Freddie: categorically imperative

Progressivism (for lack of a better term) suffers from a ton of maladies. But if I had to isolate one underlying issue that threatens political progress more than any other, it’s this: the deepening progressive belief that all good people must treat all claims to offense or harm as legitimate. That is a congealing orthodoxy that is both powerful and unspoken. It has become, in short order, a default moral presumption of media Twitter; it has, with things like the letter a US Congresswoman sent about the Genius scrap, come to infect a much wider world of politics and business. Those who are unwilling to call any particular claim of offense or harm legitimate are presumed to reject all of that kind of claim of offense or harm. So if someone says “I don’t believe that this constitutes harassment,” the immediate response is to say that they don’t care about harassment writ large. To say “this campus protest appears counterproductive” is to be told “you reject all campus protests.” To say “this particular accusation of racism does not seem to meet the standards by which we assess racism” invites the claim that you don’t oppose racism at all. All stances towards offense and harm are taken to be categorical statements, and all right thinking people are presumed to fall on the side of accepting all claims as true.

This is, frankly, a ludicrous thing to believe. It renders human life impossible. The basis of morality is discrimination — the ability to assess the evidence of a particular claim to offense or harm, apply your best moral reasoning, and arrive at a personal judgment about the truth or falsehood of the claim. There is no way for either an individual or a society to proceed with the work of life if they are not empowered to say to some “this claim of harm is legitimate and we must act accordingly” and to others “this claim of harm is not legitimate and we will not undertake the action you demand.” In a democracy, it’s politically suicidal to ask people to set aside their right to sort different claims of offense and call some true and some untrue. It is simply too far from most people’s prior beliefs about what adult life is and means. Treating all claims of harm as legitimate makes police and justice reform impossible, as it naturally provokes more and more engagement by the judicial system. And it leaves you vulnerable to the worst kind of cheats, opportunists, liars, and frauds possible.

From: categorically imperative | Fredrik deBoer {via Zac}