The credibility of free speech liberalism depends on it
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.
In the previous article in this series, I focused on the LGBT community, and argued that it is strategically wrong for the LGBT community to embrace critical anarchism and abandon the classical liberal consensus. If you look at the history of the West, you would see that it was the rise of classical liberalism that gradually put an end to arbitrary exercises of power based on superstition. The core of my argument was that the destruction of classical liberal norms would allow the return of religious authoritarianism, which would be disastrous for LGBT people.
However, elsewhere, I have also said that I fully understand why critical anarchism is appealing to many LGBT people, especially trans people, at the moment:
"Many trans people feel like the current social order does not treat them fairly, and as a trans woman myself, I think it is fair they feel this way, unfortunately. As a result, a substantial number of trans people have rejected society as it currently exists, and embraced postmodern anarchist ideas."
So how can we change this, and encourage the LGBT community to embrace the classical liberal consensus again?
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In the previous article, I argued that the postmodern critical theory approach to politics, which has been behind what some have described as extreme 'wokeness', is essentially a kind of anarchism. Elsewhere, I expanded on this argument, focusing on the fact that it is the rejection of all forms of coercion and hierarchy, and the intention to deconstruct the status quo (without a concrete goal to build something else) that makes postmodern criticalism a form of anarchism. I also said that:
"...the order upheld by liberal society must be a good order, one that is fair to all and one where individuals living under it can truly thrive. Critical anarchists in particular have used liberal society's past and present injustices to justify attempts to dismantle it. The best way to disprove the case for critical anarchism is therefore to maintain a good and just order. This is why reactionary 'anti-woke' culture war politics isn't helpful."
To summarize, the best argument against all forms of anarchism, including this new postmodern critical anarchism, is to demonstrate that order is conducive to justice in practice. We need to demonstrate that, in practice, the social contract of the classical liberal consensus can fulfill its promises of liberty, equal opportunity and the chance to pursue happiness for all. Including for LGBT people.
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This leads into the most important part of what I want to say today: the so-called 'anti-woke' cultural forces are not being helpful here. Previously, I have said that I am becoming increasingly concerned about 'the uncritical treatment of gender critical views, and the effective silencing of moderate pro-trans views, in the genre of new media that prides itself on free speech, skepticism and giving a fair hearing to de-platformed or censored people'. As I explained then, gender critical views might be excluded from the liberal wing of mainstream media, but they are prominently featured in basically every conservative media outlet, plus all the aforementioned 'free speech' orientated media outlets. However, reasonable trans people are almost never featured on the kind of media that eagerly promotes gender critical perspectives, and this imbalance, for some reason, hasn't bothered free speech activists too much.
As I said before, the best way to persuade the LGBT community to stop embracing critical anarchism is to demonstrate that the classical liberal approach works as promised in practice. In particular, the promise of free speech is that it will help everyone come to a fair and objective view of things. With truly free speech, the best ideas will prevail, and we can build a better consensus moving forward. However, for this to work effectively, ideas and perspectives must be placed on a level playing field in the first place. This is why de-platforming certain ideas and perspectives is bad. Whilst not as directly authoritarian, biased coverage can have a similar effect. This is especially true when it comes from media outlets backed by lots of money, that can easily drown out independent voices when they 'move in the same direction'. In recent years, the coverage of trans issues in many 'anti-woke' leaning media outlets has not been a level playing field, to put it mildly. There has been a strong emphasis on covering the most extreme parts of trans activism, while everyday, reasonable trans people who just want to get on with their lives are rendered non-existent. Consumers of this media often end up with very skewed perceptions of trans people. The skewed media coverage has essentially made us into 'the enemy', and a tool for negative partisanship, and dehumanized us in the process. This is very different from simply disagreeing with postmodern queer theory, or the tactics of certain trans activists. Moreover, the selected examples of trans activism often fit right into the most extreme gender critical stereotypes of trans people, and help to bolster the most hardline gender critical arguments, while examples that would support the case against gender criticalism are left out. This means that gender critical ideology is being placed in a much more favorable position in the trans discourse, and the playing field is clearly not equal.
To effectively make the case for the classical liberal social contract, we must make it work properly in practice. This includes making an effort to correct things that are not working well. At the very least, we need to call out the aforementioned unfair coverage of trans people and trans issues. If nothing else, free speech liberals taking a firm stance on this issue would at least stop the critical anarchists from painting all of us as hypocrites driven by a 'right-wing' agenda. This will save the reputation of classical liberalism in the long run, long after the current culture wars end up discrediting the ideologues on both sides. Moreover, by trying our best to call out bad practices, we might even end up changing them, at least to some extent. If we can use classical liberal means to fight the 'anti-woke' culture war reactionaries, and limit the damage that they can do, we will gain credibility among the LGBT community and its allies, and young people more generally. This will be a win-win situation, for both the LGBT community and classical liberal values like free speech.
