The Line Between Liberal and Illiberal
We live in an era of growing illiberalism and intolerance on both the left and the right, which is one of the reasons this publication exists. But we also live in an era of growing rebellion against this illiberalism—also one of the reasons this publication exists.
What makes this rebellion so interesting is that it frequently breaks out from within the ranks of the very organizations, movements, and subcultures that are claimed as a base of support for today’s illiberal factions.
Take the recent case of celebrated Nigerian feminist novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Cathy Young describes the situation.
Seven years ago, early in the social justice revolution of the 2010s, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was one of that revolution’s icons. Her call to arms (“We should all be feminists”) was incorporated into Beyoncé’s song ‘Flawless’ and showcased at the 2014 MTV Music Awards, with the word FEMINIST looming large in neon letters. Today, as the revolution rolls on, Adichie has emerged as a voice of dissent—or, to detractors, a voice for bigotry.
Adichie recently caused controversy with a long essay titled “It Is Obscene: A True Reflection in Three Parts.” The piece is a cri de coeur against the self-righteous zealotry of current social justice politics, particularly online, and against what has come to be known as “cancel culture.”
If you read Adichie’s essay, after you make it through some of the backbiting office politics of the African literary scene, you get to the heart of her complaint.
[W]e have a generation of young people on social media so terrified of having the wrong opinions that they have robbed themselves of the opportunity to think and to learn and to grow.... What matters is not goodness but the appearance of goodness. We are no longer human beings. We are now angels jostling to out-angel one another. God help us. It is obscene.
Elsewhere, Adichie warns The Guardian that “there is a new liberal [sic] political orthodoxy that I believe will stifle art, particularly literature, in America.”
Will Trumpism be the subject of literature? I'm sure it will be. But will it succeed as art? I doubt it. Because it would require, for example, the acknowledgment of a Trump-supporting character as fully human, and I can already imagine a fiction writer getting panicky at the thought of a social media backlash for the crime of “enabling the evils of Trump” or something of the sort. Ideological purity is dangerous and is becoming the lens through which many approach storytelling in America.
By the way, I have found myself writing “liberal [sic]” a lot lately. Those of us who identify as “classical liberals” have often grumbled that the term was co-opted in the 20th Century by people who wanted freedom in the realm of ideas and personal lifestyle while advocating overbearing government controls and a relentlessly constricted range of freedom in our economic lives. Well, now the inversion is complete, because “liberal” is casually used to refer to the faction that is most opposed to freedom in the realm of ideas and lifestyle, too.
This is not a mere semantic quibble. It’s something we’re going to have to fix, because how can we defend a free society when we have no word for it?
Meanwhile, we recently got news about another defection in mainstream popular culture against “liberalism [sic]” and in favor of actual liberalism. Winston Marshall, banjo player for the folk-rock group Mumford & Sons, recently ran afoul of the illiberal left’s orthodoxy when he praised a book by journalist Andy Ngo for exposing the left’s violent Antifa movement. He was suspended from the band and issued an apology.
In the last week, he left the band permanently and rescinded the apology.
I have spent much time reflecting, reading and listening. The truth is that my commenting on a book that documents the extreme Far-Left and their activities is in no way an endorsement of the equally repugnant Far-Right. The truth is that reporting on extremism at the great risk of endangering oneself is unquestionably brave. I also feel that my previous apology in a small way participates in the lie that such extremism does not exist, or worse, is a force for good.
So why leave the band?
On the eve of his leaving to the West, Solzhenitsyn published an essay titled “Live Not By Lies.” I have read it many times now since the incident at the start of March. It still profoundly stirs me.
“And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul—don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.”
For me to speak about what I’ve learnt to be such a controversial issue will inevitably bring my bandmates more trouble. My love, loyalty, and accountability to them cannot permit that. I could remain and continue to self-censor but it will erode my sense of integrity. Gnaw my conscience.
This is the basic flaw or weakness in any form of illiberalism, whether it’s as all-encompassing as Soviet Communism or mostly just takes place on Twitter like what we have today. Any time you create a system of orthodoxy and conformity, there will be many people whose conscience and sense of independence won’t permit them to go along with it.
They will dissent for the reason Solzhenitsyn did: because they cannot bring themselves to do otherwise.
I’m also reminded of another famous Solzhenitsyn quote: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.” Same for the line between the liberal and the illiberal.
