TaraElla's Political Theory of Everything & Moral Libertarian Talk

The Obsessions of the Illiberal Left and the Illiberal Right | Lib Lib Report

The Illiberal Left is about deconstruction, and the Illiberal Right is about literalism.

Welcome to the Lib Lib Report, i.e. the Liberal Libertarian Report, where we talk about news and current affairs from a liberal libertarian point of view. We aim for a practical pro-liberty politics encouraging things like free speech and free thought in the here and now, while looking for more libertarian solutions moving towards the future.

Recently, I have been talking about how the illiberal left and the illiberal right are similar in many ways, including their blind faith in utopian fantasies, and the influence of critical theory on both movements. Today, however, I am going to look at a key difference between the illiberal left and the illiberal right. I think it is because of this difference that the two can't ever be united.

From what I see, the biggest difference between the illiberal left and the illiberal right is what they are most obsessed about. The illiberal left is obsessed with deconstruction. For the illiberal left, every part of the status quo, every structure and every institution, is a product of oppressive power relations, and needs to be deconstructed to bring about liberation. The illiberal left is illiberal because they believe the freedoms guaranteed by liberalism are part of the oppressive structure to maintain the status quo, to prevent the dismantling of the status quo. I believe this view is illustrated most clearly in Herbert Marcuse's infamous essay Repressive Tolerance, where he essentially says that liberalism's universal tolerance leads to the upholding of the repressive and oppressive status quo, and that a truly liberating tolerance must be selectively intolerant to some ideas, i.e. illiberal at least some of the time. Hence, the basic logic of the illiberal left looks like this: the freedoms guaranteed by liberalism make the liberated utopia they desire impossible to achieve, so they must be knocked down.

Meanwhile, the illiberal right is obsessed with literalism, as in the literal reading of statements and rules, and the rigid obedience to such rules. We all know that conservative Christianity often insists on a literal reading of the Bible. However, this worldview is not limited to religion. Conservative legal academics and judges approach the law with the same literalism, for example. I think some conservatives' attitudes on LGBT issues also stem from their worldview that everything should function according to rigid rules, and their discomfort about LGBT rights could stem from their discomfort about what are clearly exceptions to the rule. For the authoritarian right, liberalism is bad because it allows people the freedom of conscience to interpret the rules of life, and to potentially break the rules some regard as sacred. When they speak of the 'common good', it is really the society-wide obedience to the sacred rules that they have in mind. Which, of course, is not what many of us would consider to be the common good.

A recent concern is that the illiberal right could start using judicial literalism to read down legal rights to liberty, so that the government could have more scope to legislate morality. This is in fact my biggest concern about the recent leaked US Supreme Court opinion on abortion and Roe v. Wade. This is not about whether Roe itself was the correct legal decision or not, but rather, the logic used to overturn Roe in the opinion. From what I understand, the logic is that, since the right to privacy is not explicitly stated in the US constitution, there is no rule that it must be respected by governments, at least not to the extent implied in Roe. Many people are concerned that this could set a precedent to roll back other rights, and I agree with them. The authoritarian right clearly intends to take a very narrow, literalist view on the guarantees to liberty in Western liberal democracies. Under their worldview, government action could be justified as long as it does not literally violate the word of the constitution. There is no respect for the broader spirit of liberty at all. For the authoritarian right, only the literal words of the law matter, the broader values of liberty don't. I guess this is why they think they can transform the West to resemble illiberal democracies like Hungary, while still being true to the traditions of the West.

In conclusion, while the illiberal left and the illiberal right are similarly unrealistic, utopian, disrespectful to others' freedoms, and influenced by critical theory, their ultimate objective is different, and this is why they can't really unite to form a firm anti-liberal bloc. The illiberal left's objective is to dismantle the status quo, while the illiberal right's objective is to remake society into one that is rigidly bound by black and white rules that are often religiously inspired. These two goals are clearly incompatible with each other. I think certain personality traits, e.g. perfectionism and black and white thinking, could predispose a person towards both goals, and I think this could explain why there are so many people who switch from the illiberal left to the illiberal right, and vice versa. But one can only be committed to either goal at one time. Therefore, while illiberal people can and do switch camps, the two camps can't ever be combined into one.

A Libertarian Argument for the Pro-Choice Position | Lib Lib Report

It doesn't even depend on your moral views on abortion itself.

Welcome to the Lib Lib Report, i.e. the Liberal Libertarian Report, where we talk about news and current affairs from a liberal libertarian point of view. We aim for a practical pro-liberty politics encouraging things like free speech and free thought in the here and now, while looking for more libertarian solutions moving towards the future.

The leak of a US Supreme Court draft opinion suggesting the overturn of Roe v. Wade earlier this month has reignited the long standing debate between pro-choice libertarians and pro-life libertarians. At the heart of the matter is whether the proper libertarian position regarding abortion should be pro-choice or pro-life. I want to talk about my thoughts on this matter, and how this might inform the liberal libertarian orientation in politics in the here and now. Before we start, I have to make it clear that what I'm going to talk about does not directly concern the legal merits of Roe itself, or the leaked opinion. It is about pro-life vs pro-choice positions in libertarianism, and the arguments are equally applicable in other situations. I must also say that I don't pretend to speak for other libertarians, and these are just my own thoughts. As they say, if there are ten libertarians in the room, there is likely going to be ten different positions taken on an issue. And this diversity is certainly something I welcome.

Let's start with this story about a friend of mine. She is a religious person, and she certainly believes that abortion is morally equivalent to taking an innocent life. But then, she has never been a fan of getting the government involved in this issue. Given that the most vocal pro-life activists often like to equate abortion with murder, and hence equate legal abortion with the absurd position of legalizing murder, my friend has never been one to voice her opinions in public, because she was worried that they might ask her something like 'so you think murder should be legal?' My friend used to think that her views were deeply unpopular until this month, when the heated debate over Roe v. Wade revealed that there were indeed plenty of people who shared her views. Apparently, even among those who believe abortion is morally equivalent to taking an innocent life, they don't necessarily have to equate it with murder, at least legally speaking.

To understand this, I think we should step back and take a look at the larger picture. The argument of the staunchest pro-life activists basically goes like this: given abortion is morally equivalent to murder in their view, how can it be acceptable that murder is generally punishable by the maximum penalty available, while abortion is legally allowed? However, the assumption of that argument is that the government's role in society is that of moral enforcer, and it should always punish behavior that is immoral. This view is basically rooted in the social contract of the pre-Enlightenment West, where everyone lived by and agreed to moral values that were determined by the authorities, which was generally the church, based on religious tradition and scripture. The problem with this model was that everyone had to agree to be bound by the the laws of Christianity in the first place, and also the authority of the church in interpreting the religious law. This was not that much of a problem in pre-Enlightenment times, given that the vast majority of people in Europe were Christians, and they also closely obeyed the decisions of the church hierarchy in matters of faith.

