I cannot knit and I am not on Instagram, but as someone who sews and is into politics, I cannot think how I came to miss this article from Gavin Haynes when it came out in January of this year. After seeing it recommended on the UK Politics subreddit, I hastened to post it here:
Mr Haynes discusses purity spirals throughout history, then narrows his focus to a couple of examples from 2018/19:
Our documentary analysed just two latter-day purity spirals — Instagram knitting culture and young adult novels. Both seemed perfectly-sized to be taken over — they were spaces big enough to have their own star system, yet small enough for the writ of a dominant group to hold.
In each, a vast tapestry of what were effectively small businesses competed for attention online by fluidly mixing personal and professional brand. On social media, opinion, diary and sales often existed within the same posts. Each individual small business was uniquely vulnerable to being un-personed, ‘cancelled’. But, simultaneously, each could benefit enormously from taking on the status of thought leader — from becoming a node that directed moral traffic.
To take the example of Instagram knitting: the unravelling began with a man called Nathan Taylor. Gay, living with HIV, nice as pie, Taylor started a hashtag aimed at promoting diversity in knitting, Diversknitty, to get people from different backgrounds to talk. And he did: the hashtag was a runaway hit, spawning over 17,000 posts.
But over the following months, the conversation took on a more strident tone. The list of things considered problematic grew. The definition of racism began to take on the terms mandated by intersectional social justice ideology.
The drama played out in the time-honoured way:
Finally, just as the guillotine had eventually come for Robespierre, Nathan Taylor, who had founded the #Diversknitty movement, found himself at its sharp end.
When Taylor tried to inject positivity back into Diversknitty, his moral authority burnt up inside minutes. A poem he’d written asking knitters to cool it (“With genuine SOLEM-KNITTY/I beg you, stop the enmity”) was in turn interpreted as a blatant act of white supremacy. When the mob finally came for him, he had a nervous breakdown. Yet even here, he was accused of malingering, his suicidal hospitalisation described online as a ‘white centring’ event.
Gavin Haynes also made a half hour Radio Four documentary telling the same story. (A BBC iPlayer sign-in is required to listen.) I am about to listen to it now.
https://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/the-thrill-of-yarn/
One of the cases covered in the Unherd article, the young lady knitter who innocently shared her excitement at the prospect of a once in a lifetime trip to India, was analysed at length by the excellent David Thompson.
In the olden days before the internet I like think I saved a friend from such a fate as knitter Karen.
Exploring his Politicality he was toying with joining the National Front. Having attended a couple of meetings he asked me for advice; me just saying NO would have been counter-productive so I patiently explained that such fringe groups expect more than just paying your subs and turning up to give someone a kicking now and then.
They will expect you to prove your loyalty by denouncing the sort of people they dislike which would be easy since you could denounce your mate for being ‘this’ or your brother for being ‘that’ or indeed me for being the ‘other’.
I further explained that failure to find people to denounce would lead your NF
friends to suspect that you yourself must be ‘this’, ‘that’ or the ‘other’
He decided against joining that particular purity cycle.
If you are part of any kind of shared-interest group, and a member uses the words “inclusive” or “diverse” or “privilege”, you need to either quickly ban them, or go find another group because your group is dead.
Ask the gamers about this.
I find it interesting that the internet provides a way for horrible people to be horrible to each other to a degree that they wouldn’t normally be. Anyone who was so disgustingly self righteous in normal life would have no friends, and have people crossing the street to avoid them. Personally I try to be as reasonable when posting on the internet as I would be if I was talking face to face. Possibly more so, as I will sometimes delete something that seems a bit ranty and rewrite it in a calmer way.
The concept of a “purity spiral” is really good, so I’m glad it has now be brought to my attention.
Purity spirals can be found among a wide variety of different groups. I think it’s pretty clear for example, that last year we saw a purity spiral amongst Brexiteers, as they competed with each other to support ever harder Brexits.
