Alasdair MacIntyre, from After Virtue:

But protest is now almost entirely that negative phenomenon which characteristically occurs as a reaction to the alleged invasion of someone’s rights in the name of someone else’s utility. The self-assertive shrillness of protest arises because the facts of incommensurability ensure that
protesters can never win an argument; the indignant selfrighteousness of protest arises because the facts of incommensurability ensure equally that the protesters can never lose an argument either.

From the Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy:

MacIntyre claims that protest and indignation are hallmarks of public “debate” in the modern world. Since no one can ever win an argument – because there’s no agreement about how someone could “win” – anyone can resort to protesting; since no one can ever lose an argument – how can they, if no one can win? – anyone can become indignant if they don’t get their way. If no one can persuade anyone else to do what they want, then only coercion, whether open or hidden (for example, in the form of deception) remains. This is why, MacIntyre says, political arguments are not just interminable but extremely loud and angry, and why modern politics is simply a form of civil war.

Thus “emotivism,” defined by MacIntyre as a fallacious way of arguing, in which subjective feelings are held to be moral truths. MacIntyre said in his 1980s book After Virtue that emotivism is how we debate now, and that ultimately, we risk arguments being settled by irrational force.

So. Here’s a transcript between a talk radio host on Manx Radio (Isle of Man, UK) and a caller:

Stu Peters (SP): Let’s go to line one, I think we’ve got somebody else who wants to have a quick word. Hello, this is Manx Radio.

Jordan Maguire (JM): Hi, my name’s Jordan. I am a black man that lives on the Isle of Man.

SP: OK Jordan.

JM: Yeah, and I’m calling in reference to a post that you made stating “I expect” – is this Stu Peters, sorry?

SP: It is, yeah.

JM: Yeah, it says: “I expect the protest would be in front of the US embassy in Douglas, otherwise an Isle of Man protest about police brutality in America makes no sense except as a virtue signalling snowstorm. In other news, saw this on a graph earlier, in 2018 the US had around 50,000 white on black violent crimes compared with 400,000 black on black and around 550,000 black on white violent crimes.

SP: Yes.

JM: “All lives matter” in capitals. There so many things wrong with this I honestly don’t know where to start but…

SP: Well, no, go ahead. If you…

JM: I haven’t even got to my point. The fact that you’re starting that, insinuating a Manx protest over police brutality is pointless unless it’s in a destination that you deem fit is absurd, first of all.

SP: We’ll why are demonstrating outside of Tynwald?

JM: Why can’t I?

SP: You can demonstrate anywhere you like but it doesn’t make any sense to me, which is the point that I was trying to make on the Manx Forums thread.

JM: Explain why that doesn’t make sense to you.

SP: I don’t understand why people on the Isle of Man are protesting in support of Black Lives Matter in America, which is 3,000 miles away.

JM: Right, ok, so if people are breaking human rights anywhere around the world, that doesn’t make sense to you that we would stand up for it?

SP: But who are you standing…

JM: Let’s think about World War One. The official records show that 8,261 Manx men enlisted in the armed forces, which was 82.3% of the Isle of Man’s male population at the military age. Of these, 1,165 gave their lives and 987 were wounded. As these lives weren’t taken on our soil does it change what they fought for, or the atrocities that they had to endure? And I’m in no way comparing their sacrifices to that or protesters. The location of the war you fight has no bearing on the reasoning or the validity of.

SP: I just…

JM: And I want to understand why you think that, just because lives are being brutalised and oppressed in a country, anywhere around the world not just in America, why it doesn’t matter to you.

SP: Alright, can I speak for a second?

JM: I’d love you to.

SP: OK, I think that what happened to George Floyd is despicable. I think that what that police office did is probably criminal but we’ve got to wait until the courts decide that. But I think that what that man did is that he murdered George Floyd and I think that’s awful. I can understand to a point why people, I can understand very clearly why people in America are protesting about it. I can understand why Black Lives Matter – and American organisation – is protesting about it. But what I can’t understand is why people around the rest of the world are protesting, and specifically in the Isle of Man, why you would have a protest outside of Tynwald about it?

JM: OK, so, when you’re saying “all lives matter” that first of all is just derogatory and ridiculous…

SP: No, it’s not derogatory.

JM: For all lives – listen – for all lives to matter we have to raise the people of all creed, colours, religions to the level that white people’s privilege allows them to be. For all lives to matter, black and other…

SP: I’ve had no more privilege in my life than you have Jordan.

JM: Excuse me?

SP: I’ve had no more privilege in my life than you have. I’m a white man, you’re a black man you say.

JM: If you believe that then you’re already – this is exactly what white privilege is. I’m not saying that you haven’t, like, endured anything in your life. But you have automatically – the system is built for you to win already. I have to go through everything in my daily life, and I have to go through these things that you don’t see so you don’t think they exist. Or, I kind of believe that you’re an intellectual man to a degree. You’re either extremely ignorant or extremely – I don’t know what you are, but I’m not talking with you any longer…

SP: Well…

JM: With that kind of opinion.

SP: I think…

JM: I hope that you can be saved from your own ignorance and I encourage you to enlighten yourself.

SP: Well…

JM: On issues that people such as myself have to face every single day, and both realise and empathise with the – the world that we live in is far from a [level] playing field….

SP: Can I speak again or are you just going to rant?

JM: Being on this earth. Goodbye.

SP: You’re just going to rant. OK. Well, that was good. Let’s move on, we’ve got somebody else on line two. Hello, this is Late, Live and Unleashed, apparently.

Manx Radio suspended the radio host and is investigating him for racism.

This radio host was just doing his job, trying to get a caller to explain himself. He tried to stick to the argument, despite being abused by this caller. For that, the man’s radio career of over 20 years is now in jeopardy.

So much for Reason. MacIntyre saw it all coming. If you cannot settle an argument, the winner is whoever can assert his will to power most strongly. In this case, at Manx Radio, a white man who contradicts a black man, even if simply for the sake of trying to understand the argument the black man is making, is therefore a racist, or at least close enough to one to be taken off the air.

The identity-politics left is a malicious cult. This is not going to stop anytime soon, until ordinary people start standing up publicly for people like Stu Peters.

This particular case happened in the UK, but you can easily imagine it happening in American media. Every now and then, a young person will ask me what advice I have for someone who is thinking about becoming a journalist. My advice: don’t do it. If you are an honest person — whether you’re liberal, conservative, or somewhere in between — you are going to live in constant fear of inadvertently causing a job-ending offense. You will end up a nervous wreck, or you will end up as a conformist drone, or you will end up jobless.