What is a Practical Progressive? | A Reasonable Alternative

Think about this: the word 'progressive' literally means forward looking. So any forward looking idea can be considered 'progressive', and anybody who is generally committed to a forward looking, positive and constructive attitude to things can be considered a 'progressive'. I think this was actually how it worked historically, for example with the 'progressive era' in American history. But nowadays, the meaning of 'progressive' has been distorted by some people. Apparently, for them, 'progressive' means adhering to particular left-wing theories, particularly the various critical theories and postmodern theories. The problem is, these theories are generally developed in academia rather than from practical situations, and they are heavily rooted in 19th and 20th century thinking. I don't see them as forward looking or open minded, and I certainly don't think this is the way to progress the 21st century West. Which is why, I think, it's time to differentiate what I call practical progressivism from theoretical progressivism.

If we consider the word 'progressive' in a purely practical sense, then I guess any reform that improve people's lives can and should be considered progressive. This is also the most objective definition. From the practical progressive perspective, anything that can be objectively shown to improve people's lives is progressive, period. I think if 'progressive' is consistently defined this way, then most people would be able to get behind it. There would be far fewer people who consider themselves anti-progressive. This is why I often say that it is the hijacking of the word 'progressive' by theoretical progressives that has turned people towards being anti-progressive. This problem can be fixed simply by abandoning theoretical progressivism and fully embracing practical progressivism.

The problem with theoretical progressivism is that it is not always progressive in the practical sense. It might even be objectively regressive in the practical sense, for example, it makes lives worse, at least for some people, or it leads to increased conflict and misunderstanding in society. Theoretical progressives are too obsessed with putting their theory into practice, and they don't care that this might lead to practically regressive outcomes in the real world. For example, postmodernism has led activists to embrace new and clunky linguistic norms, that have led to difficulties in getting the point across and advancing our understanding of the objective truth. Identity politics has fractured society, and turned social progress into an us-vs-them thing. Widespread frustration with these developments has been seized upon by reactionary forces, and turned into fuel for a politics that aims to put the clock backwards by decades if not more. This is why, in the early 21st century West, theoretical progressivism is actually practically regressive.

We should abandon all these fancy and out-of-touch theories, and just focus on the question, is it going to improve things in the real world?

The Problem With... Political Media Personalities

Think about this: the current political polarization is actually not only unhealthy, but also unnecessary. It really doesn't have to be this way at all. I think people only appear to congregate into two masses because political parties and news media generally come in two contrasting flavors. In other words, it is the political influencers, and the culture they represent, that is the problem, not the general public. We need to understand where the problem is, in order to change things.

This is the situation right now: people generally support the political party closer to them, and consume the news media they are more comfortable with, which means they end up picking either team red or team blue almost all of the time. However, almost nobody is entirely blue or entirely red! When you're dealing with individuals, you really need to talk to them, and listen with an open mind, to understand where they actually stand. I think this individual variability shows that people are still mostly independent thinkers to some degree, which is a great relief! It also means that there is still plenty of room for big tent movements where we find common ground to resolve controversial issues.

The problem with political media, both the old media and social media, and most of the personalities who work within political media, is that they ultimately end up reinforcing and worsening the political polarization. Due to audience capture, the need to generate clickbait headlines and titles, and the incentives to side with one political party over the other, it becomes very hard for them to remain truly objective and balanced in their outlook. Over time, they become like propaganda machines who deliver biased representations of the reality designed to rile up the emotions of their audiences.

The problem with watching tribalist, polarized political media is that one becomes unbalanced in their view of reality, and eventually loses the ability to think independently and objectively. If you don't see the whole picture out there, how can you think clearly about the issues, and judge where the truth is? If you get emotionally worked up over biased representations all the time, how can you think rationally, and talk through things calmly with those with another view? When you get sucked into the unhealthy culture of partisan political influencers, you stop being your normal self, and you become a zombie who ends up unconsciously waging culture war for rich and powerful people with an agenda.

Trans issues is one area where people have been unjustifiably and needlessly polarized by political influencer culture. Those with extremist opinions on both sides are heard way too loudly. Biased views and fake news is everywhere. Those in the middle who want a healthy discourse, who want to seek common ground and develop compromise solutions to move forward, are too often drowned out, or even intimidated into silence, by the extremists on both sides. This really needs to change. We really need to break the echo chambers and challenge the all-or-nothing, either with-us or against-us discourse out there.

The Problem with... Populism

Today, I'm going to talk about the problem with populism. I have been making the argument against populism, since at least five or six years ago, but it seems that the problem is only getting worse. Many things that should be argued for on principle, like free speech, and the case against postmodernism, have instead been ruined by the populist approach. Today, I will argue why this is a very bad thing. Basically, populism is unprincipled, tribalist and irrational, all of which are bad for freedom. Real life results in the past few years demonstrate the harms populism has inflicted on freedom. The populist defense of free speech is inconsistent, for example in decrying left-wing cancel culture but not opposing right-wing book bans and drag bans. This has made the free speech movement not credible in the eyes of many. The populist approach to promoting libertarianism also ignores its roots in the idea of non-aggression. As a result, some libertarian ideas have been hijacked by aggressive culture warriors, and melded with irrational conspiracy theories. In the end, populism only serves the interests of politicians. It is always harmful for freedom.

The Model of Sustainable Progress

Previously, I talked about how, in the ideal case, a practical progressivism and a moderate, thoughtful conservatism act to complement each other, so that moderate, useful reforms can be achieved, and social order and harmony can be maintained, while gradually making things better for everyone. However, what we have right now, in the West in the 2020s, is far from this. Instead, we have extremists dominating the conversation on both sides. I have talked about how the unwillingness to compromise on both sides has led to division and polarization. Importantly, it could also lead to continuous cycling between radical and reactionary policies, which would be a tragic course of political and cultural development, leading to many people being needlessly harmed, as well as unsound policies being enacted and entrenched.

