The Liberal View: Culture Wars Poison Everything
We need to call out moral panics and stop the anti-woke to Trumpism pipeline
Welcome to the first edition of The Liberal View by TaraElla, where I react to things people write and say out there, from a liberal point of view. I believe this is needed because too many people have lost sight of what the liberal way is. Some are confusing postmodern critical theory for progress, while others are joining the reactionary right, having been hooked in by ‘anti-woke’ politics. We need to have a truly liberal discourse, and I’m doing my part here.
I am sure we will now see the revival of the conversation about “defunding” or “abolishing” police. Personally, I am someone who believes in building a world without police or prisons.
- ‘The Police Are The Problem’ by Nathan J. Robinson in Current Affairs
This short quote says it all. Parts of the far-left are utopian idealists, who can’t even face the fact that life and human nature have its inherent limitations. In contrast, liberals are much more pragmatic. We know that while police and prisons might not always be nice, they are required for order, and without order there is no freedom either. This is why I believe it must be liberals, who can deal with reality as it is, who take the lead in arguing for civil rights and social justice. Utopian far-leftists would just make a mess of it (as we are already witnessing in some areas, unfortunately.)
Feminists often wondered what it would take to alert ordinary people to the way women’s rights were being torn down in Scotland. Some thought it would be sport, where trans-identified males are demanding to be allowed to compete with biological women, despite enjoying the advantages bestowed by male puberty. Thanks to the publicity surrounding the Graham case, however, it has turned out to be prisons policy, which is currently providing an object lesson in how public policy was captured by stealth.
- Scotland’s Gender Meltdown by Joan Smith in Quillette
Trans people in prison is indeed a controversial issue, and I favor putting trans prisoners in a specialized wing or unit. However, to get to sane policies like this, the culture war needs to end, and there needs to be respectful discourse. Not the kind of emotionally charged reporting that is found in this article (and many others like it). Going forward, I really look forward to having conversations with people who want to build policies that can satisfy the needs of all sides, regarding trans issues. But it has to not begin with the attitude that trans people are the enemy of biological women (which is being increasingly promoted by right-wing media).
You can study HIV in gay males-but your research sample must include females who have anal sex. You can study health outcomes in new fathers-but only if you agree that some fathers gestated and birthed their offspring. You also can study sexual violence inside of women’s prisons-but you must include those who currently, formerly, or occasionally “identify” as a woman.
I actually agree that postmodern ideology that wishes to completely separate gender from biology is misguided (and it’s not good for trans people either). However, what I see is that this is another example of reporting that is designed to whip up emotions against trans people and trans inclusion. There is now a real problem of (broadly speaking) trans skeptical forces whipping up moral panics using the most extreme examples of activist language, as if it represented the views of everyone on the pro-trans side of the argument. I will be calling out a lot of this, because it really needs to be called out. It is poisoning the whole discourse around trans issues, to nobody’s benefit. We need to remember that it is not a black-or-white, either-or choice at all. But to do that, we need to snap out of the culture war mindset, and re-enter rational debate mode first.
The real challenge to the former president’s hold on the GOP will most likely come from Florida governor Ron DeSantis. But his appeal to the base is that he is a younger and more disciplined version of Trump, who can essentially continue what Trump started in 2016. With her appeals to the conservatism of the George W. Bush era, Haley can be expected to play the same role as Breckinridge: the swansong of a dying breed and the harbinger of her party’s irrevocable transformation.
- ‘Nikki Haley’s neocon pantomime’ in Unherd by Michael Cuenco
Speaking of the harms of culture war politics, the Trump-DeSantis wing of the Republican Party is one of the worst offenders. And it appears that they already believe that they own the future of conservative politics. If so, that’s really bad news, given the illiberal nature of their movement. I guess it’s up to liberals to prove them wrong. Your hubris is more motivation for us to oppose you. By the way, I’m not endorsing Haley here (I’m still unsure about her), and I certainly don’t support neocon politics, being a staunch opponent of the Iraq War from the beginning. But I do believe we really need to stop the Trump-DeSantis culture war wing from claiming the future of political conservatism, and do everything we need to stop it from happening. If Trump-DeSantis fans don’t like Haley, then at least that’s a positive for her in my book.
In the midst of the controversy, Avalance Software has attempted to prove it can overcome the baggage by cutting creative ties with Rowling. Additionally, on-the-ground developers have included a hard-fought option that allows players to create transgender characters. However, trans activists and allies alike felt attempts to rebuild burned bridges between the series and its LGBTQ+ fans were too little, too late.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I do believe that LGBT activists spend far too much time on JK Rowling. Come on, we need to focus on issues, not personalities. And all this controversy is essentially about a game! If these are the priorities of LGBT activism today, then I’m sad. (I also suspect that all the anti-Rowling sentiment might have something to do with her opposition to Jeremy Corbyn. But I think support for Corbyn is very misguided. At least British Labour has a decent chance under Keir Starmer!)
Originally published at https://taraella.substack.com on February 16, 2023.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who recently published her autobiography The TaraElla Story, in which she described the events that inspired her writing.
She is also the author of the Moral Libertarian Horizon books, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
