Culture War Kills Independent Thinking

And without independent thinking, we will never get to the truth

In recent months, I have been talking a lot about how much I oppose the culture wars, and the fact that I hold both sides responsible for it. Today, I want to talk about why I'm so opposed to the culture wars. The most fundamental reason why I'm vehemently opposed to the culture wars is that it kills independent thinking. People on both sides of the culture wars are often brainwashed to follow the standard narrative of their side on every hot button issue, without truly thinking for themselves where the truth is in each case. There are several ways the culture war dynamic makes independent thinking impossible. I will outline each of them.

Firstly, the us-vs-them tribalist dynamic hampers independent thinking. The mindset of wanting to 'own' your opponents all the time is simply incompatible with a commitment to finding out the truth. Those with this mindset simply can't accept that the other side can be partly right too, which is actually the case more often than not. Secondly, because of the need to defeat your opponents at all costs, everything becomes justifiable. In the quest to defeat the other side, unsound ideas become accepted. Biased reporting, half-truths and semi-lies become accepted and normalized, as long as they are deemed 'useful', even if they actually have a harmful effect on real lives and/or broader society. Individuals are dehumanized, decency and compassion are dispensed with, as long as your side 'wins'. I am worried that in real life, we have already gotten to this phase. In extremely-online circles, things are much more advanced, as I will discuss later on.

Once a mindset where winning is more important than the truth is established, we enter the next phase. Bad faith actors, often with hidden (or not so hidden) extremist agendas come in to take advantage of the dynamic, to push their agendas. Unsound and dangerous ideas, from critical anarchism to religious authoritarianism and outright racism, ideas that would be swiftly rejected under normal circumstances, often find receptive audiences among dedicated culture warriors looking for the next tool to attack their opponents with. The process of rational debate and assessment (as to whether the idea conforms with the truth) is effectively bypassed. This is how extreme ideas get to enter the mainstream.

Finally, the aforementioned dynamics eventually lead to the loss of a shared understanding of reality rooted in the objective truth. Once we reach this point, it becomes almost impossible for those on opposite sides to have a productive conversation. An endless stalemate ensures, further encouraging all the aforementioned dynamics. The truth is compromised further and further, and biased reporting and half-truths eventually evolve into basically outright lies. This is how we get to the crisis of people becoming unable to discern the truth at all. I believe the extremely-online segment of the Western world is already at this phase, which is why online discourse is so toxic.

To halt and reverse this progression, and to return to a healthy society where there is a rational discourse rooted in the objective truth, we must put an end to the culture wars. The culture wars must be ended at all costs as a matter of emergency, because there is no other way out. We need to act before dehumanizing other individuals and disregarding the truth becomes normalized forever.

Why the Right Wing Culture Warriors are Not Conservative

Culture wars are for conformist zombies, not thinking people.

Recently, I have sought to emphasize that both sides are responsible for the culture wars, and they both need to be called out and challenged. In my previous article, I talked about the role of postmodern critical theory in poisoning the left. Today, I want to focus on what is poisoning the right: top-down orchestrated, conformist, tribalist culture war movements.

Just like last time, I'm going to start by saying that I don't disagree with conservative philosophy itself, as long as we are actually talking about the Burkean variety, not the 20th century counterfeit conservatism called 'fusionism', nor its apparent successor, 'postliberalism'. Over the years, I've indeed become more appreciative of Burkean conservative philosophy, especially its acknowledgement of the complexities of society, its rejection of 'progress' based on abstract philosophy alone, and its realistic assessment of what radical social upheaval would lead to. I've even come to believe that Burkean conservatism should be one of the major philosophies underpinning a truly centrist politics. Even the center-left could use some Burkean conservatism in its arguments against the postmodern far-left. The problem is, what we find on the organized political right these days, is largely not Burkean conservatism. It is instead a transnational tribalist culture war movement, ultimately designed to serve the interests of the Republican Party in America and its counterparts in other Western countries.

My biggest problem with right-wing culture warriorism isn't even with its content, although there is indeed a lot to disagree with there. My biggest problem is that it is an exercise in shutting down independent thinking, just like postmodern critical theory activism on the left. Right-wing culture war talking points are developed by right-wing activists and think tanks, disseminated through right-wing media both traditional (like Fox News) and new (like the countless right-wing influencers on YouTube), and imprinted as truth in the minds of the culture warriors on the ground through repeated indoctrination, supported by deliberately biased, one-sided reporting. There is no room for independent thinking there. Indeed, what I worry is that those involved in right-wing culture warriorism are likely under a lot of peer pressure to toe the party line even if they privately have doubts. The media talking heads and influencers' lock-step agreement on every talking point makes it even more difficult to dissent from the manufactured consensus. I believe it is this phenomenon, in turn, that is turning former moderates into hardliners. Witnessing the evolution of people like Jordan Peterson and Nikki Haley in this direction is truly painful.

The right-wing culture warriors' treatment of LGBT issues in particular demonstrates their hypocritical double-standards. They say they believe in free speech, but it is clear that they only believe in free speech when it suits them. They have no problem with Ron DeSantis's war on Disney, using the tyranny of the mob to punish Bud Light and Target, the banning of controversial books and drag performances, and so on. They decry authoritarian activists who force them to agree with 'trans women are women' or use a trans person's preferred pronouns, but they also openly mock and attack those who believe 'trans women are women' from their own good conscience, and put enormous peer pressure on their fellow conservatives not to use a trans person's preferred pronouns, effectively making them a mirror image of the authoritarian left activists. Their stinking hypocrisy has become a stain on the reputation of the free speech movement, and I truly regret the movement not kicking them out back in the 2010s. This is why I believe that any classical liberal movement going forward should reject all alliances with the reactionary right, even if it is only on an issue-by-issue basis.

The existence of right-wing culture warriorism also complicates things in other ways. For example, my regular readers would know that I am strongly opposed to postmodern critical theory, on both classical liberal and Burkean conservative grounds. I have been attempting to lay out the philosophical case against postmodern critical theory in the past five to seven years. However, recently, the weaponization of this issue by right-wing culture warriors has made the conversation increasingly difficult. Ever since President Trump and Christopher Rufo tried to turn critical race theory into a political football, it has become harder and harder for me to get my message across, especially to those on the left side of the political spectrum. This is not surprising, given how 'anti-woke' has become coded as Republican in the eyes of many people nowadays. More recently, Ron DeSantis has sought to make being anti-woke a signature of his campaign. The association of 'anti-woke' with DeSantis has become so strong that even some Trump supporters are beginning to somewhat turn against the focus on 'woke'. Nowadays, whenever I talk about postmodern critical theory, I feel like I have to take care to make people understand that I don't support DeSantis and his authoritarian policies, in case there are any misunderstandings.

Taken together, these points demonstrate that right-wing culture warriorism is no less harmful to free speech and the marketplace of ideas than left-wing postmodern critical theory. I therefore believe that it at least deserves our equal concern and criticism. We need to push back hard on illiberalism from both the left and the right alike, and in doing so, take an honest stance for freedom.