The revolution is complete
In the sixth installment of ‘In Search of Identity,’ Professor Bruce Pardy explains how the key institutions in the West have been captured by a set of ideologies that reject the original meaning of classical liberalism, which emphasizes individual freedom, personal autonomy, and the limitation of political power. This ideological shift has been nothing short of a cultural revolution that has redefined the landscape of civil liberties and individual rights in the West. Prof. Pardy raises unsettling reflections on how a society can abandon liberalism almost without realizing it, through inadvertent yet transformative decisions.
What happened with the classic liberal ideas in institutions in Western countries? It seems to me that these ideas somehow have left, or they are not there anymore.
Yes, public institutions have been captured by a set of ideas. Even the word “liberal” is problematic now because it has come to mean two opposite things. If we go back to the original meaning, “liberal” is a political philosophy that embraces liberty and autonomy of the individual. Liberalism is an ideology of freedom. That’s “liberal” in the sense of “Western liberal democracy”. It was an idea that pushed against the collectivist idea that authorities should tell everybody what to do. The original liberals were the freedom people. That is the original meaning of the term. But that is the opposite of what it means today. Today, when you say “liberal”, certainly in the United States, you mean the left — the progressive, woke, authoritarian left. And so the first question to ask anybody who uses the word is which of those two things they mean, because they are opposites. To attempt to make the difference clear, we’ve added “classical” to the label. So a classical liberal is one thing, and a left liberal is another. The difference, of course, is that the classical liberal believes in individual autonomy, and the left liberal believes in big government and the authority of institutions to tell you what to do. The liberal left and conservative right have something in common. They are both essentially opposed to individual liberty. They both believe in the authority of institutions and governments to direct society in their image. They disagree about what that direction ought to be, and about the kind of laws and edicts they want, but they agree on the basic proposition that somebody has to be in charge to ensure proper ends.
In this context, you’ve described Anglo-American universities as stubbornly ideological. What kind of ideology has prevailed?
The conquering of universities can be attributed, in part, to Critical Theory and its offshoots. Critical Theory began as an academic discipline in Germany between the two world wars. A group of scholars, known as the Frankfurt School, began to inquire into why Marxism wasn’t catching on in the West. At the time, Critical Theory was a challenge to the existing, established order. Scholars and their ideas migrated to the United States. Over the course of decades, Critical Theory, Postmodernism, Critical Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, at different moments and in different ways, infiltrated the academy. I call these the “four doctrines of the apocalypse”. Over time, these ideas became dominant in disciplines across the campus. They first took over sociology departments, literary theory departments, and similar disciplines. Eventually they expanded into professional schools like education faculties and law schools. Their final conquest is now well underway in the sciences and engineering. These are essentially anti-Western, anti-Enlightenment theories. And not even theories but agendas. They reject Western epistemology. They challenge the existing order. There’s nothing wrong with challenging the existing order. Indeed, that’s something universities should do. But today, Critical Theory and its offshoots have become the existing order. These ideas have become ascendant in the culture. Like the water in which fish swim, people are often not even aware that they have internalized them. Inside universities, the revolution is essentially complete. They control the place. If you are a scholar opposed to the precepts of these four doctrines — Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, Social Justice, and Postmodernism — you will find it difficult to get a job, be promoted, get tenure, or get published. That is the degree to which these ideas have become dominant. So dominant that many people inside and outside universities don’t even realize these are the doctrines they are following.
Could you give an example?
It has become an accepted idea, certainly in Canada — both in the law and in the minds of the people — that people of different identities and backgrounds should be subject to different rules and standards: standards for admission, jobs, promotion, government benefits, criminal sentencing, and so on. If you belong to a certain identity, then you get one set of rules and standards; if you belong to another identity, you get another. Why? Because these doctrines divide people into victims and oppressors based upon identity. The rationale is that we need different rules and standards to offset the oppression allegedly imposed by some groups on others. That idea is at the core of these four doctrines: differentiation based on identity. Long ago, Critical Theorists — who borrowed much from Marxism — asked why Marxism had not caught on. But Critical Theory is not pure Marxism. The critical theorists abandoned parts of Marx, like empiricism and the focus on economic conflict between upper and working class. Instead, they substituted a focus on identity. Now the key conflict is not class but race, sex, gender, religion, disability, etc. These are the fault lines that critical theorists and social-justice activists claim determine who has power and who does not. These doctrines are tragic but also ironic.
What do you mean?
All this began as a counterculture school of thought. They were the rebels, the revolutionaries. But today, these ideas are ascendant; they have become the established order. Their language and policies insist they are trying to overthrow powers that basically don’t exist anymore. They claim to resist power from above. But there is no power from above. They are on top now and pushing down. The revolution began in the universities, succeeded there, and universities have graduated generations of students indoctrinated in these ideas. Those students go into society; they now run the place. They’re in government, in companies, in institutions. They still think they are revolutionaries. But the revolution is complete. They won. But they behave as if it is still underway and they are still the underdogs.
