The woke mob will come for us all

Even the most dogmatic and ideologically pure comrade will eventually fall foul of the latest invisible rule book and be burnt at the stake without ever knowing precisely what they have done wrong.

Thus we have seen in recent times several high-profile torchbearers of the left cry cancel culture or become deathbed converts to the cause of free speech. A few of us got here earlier.

Author J.K. Rowling has been subjected to actual book-burnings for daring to express her views on gender and academic Richard Dawkins has had an award revoked for daring to even ask a question about gender.

Now philosopher Peter Singer is so impassioned about resisting cancel culture that he has founded an academic journal in which fearless champions of free speech can boldly express their views behind the cloak of anonymity.

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Indeed, it is telling that one episode Singer cited as an example of cancel culture was the backlash against a feminist academic who argued that if people were able to identify as a different gender and be accepted why should they not be able to identify as a different race.

Ironically the piece is precisely the sort of torturous social theory that the cultural police typically rally around but in this case the ultra-woke academia read so much like right-wing satire that the snake had no choice but to eat itself.

Likewise Rowling and Dawkins – once darlings of the left intelligentsia – have become entangled and strangled by the same ever-moving tentacles of gender theory. And the more they tried to struggle or argue against it the more entangled they became.

And this brings us to the dark heart of the phenomenon that these supposed intellectual giants are just starting to discover. The forces of cancel culture or political correctness or the outrage brigade or the thought police or whatever name you want to call them are not interested in the merits of the argument.

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An old friend of mine, a pollster who works for various progressive organisations, identified the phenomenon thus – for the new censorious left, it is not a question of what policies or ideas or beliefs are effective or rational or humane. It is about whether you are a “good” person or not. And this is where – and how – things really get ugly.

To abuse or demand the sacking of someone for having a different opinion to you is something even the most hard line activist would blanche at if expressed in those terms.

But to abuse or demand the sacking of a racist or a fascist or a transphobe? Well that is almost a civic duty.

Thus from the cancellers’ perspective there actually is no debate.

There is a suite of “acceptable” ideological positions one must hold and if a person expresses any resistance or opposition to them then that person is deemed unacceptable. And of course it is then self-evident that unacceptable people who hold unacceptable views can no longer be accepted by society.

And so despite all her thoughtful essays and appeals for tolerance, Rowling’s book-burners don’t think they are attacking her for a difference of opinion. They think they are attacking a transphobe and transphobia needs to be stamped out.

This is of course the same medieval mentality behind all angry mobs. It is not about proving the merits of your argument, it is about proving you’re not a witch. And if you protest that you’re not a witch then, well, that’s exactly what a witch would say.

For anyone who thinks this is hyperbole, just consider the number of times you’ve heard anyone publicly protest that they are not a racist and how that turned out for them. And of course Rowling tried to protest she was not transphobic and look how that turned out for her.

Indeed, a prominent Australian activist recently declared on social media that anyone who used the terms “woke” or “inner-city” to criticise the left should be assumed to be racist or transphobic unless they could demonstrate otherwise.

And so again, in the mind of the fanatic there is no debate they are shutting down. There are simply those who are ideologically pure and universally tolerant and bigoted ignorant knuckle-draggers who, needless to say, cannot be tolerated.

The ultimate expression of this is embodied in Antifa, the extreme and often violent movement whose name is short for “anti-fascist”. Thus when they take to the streets to abuse people and destroy public property they are not attacking or rioting, they are fighting fascism.

The logic is both perfect and Pythonesque: We are against fascism. We are against you. Therefore you must be a fascist. Douglas Adams himself couldn’t have come up with better.

Now more and more on the left are discovering that they are fascists too. Indeed, Antifa attacked and vandalised Democrat offices in Portland to mark Joe Biden’s inauguration.

“We don’t want Biden,” they said. “We want revenge for police murders, imperialist wars, and fascist massacres.”

And so the mob comes for us all. But history will remember who fought it and who fed it.