A revolution is taking place. A deafening chorus of influential voices floods our workspaces, our streets, and our media and threatens the most intimate right of open society: the right to speak freely and honestly with each other. Every day the situation grows worse. At one moment, a transgendered YouTuber comes under fire for heretical viewpoints. At the next, social scientist David Shor loses his job for tweeting research about the consequences of violent protests. Then, an editor at the New York Times is forced to step down after publishing an Op-Ed by a conservative senator. And who can forget Lee Fang, a journalist at the Intercept who almost lost his job after quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., on Twitter, a man who many activists now consider insufficiently radical? The nauseating storm of outrage presently washing over our institutions has a name: cancel culture.
The success of cancel culture means the destruction of liberalism, the foundation of every successful progressive movement since the Enlightenment. Liberalism celebrates the freedom and innocence of the individual, not the tribe. It declares us equal in worth and unique in our abilities. It says that truth is possible and that the truth belongs to us all. No other political philosophy champions so boldly the freedom of speech, which in turn means the right to disagree, to explore, and to exist as our imperfect selves. It is hard to imagine another worldview that so dignifies and respects human life. Even modern-day conservatism protects the achievements of yesterday’s revolutionaries (hence the term “classical liberal”).
Liberalism is not against so-called “identity politics” or social justice. It advances the interests of oppressed groups by bringing human rights to all. Nor is liberalism inherently “moderate.” The promise of liberty and equality in America’s founding documents roused Frederick Douglass to denounce the savage hypocrisy of American slavery and spearhead the campaign to abolish it. Almost two centuries thereafter, the LGBTQ community and their allies in America secured marriage equality and workplace protections in a series of landmark Supreme Court rulings. Liberalism has a long, rich history of championing universal human rights, including the rights of minority voices to be heard.
Cancel culture, on the other hand, is a Frankenstein monster created in the labs of Critical Social Justice, a term popularized by James Lindsay to distinguish it from true social justice. Critical Social Justice is a totalitarian ideology that preaches winner-take-all revolutionary change. It explicitly denies the possibility of truth and flattens our world into an eternal struggle for power. In the work of “scholars” like Robin DiAngelo, liberal values like individuality and objectivity are just tools for the privileged to keep their authority. In this sense, Critical Social Justice is more like communism than liberalism. Activists beholden to this worldview–sometimes known as social justice warriors—view people as either allies or obstacles. Activists enforce their vision in part by bullying colleagues (often while claiming to be the victim), using manipulative language, or threatening violence. These are the tactics of mobs, but they now bear the veneer of respectability after nearly thirty years of pseudo-scholarship.
Cancel culture will not go away on its own. You and I have to stop it. The liberal principles that I outlined at the beginning of this manifesto have not suddenly become obsolete. Far from it—they are more important than ever, especially in an era where the illiberal right is also ascendant in the West. But we must have new norms to guard liberalism from cancel culture. We should shame the people who engage in these tactics. We must stand up and defend our peers who risk losing everything by pissing off the wrong person. We should call out patently abusive behavior for what it is. If you and I agree that threatening others’ livelihood is morally bankrupt, we must acknowledge that doing nothing to stop it is also wrong. We should call out abusers even if it puts us within their line of sight. To share the cost of speaking up reduces its burden. As Marcus Aurelius once wrote, “do the right thing. Nothing else matters”.
You might think that my suggestion is a contradiction. It isn’t. A clear sense of right and wrong calls us to shame abusive behavior, not different opinions. We will shame coercion and manipulation, not disagreeable speech. We will state frankly that people like Katie Kingsbury—the New York Times’ new acting editorial page editor—abuse their authority when they encourage employees to snitch on each other. We will shame the people who stalk their peers in hallways and online. We will speak out against those who call for jobs to be lost, reputations to be destroyed, and even statues of abolitionists to be taken down.
To be clear, I am not offering a silver bullet, and some of our interventions need to be systemic. Some organizations like FIRE and the Heterodox Academy work hard to foster free and open dialogue within academia, and they deserve our support. Other movements, like StopSOP in Canada, have managed to vote out extremists in a bencher election by running candidates dedicated to freedom of expression.
But regardless of whatever strategy you choose, you will need to speak up. And if you think we are right, I ask you to join us. We will no longer be silent when others face the whirlwind.