The Enlightenment challenged the absolute authority of the church, and this was where things changed. As I liked to say, liberalism is basically rooted in freedom of religion. Liberalism represented a new social contract, one that was necessary to maintain the peace, in a Western world that no longer universally accepted the supremacy of a unified religious authority. Given that morality was deeply tied to religion, the end of religious agreement would, at least to some extent, also mean the end of moral agreement on many issues. This made the old social contract where the government was society's enforcer of morality unacceptable, and indeed oppressive, to a significant number of people in society. The horrible religious conflicts in Europe back then demonstrated this point very well. Hence, liberalism arose to give Western society a different social contract: one where the government plays no role in determining and enforcing standards of morality, but instead functions to guarantee that every citizen has an equal right to live life according to their own moral conscience, as long as other citizens' rights to do the same is equally respected. Of course, social change is slow, and this idea, while already long firmly embedded into the legal traditions and institutions of the Western world, is still yet to be fully implemented, or to fully supplant pre-Enlightenment cultural views. Hence, even today, both the authoritarian Left and the authoritarian Right continue to demand that governments legislate for the common good, or react swiftly to moral panics of all kinds, without much regard for the requirements of the liberal social contract. This, I believe, is where a lot of the unnecessary culture war style political conflicts come from. Libertarianism is basically a movement to end this state of confusion, and move the Enlightenment's ideals forward to their logical conclusion, by fully realizing the implementation of the liberal social contract in the Western world.

It follows that, in a fully libertarianized society, with a fully liberal social contract, the government simply can't legislate against something because people find it morally wrong. They can only legislate to ensure the equal standing of parties to the social contract. Murder would still be illegal because it violates the rights of another party to the social contract. Abortion, however, would be different. Countries cannot practically consider fetuses to be citizens with full rights of citizenship. For practical reasons, citizenship can only begin at birth. There is a reason that our documents have our date of birth, not our date of fertilization. Even when abortion was illegal, fetuses were not considered citizens. Therefore, fetuses cannot be considered parties to the social contract. This means that abortion cannot be considered a violation of the rights of a party to the social contract, and cannot be outlawed on these grounds. It can only be considered a matter of morality, which under a libertarian social contract, the government should have no ability to legislate over. Therefore, abortion and murder are indeed very different, no matter what your moral views on abortion are. From this, it can also be concluded that the correct libertarian position on the matter of abortion is the pro-choice position. Again, this doesn't even have to depend on your moral views on abortion itself.

Of course, here on the Lib Lib Report, we are not libertarian immediatists. While we want to move society towards the libertarian destination in the long run, we recognize that this is not where we are at right now, which is why we practice a more pragmatic liberalism in the here and now. We recognize that the current social contract of Western liberal democracy is not yet the libertarian one, and calls to legislate based on morality and the common good are not universally considered illegitimate in the West at this time. However, given that we are Liberal Libertarians, with a libertarian destination for society in mind, I think we should aim to move towards, and not away from, that destination as much as possible, in the policy positions we support. Especially given that abortion has already been legal in America and most other Western democracies for decades, to outlaw abortion now would be to take a big leap backwards, away from the libertarian destination, something that is simply not acceptable for those of us committed to taking society towards the libertarian destination. This, I think, is a very good justification for taking the pro-choice position in the politics of the here and now.

The Justice Argument Against Critical Theory | Lib Lib Report

How Critical Theory is Challenging Liberty from Both Sides | Lib Lib Report

On the Common Roots of the Illiberal Right and the Illiberal Left

Welcome to the Lib Lib Report, i.e. the Liberal Libertarian Report, where we talk about news and current affairs from a liberal libertarian point of view. We aim for a practical pro-liberty politics encouraging things like free speech and free thought in the here and now, while looking for more libertarian solutions moving towards the future.

Recently, I have been talking quite a lot about the similarities between the illiberal Left and the illiberal Right. Today, I want to go deeper into exploring this similarity. We might even find out that they are basically the same thing, to a great extent.

Let's start with this quote: "Conservatives understand that culture war means discrediting their opponents and weakening or destroying their institutions. Progressives should approach the culture war with a similar realism. Civility and decency are secondary values. They regulate compliance with an established order and orthodoxy. We should seek to use these values to enforce our order and our orthodoxy, not pretend that they could ever be neutral."

Sounds like something written by a critical theory inspired illiberal Left activist, right? In fact, it's a quote taken from Sohrab Ahmari's famous 2019 article 'Against David French-ism', with 'conservatives' and 'progressives' switched around. The rest of that article also contains themes often found in critical theory-sympathetic texts, like how liberal neutrality is ultimately impossible and will eventually lead to your enemies taking away your freedom. In other words, Ahmari and his fellow travelers actually think like the critical theory Left, but in reverse. Call it the critical turn in conservatism, if you like.

And this resemblance is no accident either. At least some of the people in the illiberal Right have a history of being on the Left, where they are likely to have encountered the critical theory worldview. Ahmari himself admitted to having studied and 'adored' critical theories in college, in his recent article 'The problem with anti-woke liberals' (Unheard, 2022). In that article, he also called the 'marketplace of ideas' a liberal idol. Again, this sounds exactly like something that an ardent supporter of critical theory might have written. What I think is, Ahmari and people like him never really left the critical theory worldview behind when they left the Left, they simply turned it around to serve the Right's political goals now that they have become disillusioned with the Left. Therefore, much of the illiberal Right could be basically an inverted version of the illiberal Left.

The worrying thing about the illiberal Right is that, like the illiberal Left, they are beginning the influence real world events. And the kind of influence is similar too: curtailing free speech, and using raw power to override the market. The recent plight of Disney in Florida illustrates this point. In the beginning, they were just going about their business, when the state passed the 'Parental Rights in Education' legislation, also commonly referred to as the 'Don't Say Gay' bill. Some on the Left were unhappy that Disney didn't speak up against it at first, despite opposing the legislation. This eventually led to the Florida Democratic Party canceling plans to hold their fundraiser at Disney World, after some people threatened to boycott the event.

Afterwards, Disney publicly took a position against the legislation, which angered the Right and led to calls to boycott them from the Right. Going even further, the Republican administration and congress eventually decided to take action to punish Disney, by revoking arrangements granted to them many decades ago, the House passing the legislation in less than five minutes with no debate, despite potential for massive job losses and as well as greatly increased and inefficient government. All this for a company having a stance on a piece of legislation! This was clearly a case of using unchecked state power to punish legal, private speech, with likely adverse consequences on the people too.

If all this is a glimpse into what an illiberal society will look like in the future, I am truly afraid. Everything is politicized, not taking a position is subject to punishment, and taking a position, any position, is also subject to punishment. The illiberal dystopia is basically a place where everyone has to walk on eggshells all the time, or else they might become collateral damage of the culture wars. If the illiberals on both or either side win, free speech and freedom of conscience will basically become history. It's why we must work hard to uphold liberalism, and push back against both the illiberal Left and the illiberal Right. Knowing that they are both products of the power-obsessed critical theory worldview allows us to effectively argue against both at the same time, using basically the same arguments, and standing on the same principles.

On Tribalism: Conservative Homophobia and Progressive Avoidance of CRT | Lib Lib Report

Welcome to the Lib Lib Report, i.e. the Liberal Libertarian Report, where we talk about news and current affairs from a liberal libertarian point of view. We aim for a practical pro-liberty politics encouraging things like free speech and free thought in the here and now, while looking for more libertarian solutions moving towards the future.

