is it that all the putative “progressives” who cheer this on are not perturbed by the glaringly obvious fact that the people harmed by it are women and women only? This is an entirely one-way injustice, that allows men to cheat women, because only men can cheat in this particular way. Why does the ever-expanding list of women cheated out of wins and prizes and places on the podium and scholarships and careers and all the rest of it not bother them? They can’t be stupid enough to miss the structural injustice, the fact that men can do this to women while women cannot do it to men, so how do they manage to be so happy with it?

If you know the answer, let us all know.

What magnifies women’s anger is the fact that the Petrillo affair at the Paralympics was easily avoidable. Last March, World Athletics acted on multiple scientific studies by restricting international women’s competition exclusively to those born female. But the policy offered by World Para Athletics (WPA) is nothing like so stringent. In reply to questions from Telegraph Sport, a spokesman for the governing body gave no reason for the divergence, claiming that they could not comment on the rules of others.

Meaning, of course, that they don’t want to. Shut up and take it, bitches.

Another one from the “let’s build a house in an area prone to drought/tornadoes/earthquakes/wildfire and have a blissful life forever after” file.

Perched atop a majestic cliff, Rancho Palos Verdes is a stunning city by the sea. Those who live here do so for the grand views of the ocean, the lush valleys, the breeze that sweeps away the heat of the sun.

But the scene on this peninsula 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles comes with a caveat. Underneath the multimillion-dollar homes is a large complex of landslides. Every day, the ground moves.

That’s some “caveat.” The earth under your house is constantly sliding – no big deal.

For a long time, that movement was so glacial — about an inch a year — it was accepted simply as a quirk of the region. Now, for some residents, it has become catastrophic. Across a span of one square mile, the pace has quickened to nearly four feet a month.

Homes have been yanked apart at the seams, and some have collapsed altogether, their sunken roofs and splintered walls swallowed halfway into the earth. The gas was shut off more than a month ago to a swath of residents. They have since been hunkering down, relying on electric hot plates or propane, scrambling for answers before their life savings cave in around them, too.

It’s ok, because what landslides like to see is grit and determination, so if the residents just hunker down no matter what, the landslides will decide to stop.

While outsiders question why locals stay, residents say it would be inconceivable to just walk away from their nest eggs, given that home insurance policies generally exclude land movement.

For them, living on a landslide is no different than living in a region prone to tornadoes or hurricanes or flooding: It is not a problem until it is, and then you find ways to carry on.

Unless, of course, you don’t. Unless the roof falls on your head, or your house slides into the Pacific taking you with it, or you spend your last penny trying to shore up your house and no one will bankroll you any longer.

The BBC somehow manages to talk about it while not talking about it.

Mariuccia Quilleri, a lawyer and athlete who has represented a number of fellow athletes who opposed Petrillo’s participation in women’s races, said inclusion had been chosen over fairness and “there is not much more we can do”.

Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Ukraine Oksana Boturchuk, who is racing in the semi-final heats, said: “I find this not fair, in my opinion. I am not against transgenders in general but in this situation I do not understand and don’t support it.”

Inclusion of what? Fairness to whom? What are “transgenders in general”?

It’s not an accident, this constant lack of specificity. They do it on purpose because they do not want to spell out that these are male “transgender” people cheating female people in sports.

Venezuela’s Paralympic Committee (VPC) has called it a “a terrible inequality that puts female athletes (born female) at a great disadvantage”.

General secretary Johan Marin told BBC Sport: “We are completely against discrimination, inequality and/or exclusion of any person or group in any social sphere. Therefore, respect for individual rights, inclusion and equality must always prevail.”

The BBC has so muddied the waters that I thought at first he was another defender of men’s right to invade women’s sports, but he’s saying the opposite.

So let’s take a look at this “Valentina” Petrillo issue.

The Guardian of course does the usual –

Transgender sprinter Valentina Petrillo reaches 400m semi-finals on Paralympic debut

Tactfully concealing the relevant fact: he’s a man in the women’s semi-finals.

