Toby Young claims that ‘being LGBT is now the height of respectability, while being a white “cishet” male is morally suspect.’ Toby, you’re wrong: virtue and respectability are not based on labels, and LGBT people have many more battles ahead.
I would like to present Exhibit A: David Attenborough.
Why this venerable presenter, you might ask? Well, Toby seems to think that in many parts of the ‘educated bourgeoisie’, virtue is determined by how many victimhood labels you wear. If we were to accept this as true, then it would indeed follow that the bottom rung of the virtue ladder would be filled with men, condemned to eternal suspicion through their inherent whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality, and so on.
If this were true, so-called elites would, for example, be scathing about a white, cis-gender, heterosexual man who was educated at a grammar school and attended Cambridge University. “How morally suspect”, they would exclaim!
Except that I’ve just described David Attenborough. Beloved by most of society, the great majority of us consider Attenborough a morally good figure because of the way he uses his privilege and influence to do good. He speaks for something which cannot defend itself – our natural environment.
What about a white, cis-gender, heterosexual man who attended a private school and whose father owned a 17th century country house in Shropshire? Presumably such a man would be instantly dismissed by left-wing academics and ‘woke’ youths as entirely undeserving of any moral praise?
Enter Exhibit B: Jeremy Corbyn, who exactly matches this description.
While he may not be my political cup of tea (I’m far too ‘centrist dad’ for that) there’s little doubt that his supporters are exactly the sort of people that Toby Young accuses of seeing virtue entirely through victimhood labels. And yet many of them think Corbyn hugely virtuous. I think they believe he acknowledges his own life advantages and uses his power in ways that supports people with less power and privilege.
These two examples make it clear that this argument is wrong. People are not focused on victimhood as the ultimate determinant of virtue. They are more interested in valuing those using their power to help others. In this world, victimhood doesn’t lead to virtue, it leads to sympathy and an expectation that people should try to make the world a better and fairer place.
From this point of view, let’s reappraise Toby’s article. His claim that ‘LGBT is now the height of respectability’ should perhaps be re-written ‘LGBT people are now seen as absolutely deserving of support and sympathy’. It was deeply unfortunate timing that two women were beaten up and robbed on a London bus for being lesbians, just days after his article was published. I know that Toby has previously argued passionately in favour of gay marriage and I hope that he now sees that the LGBT community still needs his support.
His claim that white, cis-het males are ‘morally suspect’ could be re-written as ‘society now expects that those who walk through life with privilege should recognise the advantage they’ve been afforded and use their power to lift up others’.
The article he has written could have been so much more on point. There may be a helpful cautionary piece to be written about automatically assigning guilt to all those in more privileged groups. Maybe there’s a thoughtful piece to be written about going easy on well-meaning people who feel a little nervous about how to describe those from oppressed groups, in case they are attacked for getting it wrong by the ‘language police’.
And if there is a need to caution Budweiser, it would not be for trying to ‘demonstrate [their] alignment’ to ‘progressive orthodoxy’ as Toby claims. They could – along with other suddenly rainbow-clad big brands – perhaps be asked to reflect on whether they are using their money and power to hitch a ride on Pride’s coat-tails purely for their own benefit.
But these concerns shouldn’t entice us to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We’re making huge progress in creating a fairer world where people are freer to contribute, where society is less likely to structurally limit many people’s contributions and opportunities.
The change will occasionally feel a little less comfortable for those who had previously had all the privilege, but through kindness, education and a focus on helping those who need it then everyone will be free and able to contribute to our country – even white, cis-het men like Toby Young.
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