In this episode, I want to talk about political tribalism making people unable to face the problems on their own side of politics. I believe that the ideal of a free society should include people being able to think independently and look at things objectively at all times, and not feel pressured to stay silent when things go wrong. Sadly, we are clearly not there yet. I will use the example of homophobia in conservative circles and the avoidance of the critical race theory debate in progressive circles to illustrate the problem.

Recently, when conservative commentator Dave Rubin announced that he was starting a family with his husband, it was quite controversially received in conservative circles. Some people even said some horribly homophobic things (that I won't repeat here). Others were surprised at the intensity of the reaction within the Right. After all, almost every Western country has gay marriage nowadays, and a recent poll showed that a large majority of Americans, including a slim majority of Republicans, now supported marriage equality. But then, it is clear that society does not move in the direction of freedom at the same pace, and some people remain quite behind the times on this issue. It is also not the only time conservatives had a negative reaction to LGBT people on their own side: last year, when Caitlyn Jenner ran for governor in California, some conservatives reacted quite badly too.

The mixed reaction to Rubin's announcement led to a discussion, on both the Left and the Right, as to whether there remains a serious problem of homophobia on the Right. As expected, the Left basically unanimously nailed the Right as homophobic, which also linked into their view that Rubin made the wrong choice in moving to the Right. Meanwhile, many on the Right, who are clearly not anti-gay themselves, nevertheless seemed to feel the need to downplay the problem on their side, putting the reaction down to a niche faction within the Right that didn't represent mainstream conservatism. I guess the truth is somewhere in between. But the point is, people are clearly more interested in attacking the opposite side or defending their own side, rather than seeking the truth of the matter, and thinking about what we might be able to do to make things better.

Now, let's talk about how progressive liberals have basically avoided talking about critical race theory (CRT). While CRT has been a hot topic of conversation in America and several other Western countries, mainstream progressives seem to have avoided dealing with the substance of the topic. For example, while conservatives argue against CRT and the Theory Left argue for CRT, based on what CRT actually is, many progressives would choose to instead talk about how conservative attempts to 'ban CRT' from schools are having adverse impacts on free speech and the teaching of accurate history to students. Don't get me wrong, I agree with quite a lot of these criticisms too, to the point where I believe that government action to 'ban CRT' is basically illiberal and counterproductive. However, none of this takes away from the fact that CRT, and other associated critical theories, are increasingly influencing the mainstream culture of the West, and this has serious implications for our future, because certain commitments of CRT are clearly incompatible with liberal democracy.

I guess the reluctance of progressive liberals to seriously deal with CRT is because they feel conflicted. I'm sure that many of them have serious concerns about CRT and its associated ideas too. However, they don't want to cede any ground to conservatives by speaking up about it. It's like how many pro-LGBT conservatives privately concede that their side still has a homophobia problem. However, they downplay it to avoid giving any ground to progressives. In both cases, it is tribalism that is preventing people from following their own conscience, and speaking up on what they see is wrong. This is why it's important to prevent tribalism in our thinking, and support the culture of free speech that encourages free thought.

The Liberal Libertarian Alternative: An Introduction | Lib Lib Report

Welcome to the new Lib Lib Report, i.e. the Liberal Libertarian Report. In this first episode, I want to explain what liberal libertarianism is, and what this show is going to be about. Let's start here. Liberalism, in a broad pro-liberty sense, is losing ground to illiberal critical theory-based movements on the Left, as well as illiberal populist forms of conservatism on the Right. Given that classical liberal values are fundamental to the social contract of the post-Enlightenment West, I believe that if we let liberalism fall, the consensus behind Western society as we know it will basically collapse, and much that we hold dear will disappear forever. Therefore, it is certainly an urgent priority that we act to save liberalism. But what should we do?

Right Now, Liberalism Lacks a Grand Vision

I think the biggest reason why liberalism has suffered is because it is seen to lack a longer term vision. Much of contemporary liberal discourse is very pragmatic, i.e. it seeks to resolve issues in the here and now, using solutions that are aimed at respecting individual liberty and equality as much as possible. However, there is almost no vision of arriving at a better destination eventually. Contrast this to both the critical theory Left and the populist Right, which promise their supporters the possibility of a different world. While a true liberalism can never, and should never be utopian, I think we should still offer a vision, where we can reach a different, better world in the longer term. This longer term vision would, in turn, provide stronger justification for choosing the liberal path in the here and now.

So what long term vision, what kind of long term destination, should a robust 21st century liberal politics offer? This is what I want to explore next. But let's detour a bit and take a look at my early political development, and how I chose between liberalism and libertarianism.

The Possible Liberalism vs The Impossible Libertarianism

When I was in college, I had the idea that, if I were to start a political party, I would call it the 'Liberal Libertarian Party'. I liked parts of libertarianism and liberalism, because, after all, both were dedicated to increasing individual liberty. At first, I thought that libertarianism was grander in its vision, which was why I was more attracted to it. But about a year later, especially in the context of an election, I came to realize that libertarianism wasn't practically going to win any time soon, and we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Back then, my top two priorities were ending the 'War on Terror' and legalizing the freedom to marry for gay couples. And I saw clearly that liberalism, rather than libertarianism, was the only hope for delivering these things in the foreseeable future. And so, I became mostly a pragmatic liberal from that point onwards.

Libertarian politics, in the conventional sense, has always been a hard sell. Even 20 years ago, when people most commonly identified as 'socially liberal, fiscally conservative', libertarianism still had few supporters. And it's not for no good reason either. Conventional libertarians are almost always 'immediatists', i.e. if they had a chance to govern they would cut the size of the government to the absolute minimum at the first opportunity. This could have a lot of undesirable, perhaps even dangerous, effects on society, some of them even likely to be unforeseeable or unpredictable. Conventional libertarians often don't care too much about this, because libertarianism cares more about first principles than practical consequences. However, the average voter out there, whose priority is usually a stable and secure life, often first see an unfamiliar set of policies as a potential wrecking ball if allowed into government. And immediatist libertarianism, let's be honest, does sound like a wrecking ball to most voters. Hence, they are never going to vote libertarian, no matter how libertarians frame their message.

Besides the practical pitfalls of an 'immediatist' libertarian politics, there is also the pragmatic consideration of electoral competitiveness. Right now, the West has a major problem of worsening economic inequality, and both the critical theory Left and the populist Right are calling for a more robust economic safety net. The challenges of the last two years has further increased the common desire for a stronger safety net. If libertarians continue to call for cutting government programs across the board, because of ideological reasons, it is certainly going to sound tone deaf. The trouble with this kind of ideological stubborness is that, it has practical consequences in the real world. It means illiberal forces that promise to deliver what the people want will gain ground instead, leading us to a more illiberal future. I believe the most important thing about participating in politics is a sense of responsibility for the consequences one's decisions might have on people's lives in the future. Ideological purity that might lead to future disaster certainly sounds irresponsible to me.

Pragmatic Liberalism Plus Long Term Libertarianism?