Then it makes sense to speak of a cultural revolution, doesn’t it?
Yes. And as revolutions go, it has been brilliant. Achieved not with violence and fighting in the streets, but slowly, quietly. Most people didn’t realize a revolution was underway. It was very effective. There are many threads to this, but the central contest is the battle between the individual and the state. Canada is a good laboratory for this. Andrew Breitbart said: “Politics is downstream from culture,” and some add that “law is downstream from politics”. Meaning that cultural change comes first, which is then expressed in politics and finally in the law. There is truth in that. But in some places — and certainly in Canada — the order is reversed. In Canada, the revolution started in the law and then fed into the culture. Let me give you an example. In 1982, Canada adopted a new Constitution with a Charter of Rights. That Charter included some rights similar to the U.S. Bill of Rights, such as free speech. One section, Section 15, seemed to say that everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law, meaning that the same rules and laws apply equally to everyone. Justice should be blind. But Section 15 included an exception: it said that if the government is trying to ameliorate historical disadvantages for certain identity groups, then unequal treatment is permitted. Over time, through court decisions, that exception has become the general rule. So in Canada we do not effectively have a right to equal treatment under the law. We have a regime in which different laws and standards can be applied to different people, as long as they are the “right groups”. Preferential treatment is constitutional — as long as it is not for “white, straight, Christian men” or the like. That is essentially what the Constitution says, according to the Supreme Court over the past 35 years or so. Many Canadians still believe they have a right to equal treatment under the law; they do not. The law has led the way into this abyss.
This recalls Critical Race Theory ideas, especially intersectionality from the 1990s. But you’re speaking of the 1980s. How come Canada was ahead?
It’s a good question. Even before the first Supreme Court decision on that section of the Charter, a federal report on the status of women embraced the idea of equity. Equity is the concept that gained a foothold in Canada. Today, equity means different rules for different groups to produce equal or comparable outcomes between them. From that time — and increasingly into the present — equity, not equality, has been the Canadian mantra. These are the two competing visions:
• equity (substantive equality): equal outcomes
• equality (equal protection): equal treatment regardless of identity
Equality of treatment is essential for individual autonomy because it prevents governments from interfering differently with each individual. But in an equity regime, the government chooses which rules apply to you. That means everyone is at the mercy of autocratic discretion. That is, unfortunately, a very Canadian thing. America’s founding story is liberty, achieved by overthrowing the tyranny of the king. At the time, the Americans invited Canadians to join them. The Canadians declined. They wanted to remain subjects. That is the Canadian founding story: Anti-American deference to authority. The Canadian national psyche seems to prefer equity to equality. It is a collectivist country.
We talked about law, ideology. But there is also business. You’ve described ESG as corporate socialism. What do you mean?
ESG is another name for stakeholder capitalism, which is the opposite of shareholder capitalism, which is not really capitalism at all. In shareholder capitalism, the owners of the company (shareholders) own the corporation, and the directors must act in the corporation’s best interest, meaning the corporation’s financial bottom line. Stakeholder capitalism, on the other hand, means shareholders are just one stakeholder among many: employees, suppliers, the environment, society. So ESG says that the corporation must act in the interests of all these groups. The effect? Power shifts to executives. Who decides what is in the interest of “the environment” or “society”? It’s discretionary. Now executives can use corporate funds for all kinds of objectives. You’ve undermined the ownership model of the corporation and, by extension, capitalism itself. After all, what is capitalism? Capital is just property: land, buildings, equipment, funds. Capitalism is simply the idea that the owner of the property decides how it is used. That’s all. Modern economies — with government-corporate collusion, monopolies and captured markets — are not capitalist. Real capitalism requires genuinely free markets and level playing fields without government protections for certain players. Many people think corporations are “capitalist”, but many of them are not. They are interested in dominance. One way to get dominance is to cooperate with government. You could call this a kind of fascism — corporate fascism — a regime in which governments and big corporations cooperate to manage the economy. ESG is a form of collusion between governments and big business. There is an incentive on both sides to cooperate. Corporations want dominant market positions; governments want to manage their people. Governments protect big business from competition. Big business provides campaign contributions, personnel in a revolving door between industry and regulators, and legitimacy. I’m not saying that big business and big government don’t have conflicts, but the idea that society should be managed is consistent with both of their aspirations. To the extent that ESG serves corporate purposes, corporations embrace it. ESG is corporate socialism.
A constellation of ideas that has gained traction in the West has given rise to terms like “critical social justice,” “identity synthesis,” and “woke.” Through interviews, “In Search of Identity” attempts, in an open and pluralistic way, to understand and shed light on this intellectual corpus.
