I Blame the Parents

No, hear me out. Hear me out. Not the actual parents. Not the actual parents of Tyler the Destroyer. Not even the actual parents of the Oxford Union’s president-elect, pictured above.

No. I blame the intellectual parents, the systems of education producing, and promoting the likes of this man above, George Abaraonye.

Do you know George? George had the immense privilege of debating Charlie Kirk at the Oxford Union a few months ago. He was feeble of course, as his less than Oxford-level entry grades would have indicated. Charlie whipped him in debate. With crushing good humour too.

Now one of the generalities in this online era is that if you ever got to meet your enemy face to face rather than from behind a screen, it would enable you to humanise them, to see yourself in their eyes.

Hey George, you can see his eyes!

That hope has become a mantra to those worried about the effects of the online life. And that has been the standard response to this point when we talk about a polarising society. Come let us reason together!  Prove me wrong!

But not for George.  As was reported in The Times yesterday:

George Abaraonye, a third-year philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) undergraduate, told his fellow students on a WhatsApp chat seen by The Times: “Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f***ing go.” It was accompanied by a praying-hands emoji.

So we test the face to face thesis. And it has failed miserably.

The same George who stood face with face with Charlie Kirk not four months earlier, still found the temerity to gloat with glee on social media upon news of his death. Clearly the dehumanising effect is not simply down to the mediating influence of online life. Clearly there is something deeper going on. We might even call it evil.

Face-to-face was supposedly going to enable us to source our “better angels”. Face to face meant we would all suddenly find ourselves singing Kumbaya together over a beer at the Eagle and Child pub down the road in St Giles after the debate. You know the Eagle and Child, that lovely place Tolkien and Lewis hung out at, when Oxford truly was a great institution.

Nope, none of it. George has doubled down. No Kumbaya from George. Even in the aftermath of his comments and their hasty deletions he called Kirk’s death “ironic”.

But let’s not take it all out on George. I mean when he was up for election, he had such lovely things to say. Here are just some of those things, recorded in the Cherwell, the oldest Oxford student union newspaper, named after the river that flows through the town:

Whether through sports, welfare, or culture, I’ve always focused on bringing people together and creating spaces that are safe, fun, and genuinely welcoming. That’s the kind of energy I want to bring into the Union, too.

Something seems to have been lost in translation there George! Or maybe George was just being the usual grifter who will say what he thinks people want to hear until he gets the power to say what he wants to actually say. Which he did on Friday.

Yet I have to keep saying it, let’s not blame George. Let’s blame the parents. Over the past two years since October 7 we have seen the fruit of some pretty ugly and degrading ideology passing off as intellectual endeavour. The very institutions that have built the type of culture that we in the West presume allow for free speech, freedom of conscience and freedom of association, and all without fear of retribution, have sheltered brutes.

When I expressed my astonishment about George’s election win offline to someone who is a good man and a good thinker he reminded me that student union leaders are unrepresentative of the student body, and get around 70 votes.

Which is true. In some universities. And probably mostly true in many second-rate universities. But this is Oxford University. And so I did a bit of digging to see if it were a mere 70 voters for some no name. The stats are on public record. George got more than 600 votes in a turn out of 1208 for this term’s elections. So not huge, but a lot more than 70 or so.

But that’s not the issue.

The Oxford Union is not some tinpot organisation. The numbers do not reflect the reach and influence of the Oxford Union. Not at all. Mark Steyn, the Canadian commentator has debated there (though he says no longer in the wake of this past week). Konstantin Kisin has debated there. The Oxford Union’s Youtube site says this about itself:

The Oxford Union is the world’s most prestigious debating society with a tradition of hosting internationally prominent individuals across politics, academia, and popular culture. Founded in 1823 at a time when The University of Oxford restricted students from discussing certain topics, The Union continues to uphold the principle of free speech through the exchange and debate of a wide range of ideas and opinions, presented by a diverse range of speakers – some inspiring, others controversial. As we celebrate 200 years of free speech during our Bicentenary year of 2023, we reaffirm our commitment to our integral values and also our belief that the discussion of complex topics should not only be encouraged but is an essential element of any free society.

