Jordan Peterson is back, and he is busy promoting his new book Beyond Order. The book contains 12 more rules for life, and literally complements the previous book, with its cover being black, as opposed to the white cover of the original 12 Rules For Life. Now, Peterson has always been a controversial figure. Among the people I know, some absolutely love him, and some have a much less charitable view of him. …

Today, I want to talk about the controversial author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, who has published a book about what he calls ‘identity socialism’, and has been going to media outlets like Prager U to promote his views on this matter.

People who have read my book The Moral Libertarian Horizon Volume 1, or alternatively my early Moral Libertarian articles from around March 2018, may have come across me describing something called ‘identity socialism’. At that time, I believed I was coining a new term, even though I’m not sure if it was already used by other people before.

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John Stuart Mill (1806–73) is one of the most important liberal thinkers of all time. His vision of liberalism is strongly linked to utilitarianism. His most famous work is On Liberty. In On Liberty, Mill described how freedom was now endangered by the newly empowered majority, even as absolute monarchy had faded away. Mill was concerned about both legal encroachment on freedom, which could occur via tyranny of majority rule, as well as what he called “the moral coercion of public opinion”.

Mill’s liberalism was based on a utilitarian philosophy. Indeed, he stated that he was willing to “forego…

This version of TECS continues to feature a UI based on the idea of multiple spaces dedicated to specific types of activity. The spaces each have panels with information and/or links relevant to that type of activity, and they each have a unique wallpaper that is changeable. The spaces can be reached via buttons on the taskbar (color-coded and represented by letters in this version: H for Home, S for Studio, E for Entertainment, N for Newsroom, O for Office, T for Travel). Custom spaces can also be added (there is a taskbar button for that), or could be added…

There has been much discussion recently as to whether ‘the left’ or ‘leftists’ are responsible for cancel culture. I do acknowledge that the origins of Cancel Culture are complicated and multifactorial. I also acknowledge that many leftist schools of thought support free speech and certainly don’t condone Cancel Culture. However, leftism is a broad umbrella encompassing many very different worldviews, and the theoretical justification and inspiration behind much of today’s Cancel Culture is indeed rooted in one particular branch of leftism, what I call ‘criticalism’.

To understand what criticalism is, I think we should revisit what Jordan Peterson described…

Today, I want to respond to two things, Dave Rubin’s recent tweet about ‘secular liberalism’, and James Lindsay’s recent four-part series on Herbert Marcuse’s Repressive Tolerance essay on New Discourses. Jumping off from here, I want to defend the spirit and record of liberalism, from the increasing view on the Right, that it is somehow related to, or tied to, the phenomenon of ‘Wokeism’, more accurately called postmodern critical theory that is emerging in some sections of the Left.

Let’s start with Rubin, and his recent tweet that was quite controversially received. Basically, he said that the tolerance that…

Written by TaraElla in December 2020

John Rawls (1921–2002) was a 20th century liberal political theorist, who provided several important contributions to liberal theory and philosophy.

His most famous contribution was his theory of ‘justice as fairness’. Rawls fundamentally believed that people did not deserve to be born into a particular socio-economic class, race, gender, or other social group. Therefore, he believed that nobody should receive special favor because of these circumstances, and that everyone should have both guaranteed basic liberties and equal opportunity in life. Taking this further, Rawls believed that all social goods should be distributed equally…

Hi everyone, and welcome to The Liberal Project by TaraElla. In this project, we look at the ideas and contributions of great liberal thinkers from various times, and also examine how their ideas are similar, different, or otherwise interact with, the core Moral Libertarian ideal of Equal and Maximum Moral Agency for every individual.

I believe such a project is needed because we need to revive the intellectual and academic side of liberalism. As I have often said, liberalism, being an ideology that has a large footprint in mainstream Western politics, has in recent times overly focused on practical policy…