In economics, there is a thing called the business cycle or the economic cycle, where the economy predictably goes through alternating periods of growth and recession. Given that severe economic recessions can lead to economic hardship for many people, in the form of businesses going under, massive job losses and bankruptcy, and the mental health and social implications of these events, it is generally agreed that the economic cycle should be responsibly managed so as to smooth out the cycle as much as possible. This way, both the peaks and the troughs would be less prominent, the economy would be more stable, and less people would be harmed by the fluctuations of the economic cycle. It would also make the economy more fair and just, in that people would be less likely to lose their hard earned savings through no fault of their own, because of events like long-term unemployment or mortgage default in the context of severe recessions.

I believe a similar concept can be applied to our politics and culture. In this analogy, moments of change and progress are similar to peaks, and periods of relative conservatism are similar to troughs. Overall, social change happens at the pace that society can take it, and there appears to be hard limits to this, just like the pace of economic growth. In this view, we can't really accelerate the pace of social progress beyond those limits. What we can do, however, is firstly to smooth out the cycle so as to have sustainable progress over time, and secondly to prioritize the more important and beneficial changes.

I think the history of the West in the past century actually provides plenty of evidence to support this model. The 1920s saw unprecedented social progress, especially in some parts of Europe, and the 1930s brought a more reactionary mood. The post-war 1950s was very conservative, but the 1960s saw another period of radical change. In turn, the radicalism of the 60s and 70s led to another conservative period ushered in by Reagan and Thatcher, which basically lasted three decades. Over time, the pendulum swung further towards reaction, leading up to the religious right's brief 'awakening' around 2004, which was met with progressive and libertarian backlash. Following this, the 2010s saw the rise of wokeism, which in turn was met with the election of Trump and the rise of the populist right afterwards.

Just like the business cycle, this social change cycle led to numerous negative outcomes: the reactionary mood of 1930s Europe provided fertile ground for the rise of fascism. The conservatism of the 1950s was too stifling for many people, particularly women who wanted to have careers. Some of them later divorced their husbands in the freer climate of the 1970s, to pursue what was denied to them when they were younger. The radicalism of the 1960s brought about a massive increase in social problems like drug use and broken families that have stayed with us to this day. The conservatism of the 1980s-2000s brought with it a prolonged period of homophobic sentiment. This sentiment, coupled with the AIDS crisis, meant that many lives were prematurely lost in the 1980s and 90s. 2010s wokeness brought cancel culture, which ended the careers of some people, and terrified many others into silence. The populist right moment, well, I think I don't need to elaborate (plus it's still ongoing). As you can see, the peaks and troughs of the social change cycle are clearly harmful, just like the peaks and troughs of the economic cycle, and we should therefore try to smooth it out as much as possible.

If we want to smooth the cycle out so we get sustainable and rational social change, where should we start? Going back to the economic cycle analogy, we can see that monetary and fiscal policy is used to smooth the economic cycle out, by managing demand in a countercyclical way. For example, when inflation is too high, interest rates are raised to bring demand down, and when economic growth is too weak, interests rates are cut to increase demand. We can apply this philosophy to social change too. For example, when things are getting too radical, society would need more voices calling for caution. Indeed, Edmund Burke, often regarded as the father of conservatism, was actually mostly a liberal, who broke from his fellow liberals to call for caution in the face of numerous aspects of the French Revolution going too far. I think there is a clear analogy to the anti-woke liberals of the 2010s here. On the other hand, when things are getting too reactionary, society would need more voices championing progress. The picture is actually more complicated in reality with our divided and polarized society nowadays, because things could be simultaneously getting too radical and too reactionary in different geographical areas or different sections of society. In this case, we would have to simultaneously call for more caution in some places (e.g. on college campuses and inside the LGBT community), and more open-mindedness in other places (e.g. in anti-woke circles).
 

There is also another, more fundamental way to smooth the cycle of social change. Radical ideas lead to attempts at radical change, which then provokes a backlash that empowers reactionary politics. Therefore, if we dissuade people from adopting radical ideas in the first place, it would have a smoothing effect on the whole of the cycle. What we need to do then, is to encourage progressive-minded people to choose a moderate, gradualist path to progress. In particular, we should argue against theories that promise a short cut to radical change, especially those that are not grounded in real world conditions. Such fantasies of almost overnight revolutionary change inevitably lead to radical demands that set off the whole cycle, and they need to be abandoned if we want to smooth the cycle.

In our arguments against radicalism, we also need to argue for an alternative. I think we should advocate for gradualist, liberal reformism as the alternative, and point to its track record of success in improving society as justification for choosing this path. This could win over those who are receptive to evidence-based arguments.

The Problem with... Libertarian Immediatism

It is responsible for killing all hope for freedom and peace

Today, I'm going to talk about the problem with libertarian immediatism. Firstly, what is libertarian immediatism? It is the strand of libertarianism that strives to achieve libertarian conditions immediately. For example, libertarian immediatists often strive to cut government massively right now, and insist on this as their first policy priority. Libertarian immediatism has been the loudest, and hence most well-known, version of libertarianism in the past half a century. In fact, many people probably have not heard of the other form, libertarian gradualism. This is why libertarianism strikes most people as extreme and impractical almost by definition.

So what is the problem with libertarian immediatism? Put it simply, it has gotten us nowhere near achieving more liberty, or fulfilling the non-aggression principle. Firstly, the impractical nature of libertarian immediatist demands have turned many practical minded people away from libertarianism. This has profound implications. For example, the lack of credibility of libertarianism among many moderates means that they could become less likely to listen to the case for things from enthusiastically safeguarding free speech, to market-based solutions for climate change, to a non-aggressive approach to policy both at home and abroad more generally. The weakness of libertarianism means its opposite prevails in practice, and we certainly don't want that.