So no tinpot institution. A 202 year old institution with a fine pedigree.

So let’s talk about institutions for a while. Because, it turns out, George wasn’t a big fan of institutions really. In fact he said as much himself in a recorded Youtube clip at the Union:

“At times, there is simply nothing else that can be required except for violent retaliation. And this is a view I wholeheartedly agree with; the view that some institutions are too broken, too oppressive to be reformed, like cancers of our society. And they must, and they should be taken down by any means necessary.”

Oxford Union risks being seen as a cuck with that sort of comment. Violent retaliation is required! Required? In place of what? Actual debate?

Clearly George is not going to bite the hand that feeds though, is he? Not at an institution like Oxford University of course because, as he seems to know in his bones, it’s on his side on this one.

Now I lifted that fine George quote from the resignation letter of James Price, honorary secretary of the Oxford Literary Debating & Union Trust, who had also seen the debate on Youtube.

The trust is the charity that owns the Oxford Union’s buildings. The Trust dispenses its charitable responsibilities onto the union as its delegate. (Once again, this indicates that this was not some tinpot disenfranchised sideline in Oxford and its public life).

James resigned because the Union allowed George to double down on his comments. Indeed James says this:

I am afraid that I do not see this as just another scandal that we need to encourage the Union to handle. I see this as existential. OLDUT’s delegate is about to be run by someone who gloried in the political assassination of a man whom he had debated in the Oxford Union chamber just months ago. And instead of apologising, the President-Elect has doubled down, listing all the reasons why Mr Kirk was a terrible person with views so abhorrent that his murder was merely “ironic. This is a psychopathic response from someone who has no intention of/or perhaps ability to, feel shame. He will, like many recent Presidents, deliberately traduce and ruin the reputation of the Oxford Union to enhance his personal brand, one that involves attacking institutions like the one we are supposed to protect. This is actively different to the scandals of previous generations; then scandal was a bug or side effect. Now, it is the whole point. Mr Abaraonye will not be the last to try this.

Ah the scourge and goal of the modern activist, his personal brand. It’s wretched and sad.

Now the Oxford Union, in the interests of free speech has refused to take action. And on one level that’s understandable. They love free speech. Hand it out in bucketloads at Oxford Union. The key of course is that last line in their statement on Youtube:

“the discussion of complex topics should not only be encouraged but is an essential element of any free society.”

Here’s the thing. George doesn’t think that. Not deep down. The word “essential” means “of essence”. What is of essence to George? Don’t get what you want by compelling argument? No worries, we’re preparing the violence option on the back burner. Hey Charlie, here’s one we prepared earlier!

And now the union is willing to protect and empower a man who hates the types of institutions that lead to the free society that allow him to be Oxford Union president. George could only scorn and mock the death of the very man who stood before him some months before debating him into a corner.

Charlie Kirk had the DNA of the Oxford Union institution flowing in his arteries, and the likes of George were whooping with joy when blood from those same arteries pumped out all over the grounds of another university when Kirk did exactly what the union supposedly stands for.

George believes what Tyler the Destroyer believes, and what millions on the radical left across all social media platforms also believe, as is evidenced from their responses: if we can get the power to do so, we don’t need to change your mind, we can just kill you instead.

Indeed James Price said exactly what I opined in my previous blog post:

This is actively different to the scandals of previous generations; then scandal was a bug or side effect. Now, it is the whole point. Mr Abaraonye will not be the last to try this.

This is not a bug in the system of the deranged side of the Left, it’s a feature.

Though perhaps George is smarter than his average grades reveal. Perhaps George is playing the long game. If George sees the need to destroy “by any means necessary” the institutions that he considers too broken to be reformed, perhaps he is just simply playing the Oxford Union for the fool, delivering the ultimate inside job to an institution that he is only too willing to use as a platform in which to hoist it on its own petard.

So let’s not blame George. Let’s blame the parents, the intellectual parents. They’re happy to promote, protect and produce a man like George Abaraonye.  And as of Friday, the type of child they spawned has declared that he is more than happy to promote, protect and produce a philosophy of death that has left two young children to now be raised by a single parent.