Getting Out of the Culture War Mentality on Trans Issues
Plus, Building the Non-Woke Progressive Tradition
As my regular readers would know, what I want most out of talking about trans issues is for there to be an open, rational and productive discourse on trans issues. I want the polarization and tribalism to end. I want people to be able to come up with good solutions to the stalemate we have now. Ultimately, I want the conflicts to be resolved so we can all live in peace.
This, I believe, will require everyone to step out of the culture war mindset first. People on both sides need to do this. Everyone needs to truly hear what others are saying, no matter which side they seem to be coming from. People shouldn't automatically trust the things their side is saying, and ignore voices on the other side. As someone who has been trying to sincerely listen to both sides, I know for certain that both sides are very biased right now, so anyone who predominantly listens to only one side is certainly going to have a biased view of things. And a biased view of things can only lead to the embrace of unsound ideas and policies, that will have harmful consequences one way or another. This is why we need to listen to all sides and understand the whole picture.
The other thing people need to do is to stop being too emotional. Again, from what I see, both sides are clearly guilty of this right now. Both sides can't discuss trans issues without getting emotional, and that is not good. Emotions get in the way of being objective and rational, and make us unable to think clearly. Getting emotional can also lead to dehumanizing the other side, which is dangerous territory when in comes to debating things that will affect real people in the real world. This is why we need to keep calm, despite the best efforts of extremists on both sides trying to rile up our emotions. We need to keep in mind that vested interests with their own agendas want us to get emotional so we end up blindly supporting their agendas, and we should not let them get us crazy. Again, this applies equally to both sides.
The fact is, we can't have a truly productive debate without first getting rational and objective. This is why we need to actively aim to be rational and objective. We need to brush all the culture war noise aside, and focus on what's real.
Building the Non-Woke Progressive Tradition
There needs to be an alternative to the woke vs anti-woke extremism
Over the course of the past year, I repeatedly discussed and analyzed what went wrong with the 'anti-woke' movement. While the movement started out as a defense of classical liberalism, it has recently welcomed very illiberal figures and ideas into the tent. Also, while the movement started out being dedicated to free speech, rational debate and the exploration of controversial ideas, it has since been taken over by tribalist culture warriors who have no interest in these things. Indeed, 'anti-woke' has become a culture war identity, including for several of the candidates running in the Republican primaries for the 2024 US Presidential elections. Why has the anti-woke movement undergone such a profound change, and what should those of us, who disagree with these changes, do next?
I think the fundamental shift that has happened, is that the movement has gradually taken on a reactionary, rather than progressive, tone. Early in the movement, people liked to say how postmodern activism is 'regressive' rather than progressive, because such activism seeks to abolish the values of the Enlightenment in favor of a more subjective, less enlightened worldview. In this way, anti-wokeists positioned themselves as the real progressives, trying to save progressive reformism from misguided philosophies. These days, the anti-woke movement is much more fearful, skeptical of anything unfamiliar as potentially 'woke', and paranoid that forces of wokeness could be in control of everything from academia to corporations to the government. While certain parts of academia and journalism might have embraced postmodernism, this is far from a universal thing, and overstating the situation has led to paranoia. This paranoid view is also eerily similar to far-right ideologies like neoreactionism (especially its accusations of the 'Cathedral' controlling society). This mindset of fear, rather than progress, has allowed the anti-woke movement to be taken over by reactionaries, whose worldview feeds on fear, conspiracy theories, and general negativity towards progress.
Throughout Western history, liberal values were developed in the context of a wish to make the world a better place. Values like free speech, rationality and objectivity all made sense in a society where people wished to reach a better understanding of the truth, and find new and innovative ways to make life better. In a society where people are mostly fearful of change and wanting to go back to the 'good old days', such values wouldn't make much sense. Top-down authoritarian control would be better suited to the objective of the reactionary. This is why, to be truly committed to liberal values, I believe that one must remain progressive, and not reactionary. It is therefore also no surprise that once the anti-woke movement was partly taken over by reactionaries, it began to question and reject many aspects of classical liberalism.
Note that I have chosen to contrast 'progressive' with 'reactionary' rather than 'conservative'. This is because genuine philosophical conservatism is not opposed to progress or reform, it is merely opposed to radical changes that fundamentally disregard or destroy a given nation's long-standing traditions. It is a tragedy that so much of populist 'conservatism' these days is basically reactionary, rather than truly conservative in the Burkean sense.
Another important reason behind the anti-woke movement's hijacking by reactionaries was the unchecked growth of a particular strand of anti-wokeism that basically despised compassion. This faction grew out of the earlier 'Anti-SJW' movement, and is characterized by slogans like 'facts don't care about your feelings'. While I agree that it is important to put the objective understanding of facts above emotionally-driven sentiments, it still doesn't mean it is good to completely disregard others' feelings, when it comes to life in general. Historically, reformism has been justified on the need to make people's lives better, which is ultimately rooted in compassion. Without compassion, there wouldn't have been a strong and convincing case for reforms like the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, the minimum wage and civil rights. Indeed, I believe it is the combination of compassion and (Burkean) conservative philosophy that leads to a healthy, gradualist reformism, with a suitable amount of compromise along the way. Too little conservatism, and you end up with an impossible perfectionism that gives way to either chaos or tyranny. Too little compassion, and you end up becoming reactionary. And the latter is, I think, what is plaguing the anti-woke movement right now.
Therefore, going forward, we must build up the non-woke progressive tradition, as a better alternative to the reactionary form of anti-wokeism being loudly promoted right now. To do this, we must keep having a progressive mindset, where we still believe the world can be made a better place for all. Consistent with this objective, there are two particular areas I want to focus on: the conditions for freedom, and the philosophy of compassion. We need to actively look out for how reactionaries encroach on freedom to stop it from happening, and we need to develop a robust justification and defense of compassion to argue against those who don't believe in it. If we do these two things successfully, then we will be able to repel the influence of reactionism.
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).
You can also read and follow TaraElla's second substack, focused on political philosophy, here.
Very good points about problems with left- and right-wing collectivism