Recently, I have come to appreciate that reform and change needs to be based on practical need rather than abstract philosophy. This is basically what genuine conservative philosophy (as opposed to reactionary thinking) has to teach progressives, and progressives of all persuasions would do well to learn this lesson. Given that libertarianism is by definition a progressive philosophy, I believe libertarians would do well to heed this lesson. If they did, they would at least stop squabbling over whether we should abolish driver's licenses, or whether the fire department can be privatized. The endless talk over these theoretical issues, that have nothing to do with people's everyday lives, is making many people skeptical of libertarian philosophy, and rightly so.

Moreover, libertarian immediatist policies like cutting government massively right now have many unwanted social consequences. Libertarian immediatists are generally totally non-consequentialist in their philosophy, but most people actually judge ideas in part by the consequences they bring. Most people are going to judge a set of policies that could put many people into immediate poverty, as well as raise the crime rate massively, pretty negatively. If libertarianism is to find real popular support, it must become practical. And to become practical, we must abandon libertarian immediatism. There really is no other way.

The Compassionate Case Against Postmodern Radicalism

Someone has to hold the postmodern radicals accountable for harming disadvantaged minorities

In this series, I attempt to build a philosophy of compassion, and to robustly justify and defend the concept of compassion. I believe that compassion is the driver of a reformist politics, and it is the best way to prevent a movement from turning impractical or reactionary.

In the last two episodes, I have been making the case that compassion bolsters objectivity and free speech. There's actually another essential ingredient of healthy political discourse that compassion can bolster: a willingness to compromise. Recently, I talked about the need to bring back a willingness to compromise, particularly on the progressive side of politics, and the need to argue against the postmodern critical theory worldview to successfully achieve this. It turns out that compassion can help us out here. Today, I will make the compassionate case against the postmodern-crit worldview, and the compassionate case for a more compromising approach to social justice.

Let's start with the basics first: those on the radical postmodern left often like to say that they are intolerant of social injustice, implying that we moderates don't have a backbone. However, it is the practical results that matter, and the results of radical activism inspired by postmodern theory speak for themselves. The radicals have brought massive backlash to the communities and the causes they supposedly support, and enabled the rise of a very reactionary form of culture war politics. I believe they should be held accountable for the harm this has led to. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of the radicals' refusal to acknowledge this reality. If the radicals insist on refusing to change course in light of what's been happening in the past five years, I think we can fairly accuse them of having no compassion at all.

If only more progressive-minded people understood the goals of the postmodern critical theory worldview, and the implications of their approach, they would be a lot more concerned about it. The crits' approach doesn't bring any practical improvements to the lives of the people they say they want to help, because it is not supposed to do that. Instead, the crits' approach is about heightening the conflicts between supposed 'oppressor' and 'oppressed' groups in society, to demonstrate that the status quo is untenable, and also unreformable. Imagine this: if the lives of disadvantaged groups improved, wouldn't it lessen inter-group conflict in society, lessen the feeling of oppression, and demonstrate that the status quo is indeed reformable? The most committed crits certainly don't want this to happen. This is why their actions, from making unreasonable demands and refusing to compromise, to alienating large sections of society, are designed to make practical reform impossible. Only when reform is denied will there be ongoing, heightened conflict that destabilizes the existing system. To achieve this, the crits are essentially willing to throw long-suffering and vulnerable minorities under the bus. And most honest people on the far-left are clear that their plans for 'revolutionary change' won't happen for several decades at least. This effectively means that they are willing to condemn long-suffering and vulnerable minorities to heightened conflict and suffering for at least two generations. Think hard about this.

When a compassionate person, who wants to improve the lives of long-suffering people as soon as possible, begins to truly understand all this, they would naturally be overcome with a feeling of frustration, maybe even anger (as I certainly did a few years ago). However, the more useful thing to do would be to turn all this into motivation to take action, to end the crits' influence in progressive circles, by forcefully arguing against their harmful ideas and methods. The crits certainly aren't intolerant of social injustice. Instead, their actions show that they are clearly willing to see even more injustice happen, as long as it benefits their movement. On the other hand, us moderates, or practical progressives, aim to gradually improve things for long-suffering minorities, by a process of gradual reformism, with all the compromises that entails. While it might not be perfect, it would bring relief to people's lives as soon as possible, and gradually make things even better over time too. Anyone who understands that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good should understand the need to compromise in order to achieve results. This is why those who are truly compassionate, and hence truly don't want to see the prolongation of injustice and suffering, should be more than willing to make reasonable compromises to move things in a better direction.

Rebuilding the Sensible Center

 

Getting Old School Liberals On Board is the Key

In a healthy society, a practical progressivism and a moderate, thoughtful conservatism act to complement each other, so that moderate, useful reforms can be achieved, and social order and harmony can be maintained while gradually making things better for everyone. In this case, the progressive impulse seeks to improve things, particularly for previously overlooked, marginalized demographics, and the conservative input ensures that any reform would be practical rather than abstract, consistent with the spirit of long-standing traditions, and includes adequate compromise to satisfy the concerns of various stakeholders.

The problem with the Western political landscape right now is that, moderate, practical progressives are bullied into silence by hardline revolutionaries who want the total deconstruction of the status quo, and moderate, practical conservatives are bullied into silence by hardline reactionaries who want to turn back the clock, breaking long-standing rules and institutions if necessary. The extremists on both sides hold that it is weak to compromise, and want no less than total victory over the other side, and also over the moderate center. The dominance of the extremists and the silencing of the moderates makes compromise impossible to achieve, and leads to endless stalemate, frustration, and further polarization. The only way to get out of this situation is for moderates to reassert themselves, so that the healthy situation of practical progressives working together with moderate conservatives can be restored. Contrary to what the extremists say, it is actually the bravest thing to do to demand that everybody compromise. On the other hand, it would be an act of irresponsible cowardice for moderates on both sides to continue to let the extremists march forward unchecked.

