James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose & the Coming Rift Under Biden | TaraElla Report S8

Today, I want to talk about a very important topic, as the West inevitably heads into a new political landscape with the departure of President Trump, and the arrival of President Biden. But let's start with the disagreement between James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, two authors who rose to fame in the anti-crtical theory scene in 2020, with the publication of their book Cynical Theories.

Anyway, in recent months, Lindsay has become increasingly conservative-aligned, including his support for Trump, and Pluckrose has become uncomfortable with some of his opinions, which has become the basis for the disagreement. This, I think, mirrors a similar split in the anti-critical theory community leading up to the election: one of the publications in the anti-critical theory scene interviewed a bunch of big names in the scene, and found that they were almost evenly split between Trump and Biden. Interestingly, each camp strongly believed that having their candidate in office would be better for combating critical theory, and restoring free speech and free debate. Similarly, places like the IDW subreddit were split between Trump and Biden supporters arguing on an almost daily basis, along similar lines. Back then, I thought this was only going to be temporary, because the election would be over soon, and whatever the outcome, we would all move on.

However, it is now clear to me that this rift goes much deeper, and is likely going to be even more exposed during the Biden era. You see, the anti-critical theory movement has a liberal and moderate wing, and a conservative wing. Liberal in this sense means a classical liberal approach to social issues, which is certainly different at times from the conservative approach, as we saw during the gay marriage and video games debates some time ago. The movement even has a socialist wing, made up of old school so-called class-reductionist socialists, even though in real life they tend to be quieter on cultural issues. Anyway, I guess we can't expect these wings to agree with each other on things outside critical theory and postmodernism, given their different politics. Realistically, they would just have to agree to disagree a lot of the time. I mean, I have enjoyed a lot of what James Lindsay has had to say about postmodernism and critical theory, its history, its current impact, and its threat to things like free speech. But a brief glance at his twitter feed would reveal that he has many opinions outside of opposing critical theory, and I simply disagree with more than two thirds of those opinions. This is unsurprising, given that I am a liberal, and Lindsay is a conservative. Liberalism and moderatism are reformist, while conservatism is more hesitant and even reactionary at times. The fact that we are both very concerned about the rise of critical theory wouldn't magically resolve our other long-standing disagreements.

In fact, I think the Biden era is going to see a big resurgence in traditional liberal vs conservative disagreements. You see, while I'm not a fan of Trump, I have to give him some credit for cutting across traditional divides, because he is such a heterodox figure. Trump was certainly divisive in his own right, but ironically his presence put a brief pause to many of those decades-old liberal vs conservative arguments. However, Biden is now in charge, and his politics is deeply rooted in old-school establishment liberalism. And it's not just Biden: his opposition is also going to be made up of mostly establishment Republicans, in both congress and the media, and these people also think in the establishment liberal vs conservative mould. Therefore, I think we are going to see politics argued and divided more like during the Bush era or the Clinton era. So we're talking about rewinding at least 13 years politically. You know, back to when liberals and conservatives disagreed on things like gay marriage. Of course, we won't be revisiting gay marriage, but it will be some similar things. These things, whatever they may be, will take up the lion's share of attention in the mainstream consciousness, and I guess people like James Lindsay and people like myself aren't going to agree on a lot of them.

And then, the critical theory wars will still be going on, away from the stage of mainstream politics driven by Biden and his opposition, but instead in crucial cultural battlegrounds. And we all know that politics is ultimately downstream from culture, so these battles, waged away from the spotlight of mainstream media, are going to have major consequences some time in the future. The outcome of these battles are going to determine the future of free speech, free debate, science vs postmodernism, indeed the shape of Western civilization itself in the future. So it's really important that, even though we are going to be divided on many mainstream political issues, and that the disagreement is legitimate and real, we don't lose sight of the bigger critical theory threat. In other words, we need to remain united against critical theory, even as we agree to disagree on many other fronts. The disagreement between Lindsay and Pluckrose, and also the fallout between Sam Harris and some members of the IDW late last year, are early reminders of the need to manage this situation, if the anti-critical theory movement is to survive.

This is what I think will need to happen. There needs to be space to discuss and co-operate, and there also needs to be enough space to disagree, so that there is enough room for everyone in the movement, and also that tensions don't boil up like a pressure cooker. The whole Dave Rubin-style pretending that we're all fine as long as we all support free speech is not going to work. It will only make the movement collapse under its own tensions. Instead, we need to acknowledge that liberals and conservatives are inevitably going to disagree sometimes. Conservatives are inevitably going to be more suspicious of any reform, while us moderates and liberals would be often more supportive and open-minded. On the other hand, there is still much room to co-operate on the front of critical theory. Therefore, for the sake of our collective future, liberals will need to resist the tendency to cut off conservatives for disagreeing, and vice versa. I promise I will continue to converse with people I don't agree with on everything, and everyone needs to do the same. After all, it's demanded by our commitment to free speech and rational debate.

The other problem is that, some conservatives may overly read critical theory into liberal reforms where there is none. This may strike many moderates and liberals to be a move in bad faith. However, I think it would be more productive to actually engage with the facts, and explain our more open-minded perspective in good faith. Again, we may not come to agreement every time, but let's make it a workable relationship, with an interesting conversation keeping it all alive.