seems to me the Professor is conflating liberalism and progressivism, and the latter very much does very much fit the conservative critique. The influence of progressivism, particularly of its loopy cultural variety on mainstream liberalism is something mainstream liberalism should be very much aware of and guard against. If the last elections haven't taught them this lesson, then probably nothing will.
I see how this is not just progressivism, which would be more intentional, blatant, and agressive in hegemony, but also liberalism as the author argues.
The idea of a value being completely “neutral” like “empty space,” I understand as false. I understand liberalism as founded in individualism, and many conservative critiques and concerns seem to be a dysfunctional balancing of individual and group interests, those groups including the family (single parent households, decreasing marriage rate), clan (atomization and separation from relatives), tribe (loss of group identities, including tribal and religious associations), nation (immigration/cultural issues), and even state (conceding too much to other states, immigration, trade and defense policies) and world (declining fertility rate).
"Now, when liberals hear stuff like this, their first reaction is: what universe are these bad-faith, hysterical babies living in? Look around! No one’s being forced to do anything."
Ummm, How about when your six year old wasn't allowed to be in school with their friends for TWO YEARS because you lived in a liberal deep blue city? How about when pregnant women were forced to get a brand new, never studied long term covid vaccine ( that didn't stop transmission or infection) -- or lose a job they needed ? How about when businesses, churches, schools were closed in blue states, while red states had re opnened - without mass death?
I guess I would say, what world were liberals living in from 2020 to 2023?
100%. And it was deemed OK by municipalities and went more or less unremarked upon by the media when millions of people congregated unmasked outdoors in order to protest George Floyd's killings...while everyone else was being told to 'shelter in place' and business shutdowns were mandated.
WHAT A CROCK OF UNADULTERATED CONSERVATIVE APOLOGIA. It's a full-throated endorsement of allowing Dominionist thought and practice to govern American civil society, regardless of the consequences for disfavored groups such as my own: openly gay men with AIDS, who have been targeted for persecution, destruction and elimination from civil society *continuously* since 1986 (the Lyndon LaRouche-driven California ballot initiative called Proposition 64 which would have sent anyone *suspected* of having AIDS or HIV to permanent internment and separation from the general population for life - this was followed in 1987 by LaRouche's Prop 69 and in 1988 by Paul Gann's Prop 96, and all were defeated at the ballot box).
The very idea that liberals enjoy or enforce a "hegemony" of values such as fairness, justice, equality, reciprocity etc. is so far out in left field it's out of the ballpark and in the long-term parking of the nearest airport. The assertion that this is a political philosophy that oppresses the Christian/Republican/MAGA/Orbanist-Putinist right-wing authoritarians is absurd - and makes me wonder what agenda the author is pushing, or whom he's working for.
I mean, come on - since when are fairness and justice *relative*? How can these be placed on a spectrum of attributes and made equivalent to oppression, silencing, elimination of dissenters, of opposition parties, of critics of the regime, of ethnic/sexual/disabled minority groups? And he has the nerve to make claims about the abandonment of morality and ethics by liberals when he's preaching the elevation of the most unethical and immoral people, policies and practices imaginable?
Let's be brutally frank: This is a dangerous attempt to insert yet another loaded false equivalence into our current political and cultural discourse that, if acted upon, could cause the deaths of millions of minority/disabled/LGBTQ+ Americans and the permanent imposition of an authoritarian, autocratic governing regime in America for the foreseeable future. If you think I'm exaggerating, take a look at recent statements by the leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation - Douglas Wilson, et al - who have the ears of the President and the Vice President and a committed acolyte in Russell Vought and who already have substantial influence over government officials, policy, and policy outcomes.
In the background, of course, we just saw the first Homeless/Alleged Mentally Ill Forced Incarceration And Compulsory Treatment Internment And Concentration Camp manifest in Utah, with many more to follow. Think of all the billions of dollars that have recently been allocated to these camp-building efforts and the number of facilities they have said will be constructed. Who's going to fill all of these concentration camps after they've deported/disappeared every immigrant here? Who do you think they have in mind? (These are all, for the record, rhetorical questions - you already know the answers whether you want to admit it or not.)
