Defending Liberalism from Misguided Criticism

Why liberalism is not responsible for woke excesses in any way

Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

In recent years, it has become fashionable to blame the excesses of 'woke culture' on liberalism. Drawing on the work of thinkers like Patrick Deneen and Sohrab Ahmari, many on the Right have painted a picture of liberalism as an ideology that centers the freedom to do what one desires no matter what, which makes it inherently hostile to traditional ways of thinking and religious freedom. They also argue that the need for endless autonomy is at the root of things like cancel culture, because all external barriers to self expression need to be knocked down. Even some long time supporters of liberalism have fallen for this line of argumentation. For example, in his recent book Liberalism And Its Discontents, Francis Fukuyama drew links between liberal autonomy, 'self-actualization', and the rise of radical identity politics. However, I believe this perspective is rooted in a misunderstanding of liberalism itself. In this article, I will demonstrate why the recent woke excesses have nothing to do with liberalism. I will also demonstrate how we can tame those excesses by upholding liberalism.

1. What is Liberalism?

In order to answer the question of whether liberalism is responsible for the recent woke excesses, we need to first establish what liberalism is. In the most basic terms, liberalism is a belief that society should be built on a social contract that ensures an ordered liberty, where all can equally enjoy this liberty. Different factions within liberalism differ on what the social contract should include, or what liberties should be upheld, but one common element present in all versions of liberalism is the belief that liberty's existence is dependent on the existence of order. Thomas Hobbes, who argued that an absolute sovereign was necessary to avoid the brute natural state of "the war of all against all", is often considered an important thinker in the liberal cannon. While modern liberals are certainly more pro-freedom and democratic than Hobbes, we still agree fundamentally with his belief that an order needs to be imposed, in order to ensure a sustainable liberty. This is also what makes even the most minarchist libertarian very different from an anarchist.

In this way, liberalism stands in stark contrast to anarchism, the other major ideology that has some notion of freedom at its center. Unlike liberalism, anarchism does not believe in an ordered liberty. Indeed, it does not accept the need for any enforced order at all, because its ultimate goal is to remove all 'coercive' and hierarchical relationships between humans. Given that any imposition of order must inevitably be 'coercive' and hierarchical to some extent, anarchists reject the liberal goal of an ordered liberty as oppressive in their worldview. As to how to avoid the natural state of "the war of all against all", anarchists have never provided a convincing answer.

As you can see, another fundamental difference between liberalism and anarchism is in their attitude towards objective reality. Liberals treat objective reality as a fact of life, and seek to understand it better, believing that this will be the key to making life better for all of us. It was no coincidence that the early important thinkers of the liberal cannon were almost always fans of empiricism and science. As such, liberals have a habit of applying the scientific and rational lens to everything, including traditional ways of thinking and living. Liberalism is not inherently hostile to tradition, but would ask that various aspects of tradition be put under rational examination, so that opportunities for making things better are not missed. The liberal approach has led to reforms like the end of slavery, universal suffrage, civil rights, gender equality and, most recently, marriage equality. These things have made society better, while not harming the essence of the traditions society is built on.

On the other hand, anarchism does not have the same respect for objective reality. If it did, it would fall apart immediately, due to having no convincing answer for the "war of all against all" problem. Anarchism's lack of objectivity, and rejection of ordered liberty, means that it cannot provide a practical reformist program like liberalism. Instead, it blames all of society's problems on the existence of coercive relationships and institutions, the state and organized religion being the most prominent among them traditionally. Therefore, anarchism is inherently hostile towards tradition, and basically seeks the destruction of all tradition.

2. What is Postmodernism and Critical Theory?

Now that we have established what liberalism is, the next step is to establish what the ideology driving the excesses of 'woke culture' is, and see if the two line up at all. While 'wokeness' as a term has not been well defined, the ideology behind the most unpopular aspects of woke-ism, including cancel culture, radical identity politics, the language wars and so on, clearly has roots in postmodernism and critical theory.

It is clear that postmodernism and critical theory are not forms of liberalism. Postmodernist and criticalist thinkers have often criticized either liberalism itself or its fundamental pillars. Herbert Marcuse rejected free speech in Repressive Tolerance. Michel Foucault rejected the liberal commitment to objectivity. More recently, critical race theorists have rejected the identity-neutral approach to law and justice, which is at the heart of liberalism. Given these examples, and many more, postmodernism and critical theory simply cannot be part of the liberal tradition, logically speaking.

Much has been said about the roots of postmodernism and critical theory in various Western Marxist traditions of the 20th century. This has led postmodernism and critical theory to be characterized as 'socialist' occasionally. However, many people, including myself, have observed that this misses the point, because the main objective of postmodern critical theory lies in the culture, rather than in political economy. Moreover, postmodern critical theory activism does not appear to be geared towards building any kind of socialist society, even as it takes a vehemently 'anti-capitalist' stance.