• Italian sprinter qualifies for T12 400m semi-finals
• ‘For me, it’s the realisation of history’

For women, it’s the realisation of being cheated.

The Italian transgender sprinter Valentina Petrillo said that her debut at the Paralympic Games was “the realisation of history” after she qualified for the semi-finals of the T12 400m on Monday.

Petrillo, 51, finished second in her heat at the Stade de France, but qualified for the semi-finals as one of the four fastest runners-up. She said that her success should be seen as a moment to raise awareness of discrimination against transgender people.

The women he cheated probably think his “success” should be seen as cheating women, because that’s what it is. He’s a man. He shouldn’t compete against women. It’s very simple.

The Guardian does finally admit there’s an issue.

The Italian has found herself at the centre of a debate over inclusion within parasport after World Para Athletics set rules that allowed for transgender athletes to compete in women’s competition if they are “recognised as female in law”.

This is an approach contrary to that set by World Athletics, which determines criteria for entry into the Olympics. Lord Coe, the president of World Athletics, had said the policy was arrived at in order to “maintain fairness for female athletes above all other consideration”.

Which seems only right since it’s the female category we’re talking about.

Well of course he does.

Just sit down and shut up, Peter. You’re not the boss of women. You don’t get to tell women it’s tough shit when some man decides to invade their sport and destroy their chances. It’s obviously unfair and we shouldn’t have to see you gloating about it like the woman-hating pig you are. Just sit down.

Robin DiAngelo has hit a bump in the road. It’s about goddam time. Hadley Freeman writes:

Last week DiAngelo was accused of plagiarism. To understand why that’s interesting, you need to know that DiAngelo is the most successful anti-racism trainer in the world. Her book White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk about Race became a blockbuster bestseller in 2020, after Floyd’s murder.

And of course she donated most of the profits to anti-racism efforts by non-white people, right? Right?

Nah, we know she didn’t. We’ve talked about her massively successful grift before.

She charged up to $20,000 to hold anti-racism workshops at companies like Microsoft and Google, where — in the words of one participant who later gave an interview to the podcast Blocked and Reported — DiAngelo would tell white people that if they had “any reaction to the anti-racism work that isn’t agreement or submission, then that’s proof [they’re racist]”. The “anti-racism work” was little more than white people being told to accept they’re racist.

She holds the anti-racism workshops and by god she gets the big bucks for doing it. Wouldn’t you think she would tell Microsoft and Google to ask non-white people to hold their anti-racism workshops? Wouldn’t you think that would be kind of an anti-racist thing to do? Wouldn’t you think she’d be asking them “What are you asking me for???”

20 grand for an hour of chatting about her book – nice for some, as the saying goes.

The few writers on liberal publications who suggested DiAngelo’s theories weren’t hugely helpful — to anyone of any race — are black, such as John McWhorter at The Atlantic. White liberal journalists gave her glowing reports.

Hmm. All of them?

After Floyd’s murder, my local bookshop devoted its front section to books about race, and not the kind I grew up reading, like Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Instead they were books with scolding titles like How to Raise An Antiracist, by Ibram X Kendi, “one of the world’s leading anti-racist scholars” (according to his own website), and DiAngelo’s White Fragility.

The thing about Kendi, as I’ve written here at some point, is that he’s a terrible writer, and not much of a thinker.

All this led to a lot of grifters getting a free pass to chide the general public about racism. Only 33 per cent of the money donated to Black Lives Matter in the US between 2020 to 2022 actually went to charitable causes; tens of millions went instead to its co-founder Patrisse Cullors and her family and friends. Kendi’s Centre for Anti-racist Research at Boston University, which he founded in 2020, raised over $55 million in donations. Last year it was announced the centre was downsizing because of poor management by Kendi, and even an extremely sympathetic profile of Kendi in The New York Times in June couldn’t deny that.

A dud writer, thinker, and manager. Grifters gonna grift.

Now a complaint has been filed that DiAngelo plagiarised parts of her 2004 doctoral thesis, Whiteness in Racial Dialogue: A Discourse Analysis. 

