HARBINGER

Without too much further recapitulation; I posted this under Harbinger:67 on 4 August 2018. The existential threat to life and the pursuit of liberty has,in the interim,increased exponentially;we have ineluctably become less ” free ” to express our beliefs and views than when I blogged this a year ago… A couple of weeks or so ago, members of the Manchester University Students Union Executive ordered the painting over of a Rudyard Kipling poem in their building that had been put there as part of some recent very expensive renovations. Their official rationale for this impromptu act of philistinism was that Kipling represented white patriarchy and racism.Or something along those lines. Welcome to the alternate cosmic reality that is:- Virtue signalling,socialjustice warriors,safe-spaces,no-platforming; in other words the full unmitigated gamut of contemporary western identity / gender politics intruding into cultural and artistic expression. Poetry was mainstream,controversial...

A couple of weeks or so ago, members of the Manchester University Students Union Executive ordered the painting over of a Rudyard Kipling poem in their building that had been put there as part of some recent very expensive renovations. Their official rationale for this impromptu act of philistinism was that Kipling represented white patriarchy and racism.Or something along those lines. Welcome to the alternate cosmic reality that is:- Virtue signalling,socialjustice warriors,safe-spaces,no-platforming; in other words the full unmitigated gamut of contemporary western identity / gender politics intruding into cultural and artistic expression. Poetry was mainstream,controversial and exciting. And so it proved to be again a few days ago,when a largely unknown,unremarkable american poet- manque  was thrust into the glaring headlines of social media when one of his poems got published. I was going to recapitulate at length and had fully intended to do so,but occasionally,very ra...