And why it should be neither reactionary nor fascistic — The events of recent years have got me thinking lately. The many ways the anti-woke movement went wrong, the way the IDW imploded, the way the political right has taken an authoritarian turn, the emergence of a ‘National Conservatism’ that is neither nationalist nor truly conservative but highly authoritarian…

It is actually anti-liberal but not nationalist — Today’s theme is ‘National Conservatism’, a relatively new movement within the right that is holding regular meetings in several Western countries, which is promoting a very authoritarian version of ‘conservatism’. (I’ve put conservatism in quotes here because I believe that real conservatism must uphold limited government, which means I don’t…

A reply to Andrew Sullivan and Damon Linker — Today, I want to reply to two recent articles that talk about the current polarization on trans issues: The Queers Versus The Homosexuals by Andrew Sullivan, and Ten Theses for Liberals on Sex and Gender by Damon Linker. The current situation is unsustainable, and something needs to change soon, in…

Or better, end the culture wars and the hyperpolarization — The hyperpolarization in politics, the always escalating culture wars, the rising authoritarianism on all sides… it gets very frustrating over time. Especially if you are a trans person, one of the groups of people both sides like to use as a political football. When I first came out as trans…

The challenge of wokeism highlights a 300 year old fault line — Welcome back to the series where we look at what went wrong with the so-called anti-woke movement. In the previous articles, we established that while classical liberals and the authoritarian right both oppose wokeism, we do so on different grounds, and have different and incompatible answers to wokeism too…

There needs to be a path out of the shadow of the authoritarians — Welcome back to the series where we look at what went wrong with the so-called anti-woke movement. Last time, we established that the anti-woke movement is a coalition of people with different worldviews, and that authoritarian conservatives (as opposed to classical liberals and libertarian conservatives) have gained the upper…

Cultural Systemism is a Serious Problem. But it’s Not All Powerful Yet. — Those of us who come into regular contact with news about the culture wars really need a reality check from time to time. The reality is that there are very real problems out there, rooted in very problematic philosophies, originating from both the far-left and the far-right. We need to…

Let’s go back to the basics and look at the philosophical roots again — Let’s face it: The anti-woke movement has become a trainwreck. People are now confused about what ‘woke’ really means. Many are just sick and tired of any talk about ‘woke’ vs ‘anti-woke’ at this point. Meanwhile, right-wing culture warriors, many with religious-authoritarian motivations, have hijacked the anti-woke movement to…

The ‘protective’ authoritarianism of the aughts is back, with a new face — To put it simply, be very concerned about your freedom when power-hungry politicians say they want to protect you (or your family, or your community) from something. Real freedom isn’t granted or protected by politicians. What the two sides share is rising censoriousness-a tendency to want to shut down views…