What James Lindsay Gets Wrong about “Right-Wing Postliberalism”

“Recently, however, James Lindsay has sparked a contentious debate on this topic by disparaging postliberals as ‘woke right.’ We will examine [Alasdair] MacIntyre in the context of this vibrant debate.”

“Right-wing postliberalism” refers to a growing tendency of social and political thought in the United States and the West more generally. This tendency is discernible in both ordinary citizens and professional philosophers and pundits.

In the former, it refers to the willingness of ordinary citizens to entertain and endorse thoughts and policy proposals that are judged illegitimate from the standpoint of certain liberal strictures of thought. It refers also to the diminishing influence of those strictures over the reactions and decisions of these citizens. Think, for example, of how the charge of “racism” has lost its bite as the belief grows that it has been overextended. Think also of the surging momentum of “nation” and “nationalism.”

Philosophers and pundits aligned with this right-wing postliberal tendency offer justifications for at least some of these transgressions. They begin their project by attempting to articulate explicitly the liberal framework these citizens are leaving behind. They then offer an alternate way to think about people, society, and politics. They critique the liberal framework from a standpoint rooted in their own rivalrous concepts. Insofar as ordinary postliberal citizens adopt them, these rival concepts can serve to guide their reactions and decisions and to arm them with justifications for their social and political activity when challenged by protagonists of the liberal regime.