Comments by "Billy Liar" (@billyliar1614) on "David Starkey Talks"
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So here we have Starkey not just hiding in plain sight, but playing strip tease. He tells us, directly, that he prefers a society based on greed, irresponsibility, consumption and vanity rather than a moral, well adjusted one run by adults which presumably he finds somewhat dull, preferring instead the excitement of urban spaces wrecked by gangs and the pain of the poor starving on the streets. He tries to put a spin on it, characterising selfish greed as cheeky 'misbehaviour', as though we can all be teenage dropouts in some bastion of privilege. It's the psychology of the adolescent. What he doesn't talk so much about is the conformity of corporate consumerism. You know, the abomination of the high school prom and the vulgar Stepford competition of the Essex WAG pool party, both imported from the US so we may follow their example of grooming the next generation of good little consumers, teaching them to compete for baubles like apes. He doesn't talk so much about the crass vulgarity of the Top Gear culture or gym bunnies primping and preening before the latest iPhone accessory. He is nothing more than a cheap salesman for the corporate state who would have us compete harder and deeper for evermore for more crap that we don't need and which won't make us happy, at the cost of the ecosystem upon which we depend, all to make more profit for The Man. Ultimately, he is of little further interest and has no greater depth than tawdry self-interest .
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This critique, again, shows a complete lack of nuance and, dare I say it, considerable bias, something we ought not to expect from an historian, surely ? Far from being the purveyor of free speech, Musk has shown himself to be quite the reverse : he purchased Twitter and turned it into his personal fiefdom; he's kicked off independent professional fact checkers and replaced them with 'Community Notes', leading to the amplification of misinformation ; he's suspended accounts which challenge or mock him ; he's introduced Algorithmic adjustments which suppress certain viewpoints . Is this what Starkey means by 'anti-authoritarianism ' and free speech ? Funny, seems to me to be the behaviour of your typical US 'Frat Boy' who thinks that money should be able to buy him anything he wants, including influence over the British government. Truth is, he's a foreign national, a carpet-bagger interfering in our domestic affairs - wasn't Brexit supposed to be about sovereignty ?
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Sorry Dr but your attitudes belong on the wrong side of history - ie Victorian times. The Edwardian governess's stiff upper lip started trembling a very long time ago, around the same time in fact that she started to feel uneasy about beating kids for not scrambling quickly enough up the hearth, so much so that it's now positively quivering. I'd have more respect for you Tory types if you just manned up and admitted that the old order lost and we're all of us, including Harry, enjoying giving it a thorough disgracing. The old order was built on certain characteristics - hierarchy, respect for authority, emotional constipation, repression, victim-blaming. All of this finished in Nuremberg and the moral blow was landed in Suez. It achieved some good things but it was oppressive and it ain't coming back. Ever. Now, as is always the case with these sorts of matters, the end can either be quick or agonising, long-drawn out, and I think we all know which direction we're headed. You're an historian, you should know where the stigmatisation of mental health leads. We talk more about it now because the stigmatisation is being undermined - though there's still much more work to do - thank heavens and people feel able to talk. We no longer lock people in the attack or pretend they're fine lest they embarrass their family's good name. It's called Modernity .
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@@bluebellflora2510 ''So in some ways, things have remained the same and yet changed drastically and not for the better'' The majority has a better life now than, say, the Edwardian era no doubt about it. Unless that is you believe that poverty, poor health, industrial slavery and a stunted life-span a good crack ? Hierarchy is inevitable but the type of authoritarianism we saw in the Victorian world has thankfully had it's face rubbed in the proverbial toilet bowl. Thank God. We have lost a certain degree of discipline I would concede but we have gained in other ways, certainly with respect to the topic at hand, mental health. Starkey seems here to be literally denying that poor mental health is a real phenomenon. How backward can one be ? it's like he wants to fetishise Victoriana . We no longer whip children for being left-handed or send them up chimneys, lock wives in the attic or the asylum or regard shell-shock as insubordination. We recognise PTSD as a healthy response to trauma. I'm sorry but conditions such as depression, anxiety and schizophrenia do actually exist. The problem with burying yourself too far in the past is that at some point you start to think it's reality. Harry and Meghan may be abusing it for reasons of self-interest, but mental health is I'm afraid a very real phenomenon.
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