"SLAYER OF TABOOS"
WHY LAURA DODSWORTH IS SO FUCKING COOL.
Hey Gang,
I suppose I am a real critic now.
No, it’s definitely not because I’’m earning a living doing this. I’ll get there, but I’m not there yet.
No, the real reason I consider myself a real critic now is because an important author has sent a free copy of her book to Nevermore for review.
That book was sent directly from Harper Collins, one of the largest publishing houses in the world.
That author is named Laura Dodsworth, and the book is called Free Your Mind: The New World of Manipulation and How to Resist It (Kindle, paperback, hardcover, audiobook). It was co-written with Patrick Fagan, who is a behavioural scientist and used to be the “lead psychologist” at Cambridge Analytica.
I really couldn’t imagine a more fitting book for Nevermore to review. After all, Nevermore has had a major focus on deconstructing propaganda since we started this project.
Margaret Anna Alice describes FREE YOUR MIND as a “book-length recovery program from menticide”, which strikes me as a very apt description.
Indeed, I have a lot to say about this book, because it deals with subject matter that is near and dear to my heart.
In fact, I have so much to say that about this book that I’m not going to be able to say it all at once.
When I sat down to write a review of FREE YOUR MIND, I ended up writing something about the influence that Laura Dodsworth has had on me (and Nevermore) since 2020, and it ended up being article-length before I even got around to mentioning her latest book.
So I have decided to write a multi-part series about Laura Dodsworth, who I consider one of the bravest and most important artists of the Western world today.
I hope that you enjoy this series, and thank you very much to Laura for thinking that I deserved a free copy of her book.
It’s nice to receive a vote of confidence from someone I admire so highly.
LAURA DODSWORTH - SLAYER OF TABOOS
Let’s get one thing out of the way - I’m a huge fan of Laura Dodsworth. She is easily one of the best popular writers of our day and age, and readers of either STATE OF FEAR or FREE YOUR MIND will be left with no doubt that she is one of the leading voices of our day and age.
Laura is, first and foremost, an artist who engages with the taboos of our time. She is a photographer first, and it seems that she became a political writer only when she realized that someone had to step up to the plate. A reluctant hero, if you will.
I first came across Laura’s work in the dark days of the first COVID winter. As I scoured the net for people who were trying to make sense of the world’s sudden descent into collective insanity, I came across a photography exhibit called MASKS ARE THE VESTITURE OF THE FAITHFUL, in which a feminist photographer compared COVID masks to religious garments.
Laura explained her exhibition with the following:
Masks symbolise values that go far beyond science, a new creed we are finding the words for. They emblemise a nascent ‘religion’, in which the moral code is based upon extending life, not securing your place in the afterlife. But in this liminal time, before we have the words and authoritative codification, make no mistake about the symbolism.
Masks are the vestiture of the faithful, signalling belief and, importantly, obedience.
Handwashing and sanitising are daily baptisms, washing away our innate human infectiousness just as the Christian baptism washes away our innate sin. Cathedrals are playing host to mass vaccination in a powerful intersection of the old and new religions. A spaced congregation of the masked elderly waited, listening to organ music in Salisbury Cathedral, for their vaccination, in a rite of biomedical transubstantiation.
As with all religions, your priests demand obedience and piety.
This was one moment at which something clicked into place for me, and I ended up writing a piece called COVID IS THE DEVIL which drew the analogy between virology and demonology, both of which attribute the spread of illness to invisible entities who are neither living nor dead.
In that piece, which directly referenced Laura’s work, I wrote:
The malign influence of the Devil justified the moral authority of the priest class. Because laypeople could never be sure that their thoughts were not being twisted by the Devil, of course they could not be trusted with the task of determining right and wrong for themselves.
Likewise, the average person is no virologist, epidemiologist, or “public health expert”. They are not qualified to decide for themselves what does and doesn’t make sense. They must be told. They must be guided. They must be protected from “dangerous misinformation”. They must be nudged in the direction of Orthodoxy. They much accept the Holy Truth of their rulers as their own. They must surrender their free will. And they must silenced and punished if they dare contradict it, because if they do, they are aiding and abetting the invisible enemy – COVID, like the Devil, is forever at the gates..