I read a selection of side-by-side selections from her thesis and the sources a couple of days ago and they’re pretty damning. It’s fine to draw from other people’s work, of course, but you have to do one of two things: paraphrase what they say, or put it between quotation marks. “Paraphrase” doesn’t mean “change two or three minor words.” She did the latter.

The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative US website, broke the story, and good for it. But this is infuriating to old-school liberals like me, who believe racism is a problem and also believe in critical thinking. DiAngelo was clearly a crackpot, and yet the liberal media showered her with adoration instead of the scrutiny she deserved. Prejudice should not be treated as a partisan issue, but liberals — just as much as conservatives — make it so with stupidity like this. Racism is real, but the anti-racism industry became an absolute racket, which enriched some and improved nothing.

Now let’s do those two women who charge people vast sums to be abused over dinner.

More on the bullying and persecution of Jenny Lindsay:

A series of often dumbfounding reports over recent days about the crisis in Creative Scotland included a revelation that shows why the organisation must be closed, immediately.

In June, Lindsay announced the forthcoming publication of her book Hounded, which examines the troubling modern phenomena of women being bullied out of jobs and public life for expressing views about gender and sex that don’t align with voguish opinion.

Five years ago, Lindsay – then one of the country’s leading performance poets – publicly called out a trans-identifying male writer for urging attacks on lesbians at a Pride march. Thanks to the bestupiding effects of trans ideology, Lindsay was swiftly identified among her peers as the villain of this bleak piece. She lost her career, all of her “friends”, and had to move back from Edinburgh to the Ayrshire town where she was raised.

Among those who turned on Lindsay were friends of [Alice] Tarbuck…

Whom the writer of this piece, Euan McColm, describes as

not a serious creative person but a hobbyist, interested in her subject but not, herself, talented enough to practice it to any significantly interesting degree. The little work she has had published lacks rhythm, originality and, crucially, profundity. It’s squiggly nonsense for people who want the physical feeling of reading poetry without the associated complicated emotions.

A mediocre (or worse) poet using her bureaucratic job to go after a good poet. How cozy.

So Lindsay was understandably shocked to discover – after every damned thing – that two days after announcing the publication of her book, Tarbuck had called a bookshop, urging them not to stock it.

Tarbuck, a quango employee whose sole responsibility is the nurturing and support of writers, abused her position to try to harm the career of a writer. Not only that, her behaviour was identical to that of her friends who’d terrorised the same writer back in 2019. One novelist friend asked me whether Tarbuck was stupid or sadistic, to which my reply was that she appears to be both. Perhaps this is the way in which Tarbuck, who (of course) identifies as a witch, contains multitudes.

…

Personal shame should see Tarbuck remove herself from the literary scene. And her behaviour should prevent any serious agent or publisher ever dealing with her. In the world of literature, Tarbuck should consider herself cancelled. And if she feels hard done by, she should promptly take the matter up with herself.

…

Naturally, Creative Scotland tried to cover it all up.

The organisation went through a “disciplinary” procedure and allowed Tarbuck to remain in post. Not only that, it was agreed she would not deal with “gender critical” writers to avoid a “conflict of interest”.

That is deranged. Tarbuck is a living, breathing conflict of interest. Not only was she protected, her bosses made life more comfortable for her, removing from her the triggering duty of reading and thinking about things that made her unhappy, and allowing her to stay, a malevolent presence, a schoolyard bully given legitimacy, and then protected, by cowardly and amoral philistines.

All this because Tarbuck is a prisoner of trans ideology and Lindsay isn’t. You’d think trans people were the most important and the most persecuted people on the planet when in fact they are neither. They’re mostly over-privileged whiners who’ve been told they’re the most important and the most persecuted by a pack of fools.

The simple fact that an organisation established to support artists protected an employee who tried to cancel an artist is all we need to know. What happened was not merely an offence against Jenny Lindsay, it was an offence against art.

Naive artists, writers and musicians have spent much of the past week urging the Government to step in with a financial boost for Creative Scotland. It’s time for them to wise up.

