Is the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) Seeing SJW Everywhere? | Re Quilette | Moral Libertarian View

Welcome to Moral Libertarian View, a podcast style program where we discuss big ideas to see if they can contribute to more individual liberty and equal opportunity, values that are at the heart of the Moral Libertarian idea. My aim is to untangle the confusions and seek the truth, in the areas of civilizational values, economic policy, and culture. I hope you subscribe if you are interested.

The Intellectual Dark Web is at the heart of the recent revival of interest in classical liberal values. Its intellectual arguments in support of free speech, and against identity politics and systems of oppression theories, are indespensible in the culture war against the increasingly aggressive postmodern left. For this reason, it has attracted interest and support from both old-school liberals and conservatives alike.

But as we gradually get used to talking of the IDW as a 'thing', with a particular worldview, there has also been building criticism of the IDW as having a particular dominant perspective, and perhaps a biased one. Even though I am a big fan of the IDW in general, I have also long warned of bias developing over time. And unfortunately, I have been seeing a particular kind of bias developing within the IDW in recent months. A good example of this is Quilette's article on the Australian election last week. The article claims that elitist cultural progressives and their SJW style agenda caused the Labor party, which is roughly speaking the counterparts of the US Democrats, to lose the election. However, the fact is that there was simply little to no attention on cultural issues in that particular election, and it was almost entirely fought over economic policy. In fact, people who actually live in Australia have been keen to point this out, both in the comments section of that article and on Twitter. Meanwhile, Americans who probably know nothing of Australian politics keep comparing the situation to Hillary vs Trump in 2016, when in reality the Australian election was probably more like Bush vs Gore back in 2000. As the saying goes, when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When all you think about is how SJWs are destroying culture, everything looks like the fault of SJWs.

I fear if this trend is allowed to continue, the IDW would just end up losing all credibility. I mean, imagine if the 2020 US Presidential elections played out just like the 2019 Australian elections. Imagine if the Democrats went in talking about nothing but economic policies, and they still lost. Imagine prominent figures within the IDW then blaming SJWs for that lost. The IDW would probably lose credibility with at least half of America in a matter of weeks. With that, the momentum for the revival of interest in classical liberal values would also be halted, or even reversed. I think we should be very careful to prevent this happening.

I believe the best way to prevent a biased perspective is for the IDW to remain open minded about considering voices and ideas on all sides of each debate. I get that many people think that SJW behavior is a big threat to free speech, and they are unfortunately largely correct in their worries. But there are many other important issues and perspectives out there too, for example regarding economic policy, which has nothing to do with SJWs either way. A true intellectual would engage with concerns and ideas from all sides in a balanced and fair manner, and objectively investigate the truth of every situation before making a judgement on anything.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.