23 comments
I agree with the comment that we have no opposing ideology to offer. The more I study progressive ideology the more I realize that my earliest thoughts as a child were based on the idea that the world is “improving” and that we are on a path to a better world. Even now I constantly come across unexamined beliefs I hold, which are extremely Marxist. It is pretty bewildering that I do not have any ideology to replace it with.
There’s going to be a huge percentage of the population who have been educated since birth in this belief system and we need simple phrases and symbols to make our philosophy into a “cause” to stand behind.
Unfortunately we believe in individual rights and not tribalism, so how do we get these flags and chants?
And if we take on the symbols and chants, are we simply turning into another version of Marxist collectivism? I’m really twisted up by this.
my opinion.. i think to may people try to make things more complicated then they are..this only causes more misunderstandings.. freedom is an easy understanding if not combined with other babel.. i have yet to see anyone consider the power that the 100 million gun owners in america have. the civility that they have engaged in to date is amazing to say the least.. i dont see any threat to america other then education in schools.. to many of the higher educated people do not understand the resolve waiting in the masses of america.. most gun owners do not live in fear of these things.. but few intellectuals will consider this truth. when the time comes and the gun owners have had enough of this ignorant control and leftist meddling it will not be a passive movement. talking to these types of minds is a useless attempt at resolve.. when white people are punished for using the n word we have started on the path of killing freedom at its core..
i find it strange that most people never see the masses as they really are. i am baffled at this misjudgment. how can so many dismiss 100 million civilized gun owners and not understand the position they command in the united states.. why is this topic never discussed??
Please make audio versions of this content and put them on YouTube.
It is much easier to listen while going about one’s day than to read.
I love reading, but I don’t have time. It would be nice to listen while commuting.
Meanwhile what is the most potent form of in-your-case “cancel”-culture?
Bombs of course.
Every time one is dropped someones culture is very much cancelled permanently. As is the culture of their family and relatives.
In 2016 the US dropped over 26,000 bombs – mostly on Islamic countries.
It has also dropped a record number of bombs on Afghanistan in recent years. And the stealth killing/murder by drones has reached record numbers during the reign of the Golden Golem of Greatness.
Furthermore peace-loving American has more or less been dropping bombs on one or another Islamic or Middle Eastern countries ever since the first Gulf war. And monstering or cancelling the independent cultural aspirations of much of the rest of the world since the war against the people of the Philippines.
Meanwhile check out this reference to the truth-telling book on in-your-face culture cancelling by William Blum titled Killing Hope/
The Third World Traveler site also describes in great detail how the cultures of much of the “third world” have been systematically and deliberately cancelled
This is a really important comment. Thank you for the reality check.
Hi Justin
I simply don’t understand your point and I am trying to.
You say this, “I also also agree that it is up to us to engage people that are using the Critical Social justice rhetoric in a harmful way. It is my belief that the critical social justice culture is the product of dismissive behavior towards another and that anti-woke can suffer the same result. If I have a acquaintance or family member that was espousing woke rhetoric, I would most likely not shame them, but try to show that their good intention is being misled by the rhetoric.”
We need to employ good manners but continue to speak out and not be cowed with our family and friends.
But Roy is talking about standing up for people who are under attack from the ‘Woke’ people and the need to stick up for them. These are people who are prepared to destroy a person’s reputation and livelihoods because they disagree with a few words, usually taken out of context, usually with the definition of the words used warped and twisted.
At this very minute Fitzwilliam College, part of Cambridge University, where Starkey teaches, described his remarks as “indefensible”. Here is the video that they are attacking. Top Members of Parliament are also on the attack.
Roy is calling for people to stand up for him. Should they instead stand by and watch such a man be destroyed?
I think you are all missing something – which is that the cancel culture (Critical Social Justice) is not a spontaneous social development but something that is funded and pushed onto us. The reason I feel sure about this is because I live in London where we have only a single opinion put out by the media. They all say the same thing and all the trolls on social media all say the same thing, and you can feel yourself constantly being pressured to agree. We have called it Political Correctness for a long time which means that one must agree, even if that means lying. The only way that there can be homogeneity of opinion is if someone is organizing and funding it. The stand-out example was in the case of Brexit, where every source used the same phrases against supporters of (democracy and) Brexit. And so we can recognise yet another Politically Correct thing we are supposed to agree with, here we go again.