Our national arts quango now exists only to employ those who work for it.

If you’re an artist with hopes for the future, you should be demanding Creative Scotland’s closure, not begging like a fool for it to be given a lifeline.

Creative Scotland is not creative.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Blame feminists.

What has Western society *overall* been able to do?

Saudi Arabia (and any other state that enshrines in law the subordination and oppression of women) should be a pariah state the way South Africa was under apartheid. But, as in many other instances, geopolitics trumps human rights, unless the human rights abuse can be turned to tactical geopolitical advantage and used to embarass an opponent. Saudi Arabia sits on top of an ocean of oil, so it gets a pass because oil. But given many cultures’ blindness to sexism (as opposed to racism, which “everybody” knows is “bad,” such that most try to keep their racist thoughts private or secret if they can), the chances of foreign policy being redirected to advance the rights of women are pretty close to zero.

I think that by now feminism absolutely should have this kind of power to end injustice toward women…

Indeed. But even within the West, I don’t think there’s a single country that has succeeded in leveling the playing field for women on anything other than a temporary, piecemeal basis. The near-overnight triumph of trans “rights” against the interests and safety of women and girls has shown just how fragile, halfhearted, and tenuous the supposed commitment to women has been. The idea that anyone should have been able to redefine “woman” in law so as to include men is insane. It should not have been possible. It should have been unthinkable. But instead of being laughed off the stage, this redefintion has been embraced in a state-enforced, nightmare mash-up of Orwell and Kafka.

Who else but women could have had their rights sold out from under them with such ease and thoughtlessness?** What better demonstration of the continuing, comparative powerlessness and unimportance of women in the West? We can’t afford to be smug. Given our recent history, and how breezily women’s concerns over the destruction of their rights were swept aside, what guarantees do women have that, given the right circumstances, we might not ourselves slide into the kind of barbarism*** Boghossian is decrying? None. Both the ability and inclination to control and dominate women are already there to a frightening degree (see above re: trans “rights”). It’s not that the urge to subordinate and control have come back; they never went away.

Feminist principles should be on the same foundational status as equality before the law and one person, one vote with regards to establishing and maintaining the basic rule of law and democratic norms*, not some kind of a sop rolled out as an afterthought if women get uppity. If that means that some of our “foundations” need to be dug up and redrafted, then so be it.

*We’ve seen plenty of examples of the difficulties many nations have in preventing tyrrany and corruption, and upholding justice unswayed by power and money. Gwynne Dyer suggests that this is part of a longer struggle that has played out over millenia:

**Not to mention the defeat of Roe v. Wade in the United States.

*** Not intending to Godwin myself, but if Germany could launch the Holocaust, no country is proof against the potential for state supported barbarism and evil. As the world slides into climate catastrophe, what are the chances that the “climate” for human rights will improve? Women are always on the chopping block. The potential for widespread, extreme “populist” responses to deteriorating global conditions puts them in more danger, not less. Unless their rights are firmly re-established and strengthened now, the risk women face in the future only worsens. (Not that laws will necessarily protect them, but better to have something in place rather than very little or nothing. It would be nice if the powers that be could be persuaded to telegraph something other than “disposability” when it comes to women’s rights and safety.)

Maybe the way to break Trump is to shrug him off.

The standout moment in Kamala Harris’s first interview as Democratic presidential nominee consisted of a mere seven words: “Same old tired playbook. Next question, please.”

That was her answer when CNN’s Dana Bash brought up Donald Trump’s recent outrageous suggestion that the vice president, who is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican parents, “happened to turn Black” as a matter of political expediency.

Let’s hope Harris continues to shrug off Trump’s racist and misogynist attacks. It’s clearly driving him crazy.

I’m no good at shrugging things off, myself. I prefer to try to hammer them into the ground like a frustrated Bugs Bunny. But if Harris is driving him crazy by yawning in his face, hooray!