I don’t really see the purity spiral effect in the Brexit debate Robert. My perception was that the referendum was held because UKIP were seen as a threat. The idea was for the remain side to win so that the issue could be kicked into the long grass. A clue here was that the government issued leaflets not only explained to the public what the referendum was about, but also informed them about which way they should vote. The win for leave meant that the establishment had to take us out but really really didn’t want to. There then followed several years of procrastination while the government tried to come up with some kind of Brexit in name only where we would pretend to leave but pretty much keep the status quo. What those in favour of Brexit wanted was for the UK to leave the EU, as per the result of the referendum.
Stoneyground – what do you think those on the inside of the knitting group purity spiral would have said about it? Your talk of “some kind of Brexit in name only where we would pretend to leave but pretty much keep the status quo” doesn’t sound that much less absurd than the notion of “white centring”; especially since if most Brexiteers had been offered May’s withdrawal agreement on 24th June 2016, they’d have grabbed it with both hands. What many were decrying in 2019 as “Brexit in name only”, was more of a Brexit than what they had argued for in 2016. This happened very quickly during 2019, and those caught in it rapidly became shriller and shriller, impervious to reason, and contemptuous of anyone advocating positions they had held themselves only recently. That sounds like a pretty classic purity spiral to me.
Have to disagree with you on that being merely a more Brexity-than-thou pissing match, old chap. Anyone arguing that fear of a Brexit sellout was a daft baseless fear must have either been asleep during Theresa May’s time in No.10 or be someone who never actually wanted Brexit in the first place regardless of claims to the contrary.
Would a trade agreement with the EU a la Canada be optimal? Yes, but frankly if given the choice between trying for an trade deal secured by a Tory Party with the spine of a jellyfish, or the hardest of hard Brexit for fear of a sellout… I’ll take a Brexit as hard as the edge of England’s sword, if it’s all the same to you.
The point I made at the start of my last comment, but didn’t really develop is that from the inside purity spirals don’t look like purity spirals. If you asked those inside the knitting group purity spiral to explain what was happening I guess (although of course I don’t know; I’m not 100% certain of what I’m saying here) they’d say things which mean essentially “the establishment is full of people who don’t really believe in what we believe, and we need to act to force them to do what is obviously right and just”, or “anyone who disagrees with us was never really opposed to racism”. In other words they’d justify themselves using comments similar to those made by Stonyground and Perry.
This doesn’t prove that Brexiteers were caught in a purity spiral, but it should make any Brexiteer less certain that they weren’t.
You have to be kidding!!! Only a person soft on Remain could believe such a thing. Or a perhaps person who thinks Twitter is the majority opinion.
For Brexit to be a purity spiral, you need to show that the people pushing for a hard Brexit recently weren’t pushing for a hard Brexit previously. In fact, some people right from the start always wanted WTO and didn’t change their minds at any point. I was one of those. (Even if Mr Ecks makes me look like a Remainer.)
You need to show me some of those people — those that were soft and went harder — for your purity spiral to have any legs. Give me some names.
If anything a significant number of people who really wanted hard Brexit might have been persuaded of a soft one just to get it over and done with. (Which is not the same as “grabbed with both hands”)
Again we are presented with a post and multiple comments that do not NAME the enemy.
Talking about “Diversity” (and other code words) is not very useful – what happened to this knitting circle is the same as what has happened to most institutions (big and small) in the Western World – it got hit by the FRANKFURT SCHOOL OF MARXISM.
If we will not even use the name of the FRANKFURT SCHOOL OF MARXISM (Herbert Marcuse and all) then we can not fight it – and using its terms (such as “Diversity”) just plays into its hands.
1st Rule – NAME THE ENEMY. Do not be scared to USE ITS NAME.
Then when someone starts talking “whiteness”, “Diversity”. “inclusion”, opposing “patriarchy”, fighting the “cis gender” and-so-on people will know what they are dealing with – the FRANKFURT SCHOOL OF MARXISM with its objective of destroying “repressive tolerance” and creating Hell on Earth.
As with B.W. formally of the New York Times – stop dancing round the issue. Use the NAME of the enemy – you can not fight a thing if you are too scared to even use its name.