The impracticality of libertarian immediatism means that we are left with the choice of practicing a pragmatic liberalism for now. This would include defending free speech vigorously, encouraging free and independent thinking, promoting and protecting civil liberties, and safeguarding the freedom of individuals from being trampled on by the tyranny of the majority. By extension, I also believe in advocating for objective science-based policies, and a peace-orientated approach to international relations. I have said a lot about the aforementioned goals over the years. However, a liberalism that is only ever concerned about pragmatic problems in the here and now lacks the grand long term vision, which means it has a deficit in passion, and in particular makes it much less attractive to more idealistic people.

This is where a kind of long term libertarian goal comes in. Liberal libertarianism aims to combine the practice of pragmatic liberalism, perhaps with some libertarian influences, in the here and now, with having a longer term goal of moving towards a much more libertarian society. What liberal libertarianism recognizes is that, right now, the immediate application of a typical libertarian platform could actually harm individual liberty in many cases, given the long-standing social and economic structure of society. A pragmatic liberalism therefore best serves individual liberty in the here and now. However, liberal libertarianism also recognizes that, given the rapid development of technology, automation, and new social practices enabled by technology like crowdsourcing, mutual aid and the new sharing economy, there is indeed scope to move in a much more libertarian direction in the longer run, especially when the aforementioned developments become much more mature. Therefore, while liberal libertarians are basically pragmatic liberals in the here and now, they have also not given up on the libertarian dream in the longer term.

Don't get me wrong. Liberal libertarianism is certainly not just liberals who daydream about a libertarian utopia in the distant future. The existence of the long term 'libertarian destination' in our roadmap actually influences policy orientations in the here and now. For example, the underlying long term goal of moving towards a decentralized society would justify the choice of more decentralized and market-based mechanisms when deciding how we might strengthen our social safety net. A universal basic income (UBI) scheme could be one way of doing that, and a liberal libertarian would therefore prefer a UBI over welfare schemes that are means tested or tied to work requirements. A liberal libertarian would also be particularly interested in encouraging the development of decentralized, market-based or market-like systems where individuals could engage in mutually beneficial exchanges, because that could eventually lead to ways to cut the size of the government, without turning power and resources over to big business like conventional privatization schemes do.

What This Show Will Be About

This show will be part of an attempt to build a liberal libertarian worldview and politics. It will be for liberal libertarians and people of other ideologies alike. I hope my ideas can inspire fellow liberal libertarians to think about what could be pragmatically done to address problems in the here and now, how we can have a much more decentralized and free society in the ideal future, and how the two can be linked. Meanwhile, people of other ideologies can hopefully come to appreciate how a liberal libertarian would see the issues, and where there might be opportunities for cooperation, even if we have differences in other areas. The show will discuss news and current affairs from a liberal libertarian perspective on some days, and talk about liberal libertarian philosophy on other days. The show will have episodes that focus on imagining the libertarian future, and how our current choices might help or hinder us in getting there. I'm also going to explore how Moral Libertarianism, i.e. the principle of ensuring equal and maximum moral agency for every individual, can serve as a philosophical bridge between the pragmatic liberalism of the present and the idealistic libertarianism of the future.

How the Illiberal Right and Illiberal Left are Ultimately Similar | TaraElla Report Lab

Or why there are no simple or magical solutions to society's problems

Welcome back to TaraElla Report Lab. Today, I want to talk about how the illiberal Left and the illiberal Right are ultimately similar in an important way: their preference for simple solutions to complex problems. Given the increasing prominence of both in Western politics in the past decade, I think it is an important thing to address.

As liberals, we believe in the importance of having a functioning and healthy marketplace of ideas. Our commitment to free speech, free debate, and freedom of action as long as it does not harm other people, are all basically rooted in our commitment to the marketplace of ideas. The reason we believe in the marketplace of ideas is because we don't believe any one individual or group of people can have all the best solutions for the problems we face. In fact, this is almost impossible, because of the complexity of the problems themselves. No individual or group can have all the information they need to solve everything effectively. Besides, even if they have all the information, there is no guarantee that they would come up with the best solutions. Life is a process of trial and error, and allowing competing views and solutions to play out is the only way we can know which ones are more sound.

Another important function of the marketplace of ideas is the negotiation, remixing and sometimes even fusion of ideas and solutions. The best ideas and the most effective solutions are often the result of compromise or fusion. Free debate in the marketplace of ideas allows this process to happen, as long as there is plenty of room for rational and respectful debate. This is why the polarization, division and echo chambers that have characterized the past decade should be a major concern for any true liberal.

In contrast to liberals, neither the illiberal Left nor the illiberal Right have any time for the marketplace of ideas. It is from this that they reject things like free speech. What the illiberal Left and the illiberal Right have in common is that they don't see, or rather refuse to see, the complexity of our problems, the vast amount of factors that interplay in various issues, and the fact that life is often a trial and error process. This is why they believe their simple solutions will magically work to resolve everything. For the illiberal Left, the magic solution is blindly opposing and deconstructing all aspects of the status quo, and remaking society using their theories. For the illiberal Right, the magic solution is to force society to return to a previous state, even if at the cost of trampling on freedom, democracy, and long standing standards of decency and compassion. There is no reason to expect these all-encompassing solutions to work well at all, but the fact that they haven't been tried yet seem to be enough justification for keeping the faith in both cases.

The problem with the attitude of both the illiberal Left and the illiberal Right is that they don't seem to have any use for historical lessons, rationality or logic. While rational thinking would demonstrate the errors in their way of thinking, and history also provides plenty of evidence against their views, for the illiberal faithful, all this don't seem to be able to penetrate their worldview. Therefore, what they have is actually blind faith. It is blind faith, rooted in a kind of reality-defying romanticism, that is sustaining the current surge of illiberalism in the West. I believe that, the more we point this out, the sooner people can wake up from this.

The Case For a Common Good Liberalism | TaraElla Report Lab

Why there is no reason to choose 'common good conservatism' over liberalism.

Welcome back to TaraElla Report Lab. Today, I want to talk about the idea of the 'common good' from a liberal perspective. It's an important discussion to have, because I fear the West is about to see a wave of anti-liberal sentiment. For many years, people on both the Left and the Right have criticized liberalism for supposedly promoting selfishness and ignoring the common good because of its individualist orientation. With the recent rise of 'common good conservatism' as a focus of the illiberal Right, this debate is likely to heat up again soon. Here, I will offer a defense of liberalism, and explain why I believe liberalism is actually the best model for advancing the common good.

Firstly, there is nothing in liberal values and principles that inherently promotes selfishness or opposes notions of the common good. As I first pointed out several years ago, liberalism is not inherently against communitarianism, indeed, I argued that a fusion of liberalism and communitarianism could be the best way forward. Liberalism, especially the Moral Libertarian model, guarantees individual autonomy and moral agency. But that doesn't mean individuals can't or won't use that moral agency to advance what they believe to be the common good.

The key to advancing the common good is to have a culture that stresses the importance of morality, and our duty towards each other. It is these cultural values that will prevent selfishness from prevailing in the general population. Contrary to what the illiberal Right claims, widespread selfishness and lack of regard for the common good is a product of cultural dysfunction, not a product of liberal individualism. Indeed, the Moral Libertarian model of liberalism places morality at its heart, and I believe the promotion of this model will greatly help to advance the common good in the long run.