Meanwhile, in its efforts to get the former president back on track, Trump’s campaign keeps scheduling policy-focused “messaging” events, at which he is supposed to address issues that swing voters care about, such as the economy. It isn’t working very well. Trump listlessly delivers some lines from the teleprompter, then gets bored and begins recycling the rants from his rallies. He mocks the campaign strategists who want him to stick to the script and threatens to fire them.

Well that’s the thing, isn’t it. He’s never been in it for the policy side. Not really. What truly get him going is the showbiz part, the times where he gets to pretend he’s a brilliant insult comic. The other stuff is just paying his dues so that he can do the fun stuff.

Seattle Center – the site of a long-ago world’s fair, with theaters and galleries and landscaped open space – has a large block of restrooms aka toilets, with one set labeled women and the other men, in the familiar way, but also now sporting a sign that says (paraphrasing from memory) “you can use whichever restroom you feel comfortable in.” Of course it enrages me anew every time I walk past it, but not just for the obvious reason. The slightly less obvious reason is the idiocy of the wording, because if some hulking guy “feels comfortable” stomping right on into the women’s toilets then guess who no longer does “feel comfortable” – eh?

So. Yeah.

Same fucking thing. “We’re all simply using the facilities we feel safe in.” No we’re not, you stupid fucks, not any more, because this whole stupid poster is one long invitation to men to make sure we don’t feel safe no matter which facilities we set foot in.

Some men harass women in the street because “spread your legs for me right now” and some men harass women in the street because “you are a whore and God hates you.”

Unbelievable but true—Germany now has its own morality police. A Muslim man in Berlin is chasing down two women for their ‘improper hijab,’ lecturing them on how to dress ‘correctly.’ This isn’t just harassment; it’s a terrifying echo of the Hijab police we’ve battled in Iran and Afghanistan—now taking root in the heart of Europe. For years, we’ve been silenced, accused of ‘Islamophobia’ when we dare to speak out against the brutality we endure for refusing to cover ourselves ‘properly’ in the name of religion. But silence is complicity. We will not be silent. We will fight against this oppression of women, wherever it rears its ugly head. This incident isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s the direct result of a foreign policy of appeasement, where the rights and dignity of women are bartered away in the name of diplomacy. But let me be clear: our rights are not up for negotiation. From Tehran to Berlin, to Kabul, leave women alone and try minding your own business for a change. #MyCameraIsMyWeapon

Peter Boghossian raging at “western” feminists for what Allah-botherers do to women.

Don’t play the clip. Word is it’s as horrible as you’d expect.

I’m a feminist, and I suppose I’m “western.”

Not one but two men beating women in a women’s race.

Originally a comment by KBPlayer on The magic in everyday life.

During the Edinburgh Festival I saw Jenny Lindsay in a talk with a guy called Darren McGarvey. McGarvey was host of a series of talks on the Industrial Trauma Complex, i.e. how people frame their traumas, and the dangers of airing them (see a quote below about the lived experience and how airing it can harm the sufferer). McGarvey is from a very tough Glasgow background (and looks it) and a recovering addict. He got known as a rapper and then as writer and talker on social issues eg The Poverty Safari and The Social Distance Between Us, about class poverty and class differences.

The talk was well attended, almost all women including the former MP Joanna Cherry, who is known in these parts for her doughtiness on the gender issue. I don’t remember much about the substance of what was said – Jenny repeated the story of her hounding and the general shoddiness of her fellow creatives. What got me was McGarvey, who is known as a fearless commentator on social affairs, was so tentative in introducing Jenny, who in comparison to his rough guy’s looks and scruffy clothes, was smartly dressed and well groomed. He wanted to assure us that no offence was meant, that if anyone felt vulnerable they should be careful. He was full of trigger warnings.

Christ, I thought, we have bought a ticket and this is the Edinburgh Fringe, supposedly the arts festival where you think outside the envelope and push the box, and we are supposed to react like a bunch of Morningside Matrons circa 1972 at the flash of a breast at an experimental theatre.

As it was, Jenny was warmly received and I hope she made some money after the crappy time she’s been having. I think her book will do well and she should get some more gigs.

