Successor ideology
The successor ideology is a term devised by essayist Wesley Yang to describe an emergent ideology within left-wing political movements in the United States centered around intersectionality, social justice, identity politics, and anti-racism, which he claims is replacing conventional liberal values of pluralism, freedom of speech, color blindness, and free inquiry.[1][2][3] Proponents of the concept link it to an alleged growth in the intolerance of differing opinions, to cancel culture, "wokeness," "social justice warriors" and to the far left;[4][5][6] Yang has summarized it as "authoritarian Utopianism that masquerades as liberal humanism while usurping it from within."[4]
The term has garnered support from some commentators, with Roger Berkowitz linking it to a broader retreat of liberalism worldwide—challenged from the left in the form of the successor ideology and from the right in the form of illiberal democracy[7]—and with Matt Taibbi calling the ideas of those he associates with the ideology "toxic" and "unattractive."[3][8] The concept, however, has also come under criticism, with some commentators arguing that the term does not accurately describe trends within left-wing movements.[9]
Origins
The term was coined by political writer Wesley Yang in a March 4, 2019 Twitter thread discussing diversity in college admissions and among the professional–managerial class; following a tweet arguing that the end-point of an emergent racial ideology is "critical race theory", Yang stated, "This successor ideology has been a rival to the meritocratic one and has in recent years acquired sufficient power to openly seek hegemony on campuses and elsewhere."[10] He expanded on the term in further tweets in May 2019[11] and in a 2021 blog post,[12] and has appeared on podcasts by The Wall Street Journal and the Manhattan Institute to promote it.[13][14]
Criticism
Sarah Jeong, writing in The Verge, has argued that "the term ['successor ideology'] seems to only muddy the waters since the thing that [critics of the 'successor ideology'] are concerned about isn’t actually a concrete ideology but an inchoate social force with the hallmarks of religious revival."[2]
See also
References
- ^ Douthat, Ross (12 June 2020). "The Tom Cotton Op-Ed and the Cultural Revolution". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 23 July 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ^ a b Jeong, Sarah (10 July 2020). "Social media and the end of discourse". The Verge. Archived from the original on 28 July 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ^ a b Nwanevu, Osita (6 July 2020). "The Willful Blindness of Reactionary Liberalism". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 20 July 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ^ a b West, Ed (23 June 2020). "As a conservative, I mourn the loss of liberalism". Unherd. Archived from the original on 23 July 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ^ Fonte, John (25 June 2020). "The Vanguard of Record". The American Mind. The Claremont Institute. Archived from the original on 2 July 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ^ Sullivan, Andrew (12 June 2020). "Is There Still Room for Debate?". Intelligencer. New York Magazine. Archived from the original on 16 July 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ^ Berkowitz, Roger (18 June 2020). "The New Orthodoxy". The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanity. Bard College. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ^ Taibbi, Matt (June 20, 2020). "Matt Taibbi: The press is destroying itself". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on April 13, 2021.
- ^ "The Willful Blindness of Reactionary Liberalism".
- ^ Yang, Wesley (4 March 2019). "Tweet". Twitter. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ^ Yang, Wesley (24 May 2019). "Tweet". Twitter. Archived from the original on 23 July 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ^ Yang, Wesley (June 14, 2021). "Welcome to Year Zero". Year Zero.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Baker, Gerry; Yang, Wesley (June 13, 2022). "The Successor Ideology and the Threat to Our Freedoms". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on June 16, 2022.
- ^ Douthat, Ross; Hughes, Coleman; Yang, Wesley; Salam, Reihan (August 6, 2020). "The Successor Ideology". Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
External links
- The Successor Ideology — 2020 video by the Manhattan Institute featuring Ross Douthat, Wesley Yang, Coleman Hughes, and Reihan Salam