The actual difference between liberalism and more authoritarian forms of politics like what the illiberal Right is advocating, is that liberalism stresses individual autonomy. Looking at it from another angle, decision making in liberalism is non-hierarchical, whilst decision making in authoritarian conservatism is done in a hierarchical way. Hence, what constitutes the common good in 'common good liberalism' will ultimately be determined by the marketplace of ideas, especially in the long run, while the common good in 'common good conservatism' will be determined by those at the top of the hierarchy.

Hence, the choice between 'common good liberalism' vs 'common good conservatism' would essentially be a choice between decisions being made by the marketplace of ideas, vs decisions being made by those at the top of the hierarchy. And there is good reason to choose the marketplace of ideas. Firstly, the marketplace of ideas represents the thinking of many minds, the experiences of many lives, and the combined knowledge of a lot of information that a small group of elites simply can't match. Secondly, the marketplace of ideas allows for trial and error, and ideas which are objectively found to be successful can be adopted and further developed by other people. Most importantly, the marketplace of ideas allows for negotiation, where the best parts of each package of ideas can be remixed into new proposals, to create even better solutions moving forward. This is a level of complexity and efficiency top-down decision making simply can't match.

In conclusion, I believe that liberalism is, in fact, the best model to advance the common good, as long as it is practiced in a pro-common good culture. Pro-morality models of liberalism like Moral Libertarianism can also help bring about this culture. Hence, there is no reason to choose 'common good conservatism' over liberalism at all.

From Woke to Intersectional: How Words Obscure Ideology | TaraElla Report Lab

Today, I want to talk about how the use of certain words can obscure important differences in worldview, and effectively hide an ideological framing of the issues, which is why I don't tend to use such words anymore.

Woke is Whatever One Disagrees With Nowadays

Let's start with the word 'woke', and its opposite, 'anti woke'. There was once a time, a few years ago, when I used these terms quite a bit myself. Back then, 'woke', in its current form, had just entered our everyday vocabulary, and I saw that it was generally attached to views and movements inspired by critical theory. To me, therefore, 'woke' meant pro-criticalism, and 'anti woke' meant being against criticalism. The 'woke' were not old-school liberals, they instead subscribed to another ideology that aims to supplant liberalism. Hence old-school liberals were not 'woke', and this was a useful distinction. And I'm sure that many people did, and still do, use the terms roughly this way.

However, over the years, I saw more and more people throwing the 'woke' word around to mean something else. For example, opponents of Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill have been called 'woke'. Trans rights supporters in the UK have also been called 'woke'. This has happened even where arguments from critical theory were clearly not involved, and people were arguing from traditional liberal grounds. Hence, at least for some people, the usage of 'woke' appears to extend to old-school liberals too!

You see, the reason why I don't use the descriptions 'woke' and 'anti woke' anymore is because they are clearly being used by different people to mean different things, usually to frame the debate in a particular way. Hence, for example, while old-school liberals can say that proponents of critical race theory are 'woke', conservatives can also say that the old-school liberals themselves are 'woke'. Indeed, one can argue that nowadays, 'woke' is basically whatever you don't agree with. This clearly obscures and confuses important ideological distinctions, and is bad if what we want is clear communication. Hence, I have stopped using the word 'woke', for the sake of maintaining clear communication. I guess it's like how many people decided to stop using the term 'SJW' several years ago, again for similar reasons.

Intersectionality is More than Meets The Eye

Now, let's talk about another way in which fancy labels and descriptions can obscure ideological thinking. There was a brief period (in around 2016-17) when I sort of embraced the then-popular idea of intersectionality. Basically, intersectionality is about emphasizing how one can be discriminated or disadvantaged by multiple intersecting identity characteristics, such as gender, race, sexual orientation and so on. It was used to critique how mainstream feminism was dominated by the views of white middle-class women with a certain kind of background, for example. Back then, I thought that this concept could be useful in other ways. For example, LGBT activists clearly don't represent the diversity of LGBT people very well, especially those from more conservative or non-Western backgrounds. Also, in general, so-called progressive circles often don't live up to their ideal of being equally inclusive to all, because there are often long-standing dominant views on certain issues, and other perspectives are often effectively silenced. I thought intersectionality could be used to solve these problems.

However, I soon found that, in pro-intersectionality circles, there are unspoken rules about what counts as an 'intersectional' issue. For example, if a non-white person talked about how they experienced racism even in supposedly progressive circles, their views are very welcome. However, if the same person then started talking about feeling excluded because of their cultural views and values, which might not always align well with the mainstream views of the Western left, they could be made to feel unwelcome. In other words, what is considered 'intersectional' is guarded by gatekeepers, and the theoretical ideal picture of intersectionality is thus prevented from being achieved.

For about a year, I still thought that I could use reason to challenge the gatekeeping of intersectionality, so that its true ideal could be fully realized. But the more I argued, the more I read, and the more I reflected on all of it, the more I came to my final realization: that the concept of 'intersectionality' has a deeper component that is not included in the definition given by its proponents. Intersectionality is basically rooted in the ideology of critical theory, which sees society as being divided into oppressor and oppressed groups, and sees cultural ideas and institutions as a product of these oppressive relations. Therefore, intersectionality is effectively limited and biased in its application, because of the assumptions of the critical theory ideology. That intersectionality cannot live up to its ideals is therefore a birth defect that cannot be cured. This is why I ultimately left intersectionality behind.

I mean, I still like what intersectionality theoretically stands for. But I can't support a movement that is rooted in the critical theory worldview, with all its divisiveness and its problematic assumptions about the world.

Why Popularity Based Social Media is Bad for Democracy | TaraElla Report Lab

And how to fix the problem.

Welcome back to TaraElla Report Lab. Today, I want to start talking about how we can fix the broken marketplace of ideas we have right now. As I said before, the key to a healthy liberal democracy is a truly fuctional marketplace of ideas, where every voice gets a fair hearing, and where the people get to make a truly informed choice. And right now, the reality is that we are far from this ideal. Clearly, there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

In recent years, there has been a lot of attention on the role of the internet and social media in the propagation of echo chambers, polarization and division. Some people have painted the role of the internet and social media in an almost wholly negative way, as if the pre-internet age was actually better. I think that is a mistaken view, because a media landscape dominated by corporate media clearly ain't a fair marketplace of ideas either. The internet and social media have at least partially democratized our media landscape, and that is a very good thing indeed. The problem is that it just hasn't gone far enough. Therefore, we should look to the possible future of a truly level playing field, rather than look back to the past of a highly restricted media, to resolve our current problems with social media.

There are a lot of problems with the way the internet and social media exist today, but I am going to focus on what I believe is the most important problem: the obsession with 'popularity'. Almost every big social media platform that exists today has a strong focus on the 'popularity' of both creators and content. We see it in the way the number of followers and likes are prominently displayed. More importantly, these metrics of 'popularity' are heavily used in the algorithms of these platforms, so that only content deemed 'popular' is visible to many people. 'Unpopular' content is quickly buried, as if it never existed at all.