That's the logical end to what this piece envisions. I reject every word of it unequivocally, and you should too if you want to have a decent country again, if you want the invasion of our cities by our own armed forces to cease forever, if you want the unfettered abduction and kidnapping of innocents off our streets and the immiseration of their families and loved ones to stop and every single abductee repatriated with their families and accountability imposed on those who conducted those efforts at every level, if you want to live without fear of being disappeared/interned/executed by the government, if you want your damn country back from these goons and monsters and twisted soulless people who have stolen it from us.
"Individual freedom, fairness, reciprocity, and tolerance aren’t just political ideals or legal principles. They’re the foundation of a comprehensive way of life, one that many of us who support liberalism have adopted, consciously or not, as a worldview."
----------
This strikes me as an overly broad categorization of the "liberalism" that supposedly constitutes a "comprehensive way of life". It seems to me that these are pretty basic ideas that, at least traditionally, have been paid lip service by both sides of the cultural aisle, and frankly I don't see how any free society can compromise on any of them.
The problem is that the extreme segments of both the left and right are profoundly *illiberal*, both seeking in some way to exert a kind of hegemony upon everyone else. And I fully acknowledge the dangers of what the far left seeks—however, I would argue that the current state of things is that the far left dramatically overplayed its hand and has been brought to heel.
Progressive cultural extremists were right in presuming that they had a good deal of influence through leveraging the power of white guilt—something that I don't like in principle but I'm not categorically opposed to in practice since, lets face it, how many social reforms related to the civil rights of blacks and other minorities would really be possible without a healthy dose of white guilt?
Where they erred is in the assumption that this power could be wielded with unrestrained abandon, in order to inject into the liberal cultural hegemony ideas which have long circulated in cultural studies departments but run counter to most people's moral intuition and basic notions of fairness—perhaps best illustrated by the deeply unpopular idea that "only white people can be racist".
Accordingly, they generated a huge backlash that—from where I stand, at least—has effectively burst the progressive bubble and brought it back down to earth. What we have now is more or less the same general dominance of the basic liberal ideals that ought to be present in any society calling itself a Western democracy, that existed before progressive illiberalism used social media to stage a doomed revolution.
Unfortunately, the illiberal right is still using the illiberal left as a pretext in order to impose something far more menacing than cultural hegemony—actual state power. For years we have listened to disingenuous Christians complain about not being able to practice their faith openly, which most reasonable people have seen as nonsense. What they're actually complaining about is not being able to throw their weight around like they once did.
It's one thing to be sympathetic to Christians feeling judged for their beliefs. Most of my life I've felt judged for my lack of religious belief. But you don't see me trying to impose atheism on my fellow Americans—and no, demanding a secular form of government is not an imposition of atheism. It's a restatement of the timeless and bedrock American principle of separation of church and state, which today's illiberal right has openly and explicitly turned against.
But the illiberal right—MAGA, if you will—has made a crucial mistake. You can't control culture with state power—especially not in America. We don't take kindly to that sort of thing. Especially when it cynically exploits the common man to accrue power and feed the fortunes of the obscenely wealthy. Ultimately, the illiberal right is only digging its own grave, sowing the seeds of a backlash that is coming and coming hard.
I've made amends and had my kumbayas with the decent conservatives of the ever-dwindling liberal right. But I'll have zero sympathy for MAGA when their phony populist movement comes crashing down around them, and they face whatever consequences accrue for the unforgivable damage they've done to our country.
actually having thought about it a little more, I don't think mainstream liberalism in the cultural sphere is compatible with progressivism. first and foremost as it relates to free speech. and other progressive inanities such as its obsession with identitarianism.
"Unmasking liberal hegemony is the go-to move of conservative critics."
This is an odd take. Gramsci and his followers, such a Robin DiAngelo (Fragility) and Alicia Garza (BLM) do this non-stop. Are they conservatives? And they are doing their best to replace liberal hegemony with what they (wrongly) call progressivism, which is what BB is helpfully pointing out!
So as usual we can't have a discussion unless our words are defined.
Why isn't it a rule of this Persuasion Community that when you write a long post about X you must define X at the start?