To change things, we need to break the cycle of polarization, unwillingness to compromise, and hence further polarization somewhere. I believe the best place to start is with old school liberals. After all, things only started to become this way since postmodern critical theory began having mainstream influence in progressive politics. This is not to say that the reactionaries are not themselves as unwilling to compromise, and hence just as much a part of the problem. However, before the 'crits' came along, liberal progressivism was on a winning streak, and even many conservatives were softening their opposition to things like LGBT rights and a more secular politics. Some were even willing to accept some action on climate change. The reactionaries certainly didn't like any of this, but they were increasingly losing the argument to moderate conservatives. It wasn't until the crits sparked a backlash with their insistence on mainstreaming ideas from postmodern critical theory, and its attitude of refusing to compromise at all, that reactionaries began to win support and momentum. Right now, extreme reactionaries often argue within their own side of politics that, since the 'left' won't compromise, the 'right' shouldn't either, or else the 'left', in reference to the far-left postmodern-crit faction, would win everything. Like it or not, this argument has been picking up support on the right. The only way to put a stop to this is to bring back compromise on the progressive side of politics. This is the circuit breaker we need right now.

To win liberal, progressive-minded people back to the idea that compromise is good, we need to argue against the postmodern-critical worldview, which sees speech and discourse as power, and sees society as divided into 'oppressors' and 'oppressed' along multiple intersecting identity axes. This worldview inevitably leads to seeing those who disagree with you as evil, rather than just misguided. It also leads to seeing refusal to compromise as refusal to give into oppression and hence heroic, which is a wrong and dangerous idea. Instead, we need to bring back the old-school liberal view that refusing to compromise is either extreme, impractical or simply shooting yourself in the foot. To get progressive people to compromise for the sake of achieving practical reforms again, we need to comprehensively defeat the postmodern critical theory worldview in the marketplace of ideas.

If the argument for compromise is won on the 'progressive' side, it would also put pressure on the 'conservative' side of politics to start compromising again. When most progressives are clearly reasonable reformists who are willing to compromise, it would make uncompromising reactionaries look like the extremists they actually are. This would lead to the reactionaries losing ground, and moderate conservatives winning the arguments on the 'right' again, which would complete the restoration of the sensible center.

Why Freedom Needs Practical Progressives and Moderate Conservatives

This combination allows practical reform without ideological obsession

Recently, I've been talking about the conditions that promote, or hinder, freedom. Focusing on abstract ideas is bad for freedom. Aiming for practical solutions for real world problems is good for freedom. Tribalism is bad for freedom. Commitment to objectivity and rationality is good for freedom, as is commitment to building and maintaining a good order in society. Finally, compassion is also good for freedom, because it helps maintain other pro-freedom conditions, like objectivity, and prevent anti-freedom conditions, like tribalism. The goal, of course, is to move society towards the things that are conducive to freedom, and away from the things that are harmful for freedom.

I think we can tie the aforementioned observations into an overall outlook. I would call this the practical progressive outlook. It is practical because it is centered on practical problem solving. That is, we would focus on practical solutions to resolve problems and improve things in the real world, and avoid being tied down by abstract philosophy and theory. Looking at the bigger picture, we would aim to ensure that the social order actually serves the needs of all, and aim to gradually improve everyone's ability to pursue a good life over time. Overall, I think it is actually very similar to the original aspirations of the classical liberals from the past.

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Firstly, practical means not being tied down by ideology. Classical liberals like John Locke, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill had a belief in freedom, and guiding values and principles stemming from this belief. But beyond this, they were not overly ideological, because that would hinder freedom itself. Classical liberals also understood that life is not perfect, and they would never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The institutions built by followers of classical liberal thinking were designed to promote freedom in a practical way, rather than to bring about an imagined utopia. Such institutions were also practically built with the need for people to compromise in mind. In contrast, some parts of the contemporary Western left, under the influence of postmodern critical theory, believe that seeing everything in oppressor vs. oppressed terms, trying to deconstruct every aspect of language and culture, mindlessly challenging traditional norms beyond actually demonstrable need, and refusing to compromise, would magically lead to some kind of utopia on Earth. This is clearly ideological and not practical. The results also speak for themselves: confusion over what social justice is, backlash to the concept of social justice itself, and a general rise in reactionary sentiment is what this ideology has brought. A practical progressivism will be able to stop and reverse all this, just by being, well, practical. It's time to throw away all the postmodern theory, and look at what could be done to resolve problems and improve things in the real world.

We would also need to get over, or at least tame, the tribalist and adversarial nature of Western politics. As I recently demonstrated, 'left' and 'right' are arbitrary linguistic constructs, and treating them as real categories would just lead to more tribalism and irrationality, as well as a focus on the abstract rather than the practical. While 'progressive' and 'conservative' are often thought of as opposed to each other, this is actually an illusion caused by tribalism. Conservatism, as properly understood in the Burkean, philosophical sense, is not opposed to all change, but only radical change that is rooted in abstract ideas, that are alien to a given society's traditions. There is a good reason for this: change that is rooted in abstract philosophy rather than practical needs, especially if it is alien to the traditions of a given society, is likely to generate chaos, followed by a reactionary response. Hence, Burkean conservatism is basically about saving the progressive impulse from its dark and destructive side. We need to reintegrate the Burkean conservative critique into progressive philosophy itself. This will ensure that any change will be born out of actual need, not philosophical theory. It will also ensure that any change will aim to build on our long-standing traditions, rather than be part of a misguided attempt to deconstruct everything and rebuild everything from scratch. Indeed, a combination of Burkean conservatism and the compassion driven desire to improve conditions for everyone, would make a very good foundation for a reformist politics.

On a related note, I really need to emphasize that to be practical inherently means being constructively reformist, and opposing attempts to burn eveything to the ground and start over again, in the misguided hopes of reaching some magical utopia. The realistic among us would understand that the world is not perfect, and can never be. Creating utopia on Earth is not possible, and attempting to do so will only lead to unnecessary misery and suffering. If you think about things practically, it is easy to understand that the odds of getting something good out of burning everything to the ground and starting from scratch is pretty low. This alone is more than enough reason to oppose such schemes of revolutionary change. Also, if you don't build on the traditions of a given society, all you are left with is trying to build a society upon abstract ideas, philosophy and theory, which we know is inevitably going to be inhumane and bad for freedom.