The trouble with this model is, what is 'popular' can be manipulated in multiple ways. At the most basic level, content creators are incentivized to create content that cater to the narratives and emotions of particular echo chambers, so as to maximize the number of likes received, because that is the only way the algorithm will pick up that piece of content and spread it to new audiences. As a creator who refuses to play that game, I know very well how frustrating taking a principled stance can be, in the world of popularity-obsessed algorithms. Content creators who have built a following based on pandering to certain narratives generally can't walk away from those narratives either, because of the very well known phenomenon known as 'audience capture'. They are scared that their audiences will turn on them, potentially leading to a massive loss of followers overnight. This constant need to pander to certain narratives means that almost every popular creator stays in line with their chosen narrative, which creates an echo chamber effect on their audiences.

Even more sinister is the potential for money to be able to distort this whole 'popularity' thing. On the internet, one thing that we all hate is 'bots', i.e. automated accounts designed to inflate the numbers of particular accounts and spread particular messages. All the major platforms are constantly on the look out for bots, which are promptly banned when detected, but this has clearly not been able to eliminate the problem. However, all the focus on bots is perhaps distracting us from an even bigger problem: that people or organizations with an agenda, armed with adequate money, probably don't even need to use bots to achieve what they want. They can instead target their content to real people who they know will be receptive to their messaging, through advertisements, events, and even cross-promotion on mainstream media outlets. This is why the platforms can ban all the bots, and still not solve the problem of the 'popularity' model. Indeed, banning the bots likely only shifts the advantage to those who can afford even more expensive means of manipulating the metrics of popularity, thus favoring ideas and agendas backed by major financial power, effectively making the problem even worse. This shows us that the 'popularity' model can't be credibly reformed, and must be abolished or at least radically altered, if we are to have a free and fair marketplace of ideas that is good for democracy.

The pitfalls of the 'popularity' model also extend beyond the world of what we usually consider social media, even to relatively credible platforms like Wikipedia. In particular, Wikipedia's notability criteria is something that I have been campaigning for years to reform. Basically, for something to be on Wikipedia, it needs to be featured on at least a certain number of what is considered 'credible sources', which is most often mainstream media or mainstream media adjacent outlets. Hence, ideas not picked up by mainstream media are effectively excluded from Wikipedia, which in turn could affect the way they are displayed or ranked on Google and other search engines. Just in the past few years, I have seen many cases of Wikipedia deletion wars, in which pages of borderline-notable people are proposed for deletion. If the subject happens to have a dedicated following, or certain media connections, then they might be able to salvage their page by effectively generating a new article or two that can be used to prove that they meet the Notability criteria. Thus, the Notability criteria effectively makes Wikipedia a popularity-based platform, just like social media. And it can obviously be affected by financially backed interests too. Let's be honest: we all know that it ain't too difficult for rich and well-connected people to get their ideas published in so-called 'credible sources'. Wikipedia's Notability criteria thus ultimately pose the same problem as the likes-driven algorithms of social media platforms.

Now that we've identified the problem, we need to do something about it. The cynical among you might say that, internet companies are ultimately businesses, and they will do whatever necessary to promote their business interests, which would include spreading content deemed to be 'popular'. However, it is not like that their business interests don't include the need to respond to widespread demands for change. And it is clear that demands for change do work on internet companies: for example, just in the past few months, YouTube stopped displaying the dislike count for videos, a change which is quite small indeed, but clearly in the right direction. Ultimately, the key to pushing companies to reform their practices is popular demand from its customers. This is why we need to keep this discussion going, keep the ideas for reform coming, and effectively elevate the cause of social media reform to social movement status. Imagine that, if the social media reform movement were to grow to become as big as the climate action movement one day, the companies simply wouldn't be able to ignore our demands.

In recent years, there have been growing calls for getting money out of politics. But as I have demonstrated, there really is no way to get money out of politics without also getting the obsession with popularity metrics out of social media and the internet more generally. Thus fundamentally changing the popularity metric-based internet landscape should be taken seriously as a core pillar of making our societies more democratic.

Building the Future Liberal Coalition | TaraElla Report Lab

Why Dave Rubin is Wrong, and Liberals Don't Need to Move Right

Welcome back to TaraElla Report Lab. Today, I want to talk about where I want to see liberalism go in its future development, and how those of us who believe in free speech, free debate and a healthy marketplace of ideas can advance these values in our current context. As I said before, there is still a lot of work to do if we want to make our Western democracies truly liberal, and the new media age that is just beginning provides both opportunities and challenges. Therefore, having the correct strategy to navigate this landscape is important.

In recent years, there has been a lot of debate about whether 'the Left' or 'the Right' is a more suitable ally for liberals. Traditionally, liberalism has been seen as a force of the Left, broadly speaking. In the past century, liberals have acted to improve the social safety net, bring about civil rights reforms, and protest the Vietnam and Iraq Wars, as part of the 'Left' political coalition, and these achievements are very cherished by many of us. However, in the past decade, some factions of the Left have turned against core pillars of liberalism like free speech, anti-identitarian universalism and scientific objectivity, which has caused many liberals to repeatedly doubt our place and our future in the 'Left' coalition.

In light of our increasing tension with some parts of the Left, some people on the Right have repeatedly tried to woo us to move into the Right, with some success. Dave Rubin of the Rubin Report, who famously made the 'Why I Left the Left' video, has in recent years become much more comfortable identifying himself as part of the Right, and he apparently thinks we should all do the same. Commenting on Bill Maher's increasing frustration with the Left, Rubin recently said that old school JFK-style liberals should now consider themselves the moderate part of the conservative movement, and they need to be willing to stop voting for Democrats and start voting for conservative Republicans like Ted Cruz and Glenn Youngkin.

From what I see, Rubin appears to be advocating that we take a side, the 'Right' side of politics, and stick to it consistently, including at the ballot box. Rubin certainly looks like he has found a comfortable home on the Right. The problem is that, people like Rubin don't seem to be critical enough of the illiberal elements within the Right, even as they are clearly gaining ground. Seeing this development, I certainly don't share Rubin's optimism about the Right as a good home for liberals going into the future. Besides, politics is not just about free speech and taking a stand against critical theory. It is also about the climate, health care, economic policy, and many other things. And I doubt many liberals (including myself) can ever be comfortable with the conservative stance on these matters. While we can find common ground with conservatives and work together on free speech and taking a stand against critical theory, there's no reason why we should have to give up our values and beliefs in other areas of policy that are just as important.

I agree that liberals should probably stop thinking of ourselves as being on 'the Left' on every issue automatically. But that doesn't mean we should all move to the Right. Instead, what I advocate for is a holistic liberal movement that transcends party lines and ideological factions. A holistic liberalism needs to be broad enough to respond to, and potentially be changed in the process, by critics on both sides, so sticking to one side or another isn't the correct choice. Instead, the future coalition of liberalism should be broad enough to allow both left-leaning and right-leaning people to thrive within it, bringing their diverse perspectives to the table, challenging us to think harder about how to expand the scope of freedom and how to make the marketplace of ideas better all the time. This necessarily means there won't be unity at the ballot box. A free-thinking community of liberals shouldn't expect or demand this kind of conformity anyway. A genuinely liberal movement can't be committed to serving a political faction or party, or it will cease to be genuinely liberal.

