In a recent article, Ed West argues that while the Left used to be associated with moral relativism (“there is no one truth” etc), today it is much more absolutist. Whether it’s Rhodes Must Fall or Defund the Police, the Left’s moral confidence feels similar to the conservative preachers and politicians of the 70s and 80s.
The reason, West suggests, is that the power dynamics have changed and thus the incentives. As he puts it, “Relativism is a position you employ when you’re weak, to be abandoned when you win.”
He goes on:
“Likewise with censorship, which is by definition a tool of the powerful. This is not some dark new age of cancel culture, however, it’s just a return to normality. Those who grew up in the late 20th century were living in a highly unusual time, one that could never be sustained, a sexual and cultural revolution that began in 1963 or 1968. But it has ended and, as all revolutionaries must do after storming the Bastille, they have built Bastilles of their own. The new order has brought in numerous methods used by the old order to exert control — not just censorship, but word taboo and rituals which everyone is forced to go along with, or at least not openly criticise.”
For many, free speech is an idea supported only for instrumental reasons: in favour when it helps your side and rejected when it doesn’t.
It’s striking to me how many of the ideas at the foundation of our system, not just free speech but democracy, due process, and individual rights, have only this kind of thin support. Compared to the raw appeal of ideas of nationalism, identity, religion and so on, these ideas seem distant and abstract and it’s easy to miss their importance.
That’s partly because these liberal ideas emerged for pragmatic rather than noble reasons, a reaction to the religious wars in Europe. “Maybe rather than killing the other side every time we have a chance why don’t we agree to disagree?”
I’m not sure how we best defend such ideas as they’re so vulnerable.
Making the pragmatic argument is one solution (my favourite is Alexander’s essay, In Favor of Niceness, Community and Civilization), and wrapping them up in national pride (proud history of Magna Carta etc) or emotion (more episodes of West Wing) might help.
The other possibility is that it’s the kind of lesson that is only learnt from every bitter experience every few generations.
Though that really is a depressing thought.
Read more:
The West’s cultural revolution is over by Ed West
Archipelago and Atomic Communitarianism by Scott Alexander