Why Compassion is Important in the Defense of Free Speech

Some often overlooked but important arguments

In this series, I attempt to build a philosophy of compassion, and to robustly justify and defend the concept of compassion. I believe that compassion is the driver of a reformist politics, and it is the best way to prevent a movement from turning impractical or reactionary.

Today, I am going to argue that compassion plays a key role in the maintenance of freedom, and the values that support freedom, like free speech. After all, one of the major arguments against morally coercive authoritarians is that they don't always get their morality right, despite their hubris, and their attempts to impose their moral positions on others is therefore harmful and oppressive. Moral libertarianism, then, is justified on the ethical principle of 'do no harm'. This argument is under appreciated in the contemporary West, and I think we should use it more.

As I said last time, the sentiment of pitting compassion against rationality, as seen in the rise of slogans like 'facts don't care about your feelings', have contributed to the erosion of freedom over the past decade. While I've long argued that values like free speech are made meaningful by our commitment to objectivity and rationality, the values of freedom can actually be derived from compassion too. For example, free speech itself can be justified by compassion. If you truly care about other people, you would want to at least listen to what they have to say in full. If you have at least a bit of empathy for other people, you would also not support a public campaign to vilify, punish and cancel them just because of something they have said. Therefore, compassion bolsters the case for free speech, and also strengthens the case against cancel culture.

At this point, you might counter-argue that so-called safe speech practices are argued on the basis of compassion too. The fact is, the argument for 'safe speech' on the grounds of compassion is both ultimately faulty, and not entirely honest. It is faulty because it is ultimately not compassionate to tell minorities they have to seek refuge in safe spaces, while refusing to have the difficult debates that will ultimately bring respect, acceptance and equality to such minorities. The avoidance of debate also makes reform more difficult to achieve, which ultimately hurts minorities too. Finally, the kind of morally coercive authoritarianism inherent in rejecting free speech is simply incompatible with being truly compassionate, if you look at the whole picture. Furthermore, we should recognize that 'safe speech' is actually a product of postmodern critical theory influence, and hence not rooted in pure compassion.

Part of the promise of classical liberalism is the ability for individuals to pursue happiness. This is reflected in 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness', and also in John Stuart Mill's utilitarian argument for liberalism. Given the importance of happiness and utility in the classical liberal cannon, it is a fundamentally important point that a truly liberal society must not arbitrarily deny any individual's opportunity to pursue happiness. Cultural warriors whose aim is to 'own' the opposite tribe and make them suffer, or alternatively to turn the tables of oppression, are therefore by definition anti-liberal. Maintaining compassion helps us with the objective of respecting other people's rights to pursue happiness on their own terms, even when we don't necessarily agree with their views.

Finally, compassion also helps with preventing the conditions where authoritarianism is likely to be enabled, or where freedom is likely to be compromised. For example, tribalism can be prevented to a great extent by compassion and empathy. Also, when you are compassionate, you would not treat people as less important than the fulfillment of abstract ideas, which as I have previously discussed, is almost always bad for freedom.

Why Tribalism is Freedom's Worst Enemy

It leads to an endless spiral towards irrational authoritarianism

The political landscape of the 21st century West is increasingly a battle between moral libertarians and morally coercive authoritarians, and the authoritarians often attempt to take over previously libertarian movements by infiltration and bad arguments. By understanding what conditions are good or bad for freedom, we can avoid the influence of authoritarianism.

Today, I'm going to talk about tribalism, and why it is bad for freedom.

On a common sense level, there are already many reasons why tribalism is bad for freedom. Tribalism inhibits independent thinking, and allows bad ideas to be accepted without critical thinking and vigorous debate. This allows moral authoritarians to push through their policies without the usual level of scrutiny. If tribal echo chambers produce a moral panic, things are even worse, because the overwhelming emotionally-driven demand for immediate action leaves even less time and space for proper scrutiny and debate. This is why, historically, moral panics have always served morally coercive authoritarians well, and as a result caused a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering. Tribalism also puts pressure on people to stay in line with the group's consensus, thus having a chilling effect on free speech and freedom of conscience.

On a deeper level, tribalism is incompatible with freedom, because it is incompatible with rationality. Rationality is the best defense against authoritarianism, because it can be used to show why the wannabe authoritarians are objectively less moral. Furthermore, free speech, freedom of conscience and intellectual freedom are conducive to rationality, objectivity and good order, and are logically upheld and cherished when people are committed to these goals. Tribalism makes all this impossible, because when people want their team to win, to 'own' the other side at all costs, they can't be truly committed to rationality and objectivity anymore. Free speech and intellectual freedom aren't always good for 'owning' the other side, and they will naturally be swept aside when they become inconvenient for the culture warriors. This is how tribalism, often in the context of a culture war, allows rationality to be defeated, and morally unsound authoritarianism to win.

All this is actually playing out in real life, in the contemporary Western political landscape. In the 2010s, a form of left-wing moral coercion rooted in postmodern critical theory went mainstream, and the early anti-woke movement was essentially an attempt by moral libertarians to push back. However, later on, organized conservative politics, with a strong morally coercive bent itself, came to hijack at least part of the anti-woke movement. The so-called anti-woke cultural narrative right now consists of both important insights and truths, as well as distortions, conspiracy theories and outright lies. This combination of truths and untruths leads to two things: firstly, it weakens the argument against postmodern critical theory, and hinders the defense of values like free speech as a result. Secondly, some people could come to anti-wokeism because of the truths, and then be hooked by the untruths as well. This is not happening accidentally, it is happening because of tribalism, and the attempts by authoritarian politicians and political parties to take advantage of the tribalism for political gain. The resulting contamination of genuinely rational arguments against postmodernism with culture war garbage leads to an inability to have a proper, intellectually sound debate about postmodernism, which ultimately reinforces the tribalism on all sides. Over time, this will send us all down an endless spiral further and further away from freedom and rationality, and ultimately allow the immoral authoritarians on both sides to win, if we allow things to go on like this.

