We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

The term white feminism, as it is commonly used today, is a classic example of the Kafka Trap. If you show too much interest in the lives of people of colour, you risk being accused of white saviourism — which is another way of saying you have a suspiciously condescending attitude to people of colour. But if you don’t show enough interest, you are insufficiently intersectional. You only care about the white, middle-class cisgendered women in your social circle.

White feminism is a classic example of the Kafka Trap because whatever you do is either too much or not enough. You are never right.

Tomiwa Owolade

5 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • bobby b

    ” . . . whatever you do is either too much or not enough. You are never right.”

    That’s what happens when you judge by an immutable characteristic. You can never change, thus you can never improve, thus you can never join. They’re not saying “change your behavior.” They’re saying “shut up and go away.”

    It really is turning into a race war, isn’t it?

  • pete

    Just pitch in and accuse anyone who criticises you of all sorts of hate and bigotry, and cancel them.

  • Paul Marks

    Tucker Carlson and other conservatives have been condemned for being pro the governments of Hungary and Poland. But when faced with the madness in Western Europe, the United States, Canada, New Zealand…. what choice is there?

    Much of the West is in the hands of fanatical Frankfurt School Marxists who are tearing society apart using race-gender-sexuality – desperate people (who want at least something of Western Civilisation to survive) look elsewhere. “But Paul, the governments of Hungary and Poland are bad in the following respects….” – no doubt that is TRUE, but perfection is not of this world and much of the Western world in the grip of a deadly madness that is destroying societies.

    I do NOT believe that any government should be fawned upon – we should be very critical of, say, the government of Hungary when they do bad things (and they do, sometimes, do bad things) – but anyone who prefers Joseph Biden (who called Poland and Hungary “totalitarian” countries, and he was talking about NOW) to the governments of Poland and Hungary, is bonkers.

    Make no mistake – you can not go down the “liberal” road of Joseph Biden and co, and not get to the Frankfurt School Marxism of attacks on “white feminism” and-so-on.

    Sorry Anne Applebaum, Atlantic magazine (or Economist magazine) and so on – this is where your “liberalism” leads, it leads to the totalitarian madness that you yourselves do not like.

    This is because your “liberalism” is not really liberalism at all – for it contains within it “Progressive” doctrines that lead to the very totalitarianism you made your name OPPOSING.

    As far back as the early 20th century such philosophers as Harold Prichard showed how the “New Liberalism” of T.H. Green and others contained the pro tyranny assumptions of Thomas Hobbes (who the late Professor Green thought he was opposing) and could only lead to tyranny. See “Green’s Principles of Political Obligation” (1935-7 in “Moral Obligation” 1949). Harold Prichard was correct.

    In the United States is is even clearer – the books of people such as Woodrow Wilson and Richard Ely stink of tyranny. They are essentially apologias for unlimited government.

    And such works are the intellectual foundation of modern American “liberalism” – it does not really need Frankfurt School Marxism, even if Frankfurt School Marxism did-not-exist, modern American “liberalism” would lead to totalitarianism.

  • White feminists are in good company here, Kafka traps are now official US State Department policy

    U.S. State Department: For a Visa to Leave Afghanistan, Please Go to a U.S. Embassy in a Neighboring Country

  • m2p

    The phrase “the Kafka trap” is quite an annoying one for us Kafka scholars. It seems to assume that Kafka wrote about innocent people caught in unavoidable catch-22s. Actually he wrote about people (and animals – the best one is about a mouse, and it’s only 76 words long) unable to see what they’d done wrong. That’s not the same thing at all and it undermines your point in this context.

    Couldn’t we just call it a “Catch-22” instead?