When DEI Really Does mean DIE (Part 2).
Part two of a two-part essay: The Cult of Political Correctness is Making a Killing. By Caroline Kaye.
In my previous essay, I lamented the tendency of the British Police to reduce human beings in real situations to mere avatars of types to be divided into oppressor and oppressed narratives – regardless of what is actually happening on the ground. The case of Henry Nowak who was treated as a de facto white oppressor when in actuality he was the victim of a vicious stabbing has brought the sheer beastliness of Critical Race “theory” into focus.
There are grounds to claim that we now indulge fantasies of the world rather than being present in the moment. Or simply, actually being. We are all now flattened into simplistic cartoon avatars, fuelled no doubt by the (literal tick tock) hypnotism of anti-social media reinforcement. You are a mere pinball machine as you ping ping the various obstacles to take your place on one side or the other in the lamentable game of goodies and baddies.
A further recent case (and there have been many over recent years) worthy of some scrutiny, involves another sacred characteristic – the gay adoptive couple. This is the case of Jamie Varley and John McGowan-Fazakerly who having adopted baby Preston Elijah Davey, sexually abused and murdered him. Baby Preston, who had been removed from his birth mother, was placed in temporary foster care, and then placed in the care of Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley for four months. Previous to being placed with Varley and Fazakerly, he had been in good health.
At this point I should say that this part of my essay is not intended to form a missive against gay adoption. I have frequently believed that children in need would be better served by a gay couple than languishing in a children’s home. However, there are some caveats that I have had to face on this. If readers have seen the recent podcast interview with Winston Marshall and Katy Faust, you will know that she is the author of Them Before Us which argues strongly and convincingly, the case for putting children’s needs before the desires of adults. This means that children are best cared for by their own biological and married parents in her view. Faust’s argument is that we are placing the needs and desires of adults way above the needs of children who are frequently treated as mere accessories in something akin to a performance of family life. This rankles sharply with the liberal mores of today’s world which forever seeks to claim its knowledge about the world by means of mediated social media, and in terms of much public policy the fabrications produced by “modelling.” Modelling incidentally never, ever produces “evidence.”
No matter how Winston Marshall argued the case for the more liberal approach, Faust always had a riposte that was convincing and (more’s the point) evidence based. For Faust, both male and female role models are crucial for children. She argues that society has been prioritising the desires of adults over and above those of children for a very long time. Children are not possessions or playthings to do with as we please. In case you were thinking it, her research dispels the myth that “all children require is love and safety” and that “love is what makes a family,” that “biology is irrelevant.” This is hard for liberal-minded people to face. The propaganda and “modelling” may on their side, but the evidence is firmly on Faust’s side.
Today, marriage is frequently regarded as a vehicle for adult fulfilment and is rarely seen as having anything to do with children. Children’s actual needs should come before adult desires and Faust is arguing that we have been prioritising the wrong thing to the severe detriment of children’s lives and their flourishing. She demonstrates that Surrogacy is understood as being in the same ballpark as eugenics which does seem far-fetched until she outlines the way in which surrogacy users actually “shop” for their preferred “types” of child. The inference is clear. Children are increasingly regarded as interchangeable objects, playthings, that can be placed in any kind of family-like construction. This is hardly surprising given that our society has been increasingly doing this to people in general. We, the people, are frequently seen as fungible interchangeable objects as if in a board game. We increasingly objectify humanity; and the natural world is something we behold rather something within which we belong.
Things have moved on, “progressed” some might argue - and now adoption agencies have targets to meet in terms of prioritising “minorities,” i.e., those higher up the Eric Kaufmann totem pole than pale skinned heterosexual couples. In the case of baby Preston Davey, it would appear that as a homosexual couple, the gay “dads” who went on to torture, sexually molest and murder baby Preston, were given priority in the adoption system. With over forty bruises, external and internal, Preston Davey’s case is a shocking indictment of the system we currently have. The claim is not that a homosexual couple is more likely to undertake this sort of abuse than a heterosexual couple. It is not that homosexual men inevitably abuse children. No. It Is rather that the fear of being called a “bigot” is what drives public decision making. If any professional had doubts about the placement of a child with one of the hallowed “minority groups,” there would have been a strong disincentive to question anything about it because, in this case, as a homosexual couple, they are held in higher esteem than others. They are situated higher on the totem pole of sacralisation. The fear of being called a bigot is what drives decision making rather than any real situation that might confront a professional. Do not believe your lying eyes, yet again.
