In response to David Goodhart: Post-industrial Britain – richer, freer and sadder,
Dacorum wrote:
‘The institutions that have historically accepted you as a member unconditionally – such as family, church, nation – are all weakened in a freer and more individualistic society.’
And yet we became the workshop of the world, ruling the greatest empire the world has ever known, because we were a Protestant nation of free-thinking individuals who valued freedom of conscience and thinking far more than we do today. We were the nation of enterprise and individual self-sufficiency and self-help, and we certainly thought we were better or as good as anyone else – that gave us a confidence we no longer have.
I therefore dispute that we are a freer nation and a more individualistic society today. We are a fractured, selfish society with little to bind us, not even our identity, thanks to mass immigration and the celebration of ‘diversity’. And the celebration of ‘diversity’ has made it a thought crime not to be supportive of diversity; that is not freedom but coercion and suppression of freedom of thought and expression.
A good example of how we are no longer a free society is that a few years ago nobody would have lost their job if they were against or in favour of same-sex marriage, but today anyone who speaks out against same-sex marriage would be likely to lose their job or any chance of advancement. We had greater freedom in the past when freedom of thought was valued and the nation prospered, but now we are all expected to follow the PC line or to take the consequences. We are all the poorer for it.