Concerning lived experience… I think this is very good. As an offshoot of this how much of the creative arts are about supposedly authentic autobiography. In one form it’s sharing the trauma, in another it’s where influencers create an instagrammable life and can never enjoy an experience for its own sake, but must submit it to an saudience.

“I am one of those people often referred to as having ‘lived experience’ – a label given to those of us who are not professionally qualified to assert the things we do who are instead authenticated by the adversities we have suffered. If you spend enough time online, you’re sure to encounter someone like me.

We have strong opinions which we often express with passion and conviction. We believe our experiences are important. That they may shed light on certain social and cultural challenges, backfilling the knowledge gaps so evident among a well-meaning managerial class. From addiction, to homelessness, criminal justice, gender-based violence, racism, housing, mental health and trauma, our lived experiences, which take the form of stories, are regarded by many (and by ourselves) as the solutions to a complex puzzle.

Missing pieces which, when truly grasped by decision makers and wider society, could help shape a more compassionate, informed, and inclusive future. But that’s not the whole story. Our lived experience is also a commodity. One which adds immeasurable value to workplaces, academic research, and media enterprises dominated by middle class professionals.

Every day lived experience permeates culture, driving engagement on social media platforms, generating millions of views, clicks and comments. Posts and status updates, online think-pieces, video essays, news segments and shortform clips online are disseminated, debated, and deconstructed.

In a free market, our willingness to eagerly supply the rapacious demand for authenticity and social realism can certainly leave us with a sense that we are making waves. That we are having an impact and making a difference. Regrettably, the allure of presenting ourselves as recovered (because that’s the nice little bow most people want their affirming lived experience testimonies wrapped up in) may pull us further from the truth of who we are and what we suffer from. In essence, by falsely portraying ourselves as the finished article, our vulnerability increases.

We may be prompted onto a platform to air our trauma publicly by others who’ve done no such thing, and are therefore ill-equipped to provide the necessary insight, support, or aftercare we might require. Our expectations may inadvertently rise, sensing we are on the cusp of some breakthrough which has previously eluded us, only to be dealt a crushing blow upon the realisation that people we thought were friends and allies (because we often attach intensely to anyone who gives us the time of day), were simply associates engaged in a transaction of some kind. And we may experience the nip of negative consequences, when our stories reach a level of prominence we did not foresee, provoking unpleasant reactions in others, be they strangers we’ll never meet or friends and family members who share neither our recollections of what happened, nor our desire to make a public display of it.

This lived experience movement ought to come with some caveats, not simply for the benefit those of us putting it all out there, but also to people on the lower slopes of their own recovery from trauma, who look those of us with a platform for an examples to follow, like we did our favourite artists.

There is a darker side to this lived experience moment, which must be articulated with great care, so as not to stoke unnecessary tumult. Though I suspect those currently riding the wave will find some of what I am going to say extremely challenging, no matter how delicately its put.

So let me first say this: I do not believe people with lived experience are being deliberately exploited by anyone; we have agency and participate willingly in most cases. I wish to cast no aspersions on organisations which have in recent years sought to platform, collaborate with, or even employ the lived experienced.

My concern is that we, the individuals being invited to share intimate details of our lives, are often not as well as we believe. We are often not as firm in our footing in life as we appear. Indeed, the demons of childhood trauma we’d all like to think long banished, wait patiently. We worry that showing vulnerability may result in a withdrawal of interest – abandonment.

We are afraid to assert ourselves and our needs, so make commitments we are unsure we can fulfil while accepting terms and conditions we often sense are unfair – conflict averse and overly compliant. And we often don’t understand the fullness of the consequences that may lie ahead when we agree to sing for our suppers – impulsivity.

Our desire to help others, to participate, to be seen to be achieving, and, yes, to gain affection and security and love, is often so overwhelming that we push aside any lingering doubt as to our fitness to engage in the risky public exhibitionism which may come to define us.

And let’s not forget, we decant our traumas into a rowdy and unforgiving public square where, once disclosed, they cannot be un-disclosed. “