I am put in mind of someone I used to know who insisted in the most strenuous of terms, that Oscar Pistorius, the South African amputee runner, could not possibly have murdered his partner Reeva Steenkamp. “He can’t have,” she repeatedly said, utterly incredulous. In her mind, he could not have killed his partner because he was disabled. The disabled are classed as victims (and thus “oppressed”) and are situated higher up the totem pole of victimhood than the able bodied. Character and behaviour do not enter into it. They now never enter into it. You can be lying on the ground having been stabbed multiple times and still be situated in the holy intersectional framework as a bigoted white oppressor.
This example, along with that of the gay couple serve as further illustrations of the flattening down of human beings into avataristic “types” rather than individuals, who are rounded people with histories and complexities as opposed to cartoonish one-dimensional objects. In the case of the gay men, it may be that even they had little idea of what they were capable of until they hit the wall of reality in their attempt to live out a fantasy version of parenthood. It would seem that they too regarded baby Preston as a cartoon re-presentation of a baby that would provide them with some fashionable kudos rather than the vulnerable, helpless and naturally demanding baby that he actually was. Children need to be placed first, they are not an adult’s personal playthings. Young children and babies have no obligations towards the parent.
That Jamie Varley, since convicted of murdering Preston, had described Preston as “needy” serves to illustrate the utterly unrealistic concept he had had about what it means to become a parent. Of course, Preston as a baby of nine months old was needy. At best, Preston was for Varley a sort of pet that subsequently morphed into a plaything and was then degraded to nothing more than a defunct toy to throw around in and out of the toybox. And then, when completely spent, as the helpless thirteen-month-old baby boy lay dying, Varley browsed the internet and had a textual interchange about a kayak that was for sale.
Above all, it was the public spectacle of appearing to be a parent, the fantasy idea of gay (“good-as-you”) parenthood, which is nothing like the sacrificial experience most biological parents experience. Parenthood is not glamorous. It is messy, sleep depriving and distinctly unselfish. It is about giving, putting the child’s needs above your own, and it can be heartbreaking. It means not going out, it means doing without, it means clearing up all manner of bodily fluids, it means losing your dignity. It means being tied to home. And it means all of these things before it can get to the point of being rewarding. It is such a hard and shattering experience, that it means so much more if there is a biological tie between parent and child to bind them together. That the adoption agency did not likely ram these points home to the prospective “parents” is likely due to their hallowed status and their own fear of being called out (“bigot!”) and disciplined or missing those aforementioned “targets.” In this way, the child’s needs were degraded and certainly not prioritised. The baby was arguably a child sacrifice for Adoption Now’s targets, and a gay couple’s bizarre, sexualised fantasy.
We have learned that Varley had described to a colleague that he had found baby Preston “annoying” and that he was having “dark thoughts” about “throwing him into a field of cows” or drowning him. Preston was once even described by Varley as “dead meat” for keeping the “parents” awake at night. Notwithstanding the difficulties that natural parents can experience with a newborn, it is clearly worrying for an adoptive couple who are supposed to have been vetted thoroughly to demonstrate this attitude. The former colleague who was witness to these remarks no doubt also felt politically constrained in coming forward. Never mind the implicit threat to the baby boy, nobody wants to be called a “bigot.”
Parenthood was evidently not the experience the couple were expecting as it too had likely been reduced to a cartoonish avatar of parenting rather than something they were intimately familiar with and could know what to expect from real experience rather than romantic fantasies or social media influencer posts.
We live in a world that is increasingly mediated to us via screens, be they phones, televisions or computers. Social media applications flatten and compress reality rather than opening it out. They are essentially anti-social mediations. They have led us into dark pathways where we fail to see the wood for the trees, we simply are no longer present in the world. Our reluctance to immerse ourselves in the world of reality and presence – being even, and the prioritising of mediation over tangibility is as dangerous as it gets. As Iain McGilchrist has shown us, the grasping of the gist is only part of the story in terms of the attention we afford the world around us. It is into this vulnerable semi-hypnotic state that we may be persuaded not to believe our lying eyes whether it is the weather, illness or a child’s vulnerability. Was that what happened as each professional concluded that forty bruises notwithstanding, baby Preston was being well cared for by the hallowed couple that were to be found to be utterly responsible for the baby’s abusive molestation and death?
