Why a Commitment to Reformism Would Have Saved the Intellectual Dark Web
Plus, There is No Justice Without Free Speech
Although most people consider the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) to be over these days, it remains the subject of ongoing analysis and historical evaluation, about what it represented, what its effects were, and what went wrong. One of the reasons for this is its spectacular implosion. Cathy Young's recent article From Intellectual Dark Web to Crank Central, provides an interesting perspective as to why the IDW might have ended up this way. Basically, the article sets out to answer the question 'was it a worthy project gone bad, or was it always a fraud based on spurious grievances?'
Young's article ends by concluding that 'the IDW’s principal legacy today is a cautionary tale' against getting caught up in a dissident identity and confusing skepticism for contrarianism. Personally, I would be a bit more generous. While, as the article pointed out, the IDW weren't the only people calling out cancel culture and campus illiberalism, it stood out as a more serious attempt to study these phenomenon, and place them within a tradition of far-left ideology built around postmodernism and identity-based critical theory. Understanding all this has been important in our attempts to push back against 'wokeism'. This is why I'm more inclined towards seeing the IDW as a good thing gone wrong. It went wrong because the IDW's most prominent members seem to have forgotten why we should support free speech and oppose postmodern critical theory in the first place.
From the classical liberal point of view, we should support free speech because it is the only way to improve our understanding of the objective truth, and the only way to develop a consensus of how to improve our society via reform, based on the objective truth. We should oppose postmodern critical theory because it seeks to discredit and damage the very framework that makes free speech and progressive reform in a peaceful society possible. In other words, we support free speech and oppose wokeism because we are reformists, while the woke are revolutionaries who believe in tearing everything down, which we see as deeply misguided and even dangerous. This is the insight that the IDW should have reached for, but for various reasons, it never quite got there.
I believe that if there were ever to be a revival of the IDW's ideals in some form, and the mistakes of the past are to be actively avoided, then the project would have to be rooted in an explicit commitment to reformism.
There is No Justice Without Free Speech
To put it simply, a faction within the far-left is essentially promoting a version of justice that doesn't include, and doesn't depend on, respect for free speech. Now, this vision of 'justice without freedom' is indeed very different from what we're used to: traditionally, social justice started with being aware of the reality of disadvantaged lives, and we hear about that reality through free speech and the marketplace of ideas. We listen, and we gain an understanding that there are things that need to be fixed. Thus free speech was the first and foremost necessary condition for social justice. Moreover, sometimes there are competing demands from different stakeholders in society, and we need to listen to all of them to come up with a solution that respects the needs of everyone. Again, free speech is important for this process. This is why, at least traditionally, we could say that there can't be social justice without free speech.
On the other hand, what we're seeing from the postmodern left is a new version of justice that is derived, not from listening to real life voices out there, but from philosophical theory. In this worldview, justice is simply what the theory demands, and it is going to be imposed on everyone, whether they like it or not.
The Cass Review Fallout Demonstrates How Culture War Poisoned the UK and US have become
Last week, the long awaited final report of the Cass Review into the treatment of trans-identifying minors in England was released. As expected, it recommended a more cautious approach, and the NHS has decided that puberty blockers will only be available in trials from now on. The review itself was a first attempt at a systematic scientific examination of the question. However, the fallout, from both extremes, was anything but scientific.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).
The use of words, especially as a self-description are quite important.
Perhaps then the use of the word DARK provides a clue as to why it collapsed.
Perhaps it was an invocation of darkness, of dark half-baked opinions. And of dark trends/patterns too.
By contrast in some circles when one wants to investigate the verity of any and every philosophical and cultural proposition etc the use of the word LIGHT comes to mind.
Is it true or real in the light of reason? Let's bring or shed some light to this topic?
Perhaps it collapsed on the petard of their own uninspected presumptions, many of which, in my opinion were/are questionable.