My other piece of evidence that this is a funded and deliberate agenda comes from the global warming issue. Elsewhere on this fantastic site (sorry to sound like I’m grovelling but it really is super-helpful) is an article about how Critical Social Justice is fundamentally opposed to objective scientific truth. While the Critical Social Justice agenda has been focused on America and Canada, ‘global warming’ has been focused on Britain and Australia. I have been shocked to the core by what I have uncovered over the last few months. In what they call ‘climate science’ there is NO science, no objective truth at all. You might like to research what has happened to Naomi Seibt. She is under threat of imprisonment because of 3 videos in which she challenges this story. It is every bit as false as the issues discussed in this site. The evidence that ‘global warming’ has been deliberately imposed upon us is overwhelming.
The two issues are opposite sides of the same coin.
I totally agree that we must try to maintain our friendships and dialogues with people who have different opinions, but to suggest that kindness will come out on top if we just carry on being kind is not going to happen, because you misidentify the nature of the problem here.
What I do suggest, and I think it was on this site I read it but can’t now remember, is to speak out in support of individuals who are under attack and whose livelihoods are under threat because they refuse to conform to Critical Social Justice – the woke agenda – Political Correctness. This can be done through social media or emails or letters. I’ve suggested to people that they look at the guidelines that Amnesty International used to use when they had teams of people writing letters to try to free political prisoners. It’s really important to speak out and not merely complain privately. There are far too many decent people under attack from this agenda and they need support.
To reply specifically to Justin, here in Britain our society grows daily more violent. Appeasement is the strategy that most institutions are using, and appeasement will take us where it always does, to greater violence. We need to try to turn the tide, while it is just about possible. My private opinion is that we passed the point of no return about 4 years ago, but I won’t accept my private opinion but continue to try to find ways, as I say, to remain in friendship with my friends who become more and more woke, and in public to speak out and work out who and how to write to, and try to encourage others to do the same. I totally agree with Roy Meredith that ending cancel culture is up to us. If we just hope for the best, sooner or later it will be our turn to be ‘cancelled’.
Rosie, I agree that this Critical Social Justice is not a new thing and I don’t think “peace love and kindness” in
The hippie sense, is the necessary answer. I also also agree that it is up to us to engage people that are using the Critical Social justice rhetoric in a harmful way. It is my belief that the critical social justice culture is the product of dismissive behavior towards another and that anti-woke can suffer the same result. If I have a acquaintance or family member that was espousing woke rhetoric, I would most likely not shame them, but try to show that their good intention is being misled by the rhetoric. If I had a friend doing that, it would be very direct intense conversation.
If I am engaging with others where I agree on the premise, I will discuss the nature of conversation with others that disagree with the premise and how to most effectively communicate what we believe to be important. If I am engaging with those I disagree with the premise, I will try to discuss the premise, however, in the CJW world this is difficult to do openly. I think Peter and James using satire was an effective approach. So I will have an element of satire and careful way I which I engage.
In the end it may all end in violence, but I feel this forum is trying to help that not happen and I feel that Roy’s approach will continue the cycle towards violence.
If everyone is saying the same thing (the media and others online) perhaps there’s a reason. Perhaps they are saying that thing because it’s correct. Just saying!
Shaming is not going to accomplish anything. Shaming the homosexuals did not work to the advantage of the Christian fundamentalist.
In any conversation with the Woke, it is going to be based on a memetic rhetoric and there will be a difficulty on their part to problem solve a variable that is obscure. Or, you will offer a variable that they recognize as and your argument will be dismissed. The only possible way to engage is empathy, love and validation to their underlining issues beyond the rhetoric.
If we keep on the path Roy seems to support, it will end in violence. Which may be inevitable.
The premise of this post seems ineffective. Anger is a very driving force, if you shame someone, the result is almost always going to be anger, especially if they have support of their peers. If I am in a Seattle or Portland, it is absolutely impossible to shame anyone. The issues are to complex and depend on cliche/meme thought. Most any retort you approach with will have a quick dismissal, “That’s reverse racism”, “that’s racism,”. “that’s fascism”. Your only possible method to engage in conversation to reverse the brainwashing is love, empathy and validation.
I remember when Christians use to shame homosexuals and that turned out so well for that Christian movement.