It remains an issue that our avataristic “woke” world continues to flatten everything into an always-on-show spectacle for re-presentation and consumption. As Varley cowers in his cell, afraid to face his fellow prison inmates, he takes his own place in the line up of avatar “types.” Rather than a three-dimensional complex person with a possible personality disorder and at the very least a nuanced history of sorts, he is now reduced to the singular cartoon stereotype, that of “nonce.”
People are already speculating that Varley’s days are numbered inside. And if the inevitable occurs, then it will be yet another in a long line of deaths by DEI or more appropriately, DIE.
About the Author: Caroline Kaye is an independent researcher and essayist. She is a Locals organiser and volunteers as associate director of the NCF Literary Festival, in addition to editing this Substack. She holds an interdisciplinary PhD in art history, religion and Biblical studies and writes as The Sideways Thinker on Substack where you can also find her new podcast series, Babel for the Bible Curious.
This essay was previously published on The Sideways Thinker Substack, 20th July 2026.
NCF Locals disclaimer: The views expressed in this Substack are the writer’s own and should not be taken as forming an opinion or any statement on behalf of the New Culture Forum, London or its director and fellows.
The New Culture Forum began its life as a think tank which has now opened up its remit to the ordinary people of Britain. It is a movement, and one to be reckoned with. Importantly, it has no particular political allegiance – a great strength in formulating ideas, thoughts and policy - testing and refining ideas.
If you are based in Britain, there is bound to be an NCF Locals group near you. (And if there is not a group nearby and you believe there should be why not suggest this to the team? You may find yourself heading up your own new NCF Locals group!)
You can join the Locals here.
If you would like to learn more about the New Culture Forum you can click here.
For more detailed information about how to contribute to this Substack, email us at locals@newcultureforum.org.uk (Please ensure to write “Substack” in the subject line of your email so that it reaches our team successfully).
The Editor of the NCF Locals Substack is Dr Caroline Kaye.
Locals is your opportunity to get involved with other like-minded people. For more information on Locals - click here!
We would love to welcome you to one of our groups!
A MASSIVE thank you to all our subscribers and especially those of you who have dug deep into your pockets to become paid subscribers- we really do appreciate it! Don’t forget to submit your articles and news for this Substack. Additionally, if you would like to participate in our new audio/visual content, do drop us a line at the email address above. We are looking for well informed conversationalists who can talk about current affairs, culture, the arts, in fact anything our readers might enjoy listening to.
Watch this space! And thanks again everyone!
(From the Editor)
 | A guest post by
|
An extremely good article, I thought. Only I was a bit mystified by the reference to an "Eric Kaufman totem pole", which is surely a bit obscure to immediately make its meaning clear to any reader. It sounds almost like a dig at Professor Kaufman, which it isn't. I suppose others reading this comment might also be wondering. If you ask Google AI what it means, it is a "metaphorical hierarchy of moral worth and victimhood within modern cultural society or 'wokeism'. In this framework, groups are ranked by their 'totemic capital' based on an oppression order dictating who must defer to whom in social and political conflicts". In other words, Prof. Kaufman is one of the sane who has not been sucked into the culture-wide insanity of who happens to be oppressed or offended or deserving at the moment, for various inadequate-historical/guilt-ridden/incorrectly-assumed "reasons". [The reason the gay couple were given priority.] Anyway, apart from that, I repeat, a great article with some serious brain cells behind it!
I have seen this trend developing over decades. The lefties infiltrating the education system were putting people into boxes even in the late 60s, and now, as you say, we are all just avatars. Like that analogy.
I remember my mother telling me not to mention she had quietly divorced my father, who was nearly always abroad, anyway( which is very normal when you live between two ports - one Royal Navy and the other a deep water merchant navy port.)
"You don't want to be labelled - they will treat you differently."