Moral Purity Will Be the Death of Progress
Making common cause with unsavory characters isn't just unavoidable — it's often necessary.
I have a new piece out in Queer Majority about the problem of audience capture in the media: “Beholden to the Mob.”
Nobody wants to be seen as one of “them.” Who “they” are depends on one’s political, social, or professional circles. For some, it’s the far-right, fascists, racists, and transphobes. For others, it’s elites, the far-left, Marxists, and woke people. A constant anxiety in today’s political climate is that one should be associated with some reviled group. Worse still is to be seen actually working together. So we avoid whole categories of people as moral lepers. We say what we think is correct rather than what we believe to be true. We bedeck our online handles, avatars, and bios with labels and iconography that broadcast not just who we are, but who we’re not. “He/him” signals one tribe. “Your/majesty” signals another. “Fuck your pronouns” another still. In this balkanized prison of the mind, as in real-life prisons, everyone finds a gang and then keeps to their own. But it’s a fool’s errand. Making common cause with some type of unsavory extremism is unavoidable. To misunderstand this is to misunderstand the nature of politics and human interaction.
Cultivating and safeguarding one’s reputation is perfectly normal, but, like all natural instincts, it has its reasonable limits. We should want to be kind, courteous, humble, honest, and open-minded not only as ends in themselves, but because such attributes are reputationally beneficial. Being decent and honest requires only a bit of effort and is well worth the cost. Attempting to attain perfect tribal purity, by contrast, comes at the cost of forsaking any chance of ever actually achieving anything. That’s far too steep a price to pay. It’s also impossible.
Like it or not, each and every one of us is, at this very moment, susceptible to extremist associations. Every position you hold, every organization you belong to, every movement you support, and every label you identify with links you to the worst extremists associated with it. If you’re pro-life, you’re associated with nutjobs who violently attack abortion clinics. If you’re pro-choice, you’re associated with activist zealots who track pro-life judges to their homes and even plot to kill them. If you think the US should have stricter control over the southern border, you’re associated with xenophobes who want a white ethnostate. If you support universal healthcare, you’re associated with communists who want to overthrow capitalism in a bloody revolution.
You may only want to build a three story structure while some other folks want to raise a space elevator, but until the third story is built, both of these construction projects appear to be on the same page, and can easily be equated by those who don’t want anything built at all. The only way to escape this is by cutting yourself off from society altogether, or already occupying the furthest possible extreme (e.g. a self-identified Nazi), which amounts to the same thing.
The fear that most animates people, however, is not being lumped in with the extremists of one’s own side, but being associated with those of some other side. The supporter of racial justice may not be thrilled to be conflated with BLM rioters or critical race hustlers, but if they point out the disconnect between activist rhetoric and the actual data about police killings, they’ll be seen agreeing with Trumpists and far-right reactionaries. The dread of such associations far outweighs the discomfort of being compared to Ibram X. Kendi or Robin DeAngelo, leading people to embrace the more hard-line views of their faction, or to simply keep quiet about their misgivings.
This trend of rampant purity testing and guilt by association is politically untenable. Indeed, it runs contrary to the very notion of politics, which necessitates cooperation, coalition-building, and sausage-making. We have forgotten — or are pretending to have forgotten — that to work with someone does not imply endorsing everything they have ever said or done. And there really is no “line.” There is no such thing as “beyond the pale” when there is important work to be done. There is a reason why Western leaders sometimes deal with authoritarian regimes and tyrannical thugs. It’s not because they are ideologically or ethically aligned. It’s because they have constituents to serve, national interests to pursue, and countries to run. They work with whomever they need to in order to get the job done, because that is their job. And any leader who refused to do this work out of some misguided notion of moral purity would only be weakening their country and destroying their career and legacy.
It’s easy to point to someone making common cause with unsavory characters and call them out for it. It’s easy to point to mistakes. What’s harder is to actually present a cogent and workable alternative. Both society and the world are filled with diverse peoples. Many are unhinged, unethical, deranged, bigoted, dangerous, backward, or downright despicable. And from time to time, they have something we need access to. Political support, votes, money, resources, land, authority, whatever it might be. Nobody jumps for joy at the thought of working with people they don’t like. Who would? But work needs doing, and you can’t eat sanctimony.
We won World War II and defeated Hitler and the Nazis by allying with Stalin and the Soviets. We defeated the world’s most evil tyrant and regime by working with the 20th century’s second most evil tyrant and regime. We built a social safety net not with a clique of woke lefties, but with a broad coalition that included Southern segregationists and white supremacists — to whom concessions were made. Behind nearly every major advance in human rights, civil liberties, and social progress were back room deals made with the kinds of people today’s moral puritans would jump out of a window to get away from. Had they been in positions of influence during those pivotal moments, they would have squandered those opportunities, and we would all be worse off.
Moderates and extremists may share certain goals, albeit to wildly varying degrees or for radically different reasons. In the absence of movement toward such goals, both camps point in the same direction. If neither has the requisite power to single-handedly push the policy in question over the finish line, they must work together. It is not until the needle begins to move, and the stage is reached at which moderates have had their fill and withdraw support, that dissolving the coalition makes sense. These are the bedrock mechanics not only of politics, but of all human endeavors. We jointly achieve together what we cannot manage on our own, even, if need be, by working with people we don’t like. In every area of life, we depend on the contributions of innumerable people we would never want to be associated with. It’s a good thing we don’t know the specific politics of every individual who paves our roads, produces our products, repairs our home appliances, and sustains the businesses we depend on with their patronage. None of this should need to be spelled out to anyone, least of all those who purport to be politically engaged. Apparently, it does.
This is not to say that we should swing the pendulum all the way in the other direction, and spare no thought for our image and reputation. Most of us are not capable of that in any event, and of those few who are, many are worse off for it. But a little perspective, balance, and flexibility could go a long way. We should not waste our precious opportunities to win some victory for humanity, however ugly the sausage-making looks from the factory floor. Better to be mocked by tribal purists than condemned by history.
See also: “Groucho Marxism and the Prison of Tribalism”
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As someone who went to a very liberal college, I've seen the effects of this purity culture firsthand. There is a massive pressure to conform to every idea that is seen as progressive, and even having one "wrong" belief can mean being an apostate. Cancellation/excommunication culture has turned many people that would be reliable blue voters into becoming full-blown conservatives.
Of course, this same dynamic exists in conservative circles. Every day conservatives are talking about hunting RINOs, and evangelical Christian purity culture rivals liberal woke culture in the sheer amount of beliefs one must hold to remain part of the tribe.
As always, the desire to belong to a tribe is stronger than the desire to think objectively.