Isn't "define your terms" the most basic rule of logical persuasion?
"Liberal" and "progressive" are discussed endlessly, and they both have many definitions. For example today's "progressives" follow the 3rd Progressive Party line -- from 1948. Henry Wallace ran on their ticket, but the party was set up by concealed communists, which is why it's completely different from Teddy Roosevelt and the original progressives.
You nailed the problem with this and so many essays. An entire series could be devoted to defining exactly what is meant by liberal instead of the handful of squishy buzzwords we are always handed. We could start with a commitment to freedom of expression, conscience, and association. Were I editor, « define your terms » would be scrawled in red on most of these.
How did liberalism achieve this "hegemony"? Obviously not by brute force, so what could it be? Maybe liberal ideas outcompeted illiberal ideas fair and square? Illiberalism (and yes, this would apply to both right and left illiberalism) is determined to deny that possibility, to convince themselves that somehow, some way, liberalism must have cheated. Maybe that's why they're so devoted to conspiracy theories.
First, Western Liberalism has a profound effect on people's ethical outlook on reality. Just consider how different the outlook of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) people is from 88% of the rest of the world. What other than a hegemonic system could bring about this profound variance?
Second, it is not hard to find counter-examples to the author's claims that liberal government is ethically neutral. Just consider how federal government administrative policies regarding DEI ultimately percolated through all social institutions far beyond the dictates of statutory law - it became the very "air" we breathed. Or how the Obama administration sought to force Catholic Charities to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion services.
Lastly, for the author to extol liberalism's "humility, openness, pluralism, compromise, and proportion" is to hold up such pluralism as a good ethical end. Now, one can argue about whether it is a good, but it is pretty clear that liberalism treats it as such.
Great. My wife and I were finally going to start watching Breaking Bad tonight. As in a few minutes from now, when she gets out of the shower. But now you’ve spoiled what I must assume is a major plot point. You’re a monster.
As BB points out, it's really progressivism that's intolerant and religious. The 'I'm for the latest thing' crowd imposing their language and ideas upon the rest of us. It's seems intended to make everyone else feel dumb. Don't know 'unhoused' is the new term for 'homeless'? You're a peasant. Reading through something by the Cleveland Clinic - the august, solidly establishment Cleveland Clinic - I kept coming up against contorted pc-speak. 'People who menstruate'? Honestly.
Part of Donald Trump's appeal is the language he uses. He doesn't seem to talk down to the public.
Maybe, just maybe, progressives (really post-modern fanatics) should allow longstanding conventions alone. Deferring to the majority - or even a historically entrenched plurality - once in a while isn't illiberal. Example: I'm a gay man and would have been happy with a newly devised institution that replicated the legal parameters of marriage without calling it marriage.
I think what the author is really getting at is what used to be called the sacred. Roger Scruton defined modern liberalism as oikophobic:
An extreme and immoderate aversion to the sacred and the thwarting of the connection of the sacred to the culture of the West appears to be the underlying motif of oikophobia; and not the substitution of Hellenic Christianity by another coherent system of belief. The paradox of the oikophobe seems to be that any opposition directed at the theological and cultural tradition of the West is to be encouraged even if it is "significantly more parochial, exclusivist, patriarchal, and ethnocentric". (Mark Dooley, Roger Scruton: Philosopher on Dover Beach (Continuum 2009), p. 78.)
I’d go a step further and say that modern liberalism has created a kind of moral order that I call the Sacred Victim, Entitled Parasite, best exemplified with Kneeling Nancy and the Summer of Floyd.
The idea of the Parasite culture is derived from the invention of the idea of Human Rights, meaning privilege without obligation. A person doesn’t have to do anything in return for entitlements and special treatment (privilege) other than be born; whether it’s voting, speech, race and sex quotas or being held accountable for dangerous or illegal behavior. This allows the traumatized to parasitize institutions created by white men, the ultimate oppressor group. And the author kind of gets at this with his breakdown of the various cultures such as monarchy vs. tyranny and so forth, but of course doesn’t bring into a account the race or sex blasphemy.
seems to me the Professor is conflating liberalism and progressivism, and the latter very much does very much fit the conservative critique. The influence of progressivism, particularly of its loopy cultural variety on mainstream liberalism is something mainstream liberalism should be very much aware of and guard against. If the last elections haven't taught them this lesson, then probably nothing will.
