If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for?

Evil movements are deeply nihilistic. They unleash destruction for the sake of destruction. But nihilists make up only a small proportion of any population. So how do nihilistic movements gain power?

Through vague idealism and targeted opposition. 

Marx, for example, wrote volumes on the evils of capitalism. How much time did he spend explaining his ideal society and how it would work? You could fit it into a blog post.

Communism gained influence by pointing to real injustices (there were plenty in non-capitalist czarist Russia) and perceived injustices (denouncing the world for failing to live up to a fantasy utopia), and offering an essentially negative solution: tear down “the system.” 

What did communism achieve every time it succeeded in tearing down the system? The mass murder of anyone who opposed the communists and the destruction of free thought and free trade. 

It was all completely predictable.

America today

The major political parties stand for nothing. “Right” and “left” aren’t ideological designations as much as they are sociological classifications of warring tribes. And the appeal of each tribe is not its vision of what society should aspire to—its appeal is mainly the flaws of the other side. 

Compare how often “the left” talks about the stupidity, irrationality, and immorality of “the right” to how often it defines and defends a specific policy agenda. Compare how often “the right” talks about the stupidity, irrationality, and immorality of “the left” to how often it defines and defends a specific policy agenda. 

I haven’t done any scientific study, but I’d wager it’s in the neighborhood 90:10. And I’m being, well, conservative. 

To understand why this absence of any positive ideals is so worrisome, and why a counter-movement focused on negatives has to either fail or lead to something worse than the status quo, consider two examples. 

The Intellectual Dark Web

Starting around 2016, a group of thinkers gained popularity by raising alarm over the suppression of “politically incorrect” speech, mainly on college campuses. The group was strikingly heterodox, with a cast that included Jordan Peterson, Eric Weinstein, Bret Weinstein, Sam Harris, Ben Shapiro, Steven Pinker, and Dave Rubin. 

Setting aside the merits and demerits of any of these individuals, what’s notable is that, as a group, there was no unity around any specific principles. There was an attempt to define themselves as for “free speech” and the open exchange of ideas, but these terms were left undefined. In practice, they were really united only by their opposition to “social justice warriors.” 

This lack of a positive agenda had two related effects. 

First, they were quickly attacked (and in many cases smeared) as “right wing” and even “alt-right.” The IDW would point out that some its members considered themselves left-wing, and that they occasionally critiqued the alt-right. But it didn’t matter. They didn’t have a positive set of ideals to point to and defend and so the attacks largely stuck. 

This attack campaign against the IDW was made more credible by the fact that the IDW tended to make common cause with anyone who opposed “social justice warriors,” including dubious figures like Milo Yiannopoulos and Stefan Molyneux. The IDW couldn’t draw a bright line to distance themselves from arguably racist attention seekers, faux intellectuals, and sycophantic Trumpists because a bright line depends on positive ideals the IDW lacked. 

Result? Though I have respect for many of the people associated with the IDW, as a cultural force their impact has been limited and not altogether positive. 

The George Floyd protests

Following the murder of George Floyd, the country broke out in protests against police brutality—especially police brutality against blacks. I warned at the time that without a specific, positive agenda, the protests would achieve nothing, or, more likely, be hijacked by those with a “positive” but evil agenda. 

It didn’t take long. Though I’m sympathetic to the intention behind the slogan “black lives matter,” the movement has been defined by the racist, anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-Enlightenment ideology of Black Lives Matter™. 

Now, instead of reining in police brutality, the protests have unleashed violence against the innocent, torn down statues of the Founding Fathers, promoted Critical Race Theory indoctrination in corporations, and led to the “canceling” of anyone who challenges or accidentally sins against social justice dogmas. 

The Positive, Always the Positive

Contrast all of this with the U.S. founding. The American Revolution did involve a negative—going to war with England. But it was essentially positive. The Founders were inspired by thinkers who had a deeply worked out vision of how society, government, and law should operate. 

Deeper still, they had a positive vision of human life: a life based on reason, science, industriousness, and peaceful cooperation. 

These positives were crystalized by positive ideals: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

And so they didn’t just “tear down the system.” They build a new one. It was flawed—above all, it was flawed because they did not live up to their own ideals, allowing slavery to continue and denying full rights to women. But it was still a positive and, as a result, an enormous force for good. (Indeed, the Founders set in motion the very movements that would one day liberate slaves and enfranchise women.)

The Founders were critics. But they criticized the negative by reference to the positive. 

We need to do the same. 

So…what do you stand for?