Recently, much has been said about the Hegelian influence on postmodernism and critical theory. However, it has also been observed that, instead of the thesis-antithesis-synthesis of Hegelian dialectics, postmodern critical theory seems to prefer thesis-antithesis-deconstruction. That is, rather than ending in synthesis, it ends in deconstruction. This is consistent with the observation that postmodern critical theory activism does not provide suggestions for how their 'better world' would look like, rather, they are merely obsessed with dismantling the current one (see the 'anti-capitalist' example above). The reasoning used to justify the dismantling of the status quo is always along the lines of it being coercive and/or hierarchical, and therefore oppressive. All this, I believe, points to an obvious conclusion: that the essence of postmodernism and critical theory is basically anarchist. It is a new form of anarchism. Critical anarchism. The various postmodern critical theories, e.g. critical race theory, queer theory and so on, are all in the service of the goals of critical anarchism. Their function is to justify the need for turning the West anarchist, based on the historical and ongoing oppression of women and minorities.

At this point, you might ask, how could a movement that opposes free speech be considered 'anarchist'? After all, while liberals critique old-school anarchism as unsustainable and predict that it would inevitably give rise to extreme authoritarianism as a result of the ensuing "war of all against all", the authoritarianism still only comes after the collapse, and not as an inherent part of the anarchist agenda. According to traditional understandings, anarchists would not oppose free speech per se. However, critical anarchism is different. This is because it locates power and coercion primarily not in the state and organized religion, but in social conventions, language, 'knowledge', culture, and the common understanding of the way things are more generally. Michel Foucault's thinking is central to this transformation. "What we need... is a political philosophy that isn't erected around the problem of sovereignty, nor therefore around the problems of law and prohibition. We need to cut off the King's head: in political theory that has still to be done," he famously said in the 1970s. However, this sentiment isn't only present in Foucault, other thinkers like Marcuse, Althusser and more also had similar ideas. These ideas came to reinforce each other in the next generation of postmodern critical theory thinkers, and gradually coalesced into a particular worldview, i.e. what some would call the 'successor ideology', and what I would call 'critical anarchism'.

Critical anarchism still contains many ways of thinking that were fundamental to old-school anarchism. For example, it is still fundamentally obsessed with opposing coercion, hierarchy and authority in all forms, and it still doesn't care about the harmful effects to society this could cause. As such, it still rejects the liberal ideal of ordered liberty. This is why it has no respect for liberal norms. However, critical anarchism is also authoritarian in ways that old-school anarchism wasn't. This is because they locate coercion and oppression primarily in the culture rather than the state. For example, in their quest to deconstruct our shared culture and language, critical anarchists often resort to denying the right to free speech, so as to dampen resistance to their agenda. In their worldview, this wouldn't be unfair, because they don't recognize the liberal norm of free speech for all as a fair playing field in the first place. (See Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance for a good example of this argument.) The lack of a fair playing field, in turn, justifies their 'whatever it takes' methods.

3. Using Liberalism to Defeat Critical Anarchism

Now that we have identified the differences between liberalism and critical anarchism, we can make the liberal case against critical anarchism on solid ground. This will also be of use in defending liberalism from the accusations described in the introduction. There are basically two ways for a liberal to argue against critical anarchism, and I believe we should employ both liberally.

Firstly is the usual argument against anarchism. This is just as applicable to critical anarchism as it is to old-school anarchism. Given that fundamental social change will impact everyone in a given society, care should be taken that dangerous or otherwise severely unsound proposals for change be firmly rejected. An objective assessment of history and human nature demonstrates that, if order is not enforced in society, chaos will result, and there will be a "war of all against all". Anarchists have never provided a convincing argument to counter this. Therefore, their vision remains severely unsound or even dangerous, as assessed by the best evidence currently available. This is why anarchism should be firmly rejected in all its forms. On the other hand, 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.

Secondly are the specific arguments against the methods used by critical anarchist activists, where they violate the liberal social contract. This includes things like violating free speech norms when they attempt to de-platform speakers. In each case, we are basically defending the utility of an important part of the liberal consensus, against those who wish to abolish it. For example, the liberal commitment to free speech is linked to a fundamental commitment to the objective truth. A robust defense of free speech must be clearly rooted in this value. Moreover, failing to live up to this value, for example not calling out those using 'free speech' for culture war purposes, will destroy the credibility of our argument. In arguing for liberal norms, and clearly linking them to sincere liberal commitments, we are demonstrating why the goal of ordered liberty is a sound one overall, which in turn contributes to the overall argument against critical anarchism.

Conclusions

While they both have freedom at the center of their philosophy, liberalism and anarchism have always been incompatible opposites, because liberals believe that order is required for sustainable liberty, and anarchists reject all imposition of order. The excesses of 'woke culture', driven by postmodernism and critical theory, are fundamentally anarchist in nature, because they aim at deconstructing the entire existing order, justified on the grounds that it is oppressive and coercive, while not aiming to build anything better in its place. Traditional liberal arguments against anarchism, as well as specific arguments against the destruction of liberal norms like free speech, are useful in the fight against this new critical anarchism, and the use of both types of arguments can serve to reinforce each other. On the other hand, an 'anti-woke' culture war politics can only hinder us in making these arguments, and is therefore not helpful.

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TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Horizon books, 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.