Michel Bauwens on Identity Politics and Free Speech

Discussion

Editorial from February 2022: Voltaire is Dead:

The anti-JoeRogan campaign shows the profound wokification of the post-liberal cultural ‘left’.

At the core of the woke ideology is the content that dissent is hate speech, i.e. differences of opinion are considered to endanger and erase the new identity formations. The consequence is that speech must be policed, and that dissent has to be eliminated. Stating that their could be biological differences between the sexes, or simply pointing to the new types of crimes occurring in female prisons, are now reason enough to ban people from expression on social media. This is bad enough when active minorities scare the managerial elites into compliance, but worse when this is formally endorsed by official organizations that make it the center of their new policy, as for example the ACLU as done. The Joe Rogan affair shows how generalized it has become, it is quite simply, the new hegemony.

The massive campaign against Joe Rogan, which involves millions of emails sent by MoveOn type liberal-left organisations, in alliance with the corporate media and Big Pharma-driven medical policies, shows that this wokification has almost fully embraced the cognitive class. One ideological cartel is now rather firmly in control, with disastrous consequences. As Evan Thompson has shown, catastrophic advice by ideological cartels has destroyed nations and civilizations in the past.

Joe Rogan, a empathetic and intelligent moderator who has nurtured a pluralistic media presence, and aligns 80% with Bernie Sanders on social policy and is broadly a MLK type anti-racist is subject to a deplatforming campaign which has exactly the same structure as woke cancel culture: talking with scientific dissidents (which he did along with the more mainstream oriented scientists) is ‘killing us’. While the woke argument is more about a moral and symbolic death, Joe Rogan is actually accused of causing physical deaths. This despite the fact that many of the critiques of his multi-doctoral interviewees, often considered the leading experts before the onset of Covid, turned out to be mostly correct, while the theses of those that cancelled them, have turned out to be mistakes. Think of the evaluations that the vaccines would neither stop the disease nor contaminations, that the masks were not as effective as thought, and that the Lab hypothesis should be taken seriously. All these statements are now considered largely correct, even though the careers of the critics have often been destroyed. For sure, Rogan has also invited experts with more radical critiques, which may considered to be far removed from any mainstream consensus, still there is no reason these people should not be heard and evaluated. This is the point: scientific pluralism and open debates about health policy are not a luxury, but a necessity, and any mistaken evaluations by all sides, should be judged on their rational coherence and factual basis, nothing else. Let’s not forget, while some states are still imposing vaccine mandates , imposing social and cultural segregation (exactly the other counterpoint of the woke political program, even though it is here applied based on medical choice and not on immutable characteristics) and suppressing medical choice, other states like Denmark and Finland have or are on the way to abolish all Covid measures, based on solid medical evaluations. Recognized mainstream establishment opinions that are targeted for suppression in the 'mandate' countries.

The same generalized scapegoating mechanism are at work; whereas the woke target people based on biological characteristics and ‘wrong’ political opinions; the medical persecutors target the ‘wrong’ medical choice. What is targeted in both is the liberal freedom to make choices. While not being a liberal myself, as a commons activist I am much more of some kind of social-ist, I fully honour the freedom-equality-brotherhood ideology of the emancipatory movements that started in 1789. This therefore includes the necessity of pluralistic opinions and media. As Voltaire said (I think it was him ?): I don't agree with you, but will fight for your right to say it. This shows the long way that the current 'liberals' have deviated, questions the gains of the inclusive identity movements, the labour movement, the Enlightenment ideals. It is profoundly regressive.

This is the paradox: those that claim to be progressive have now essentially abandoned these values, and aim for a society organized along cast lines based on group allocation; while the former conservatives, and the former social left, are the only ones left to defend the civil values. While conservatives cherish them as ‘liberal’ values, the social left remembers it was the working class movements , and still healthy and inclusive identity movements, that generalized them to everyone.

As Matt Taibi, Hedges , Greenwald, and many others have indicated, we are going through a great reversal of value systems. Those cognitive elites that want to suppress Joe Rogan are the equivalent of the Christian mobs who destroyed the last vestiges of pagan pluralism, but while historical Christianity was eventually able to create a new civilization, wokeness is incompatible even with mere social reproduction. It is an end game of narcissism, and they won't produce any offspring, while destroying all the means of cultural and societal transmission necessary to build healthy and autonomous identities. The combination of neoliberal precarity, social media driven mimetic desires on steroids, and the traumatizing effects of woke educational methods, are creating a perfect storm of persecution. The targeting of Joe Rogan’s pluralism is not Joe Rogan’s problem, but that of all the small fry without his power and reach. They will be driven to niche media, creating a tribal fragmentation that will further undermine our public sphere. If this continues, along with the zero-sum policies of woke-based segregation in our institutions, this is a surefire recipe for societal disintegration and potential civil war. This is why it is worth it to fight against the deplatformers and cancelers who want to suppress both independent speech and medical freedoms.

Trauma begets trauma, unless you reflect on your own shadow.