The enemy behind “Diversity” and “Wokeness” is the FRANKFURT SCHOOL OF MARXISM – name it. Do not HIDE from it.
I feel less than certain that Robert believes his own comments – though deducing what a Remoaner truly believes about Brexitters can be challenging. 🙂
That said, it is an interesting intellectual exercise to ask what would be evidence of a purity spiral, if one were inside one.
One essential symptom is much expelling of the no-longer-pure-enough by the spiralling purists. In Natalie’s instagram-knitting example, the very (intersectional) man who started the demand for diversity was eaten by it. By contrast, in Robert’s alleged Brexit case, I can’t offhand think of anyone who voted Leave in 2016 that has since been expelled from Brexitter society for inadequacy of faith or for suggesting it will have negative as well positive effects. In the ordinary flux of human affairs there has surely been at least one Leaver who has since left, but instagram knitting will effortlessly beat us on numbers and vitriol.
Another would be the law of merited impossibility:
That effect happens well beyond purity spirals (just as political purges do not only happen in purity spirals) but it seems to me it is another unavoidable concomitant of a spiral. When confederate statues were to fall, it was unthinkable that statues of those who fought them would also fall; then it was swiftly thought and demanded. By contrast, in Robert’s alleged Brexit case, ‘Hard Brexit’ was a term invented by Remoaners after Leave won to facilitate their calling BRINO Brexit. It makes no sense to imagine those who voted Leave in 2016 having a purity spiral about the fairly binary decision of staying – whether in name or not – or leaving, even if the politics of 2016-through-2019 had offered them any chance to do so.
“By contrast, in Robert’s alleged Brexit case, I can’t offhand think of anyone who voted Leave in 2016 that has since been expelled from Brexitter society for inadequacy of faith or for suggesting it will have negative as well positive effects.”
For the sake of the intellectual exercise and debate 🙂 , I nominate Boris Johnson, about who I’ve seen all sorts of comments criticising the inadequacy of his faith and dedication to the Brexit cause. They call him “bloJo” and similar names, a liar and sell-out whose deal wasn’t Brexit enough.
Farage, as I’m sure you will recall, initially called Boris’s deal a BRINO and proposed to stand Brexit Party candidates in every Tory seat at the last election, until a popular outcry persuaded him he might end up handing the country to Comrade Jeremy. But despite Nigel backing down, many diehard Brexit/UKIP supporters never forgave Boris for doing a deal instead of leaving without, and voted for the Brexit Party anyway.
Of course, you might well argue that his version of Brexit really wasn’t pure enough, he was never a member or a true believer, and the emnity is totally justified. But isn’t that exactly what those inside a purity spiral would say?
🙂
Yup, I certainly saw the light on that one. I simply saw no option but to vote for Boris’ party. And I speak as someone who gave many thousands of quid to Brexit Party.
Nullius in Verba (July 18, 2020 at 5:20 pm), I appreciate it is an intellectual exercise, but you of all people will see the difference between criticising Boris, even when some do it strongly, intemperately and with harsh language, and cancelling Boris from brexit-controlled society (where would that be?) let alone the public domain, which brexit does not control. I don’t get the impression that any critic from the brexit-side would in fact refuse to speak to Boris, to debate with him, etc. (On the contrary, I think many would like to discuss certain matters with him. 🙂 )
BTW I also have the impression that this criticism relates to his ChiComCold-handling, to his giving global warming credence and etc., and not to Brexit as such, where, having got his majority, he now seems to be doing what he promised.
And even these critics might be pleased that Boris is making the real cancel-culture angry because apparently English universities must prove ‘commitment’ to free speech for bailouts.
“I appreciate it is an intellectual exercise, but you of all people will see the difference between criticising Boris, even when some do it strongly, intemperately and with harsh language, and cancelling Boris from brexit-controlled society (where would that be?) let alone the public domain, which brexit does not control.”
Certainly. I was just commenting on the ‘political purity’ aspect, not the authoritarian methods.