My Political Evolution Through Seeing Betrayal and Hypocrisy
We need to see through all the hypocrisy to fight back
The story of my political evolution over the past 20 years has been one of mainly disappointment. There is simply too much hypocrisy and tribalism, and too many people willing to betray their professed values and ideals when their emotions are riled up. To illustrate what I mean, and what I think we need to do instead, I will use two examples: what I consider to be the two biggest betrayals of early 21st century Western politics.
First Betrayal: Social Justice turns into its Opposite
I first came to follow politics somewhere between the 9/11 attacks and the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War. Like many people, I was deeply concerned about the erosion in civil liberties that were happening almost overnight. We were also concerned that America, Britain, Australia and other allies were determined to fight what we saw as an unnecessary and unjust war, and certain parts of the media and political establishment were essentially misleading people into supporting the war. They were even starting to accuse people who opposed the war of being 'soft on terrorism'. In opposing the Iraq War as it unfolded, I learned about the importance of individual liberty, free speech, rational thinking and more. I also learned about the harms of collective panic, and the way it could distort outcomes in Anglo-American style electoral democracies. I also began to recognize the terrifying likelihood of authoritarian measures and unjustified exceptions to liberty becoming law during such times of panic. This experience formed the basis of my politics, and it has not changed to this day.
Which was why, by the time I was old enough to vote, I saw though the gay marriage panic that was raging during 2004 and a few years after. I was certain that gay marriage was not going to cause the collapse of family values (which history has proven me correct on), and later I would come to see this as emotionally charged anti-gay rhetoric in the service of organized culture war politics. From this, I would learn all about the history of wannabe authoritarians creating and using moral panics to gain political power, at the expense of the groups they targeted. I became passionately opposed to this kind of politics, which was why I started identifying with the 'progressives', who I believed was fighting the good fight.
But somewhere in the 2010s, some 'progressives' started doing things I would consider, well, the opposite of 'progressive'. Instead of trying to end oppression for all, they appeared to want to turn the tables of oppression. Instead of promoting rational discourse, they began to say that anger (and sometimes even violence) is justified, and that 'tone policing' (i.e. asking for rational debate) is oppressive. Instead of promoting an end to all racism, homophobia and discrimination, they began promoting a radical identity politics that formalized and exaggerated the differences between people. Instead of free speech, they promoted 'safe speech' and the so-called 'progressive stack', which limited what people can say and who can speak up respectively. They behaved more and more like the authoritarian religious right that we so strongly opposed only a decade ago. Something had clearly gone wrong. (I would later do a lot of investigation, and conclude that postmodern critical theory is at the heart of the problem. The queer theory branch, in particular, is at the heart of a certain brand of radical queer activism.)
Second Betrayal: The 2010s Free Speech Movement
In the 2010s, as free speech came under threat from cancel culture inspired by various postmodern critical theories, a new free speech movement arose in response. Having seen first hand how terrifying and destructive this new phenomenon was, I fully supported the side of free speech, and wrote many articles defending free speech and denouncing cancel culture over the years. I held out hope, year after year, that the free speech side would prevail, and the 'progressives' would return to their previous rational reformist agenda as a result.
However, that movement fizzled out in less than a decade, even though the issue of cancel culture has not been resolved yet. More stunningly, some former champions of free speech have now turned towards a new illiberal style of right-wing politics that I can only describe as the ultimate betrayal of free speech and associated classical liberal values. This is also apparently part of a bigger picture, where the organized political right, particularly the Republican Party in America and to some extent the Conservative Party in Britain, are trying their best to hijack the broader 'anti-woke' movement, in order to help them gain a political advantage in elections. Some Republican strategists have even become quite open about this lately. The identification of 'anti-woke' with Republican politics serves to justify support for Republican policies, no matter how unreasonable or illiberal (or even likely unconstitutional) they are, in the name of fighting 'wokeness'. Moreover, it has become acceptable to be openly anti-LGBT in some parts of the anti-woke movement lately. The controversial video promoting Ron DeSantis's anti-LGBT record back in June is a good example of this new illiberal sentiment. I think this is why some 'anti-woke' people, who were very passionate about free speech just five years ago, are now completely on board with the War on Disney and 'woke corporations', book bans, drag bans and more.
Common Points and the Way Forward
What is striking about the two stories of betrayal is that there are certain common elements in both of them. In both cases, the original goal was muddied, and at least part of the movement turned into its opposite. There was also ultimately a turn from freedom to authoritarianism. All this was facilitated by multiple instances of hypocrisy and double standards, which were ultimately enabled by an emotionally charged tribalism.
I think these stories have taught us what not to do going forward. We need to avoid building up an emotionally charged discourse, whatever the issue is. We need to avoid tribalism. We need to call out hypocrisy, and not tolerate the justification of even the slightest hint of double standards. We need to be wary of arguments rooted in abstract philosophy or speculation, rather than objective facts. We also need to be particularly wary about political strategists trying to hijack pre-existing movements for their own advantage.
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.
I agree with you almost completely, yet I find myself constantly questioning something. Ideals like social justice and free speech are, after all, arrived at in response to problems we want to rectify. At some point, folks like you and me switch our allegiance from the people with problems to the ideals themselves. We then feel betrayed when the other folks in our group reveal that their allegiance was to the people with problems, and they don't give a rip about our precious ideals except insofar as they can be used to help those people.
But who have been the real betrayers in this story? The people we thought were on board with an ideal, when they were really just interested in helping a particular group, or those of us who seemed to care about a particular group, but later revealed that we treasured some abstract ideal over the group's welfare?
Time for a war for freedom ;)!