I hope I have demonstrated why tribalism is the number one enemy of freedom, and needs to be resisted and opposed at all costs. It's like how runaway inflation is not compatible with a good economy. If you tolerate even a bit too much tribalism, we will soon find ourselves in a major recession of freedom, and it will be very difficult to recover from that.

Why Compassion is Important in the Defense of Objectivity

Those who trample on others' feelings risk falling into a subjective rabbit hole

Welcome to a new series, where I attempt to build a philosophy of compassion, and to robustly justify and defend the concept of compassion. I believe that compassion is the driver of a reformist politics, and it is the best way to prevent a movement from turning impractical or reactionary. Today, I'm going to talk about why compassion is fully compatible with rationality and objectivity.

In recent years, there has been a trend towards pitting compassion and rationality against each other. This trend was set into motion by two developments in the previous decade: firstly, there was the hijacking of social justice by the postmodern critical theory movement, which led to the false association of anti-objective philosophical theories with justice for oppressed minorities. This led to the misguided view among some people that compassion and social justice requires less commitment to free speech and objectivity. Secondly, there was the so-called anti-SJW movement, which popularized slogans like 'facts don't care about your feelings'. This led to another misguided view: the more callous one is about feelings, the more factual and objective one gets.

However, both the aforementioned views have no basis in reality at all. There is no incompatibility between being compassionate on one hand, and being committed to objectivity and rationality on the other hand. One can remain committed to the objective truth, and to the values that support this commitment, like free speech and intellectual freedom, without giving up on compassion and empathy. Indeed, I would argue that being compassionate enables one to become even more objective, or at least less prone to culture war-style biases and distortions. This is because, if you are truly compassionate, you would care about people's lives, and you would therefore truly listen to what they have to say. This way, you wouldn't be missing out on important facts, or important sides to a story, as culture warriors living in an echo chamber would, for example. Compassion, empathy and the willingness to listen allows bridges to be built, which allows the whole picture to be seen, and true objectivity and rationality to be achieved. It is the best antidote to the echo chambers that tribalism and the culture wars have created.

On the other hand, it is often the willingness to be callous, the willingness to disregard others' feelings, that enables the loss of objectivity and rationality. I have seen this happen with culture warriors on both sides. On the left, I've seen people get brainwashed by their philosophy, to believe that some people are 'oppressors' because of their immutable characteristics and/or opinions (often taken out of context). On the right, I've seen culture war and moral panic narratives used to demonize certain groups of people, painting them as bad or crazy with a broad brush. Either way, the effect is the dehumanizing of the other, the willingness to automatically dismiss what they have to say, and the willingness to ignore their plight. All this, by definition, leads to loss of objectivity and rationality, because you are no longer seeing the whole picture, and taking everything into account on balance. This, of course, also means that any order arising from this kind of attitude would not be a good order. Indeed, it is likely to be a bad, oppressive order. Someone who refuses to be callous, who is committed to being compassionate towards every fellow human being at all times, would never fall into this trap.

In conclusion, compassion is not only compatible with objectivity and rationality, compassion actually helps ensure we stay objective by making us truly listen to all sides of an argument. On the other hand, it is the decision to forego compassion that allows people to fall down the rabbit hole of subjectivity, via a willingness to trample on others' lives and voices.

Left and Right are Arbitrary Terms that Mean Nothing

Seeing that the tribes are meaningless is one step closer to ending the culture wars

Welcome back to my series of Ideas to End the Culture Wars. Last time, I talked about how the factions involved in the culture war are like the various churches and denominations vying for political power in Europe several hundred years ago, and we could only resolve this conflict by extending the classical liberal separation of philosophical worldview and politics to non-religious cultural issues. This time, I will talk about one way in which the culture war tribes are not exactly like the churches and denominations: they don't even have a coherent, internally consistent worldview.

What do the words 'left' and 'right' actually mean, in the context of our time and place, the early 21st century West? By the standards of objective reality, they actually mean nothing at all. The 'left' tribe has very contradictory elements, like class-first old school socialists who base their whole politics on the working class, as well as elite academia-based postmodernists, whose worldview and beliefs are totally alien to the working class, and they don't even care. Hence the 'left' is pro-working class and anti-working class at the same time. The 'right' tribe is arguably even more contradictory. I once had a friend who told me that the 'right' was for freedom. The further 'right', the more freedom, she argued. How then would you explain 'postliberal' thinkers like Patrick Deneen, Ron DeSantis's War on Disney, the book bans and the drag bans? I don't think you can seriously argue they are not part of the 'right'. Hence the 'right' is both pro-freedom and anti-freedom.

Indeed, if a political concept can mean both one thing and its opposite, this would inevitably invite double standards, hypocrisy, sophistry, and the worst kind of charlatanism. And this is exactly what is happening in both the 'left' and 'right' tribes. After all, what is 'left' or 'right' is always up for redefinition, as long as you have the influence, money and power to do so. 'Left' and 'right' are ultimately social constructs with no meaning, and no purpose except for making people believe and support things they wouldn't otherwise have, and ultimately help certain dishonest actors gain political power. This is why neither the 'left' nor the 'right' is honest or intellectually consistent these days.

The best way to overcome this is to resist the temptation to join the 'left' tribe or the 'right' tribe, or indeed any other tribe. Instead, we should determine what is most valuable to us, and assess each idea and policy with our own conscience. For example, what I'm most concerned about, in the context of the 21st century West, is the erosion of freedom and independent thinking by culture warriors from both sides. Therefore, whenever a new idea or policy comes up, my first instinct is to ask, is this good or bad for freedom? Sometimes 'left' ideas are good for freedom, but unfortunately these days more often than not they are likely to be bad for freedom. Sometimes 'right' ideas are good for freedom, but again, unfortunately these days more often than not they are likely to be bad for freedom too. This means that, effectively, most of the time I'm either opposing the left or the right. I guess this is the inevitable stance of the classical liberal, in an era where freedoms are being eroded from every direction. By refusing to join either tribe, and relying on my own independent thinking instead, I can take an honest stand for freedom each and every time.

