Why We’re Actually Living in an Illiberal Dystopia
And why anyone OK with the status quo is not a liberal at all.
Today, I want to expand on a point I made in an article two weeks ago: as a liberal, I have absolutely no interest in defending the status quo. I certainly think the negativity towards the status quo from the Left as well as the Right is very justified. We live in a time when corporate interests, wealthy donors, the military industrial complex, and anti-liberal philosophies alike all distort what some people think of as ‘liberalism’. It’s like how, back in the 19th century, some so-called ‘liberal’ pseudo-democracy apologists justified withholding the vote from working class people using a selective reading of John Locke. We certainly regard this stance as illiberal nowadays, and rightly so. Hopefully, people from the future will see our status quo as illiberal in the same way.
The truth is, the status quo we are in is far from the liberal ideal. Therefore, establishment ‘liberals’ who uphold the status quo, who think that things are mostly fine as they are, aren’t real liberals, to be blunt. We need to remember that, at the heart of liberalism, there’s a fundamental commitment to liberty and equality, and this has to include a free and fair exchange of ideas in what we like to call the marketplace of ideas. If liberalism doesn’t mean this, it means nothing at all. Therefore, we need to examine every issue through this lens. Let’s face it: it is clear that our status quo really isn’t compatible with liberalism, understood this way. Indeed, I believe the fundamental problem with our status quo is that it is in many ways the exact opposite of what is intended by liberalism. There is effectively no free flow of ideas, and no equal opportunity for ideas to demonstrate their merit.
Let me explain. One of the biggest problems we have right now is that many of the commonly held political positions, on both sides of politics, are popular because people with an agenda have been promoting them, in their respective echo chambers. This is, of course backed by money and organization, so there’s no way someone without the same kind of money and organization can compete, no matter how sound their ideas are. The situation is further amplified by corporate media, which generally caters to one or the other side of the polarized political landscape, so they can maximize profits. All this means there is effectively nothing like a level playing field for ideas and opinions anymore. The marketplace of ideas, one of the most important parts of a liberal society, is totally dysfunctional right now. I believe a true liberal would have to see this as one of our top problems.
A related problem is that the media, and other opinion influencers, consist of mostly the same kind of people. Almost all of them went to the same prestigious colleges, know the same few circles of people, and have the same kind of experiences in life. There’s really not much diversity in the influencer class, which contributes to the conformity and the insularity of the echo chambers. Now, this phenomenon actually applies to everywhere from journalism to academia, to the music industry, and it needs to be fixed across the board. However, in terms of politics, the consequences are particularly serious, because they include things like increased polarization, important issues and viewpoints being excluded from the discussion, and even the manipulation of public opinion. These things can mean the difference between success and failure in resolving important issues, justice and lack thereof, even war and peace. I believe the current situation cannot be acceptable to anyone who is actually committed to liberal values.
This is why I actually welcome all ideas that have the potential to challenge the very problematic status quo we find ourselves in. It’s why I even suggested that certain nuanced, academic forms of critical theory might in fact be useful, when taken in moderation, as a mirror holding our liberalism up to scrutiny, to examine if we are indeed staying true to our values. However, the critical theory Left basically has the same problem I just illustrated. The Theory Left’s thinkers are made up of people who went through the same kind of training in college and grad school. The career incentives and disincentives, as well as the potential social consequences people might face, keep the echo chamber from being challenged too seriously. This is why I can’t trust the Theory Left to come up with anything better than the status quo either. Just like the status quo’s opinion influencers, the Theory Left’s thinkers aren’t operating in anything like a free market of ideas. It’s why they have produced so many fundamentally problematic and illiberal ideas. Using an analogy from the Hunger Games, if the status quo is President Snow, the Theory Left is President Coin, and is definitely no better.
That is why we need a ‘back to basics’ liberalism. True liberalism that is about true liberty, including a commitment to independent thinking and a functional marketplace of ideas. This is the kind of progress we need right now.
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 Western democracies in the 21st century.