Therefore, I think the future coalition of liberalism should not be concerned about agreement on matters of electoral politics at all. Individual liberals should be encouraged to make their own decisions at the ballot box, we should respect each other's free conscience, and that should be it. Instead, there are many other matters that require urgent attention, where we will be able to advance the core values of liberalism far better than by engaging in electoral politics. Examples include developing solutions to cure the ills of social media, demanding changes to how mainstream media operates, fixing the imbalance of perspectives in certain parts of academia, and so on. Engaging with these issues is difficult but necessary. A new liberal coalition that focuses on these issues will need to be comfortable about the fact that we might have different views when it comes to various social and economic matters, and we might support different political parties or vote differently from each other as a result. But it will be built on the common ground of being committed to free speech, free debate, and wanting to make the marketplace of ideas freer and fairer. And that's already plenty of common ground to work on.

We Need To Talk About The Illiberal Right | TaraElla Report Lab

How the rise of the illiberal right reflects the failures of liberalism

Welcome back to TaraElla Report Lab. Today, I want to talk about an increasingly important issue: the rise of the illiberal right. In the past few years, I have been talking a lot about threats to liberalism coming from the Left. However, there has also been a growing movement of illiberalism within the Right, that has become, in my opinion, big enough to warrant serious attention from those of us who worry about the erosion of liberalism. I think that, going forward, we should be giving equal attention to the illiberal right and the illiberal left alike. After all, the last thing we want is for illiberalism to take over both sides of mainstream politics.

Let's talk about the appeal of the illiberal right. Why are people attracted to the illiberal right? To be honest, I think their message actually resonates with a lot of people. The illiberal right likes to talk about how liberalism has failed because it has led to a landscape of broken families, social problems, and collapse of tradition, and many people are finding that talk attractive. I think that the rise of the illiberal right reflects some fundamental failures of liberalism, failures that I believe we must seriously address if we are to stop the growth of the illiberal right. These failures can be divided between the failures of libertarians, and the failures of progressive liberals, because they belong to completely different categories, but when added together they represent one big frustration towards liberalism for many people. It is this frustration that the illiberal right is capitalizing on.

Let's start with the libertarians, one of the two main branches that descended from 19th century liberalism. Conventional libertarianism has been generally very good with free speech and civil rights issues. Libertarians have never had a problem with people expressing their sincerely held opinions, whatever they might be. However, the core criticism of the illiberal right towards libertarians is that their excessive commitment to capitalist economics has contributed to a landscape of broken families and social problems, and I think this is, unfortunately, true. Liberalism is about freedom, including the freedom to choose to live the life you believe in. However, if the economic circumstances make it not quite possible to build a healthy family life, can we still say that there is this freedom of choice? The problem with conventional libertarianism is that, in many cases, it leads to a situation where there is freedom of choice when you have the money. Otherwise, you might find it difficult to even fulfill your basic needs, which for many people would include providing a healthy life for their families. This would indeed discredit the idea of liberalism for many, if not most, people.

Now, let's look at progressive liberals, the other main branch descended from 19th century liberalism. Progressive liberals have always advocated for a strong social safety net, which would greatly ease the economic pressure of living in a capitalist society for working families. This could be attractive to some of the people who would otherwise be inclined towards the illiberal right. Indeed, during the 2019 US Presidential primaries, many conservative-leaning people expressed interest in ideas like a UBI, Medicare For All, and a higher minimum wage. However, progressive liberals don't exactly have a good record on free speech, and this is a real barrier for many people. Liberalism is only credible when it truly commits to fair and neutral process, and to a level playing field between ideas and opinions. You do not need to agree with the opinion expressed, but you have to allow people to truly express what their conscience says, and you have to allow the debate to play out fairly. Under the influence of various postmodern critical theories, the Left has increasingly moved away from this commitment, and I think it's a mistake. The illiberal left is also directly fueling the rise of the illiberal right, because, when there's not much room for rational and fair debate in good faith, everything quickly descends into a game of grabbing power and wielding it against your enemies. Notice how the illiberal right likes to essentially use the rise of the illiberal left to justify its own illiberalism. It really is a vicious circle.

My conclusion from this analysis is that, to stem the rising tide of the illiberal right, I think there needs to be a serious discussion about what liberalism stands for, and how we can make liberalism credible again, in the context of the 21st century. I think we need to return to the roots of liberalism, i.e. freedom. We need a liberalism that is committed to providing practical freedom for people, in the real world they live in. Economically, this is likely to require moving away from the neoliberal model. Socially, there is going to be a need to re-emphasize fundamental values like free speech, freedom of conscience, and the value of open and rational debate, so traditional and new ideas alike can be on a level playing field. On both ends, there will be a need to move away from long-standing de-facto alliances that are strangling us, and this will take courage. But I believe it's the only way to save liberalism.

What I've Learned About Politics | TaraElla Report Lab

The ideas matter, the personalities do not. And polarization is not like the media says.

Welcome back to TaraElla Report Lab. Today, I want to look back on what I've learned so far, in the four years I have been regularly and seriously doing social and political commentary. I believe the things that I'm talking about today apply generally to all of my commentary, and is of great relevance to both my past and future work.

I guess the most important lesson I have learned is that what the media is telling us about political polarization is not entirely true. I said 'not entirely true' because, unfortunately, it is not false either. The Western world right now is indeed quite politically polarized, at least on a macro or aggregate level, and this does seem unprecedented in our history. Don't get me wrong, I do think this is unhealthy and it needs to change. However, when people talk about the polarization, there is almost an assumption of a simplified model, where people are reliably split into two camps, and their views on various issues are almost entirely predictable. What I've found is that this is a severe misrepresentation of the truth. Instead, on the individual level, there is quite a lot of variation in terms of how people actually see the issues, as well as the reasoning behind their views, which I think is actually the more important thing.

I think people only appear to congregate into two masses because political parties and news media generally come in two contrasting flavors. People generally support the political party closer to them, and consume the news media they are more comfortable with, which means they end up picking either team red or team blue almost all of the time. However, almost nobody is entirely blue or entirely red! When you're dealing with individuals, you really need to talk to them, and listen with an open mind, to understand where they actually stand. I think this individual variability shows that people are still mostly independent thinkers to some degree, which is a great relief! It also means that there is still plenty of room for big tent movements where we find common ground to resolve controversial issues.

Another important thing I have learned is that we should focus on the ideas, and not the personalities. If you attach your hope to a personality, they will almost definitely disappoint you some time in the future. Even someone who you think you agree with almost 100% today is basically guaranteed to disappoint you on something down the track. Throughout the history of TaraElla Report, I have shown great interest and even expressed support in many personalities, and to be honest the vast majority of them ended up greatly disappointing me on one or more important issues later on. (In some cases, the disappointment was indeed severe, although I generally don't talk about it in public because I don't want the drama.)

Which is why I have learned to say that, for me, the personalities don't matter, it's the ideas that matter. A related thing is, the fact that I have expressed interest in a person's ideas, or even support for a person, doesn't mean endorsement for all their ideas and positions. I have always thought that this was a self-evident thing, but in this age of rampant 'guilt by association', I think I need to spell it out more clearly.