Only the Truth can Deradicalize the Culture Warriors

Therefore, the question should be, what will bring people back to the truth

Welcome back to my series of Ideas to End the Culture Wars. Last time, I discussed how the two main tribes in the culture wars, the 'left' and the 'right', are ultimately meaningless and incoherent social constructs, and when we see through them, we are a step closer to ending the culture wars. Today, I want to turn to why so many people can't see this at the moment. I believe it's because they have lost sight of the objective truth. As it's commonly described, people on both sides of the culture wars have lost all common ground because they have lost a shared understanding of the reality that is rooted in the objective facts. Therefore, the only way to deradicalize them would be by bringing them back to objectivity. To do this, we have to identify things which are the enemy of objectivity, and oppose these things consistently.

The first enemy of objectivity is emotion. During the 2010s, a new style of left-wing activists, often associated with identity politics, tried to teach us that it is wrong to 'tone police'. I respectfully but strongly disagreed then, and I stand by my words to this day. The reason why we need a calm and rational discourse is because an emotionally charged discourse can't get us to the objective truth. We can't really discuss things rationally and get closer to the truth if one or both sides are emotionally worked up, because it would just descend into an emotional shouting match, with both sides reflexively rejecting all that the other side has to say. While the identity left has openly encouraged a politics of grievance in the past decade, the right are no better when it comes to being rational and avoiding getting emotional. The organized political right has been promoting moral panic after moral panic in recent years, and right-aligned culture warriors have become just as angry and irrational as their counterparts on the left.

The other important enemy of objectivity is tribalism. People are social animals, and we love to make friends. More importantly, we are evolutionary adapted to trust those we are familiar with more. However, when it comes to ideas and facts in the modern world, this kind of bias is actually counterproductive to getting us to the truth. Therefore, we have to actively work to overcome it, by trying to listen to all sides of a story, and think for ourselves independently. In particular, we should be very wary of talking heads on TV and influencers in the new media trying to sell us a particular worldview. They often have a particular political agenda, and it is usually not a very nice agenda.

Finally, if we are to embrace objectivity, we need to be brave enough to demand evidence for the things people claim, especially if those claims could have a significant effect on politics. Postmodernism has normalized the subjective, philosophy over fact method of argumentation, but the right isn't immune from this either, with fact-free conspiracy theories increasingly being entertained. To counter both the postmodern left and the conspiracy theory right, we need to consistently demand solid evidence from people making unusual claims, especially if the claim is likely to have an impact on our politics. This is the only way we can push back on the trend away from arguments being rooted in the objective truth.

Beware of the Abstract Philosophy Trap

Freedom must be built on practical reality

Welcome to a new series, where we analyze the conditions that are required to sustain freedom. The political landscape of the 21st century West is increasingly a battle between moral libertarians and moral authoritarians, and the authoritarians often attempt to take over previously libertarian movements by infiltration and bad arguments. By understanding what conditions are good or bad for freedom, we can build a non-woke progressive movement, and avoid the influence of authoritarian reactionism. Today, I'm going to talk about the focus on abstract ideas, and why it is bad for freedom.

In the previous decade, we saw the rise of a morally authoritarian brand of activism rooted in postmodern critical theories. This brand of activism attempted to push the largely popular and successful tradition of reformist liberalism aside, justified not by objective reality, but by their philosophical commitments only. This was a disaster both from the perspective of freedom itself, seen in the rise of cancel culture and its chilling effects on free speech and rational discussion of issues, as well as from the perspective of social justice, because it allowed the rise of a reactionary, and equally moral authoritarian, 'postliberal' right. Left-wing moral authoritarianism has led to right-wing moral authoritarianism, and the result is a double dose of unfreedom, as well as a lot of culture war tribalism.

Perhaps surprisingly, conservative philosophy actually provides some ammunition for moral libertarians to fight back. As I've recently said, I have grown to appreciate conservative philosophy more as I have grown older. (I still don't support organized conservative politics, however, because I consider it to be reactionary and deeply moral authoritarian.) What I have come to appreciate is the insight that the forced application of abstract ideas and philosophy to real life situations is more often harmful than not, especially in terms of freedom. This is because abstract ideas are often a poor fit for practical reality, with all its nuances and complexities, and the force-fitting of ideal onto reality would require a lot of moral authoritarianism. This, I believe, forms the core point of the conservative philosophical cannon, going all the way back to Edmund Burke. Contrary to popular belief, this insight could actually be useful for a reformist liberal politics too. Postmodernism's misguided attempts at 'liberation' from 'oppressive social constructs', and the harms it has clearly caused to minority communities, is proof that progressive politics would benefit from a bit of conservative philosophical influence at this point. On the other hand, the reactionary right's increasing unwillingness to heed this insight is what is making them increasingly authoritarian. How ironic would it be, if reformists of the center-left began quoting Burke to the 'postliberal' right?

The problem of trusting abstract ideas and philosophy to solve society's problems might be most clearly seen in the case of the forced application of postmodern critical theories, but this is actually a long-standing problem, particularly in so-called progressive circles. The endless arguments about whether particular ideas are 'progressive', 'feminist', and so on are a reflection of the obsession with the abstract, and such arguments at least imply that some ideas should be taboo in progressive circles, which is a highly morally authoritarian position to take. It was against this situation that I began writing about moral libertarianism. Remember, this was the case even before postmodernism became mainstream. As I often say in reply to these debates, how about we just have more compassion for everyone? Of course, the problem is not limited to the left either. 20th-century 'fusionism' basically promoted a radical, abstract theory-over-reality economic policy, while tying it in a package with reactionary cultural politics, to make it sound 'conservative' when it was actually anything but conservative (going by the Burkean view).

