A Better Way to Understand the Intellectual Dark Web

“In a different world where the culture war never happened, I might have seen myself as their ally in some areas.”

There is a certain sector of the public discourse whose members do not necessarily agree ideologically on every aspect but who share a few distinct characteristics. The members of this group include individuals, organizations, and publications. Among the most salient facts that loosely unify them is that the members of the group all self-identify as small-l liberals. However, their critics—most prominently those on the Left—tend to view them as reactionaries or, at least, functioning as such. At face value, these two propositions seem contradictory, and, of course, they vehemently deny being reactionaries, while their critics scoff at the idea of their being liberals. However, I believe that there is a sense in which both are true. The question we have to ask, then, is: What kind of liberals—or what kind of reactionaries—are they? It should be clear by now to which institutions and people I am referring. It includes, of course, people like Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, and the Weinstein brothers, along with publications such as the popular online magazine Quillette. At one point, someone like YouTube content creator Sargon of Akkad might have been included, though he seems to have fallen into relative obscurity lately.

Four out of the five individuals I mentioned are among the most prominent members of the so-called Intellectual Dark Web (IDW), but it would be a mistake to read this as simply another critique of the IDW. I believe there are enough of those, as well as  very good ones. Sargon of Akkad, for example, rose to prominence much earlier than the IDW became identified as a somewhat cohesive group of public intellectuals. Today, some of its members are still putting out content, but others have much more clearly occupied that space. The best recent example is perhaps James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, with the publication of their book Cynical Theories. Others yet, like Quillette, have maintained a steady presence in the public discourse. So, this is not a critique of specific people or institutions but, rather, of a particular ideology or mode of thinking. Importantly, it is one that is now squarely part of the mainstream, despite what many of its adherents might claim. And it exists at the intersection of politics, academia, and Twitter.

Even if it is a critique of a mode of thinking rather than of individuals, the best place to start is perhaps with the way people and institutions describe themselves. For the sake of clarity and simplicity, I will not try to discuss how sincere any of these positions really are. Small-l liberalism, in a broad sense, can include different, specific political positions ranging from the center-left to the center-right, so these self-identifications will reflect that. Quillette, for example, bills itself as “a platform for free thought” that “respect[s] ideas, even dangerous ones.” The most charitable interpretation of this is that the publication adheres to John Stuart Mill’s principle of the free marketplace of ideas. The thought is that all ideas should be openly and vigorously discussed—perhaps the bad ones even more so—and the marketplace will ensure that only the best ones prevail. In this sense, it is the most purely liberal position applied to discourse. Bo Winegard, a frequent contributor to Quillette, has variously described himself as a liberal and a conservative, which, in the sense of the word “liberalism” that I am using here, is not at all contradictory. More generally, he advocates “science, discourse, and the conservation of the values of the West.” To use one last Quillette-related example, Colin Wright, its managing editor, self-identifies as part of the liberal left. This trend extends to many others. One article by Daniel Miessler looked at the self-reported positions of various members of the core IDW and found that, by a large margin, they favor the political orientation that would generally be described as liberal or left-wing, including on issues such as healthcare, immigration, gay marriage, and wealth inequality.