I will shame you Roy. “Regardless of whatever strategy you choose, you will need to speak up.” -Roy Meredith
Are you quoting an SJW pamphlet Roy?! LOL!
There may be some Platonic, absolute, static, right and wrong here and I am sure Roy, that you have chose the correct way into heaven. But What you are suggesting is a continuation of the cycle, (which I am not entirely against, violence responds to violence.) But! If the point of New Discourse is to reinforce people’s anger and how to have better rhetoric, that seems boring. You would be spending your time better to learn how to physically fight to prepare for the inevitable outcome of your logic, because if you believe you are right and SJW believes their right and you want to shame each other, words are really pointless.
The only way that we can stop the Left is through sheer numbers of new people that adhere to conservative ideals and American normalcy.
The Left controls the schools and universities. They control social media, the internet, TV and movies. They control music and fashion. They are writing and enforcing the mob rules as we go. Goodbye, Abe Lincoln, Chis Columbus, Eskimo pies, Aunt Jemmima syrup, Master bath and bedrooms. and its not going to stop. We are not living in the patriotic 1960’s anymore.
I think we should clarify that the people who subscribe to the views expressed in the article are not ‘The Left’, just as much as people who hold extreme right wing views are not ‘The right’. If we cant get past that ‘tarnish everyone with the same brush’ mud slinging match we’ll never make any progress.
Given the majority of the political left and right actually have very few difference when you consider our aspirations for life, a great first step would be to unite through reason and logic, and not cast people aside for minor differences in viewpoints. That is afterall, exactly what Woke culture does.
Huge swathes of Liberals are just as against this behaviour as Conservatives, its not, or should not be, a political fight in the traditional sense.
Unfortunately they believe that rationality and logic are tools of oppression. So you can’t reason with them. They consider meeting their opponents in debate a form of “selling out”, because “discussion” to them is a means of oppression.
We’ll miss Uncle Ben, too, a credit to his rice. Ha.
Seriously, I don’t see Uncle Ben or Aunt Jemima going anywhere so far. I hope to never walk by the syrups and see nothing but Log Cabin’s cabin and the eerily faceless Mrs. Butterworth.
Fighting the cancel crew with their own weapons isn’t half bad an idea, but it looks they’re already doing it to each other. Maybe they will self-destruct.
No, we should not “shame the people who use these tactics.” And if liberalism has taught us anything over the past two centuries, it’s precisely that there is no “clear sense of right and wrong” upon which we might collectively agree. This ‘manifesto’ is, unfortunately, a moral muddle. Part of the critique of Critical Social Justice is that it is blatantly consequentialist (something they learned from liberals like Mill, no doubt): suppress free speech, shame dissenters, sack anyone who stands in their way–upend western civilisation as we know it, and justice will prevail.
And here we are proposing the same? Much as I enjoy New Discourses, what I have not seen anywhere is a reckoning with the legacy of post-enlightenment moral thought which actually contributed to the rise of Critical Social Justice. Liberals simply don’t have any *moral* high ground on which to stand, so any such appeal to a “clear sense of right and wrong” is bound to be highly subjective and thus vacuous. By all means, highlight the practical benefits of classical liberalism. But don’t pretend like modernity has moral currency postmodernity lacks: it was post-enlightenment skepticism that created the moral vacuum Critical Social Justice has infiltrated.
Who has the moral high ground and why?
Aristotle–or nobody 😉
Give MacIntyre’s ‘After Virtue’ a go. Plausibly, either we accept a teleological account of human nature and attendant moral theory or else we’re left with some sort of moral relativism.
The left or socialists do because they said so.
They can’t be shamed by US because negativity from non-sjws is a mark of honor to them.
If you want to defeat them, you have to look at their old tweets, etc. and then incite their own social justice mobs to go after them. Standards for proper woke behavior have changed so drastically in so little time that finding “problematic” things will be easy to do. Sjws self-cannibalize already, so the idea is to kick their cannibalism into high gear, and direct it tactically against people most in need of being cannibalized.
Very well put Hayden.
I am heartened there is still a social worker in New York City promoting genuine liberalism, and sanity.
I think we should just sack the SJWs. For their offences outlined above, namely: bullying, mob-rule and censorship. Liberals trying to defend freedom while not actually defending freedom does not work.