The Devil is always scheming. Trouble is always brewing. Another variant could hit at any time.
The pious must remain vigilant, and perform rituals to ward off COVID, for the fiendish virus, much like the Devil, may infect and take possession of the person who lets their guard down.
Consider the world’s obsession with hygiene theatre. Realize that hand-washing has become a religious act, similar to a Catholic crossing themselves. It serves the same purpose – to ward off evil. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, as the old saying goes, which of course means that the more privileged classes are more Godly.
If we each understand ourselves as being potential carriers of viruses that could kill, and consider ourselves ethically responsible for the consequences of its transmission, we wind up in a similar situation, morally, to that of Original Sin.
Original Sin is the notion that human beings are already guilty, from the time they are born, due to the inherited sin of Adam and Eve’s transgression in the Garden of Eden. In the Abrahamic religions, all humans are born guilty.
Likewise, in the COVID religion, you are guilty, because by virtue of being born into an animal body that can host viruses, you might infect others, and others could even die as a result of the part that your sinful body played in a chain of transmission. For this reason, you must always be both cautious and ashamed.
Indeed, part of the aesthetic of Nevermore has always been about playing with medieval religious themes, and at least part of that can be traced back to Laura Dodsworth.
For awhile, I was using photography to draw the analogy. For example, the following images accompanied COVID is the Devil.
Anyway, after encountering MASKS ARE THE VESTITURE OF THE FAITHFUL I began following Laura Dodsworth’s work. I was curious to learn more about this bold photographer, who seemed willing to put her career on the line in a way that few people were.
I was soon to learn that this was not Laura first time defying taboos. Indeed, proclaims herself a SLAYER OF TABOOS, which sounds pretty fucking cool if you ask me.
The DETRANS series
It wasn’t long before I came across a photography series called Detrans in which Laura had taken photos of a number of detransitioners (people who transitioned from one gender to another and then back to their original gender again). This series also had a big influence on me.
Now, in the Fall of 2023, everyone who’s anyone has a critique of gender ideology, but at the time Laura released The Detransitioners, the topic was about as taboo they get. Back then, it was verboten to dare to question whether or not men could become women with a few waves of a pharmaceutical wand. In 2020, you might as well have been writing a defence of incest or pedophilia.
Laura had found a way to critique trans ideology in a kind-hearted, compassionate way. Side-stepping the front line of the culture war, she found a way to approach the question with compassion. The photos were accompanied by the stories of the detransitioners themselves, which was crucial. Laura wasn’t putting words of the mouths of her subjects. She was helping them tell their stories.
I’ll give you an example. This is the story of Sinead:
Laura goes on to tell the stories of several other women who had transitioned to men and then back again. She includes very moving pictures along with the stories, which are told in the voices of the detransitioners themselves.
I was extremely moved by Laura’s work. I’m not usually into photography, but Laura’s combination of pictures and words turned a lock in my brain and opened a door.
She convinced me that there was a way to contribute meaningfully to the debate without simply bashing my horns into the enemy.
Although it would be awhile before I actually got around to doing so, Laura’s work made me decide in my heart that I needed to speak up about trans ideology.
Three years later, I don’t really think that it is taboo at all to critique trans ideology anymore, except perhaps in certain woke sociology departments or in places like Portland, Oregon.
Basically, the taboo has fallen.
Suffice it to say that Laura has earned her stripes as a “Slayer of Taboos”.
Excellent article. I didn't remember all of your previous article, "Covid is the Devil." The quotes are also excellent. Thanks for sharing it again!
»A spaced congregation of the masked elderly waited, listening to organ music in Salisbury Cathedral, for their vaccination, in a rite of biomedical transubstantiation.« –
This sentence sent a cold shiver down my spine when I read it. I remember having a similar feeling as a child when I was involuntarily "allowed" to attend a communion service as a spectator in a church. I think that was the reason why I left the church for good at the age of 14. Thanks for the great article! I'm going to get Laura's book straight away, but I'm also looking forward to the continuation of your "series".