I see how this is not just progressivism, which would be more intentional, blatant, and agressive in hegemony, but also liberalism as the author argues.
The idea of a value being completely “neutral” like “empty space,” I understand as false. I understand liberalism as founded in individualism, and many conservative critiques and concerns seem to be a dysfunctional balancing of individual and group interests, those groups including the family (single parent households, decreasing marriage rate), clan (atomization and separation from relatives), tribe (loss of group identities, including tribal and religious associations), nation (immigration/cultural issues), and even state (conceding too much to other states, immigration, trade and defense policies) and world (declining fertility rate).
"Now, when liberals hear stuff like this, their first reaction is: what universe are these bad-faith, hysterical babies living in? Look around! No one’s being forced to do anything."
Ummm, How about when your six year old wasn't allowed to be in school with their friends for TWO YEARS because you lived in a liberal deep blue city? How about when pregnant women were forced to get a brand new, never studied long term covid vaccine ( that didn't stop transmission or infection) -- or lose a job they needed ? How about when businesses, churches, schools were closed in blue states, while red states had re opnened - without mass death?
I guess I would say, what world were liberals living in from 2020 to 2023?
100%. And it was deemed OK by municipalities and went more or less unremarked upon by the media when millions of people congregated unmasked outdoors in order to protest George Floyd's killings...while everyone else was being told to 'shelter in place' and business shutdowns were mandated.
I just spent $10 on a sub to comment on this.
WHAT A CROCK OF UNADULTERATED CONSERVATIVE APOLOGIA. It's a full-throated endorsement of allowing Dominionist thought and practice to govern American civil society, regardless of the consequences for disfavored groups such as my own: openly gay men with AIDS, who have been targeted for persecution, destruction and elimination from civil society *continuously* since 1986 (the Lyndon LaRouche-driven California ballot initiative called Proposition 64 which would have sent anyone *suspected* of having AIDS or HIV to permanent internment and separation from the general population for life - this was followed in 1987 by LaRouche's Prop 69 and in 1988 by Paul Gann's Prop 96, and all were defeated at the ballot box).
The very idea that liberals enjoy or enforce a "hegemony" of values such as fairness, justice, equality, reciprocity etc. is so far out in left field it's out of the ballpark and in the long-term parking of the nearest airport. The assertion that this is a political philosophy that oppresses the Christian/Republican/MAGA/Orbanist-Putinist right-wing authoritarians is absurd - and makes me wonder what agenda the author is pushing, or whom he's working for.
I mean, come on - since when are fairness and justice *relative*? How can these be placed on a spectrum of attributes and made equivalent to oppression, silencing, elimination of dissenters, of opposition parties, of critics of the regime, of ethnic/sexual/disabled minority groups? And he has the nerve to make claims about the abandonment of morality and ethics by liberals when he's preaching the elevation of the most unethical and immoral people, policies and practices imaginable?
Let's be brutally frank: This is a dangerous attempt to insert yet another loaded false equivalence into our current political and cultural discourse that, if acted upon, could cause the deaths of millions of minority/disabled/LGBTQ+ Americans and the permanent imposition of an authoritarian, autocratic governing regime in America for the foreseeable future. If you think I'm exaggerating, take a look at recent statements by the leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation - Douglas Wilson, et al - who have the ears of the President and the Vice President and a committed acolyte in Russell Vought and who already have substantial influence over government officials, policy, and policy outcomes.
In the background, of course, we just saw the first Homeless/Alleged Mentally Ill Forced Incarceration And Compulsory Treatment Internment And Concentration Camp manifest in Utah, with many more to follow. Think of all the billions of dollars that have recently been allocated to these camp-building efforts and the number of facilities they have said will be constructed. Who's going to fill all of these concentration camps after they've deported/disappeared every immigrant here? Who do you think they have in mind? (These are all, for the record, rhetorical questions - you already know the answers whether you want to admit it or not.)