Finally, I want to talk about my views on being positive vs negative. I would say I am very positive towards humanity, the goodness of human beings, even though I have a negative view on a lot of things about the status quo we are in. There's no logical incompatibility between positivity towards humanity, and negativity towards the status quo. I've found that too many people, in their bitterness towards the status quo, also lose their faith in humanity in general. I think Herbert Marcuse's views in Repressive Tolerance is a good example of this, and arguably also Michel Foucault's views on discourse and power. I think that's a dead end we should actively avoid. The antidote would be to have faith in our fellow humans, and our ability to make things better. We might need some time, we might need some more clarity and understanding, but we will get there.

Why We're Actually Living in an Illiberal Dystopia | TaraElla Report Lab

And why anyone OK with the status quo is not a liberal at all.

Welcome to another new series of the TaraElla Report, which I will call TaraElla Report Lab. In this series, we will be reimagining how liberalism can be like, because that is the only way we can keep its spirit relevant to our times.

Today, I want to expand on a point I made in an article two weeks ago: as a liberal, I have absolutely no interest in defending the status quo. I certainly think the negativity towards the status quo from the Left as well as the Right is very justified. We live in a time when corporate interests, wealthy donors, the military industrial complex, and anti-liberal philosophies alike all distort what some people think of as 'liberalism'. It's like how, back in the 19th century, some so-called 'liberal' pseudo-democracy apologists justified withholding the vote from working class people using a selective reading of John Locke. We certainly regard this stance as illiberal nowadays, and rightly so. Hopefully, people from the future will see our status quo as illibeal in the same way.

The truth is, the status quo we are in is far from the liberal ideal. Therefore, establishment 'liberals' who uphold the status quo, who think that things are mostly fine as they are, aren't real liberals, to be blunt. We need to remember that, at the heart of liberalism, there's a fundamental commitment to liberty and equality, and this has to include a free and fair exchange of ideas in what we like to call the marketplace of ideas. If liberalism doesn't mean this, it means nothing at all. Therefore, we need to examine every issue through this lens. Let's face it: it is clear that our status quo really isn't compatible with liberalism, understood this way. Indeed, I believe the fundamental problem with our status quo is that it is in many ways the exact opposite of what is intended by liberalism. There is effectively no free flow of ideas, and no equal opportunity for ideas to demonstrate their merit.

Let me explain. One of the biggest problems we have right now is that many of the commonly held political positions, on both sides of politics, are popular because people with an agenda have been promoting them, in their respective echo chambers. This is, of course backed by money and organization, so there's no way someone without the same kind of money and organization can compete, no matter how sound their ideas are. The situation is further amplified by corporate media, which generally caters to one or the other side of the polarized political landscape, so they can maximize profits. All this means there is effectively nothing like a level playing field for ideas and opinions anymore. The marketplace of ideas, one of the most important parts of a liberal society, is totally dysfunctional right now. I believe a true liberal would have to see this as one of our top problems.

A related problem is that the media, and other opinion influencers, consist of mostly the same kind of people. Almost all of them went to the same prestigious colleges, know the same few circles of people, and have the same kind of experiences in life. There's really not much diversity in the influencer class, which contributes to the conformity and the insularity of the echo chambers. Now, this phenomenon actually applies to everywhere from journalism to academia, to the music industry, and it needs to be fixed across the board. However, in terms of politics, the consequences are particularly serious, because they include things like increased polarization, important issues and viewpoints being excluded from the discussion, and even the manipulation of public opinion. These things can mean the difference between success and failure in resolving important issues, justice and lack thereof, even war and peace. I believe the current situation cannot be acceptable to anyone who is actually committed to liberal values.

This is why I actually welcome all ideas that have the potential to challenge the very problematic status quo we find ourselves in. It's why I even suggested that certain nuanced, academic forms of critical theory might in fact be useful, when taken in moderation, as a mirror holding our liberalism up to scrutiny, to examine if we are indeed staying true to our values. However, the critical theory Left basically has the same problem I just illustrated. The Theory Left's thinkers are made up of people who went through the same kind of training in college and grad school. The career incentives and disincentives, as well as the potential social consequences people might face, keep the echo chamber from being challenged too seriously. This is why I can't trust the Theory Left to come up with anything better than the status quo either. Just like the status quo's opinion influencers, the Theory Left's thinkers aren't operating in anything like a free market of ideas. It's why they have produced so many fundamentally problematic and illiberal ideas. Using an analogy from the Hunger Games, if the status quo is President Snow, the Theory Left is President Coin, and is definitely no better.

That is why we need a 'back to basics' liberalism. True liberalism that is about true liberty, including a commitment to independent thinking and a functional marketplace of ideas. This is the kind of progress we need right now.

Why Critical Race Theory Could Impede Progress & Innovation | TaraElla Report LvCT

One of critical race theory's biggest issues is its epistemology of knowledge

Welcome back to TaraElla Report LvCT, Liberalism vs Critical Theory. In this new series, we will explore the differences between the critical theory worldview and the liberal worldview.

Today, I want to talk about one of the most controversial ideas found in critical race theory (CRT), and indeed, in all forms of postmodernized critical theory more generally: the view that certain values, ideas and forms of knowledge can be tied to a specific identity group. In CRT and adjacent thinking, we see this manifest as things like saying that traditional math education is 'white', liberalism is 'white', or the idea of meritocracy is inherently 'white'. In more extreme cases, even the objectivity that underpins science could be considered 'white'.

What I want to note here is that this form of thinking is certainly not limited to CRT. For example, many of the aforementioned things can be accused of being 'patriarchal' too, using the lens of some feminist critical theories. Indeed, postmodernized critical theory has plenty of influences to make them think this way. These include the core critical theory view that all dominant ideas in society are there to serve the dominant (or oppressor) groups, and the Foucauldian postmodernist idea that all knowledge and discourse is primarily shaped by power dynamics. The contemporary Theory Left's habit of assigning cultural ideas to identity groups is not limited to the dominant groups either, as seen in theories about 'cultural appropriation', which generally apply to minority cultures. Obviously, the culture in question must, in the first place, be defined as the property of an identity group, for these theories to work.

The main problem I have with this model of thinking is that it impedes the impartial discovery of objective truth. It also impedes the exchange of ideas between cultures, and ultimately the freedom of innovation that is required for social progress. In other words, what we have here is a model of thinking that essentially wants to throw out the best things about the Enlightenment, the very things that underpinned the great progress in science, technology and civil rights alike in the past two to three centuries. What I'm concerned about is that, many people don't quite fully grasp how important it is to defend these things.

What we need to be able to say is that, there is objective truth and knowledge, and it is a worthy endeavor to discover and learn it in the most robust way, regardless of race or other identity characteristics. A strong commitment to the objective truth, via the study of science, math and so on, cannot be tied to any race, because we're talking about the objective truth, and it is by definition valid for all. Good ideas, good music, good designs and so on can't be 'white' or 'black' or belong to any other race either, because the power of innovation belongs to the whole of humanity, and shouldn't be limited by the boundaries of identity. I believe that, if we fail to defend these fundamental truths, we will have failed the future of humanity.