Successor ideology

The "successor ideology" is a controversial concept attributed to political writer Wesley Yang that describes an emerging ideology among left-wing political movements in the United States centered around intersectionality, social justice, identity politics, and anti-racism that is argued may replace traditional liberal values of pluralism, freedom of speech, color blindness, and free inquiry.[1][2][3] Primarily used as a pejorative, it is sometimes linked to an intolerance of differing opinions, cancel culture, "wokeness", "social justice warriors", and the far left;[4][5][6] Yang himself describes it bluntly as "authoritarian Utopianism that masquerades as liberal humanism while usurping it from within".[4]

Roger Berkowitz has linked the "successor ideology" to a broader retreat of liberalism worldwide, arguing that liberalism is being simultaneously challenged from both the left in the form of the "successor ideology" and the right in the form of illiberal democracy.[7]

Origins

The term was coined by political writer Wesley Yang in a 4 March 2019 tweet discussing affirmative action; 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".[8] He expanded on the term in further tweets in May 2019.[9] It slowly gained recognition among other political writers, and saw a surge of articles discussing it in summer 2020.

Criticism

Sarah Jeong, writing in The Verge, has argued that there is no such thing as a 'successor ideology', saying the term "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] She also takes issue with the term's reactionary connotations, viewing it as a way to defend an "old paradigm" that "[breeds] an irrational and incomprehensibly unjust society" which "tolerate[s] the intolerant and treat[s] dehumanization as a difference of opinion". Political writer Osita Nwanevu has likewise argued that the successor ideology is a reactionary concept.[3] He further contends that, counter to the narrative that the 'successor ideology' is fundamentally illiberal, it is actually those who ascribe to it who are the ones "protecting—indeed expanding—the bounds of liberalism", while it those who oppose it—the "reactionaries"—who are "most guilty of the illiberalism they claim has overtaken the American Left".

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References
  1. Douthat, Ross (12 June 2020). "Ross Douthat: 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. Yang, Wesley (4 March 2019). "Wesley Yang: 4 March 2019 Tweet". Twitter. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
  9. Yang, Wesley (24 May 2019). "Wesley Yang: 24 May 2019 Tweet". Twitter. Archived from the original on 23 July 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
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