So we should expect the same independence, the same promptings of individual conscience, to motivate dissent on all sides and among all different orthodoxies. We don’t just see this among writers and musicians facing social media pile-ons from the left. We also see it against Trump-backing religious conservatives.
A few weeks ago, a letter was leaked from Russell Moore—an influential and highly respected Baptist preacher—detailing his reasons for leaving the Southern Baptist Convention.
Peter Wehner explains that part of the reason is the Baptist organization’s seeming complicity in covering up sexual abuse in their churches. But the conflict was broader.
[C]onfronting sexual abuse wasn’t the only issue dividing Moore from the SBC executive committee. “The other absolutely draining and unrelenting issue has been that of racial reconciliation,” Moore wrote. “My family and I have faced constant threats from white nationalists and white supremacists, including within our convention. Some of them have been involved in neo-Confederate activities going back for years. Some are involved with groups funded by white nationalist nativist organizations. Some of them have just expressed raw racist sentiment, behind closed doors.”
Moore has been a critic of Donald Trump and of religious leaders who make excuses for Trump. That wasn’t the immediate reason for the breach, but it’s connected to the wider reason, the sense that many religious leaders are driven by the need to protect their organizations, or to chase after political influence, or to pander to the prejudices of their rank and file—rather than by the values and convictions they are supposed to stand for.
Wehner quotes a pastor who describes the problem this way: “you still fundamentally get people who are in love with power and will take any means necessary to beat you down so they have power and you are subservient to them, not the Gospel.”
It’s the same problem laid bare by Solzhenitsyn: such organizations can only survive to the extent that the people who remain in them are “part of the herd” and desperate to be “fed and kept warm,” to maintain their jobs and status at the expense of their conscience. But not everybody will be, and the would-be authoritarians will always be undercut by courageous dissenters.
Moreover, the outspoken dissenters may be few, but they often speak for a “silent majority.” That seems to be the case for the Southern Baptist Convention, which just voted against the leaders Moore was warning against. As David French sums it up, “fundamentalist Baptists charged into Nashville behind pirate flags pledging to ‘take the ship.’ They failed.”
What is true of the Southern Baptist Convention is also true of social media: It’s very easy for a small and strident minority to fool us all into thinking that they are the vox populi when they most definitely are not.
Consider some poll data from Pew.
The problem, as David French points out, is that “Twitter is the dominant platform for cultural, political, and academic elites to converse with each other,” which skews their perspective. Twitter may not be real life, it may be as much of a lefty hothouse as an Ivy League campus, but the most influential voices in the media either don’t know that or frequently lose sight of it.
There is a lot of evidence for a “silent majority” in favor of liberalism, but so far there is far too much emphasis on the word “silent.” In that respect, the most important thing written on this in the last week is from Abigail Shrier, who has been ostracized for her criticism of overaggressive “transition” treatment for transgender children.
Shrier describes the phenomenon of “silent supporters.”
Half of Twitter seems to think I’m some sort of demon. But if you read my inbox, you’d think I was popular, awash as I am in secret fan mail and “silent supporter” notes…. I agree with you, though I couldn't possibly say so publicly. I have a job to think of, a reputation to uphold, children to put through college, a mortgage to pay, promotions to gun for, a spouse to please, friendships to maintain. All of the trappings of a comfortable life....
And it is easy to justify our silence. We tell ourselves that we are protecting our families by remaining quiet and in the short-term, and we may be. But we are also handing our children over to a culture in which freedom of conscience and expression are drowned out. We are teaching our children that truth shouldn't be our primary concern—or at least, that truth is negotiable or subordinate to being agreeable. They are learning that it is more important to remain acceptable to the powerful than to be truly free....
The first hundred or so silent supporter emails meant the most to me. They made me feel less crazy and less alone. But the inescapable reality is that defeating this ideology will take courage. And courage is not something that can happen in private. Courage requires each one of us to speak up, publicly, for what we believe in. Even when—especially when—it carries costs.
It’s time for the silent majority to stop being so silent. The overwhelming majority of people don't want the censorious system of conformity that we're getting. If we all spoke up at once, that wold become obvious, and none of us would have anything to fear.
This is yet another reason why this publication exists: to get as many people as possible, from as many different political and ideological persuasions as possible, to speak up for liberalism, to talk openly and honestly about the big issues, and to dispel our fear of a clamorous but tiny minority of dogmatists.