That's the logical end to what this piece envisions. I reject every word of it unequivocally, and you should too if you want to have a decent country again, if you want the invasion of our cities by our own armed forces to cease forever, if you want the unfettered abduction and kidnapping of innocents off our streets and the immiseration of their families and loved ones to stop and every single abductee repatriated with their families and accountability imposed on those who conducted those efforts at every level, if you want to live without fear of being disappeared/interned/executed by the government, if you want your damn country back from these goons and monsters and twisted soulless people who have stolen it from us.
"Individual freedom, fairness, reciprocity, and tolerance aren’t just political ideals or legal principles. They’re the foundation of a comprehensive way of life, one that many of us who support liberalism have adopted, consciously or not, as a worldview."
----------
This strikes me as an overly broad categorization of the "liberalism" that supposedly constitutes a "comprehensive way of life". It seems to me that these are pretty basic ideas that, at least traditionally, have been paid lip service by both sides of the cultural aisle, and frankly I don't see how any free society can compromise on any of them.
The problem is that the extreme segments of both the left and right are profoundly *illiberal*, both seeking in some way to exert a kind of hegemony upon everyone else. And I fully acknowledge the dangers of what the far left seeks—however, I would argue that the current state of things is that the far left dramatically overplayed its hand and has been brought to heel.
Progressive cultural extremists were right in presuming that they had a good deal of influence through leveraging the power of white guilt—something that I don't like in principle but I'm not categorically opposed to in practice since, lets face it, how many social reforms related to the civil rights of blacks and other minorities would really be possible without a healthy dose of white guilt?
Where they erred is in the assumption that this power could be wielded with unrestrained abandon, in order to inject into the liberal cultural hegemony ideas which have long circulated in cultural studies departments but run counter to most people's moral intuition and basic notions of fairness—perhaps best illustrated by the deeply unpopular idea that "only white people can be racist".
Accordingly, they generated a huge backlash that—from where I stand, at least—has effectively burst the progressive bubble and brought it back down to earth. What we have now is more or less the same general dominance of the basic liberal ideals that ought to be present in any society calling itself a Western democracy, that existed before progressive illiberalism used social media to stage a doomed revolution.
Unfortunately, the illiberal right is still using the illiberal left as a pretext in order to impose something far more menacing than cultural hegemony—actual state power. For years we have listened to disingenuous Christians complain about not being able to practice their faith openly, which most reasonable people have seen as nonsense. What they're actually complaining about is not being able to throw their weight around like they once did.
It's one thing to be sympathetic to Christians feeling judged for their beliefs. Most of my life I've felt judged for my lack of religious belief. But you don't see me trying to impose atheism on my fellow Americans—and no, demanding a secular form of government is not an imposition of atheism. It's a restatement of the timeless and bedrock American principle of separation of church and state, which today's illiberal right has openly and explicitly turned against.
But the illiberal right—MAGA, if you will—has made a crucial mistake. You can't control culture with state power—especially not in America. We don't take kindly to that sort of thing. Especially when it cynically exploits the common man to accrue power and feed the fortunes of the obscenely wealthy. Ultimately, the illiberal right is only digging its own grave, sowing the seeds of a backlash that is coming and coming hard.
I've made amends and had my kumbayas with the decent conservatives of the ever-dwindling liberal right. But I'll have zero sympathy for MAGA when their phony populist movement comes crashing down around them, and they face whatever consequences accrue for the unforgivable damage they've done to our country.
awesome response!
actually having thought about it a little more, I don't think mainstream liberalism in the cultural sphere is compatible with progressivism. first and foremost as it relates to free speech. and other progressive inanities such as its obsession with identitarianism.
"Unmasking liberal hegemony is the go-to move of conservative critics."
This is an odd take. Gramsci and his followers, such a Robin DiAngelo (Fragility) and Alicia Garza (BLM) do this non-stop. Are they conservatives? And they are doing their best to replace liberal hegemony with what they (wrongly) call progressivism, which is what BB is helpfully pointing out!
So as usual we can't have a discussion unless our words are defined.
Why isn't it a rule of this Persuasion Community that when you write a long post about X you must define X at the start?
Isn't "define your terms" the most basic rule of logical persuasion?
