Paul Delaroche\u2019s painting The Execution of Lady Jane Grey<\/em> towers over me. I first saw it in Year 10 elective history in high school but only through Google Images or on fuzzy printouts. The painting depicts a dank room with grieving participants to the execution of a blindfolded Jane Grey. My high school teacher explained that the actual execution took place in the open air. Faced with the masterpiece in full size, the use of realistic style to privilege a psychological perspective is even more technically and conceptually impressive than I recalled.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n What a privilege for locals to visit such masterful and historically significant artworks \u2013 for free! A strikingly three-dimensional painting of an unknown gentleman looks at me over his coat collar. The caption explains how dabs of white paint in his subject\u2019s eyes mimic the corneal reflection. These paintings are psychophysics at its finest. I understand Douglas Murray\u2019s rage against leftist social justice warriors\u2019 attempts to destroy British art and civilisation under the umbrella of \u2018decolonisation.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though in the old world of London, an aspirational \u2018American Dream\u2019 feeling fills me as I wander through ornate cathedrals, old paintings and canals. During my undergraduate years, a refusal to play the diversity card according to a racial identity politics script cost me short-term professional success and friendships. My peers won multiple \u2018writers-of-colour\u2019 grants worth thousands of dollars. I spent long solitary hours reading about logical thinking, the history and philosophy of psychology and political science classics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Years later, those grantees shout hash-taggable political slogans about diversity and \u2018compassion\u2019, blind to the consequences of governments surrendering to hostile transgender and BLM lobbies. Meanwhile, I have studied the psychological dynamics within the political Left and Right, and considered the balance between tradition and change through my readings of conservativism\u2019s fractures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Contrary to my younger self\u2019s shame about being from Western Sydney, I now understand that birth circumstances do not detract from the effort I have made into becoming a \u2018serious intellectual.\u2019 If anything, it enforces humility and openness on my part and trust from others in this alien city who feel displaced from elitist cultural tiers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018At the last event, I was disappointed that pretty much everyone was private-school educated,\u2019 an elderly English gentleman whispers. Our private conversation occurs at the back of the UnHerd Club, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":18432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.mannkal.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Frances-An-London-Zoo-penguin-1024x768.jpg\")