Another important point to note is that the abstract opposition to abstract ideas can be just as bad for freedom too. In force-fitting all kinds of observed phenomenon into the abstract idea to be opposed, the nuances and complexities of reality are ignored, and the need for careful consideration of all sides of an issue is reflexively rejected. A good example is how the anti-woke movement went from being very morally libertarian, to being gradually hijacked by moral authoritarians. The trap here is seeing everything through a woke vs anti-woke lens, even when it is not objectively justified. For example, corporations that take particular stances on social issues are painted as 'woke corporations' that are complicit in the postmodern deconstructionist agenda. This, in turn, is used to justify the government trampling on the freedom of private businesses to do business as they see fit. Another example is how parts of our cultural discourse previously considered normal, especially on matters related to race and sexuality, are now painted as part of a 'critical race theory' or 'queer theory' agenda by these reactionaries, with no solid evidence needed. This, again, is used to justify an authoritarian agenda including book bans, drag bans, unjustifiably broad laws that limit free speech in schools, and even the takeover of a college by the government in at least one case. All this results from a refusal to deal with reality as it really is, caused by the obsession with opposing an abstract idea in an abstract way.

Moral Libertarianism is the Solution to End the Culture Wars

We need an extension of classical liberal principles to stop the new religious wars

Having talked about why the culture wars are evil, I think it's time we start coming up with solutions to end the culture wars. Given that this won't be an easy task, we have to come up with lots and lots of ideas, and put them into practice concurrently. This is why I'm going to dedicate quite a bit of time talking about ideas to help us end the culture wars going forward.

Today, I will expand on an idea I've long talked about: why re-strengthening the classical liberal consensus in general, and specifically arguing for the model of Moral Libertarianism, is the most effective way we can put an end to the culture wars. Classical liberalism was invented in Western Europe as a response to the religious conflicts that had plagued the continent since the late middle ages. The basic rationale was that, if government and politics basically stayed neutral on religious issues, then the conflict could come to an end. This is the reason why America was founded without a state church, for example. Over time, liberalism was able to slowly bring the religious wars to an end. Besides that, liberalism also ushered in a new era of respect for free speech, freedom of conscience, pluralism in ideas and worldviews, and scientific discovery. It is arguably one of the most effective philosophies the West has ever come up with.

While the religious wars are long gone, old habits die hard in every culture. What the religious wars showed us was that in Western culture, issues of right and wrong are often settled by conflict rather than consensus. Compared with most other cultures on Earth, the West is much more prone to society-wide philosophical conflicts. Let's face it: this history, plus the individualistic nature of the West, means that we aren't going to become a consensus society anytime soon. If the arguments and conflicts aren't fought over religion, then they are likely to be fought over other grounds. This is why, in an era where people are less religious than before, the culture wars have replaced the religious wars. And just like the religious wars, the culture wars are also inherently tied to political factions, with powerful players picking sides and rallying their supporters with highly moralistic rhetoric.

While the religious wars were cured by liberalism and its separation of church and state, this model of neutrality has not yet been fully extended to other, non-theological conflicts. This has effectively allowed the politicized religious wars of the past to be reborn as politicized culture wars. The 'woke' postmodern left, the reactionary 'postliberals', and every faction in between are effectively like the churches of the past, with both a worldview and doctrine that its followers have to adhere to, and a goal to capture and control the politics of the country and dictate its policies. Just like the religious wars, in the culture wars the stakes are basically the triumph or defeat of one worldview or another, seen as a struggle between good and evil, where one's own side is good and the other side inevitably evil. This means that, just like several hundred years ago, the West is now on the brink of permanently heightened conflict and repeated tragedies, unless something is done to stop the culture wars in its tracks.

The answer, I believe, is to extend the classical liberal model of religious neutrality to other areas of life and culture generally. Rather than just being neutral about religion in a narrow sense, the state should be neutral about competing moral claims as much as possible. It should allow individuals, families and communities to preach and practice their sincerely held moral values, as long as it doesn't take away from the freedom of other individuals, families and communities to do the same. Competing moral worldviews can then truly compete in the marketplace of ideas, with their success or failure ultimately judged by the objective reality of the long-term outcomes of their adherents. This is what Moral Libertarianism is, in a nutshell. When everyone can do their own thing, and they can be confident that in the future, should their views be correct, they will be rewarded by objective reality, there will be no need for the culture wars at all.

The actual reason why I have been so opposed to postmodern critical theory is that it is ultimately incompatible with the Moral Libertarian vision. The Moral Libertarian vision demands that every individual be given equal and maximum moral agency over their own actions, which postmodern activists are simply opposed to. Justified by a worldview of intersecting identity-based oppressor vs oppressed dynamics, and believing that our culture is a social construct to serve the oppressors, postmodernists won't even respect the most basic of moral freedoms, namely free speech and freedom of conscience. This is why Moral Libertarianism and postmodern critical theory can't just co-exist in a compatible way: the triumph of one would necessary have to mean the defeat of the other, logically.

On the other hand, postmodern critical theory activists are not the only ones who are fueling the current culture wars, nor are they the only force out there making the Moral Libertarian vision difficult to achieve. Right-wing 'postliberal' culture warriors, often strongly influenced by old and new media in the service of organized right-wing politics, are no more respectful of other people's moral agency. Look no further than the War on Disney, the book bans and the drag bans. The fact is, over the past few years, a new, more authoritarian strain of the right has arisen, complete with its own thinkers, influencers and political leaders, and it is clearly intent on using state power to limit the freedoms of ordinary citizens. This is arguably even further away from equal moral agency than what the postmodern left is doing. Their political methods actually move things in the most dangerous direction, i.e. back to the total conflation of culture, philosophy and tribal politics that caused the religious wars to erupt in Europe several hundred years ago.

As you can see, not only does Moral Libertarianism provide the way out of the culture wars, the political factions most engaged in the culture wars are also the ones least compatible with the Moral Libertarian ideal. Therefore, to uphold the Moral Libertarian ideal is both to point to the exit of the culture wars, as well as to take a stand against the worst of the culture warriors, at the same time. I believe this is the way the West must go, if only to preserve a peaceful society for the foreseeable future.