"Liberal" and "progressive" are discussed endlessly, and they both have many definitions. For example today's "progressives" follow the 3rd Progressive Party line -- from 1948. Henry Wallace ran on their ticket, but the party was set up by concealed communists, which is why it's completely different from Teddy Roosevelt and the original progressives.
You nailed the problem with this and so many essays. An entire series could be devoted to defining exactly what is meant by liberal instead of the handful of squishy buzzwords we are always handed. We could start with a commitment to freedom of expression, conscience, and association. Were I editor, « define your terms » would be scrawled in red on most of these.
Liberalism, whether clasical or modern, is defined by a belief in something called Human Rights.
How did liberalism achieve this "hegemony"? Obviously not by brute force, so what could it be? Maybe liberal ideas outcompeted illiberal ideas fair and square? Illiberalism (and yes, this would apply to both right and left illiberalism) is determined to deny that possibility, to convince themselves that somehow, some way, liberalism must have cheated. Maybe that's why they're so devoted to conspiracy theories.
Several thoughts on reading this piece:
First, Western Liberalism has a profound effect on people's ethical outlook on reality. Just consider how different the outlook of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) people is from 88% of the rest of the world. What other than a hegemonic system could bring about this profound variance?
Second, it is not hard to find counter-examples to the author's claims that liberal government is ethically neutral. Just consider how federal government administrative policies regarding DEI ultimately percolated through all social institutions far beyond the dictates of statutory law - it became the very "air" we breathed. Or how the Obama administration sought to force Catholic Charities to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion services.
Lastly, for the author to extol liberalism's "humility, openness, pluralism, compromise, and proportion" is to hold up such pluralism as a good ethical end. Now, one can argue about whether it is a good, but it is pretty clear that liberalism treats it as such.
Great. My wife and I were finally going to start watching Breaking Bad tonight. As in a few minutes from now, when she gets out of the shower. But now you’ve spoiled what I must assume is a major plot point. You’re a monster.
As BB points out, it's really progressivism that's intolerant and religious. The 'I'm for the latest thing' crowd imposing their language and ideas upon the rest of us. It's seems intended to make everyone else feel dumb. Don't know 'unhoused' is the new term for 'homeless'? You're a peasant. Reading through something by the Cleveland Clinic - the august, solidly establishment Cleveland Clinic - I kept coming up against contorted pc-speak. 'People who menstruate'? Honestly.
Part of Donald Trump's appeal is the language he uses. He doesn't seem to talk down to the public.
Maybe, just maybe, progressives (really post-modern fanatics) should allow longstanding conventions alone. Deferring to the majority - or even a historically entrenched plurality - once in a while isn't illiberal. Example: I'm a gay man and would have been happy with a newly devised institution that replicated the legal parameters of marriage without calling it marriage.
This is a good essay.
I think what the author is really getting at is what used to be called the sacred. Roger Scruton defined modern liberalism as oikophobic:
An extreme and immoderate aversion to the sacred and the thwarting of the connection of the sacred to the culture of the West appears to be the underlying motif of oikophobia; and not the substitution of Hellenic Christianity by another coherent system of belief. The paradox of the oikophobe seems to be that any opposition directed at the theological and cultural tradition of the West is to be encouraged even if it is "significantly more parochial, exclusivist, patriarchal, and ethnocentric". (Mark Dooley, Roger Scruton: Philosopher on Dover Beach (Continuum 2009), p. 78.)
I’d go a step further and say that modern liberalism has created a kind of moral order that I call the Sacred Victim, Entitled Parasite, best exemplified with Kneeling Nancy and the Summer of Floyd.
The idea of the Parasite culture is derived from the invention of the idea of Human Rights, meaning privilege without obligation. A person doesn’t have to do anything in return for entitlements and special treatment (privilege) other than be born; whether it’s voting, speech, race and sex quotas or being held accountable for dangerous or illegal behavior. This allows the traumatized to parasitize institutions created by white men, the ultimate oppressor group. And the author kind of gets at this with his breakdown of the various cultures such as monarchy vs. tyranny and so forth, but of course doesn’t bring into a account the race or sex blasphemy.