The only way to stop us going over a cliff is to rebuild the liberal consensus. ASAP.
Welcome to TaraElla's Post Woke series, where we consciously aim to move beyond the woke vs anti-woke culture wars, and towards a post-woke model of culture and politics.
It is something I have been warning of for many years now: the dismantling of liberal norms puts LGBT people in danger. The fact is, liberal norms like upholding free speech, respecting everyone's freedom of conscience, and respecting individuals' right to privacy, are essential to preventing minorities from being crushed by the tyranny of a misguided majority. Most importantly, the liberal consensus protects everyone from being subject to arbitrary authority, something minorities are most vulnerable to. Despite my warnings, supposedly progressive activists went ahead and trampled on the long standing liberal consensus of Western society during the 2010s, often in the name of 'social justice'. Perhaps it felt good and righteous for some, to help 'de-platform' voices they deem hurtful to minorities. However, what these people didn't (and still don't) understand is that this erosion of liberal norms is bound to have future implications. Implications that are much uglier than having to put up with the occasional homophobic or transphobic speaker.
Indeed, today, the tables have turned, at least to some degree. The reactionary culture warriors are on the march, and the weakening of liberal values and norms has given them much more room to trample on minorities, including LGBT people. In Florida, Ron DeSantis has repeatedly used the power of the state to enforce his beliefs on everyone else, often to the detriment of the LGBT community. He has punished Disney, simply for speaking up against his controversial 'Don't Say Gay' law. His administration has also ended Medicaid coverage of trans related health care. Most concerningly, he has even indicated that he might send Child Protective Services after parents who take their kids to drag shows. Now, I personally don't think it's a good idea to take kids to drag shows, but to use government power to meddle with families for this is scarily authoritarian indeed. Even some conservatives and Republicans have voiced their concerns over this. In the current climate, many LGBT people and families living in states like Florida and Texas are seriously considering whether they might have to leave.
As you can see, the weakening of the liberal consensus has begun to really hurt LGBT people. I believe the only way to turn it around is to re-embrace and re-strengthen the liberal norms and values that were eroded during the last decade. We need to take a firm, fair and consistent stance for free speech, against cancel culture, and especially for freedom of conscience and the right to privacy. This must be applied to individuals, ideas and actions on the Left and the Right alike, in exactly the same manner, because liberal norms are only credible when they are truly unbiased, when they truly provide a 'level playing field' for all. Right now, on the Left, this would mean opposing cancel culture in all forms, and encouraging the return of respectful and rational debate as the norm. I've heard several people on the Left say that to be in the Left nowadays, you just have to accept its limitations on free speech. This kind of nonsense should be challenged every time we see it. On the Right, we need to be especially wary of those who justify an increasingly authoritarian program on anti-woke grounds. We need to firmly insist that woke excesses are to be dealt with using liberal means, rather than illiberal means. Our resistance against cancel culture on the Left would give us the credibility needed to argue against 'anti-woke' authoritarianism from the Right.
To consciously return to being committed to the classical liberal consensus, we also need to understand why that consensus was being eroded in the first place, so as to stop it from happening any more from now on. Much has been said about the illiberal ideology of the 2010s identitarian far-left, including where those ideas came from, and even what the ideology itself should be called. Much of the discourse has focused on the roots of this ideology in various philosophical traditions. However, what is most important is the core essence of this ideology, as reflected in its substantive goals. The fact is that this ideology essentially aims to 'deconstruct' all existing social norms, justified on grounds of liberation from power and oppression, and the various postmodern critical theories basically serve this purpose. I've argued that this focus on power, coercion and hierarchy, and the denial of the possibility of a liberal social contract to make society just, means that what we are dealing with is a form of anarchism. Anarchism has always been opposed to the liberal project on ideological grounds, and anarchists have long attempted to overturn liberal norms.
What we need to remember is that liberalism has been responsible for basically all the social progress of the West since the Enlightenment. The liberal dedication to individual liberty, equality and the objective truth has been essential in the fight against arbitrary power based on superstition, which is what is at the root of the religious right's opposition to LGBT equality. The anarchist wish to overturn liberal norms would lead to the return of the pre-Enlightenment dark ages, and empower the religious right's authoritarian tendencies. It must therefore be resisted tooth and nail by those who support LGBT rights.
A Conservative Liberal Approach to Social Progress? | TaraElla Clips
This is an excerpt from the article Standing Your Ground and Being Fair in an Age of Polarization by TaraElla.
My views on most issues haven't changed much since 2003, the year I started college. It was at that time, with things like the Iraq War in the background, that I began to understand the importance of liberal values like free speech and freedom of conscience, and started being seriously committed to them. Since then, the political landscape of the Western world has shifted multiple times, but my core values have remained the same, and my views on most issues have remained largely the same. I guess, over the years, I also gained an appreciation of a certain strain of conservative philosophy. I became aware of the fact that people are naturally attached to what is familiar, and continuity is an important thing in life. This conservatism also informed the way my more progressive, reformist impulses pointed: back in 2012, then British Prime Minister David Cameron famously stated that 'I support gay marriage because I'm a conservative'. I think that quote sums up what the best kind of progress looks like: an emphasis on the continuation and refinement of tradition and commonly held values, while making society truly inclusive of everyone. I also came to see that approaching issues of social justice this way helps us to avoid going down paths where we could inadvertently make things worse.
