I previously wrote about Richard Hanania’s fascinating article ‘Why is Everything Liberal?’ In that article, he sought to explain why so many large organisations (corporations, universities, the ACLU) have gone woke. His proposed explanation begins with the distinction between ordinal preferences and cardinal preferences. Elections only take into account ordinal preferences (
I am not familiar with Britain but I am happy someone is applying this analysis outside of the United States. If there is a phenomenon as general as cardinal v. ordinal, it should be taking place in countries across the world. When people begin discussing in generalities about political or social matters, having knowledge of other countries and history is really important to avoid being narrow-minded.
I am not sure how well formed my thoughts are on the matter of why everything is left in America but I have some feeling that Hanania is partially correct. My thoughts would explain why people conform to the left.
Leftists view the world as unjust and the far left has a higher likelihood of being neurotic on average. This is where the whole "triggered" mocking of liberals come from. They are on average more likely to have what seems like a disproportionate reaction negatively to perceived transgressions. They also attribute motive because they have difficulty understanding conservative moral foundations. If you make a transgression you may upset a liberal disproprotiately and that transgression may be of something minor that you don't view as worthy of getting upset. Leftists put a high value on the moral foundation of harm avoidance. Since someone is "harmed" by your use of language and you are just telling a joke or making a remark, you are the one being selfish. You are needlessly causing harm when it would be easier to just modify your language or be more appropriate.
Liberal beliefs become about politeness and not being rude. When you call a transwoman "he" you are deeply harming them. Some would say this leads to violence. However, if you call a transracial black person like Rachel Dolezal white, you are saying something obvious and this is okay no matter how much it upsets Rachel Dolezal. Conforming to the standards of the left is about what they see as legitimate harm. Legitimate harm is politically correct offense. If your coworker saying "Oh my God!" is upsetting to you because you are a devout Catholic, well too bad. Your religious moral foundations are not worthy of consideration.
The social norms begin to evolve more towards leftist beliefs. Saying "oriental" is a really bad thing to do. Saying "negro" is a really bad thing to do. The left uses new terms to be more woke and social signal. So the new term is stripped of any negative connotation because the left doesn't ever use it in a negative connotation. The old word becomes associated with the negative meaning.
People begin to enforce these things through social stigma. If you enter into a group to discuss something unrelated to politics, the leftist who sees small interactions and normal hierarchies as unjust will begin noting that. Something like a minor comment about the representation of women. If the group is a leftist political advocacy group and everyone is leftist, you end up with bizarre customs because they are out-harm reducing each other into antics like jazz hands instead of clapping in order to not trigger autistic people or whatever.
When people like this enter organizations, they enforce their rules not with coercion but with upset. If they are in HR, they have a means to more directly enforce things. Now everyone put their pronouns in their email signature. If you don't, you are causing harm. In order to articulate your views about trans people and why you don't want to put your pronouns, you cause harm in the left leaning peoples eyes. Why don't you just conform? You don't want to lose your job and it's not that big of a deal, so you just conform. Even conservatives like Ben Shapiro will say "she" when talking to a transperson in order to not upset them. But Catholics cannot get outrageously upset about blasphemy or maybe they just don't because religious people are less neurotic.
Academia is suffering from this problem now. Noah Carl knows this well. The pursuit of truth is being undermined by leftists concerned with their specific form of harm reduction. Noah Carl just believed that investigating a certain issue was worthwhile! I believe investigation of this issue should not be suppressed. But when leftists have political control all other values are undermined. When conservatives are upset about things like sexualized media, their moral foundations loses out because the charge of leftists is harsher. A small group has disproportionate influence and others conform.
These people infiltrate institutions and move them left.
I am not familiar with Britain but I am happy someone is applying this analysis outside of the United States. If there is a phenomenon as general as cardinal v. ordinal, it should be taking place in countries across the world. When people begin discussing in generalities about political or social matters, having knowledge of other countries and history is really important to avoid being narrow-minded.
I am not sure how well formed my thoughts are on the matter of why everything is left in America but I have some feeling that Hanania is partially correct. My thoughts would explain why people conform to the left.
Leftists view the world as unjust and the far left has a higher likelihood of being neurotic on average. This is where the whole "triggered" mocking of liberals come from. They are on average more likely to have what seems like a disproportionate reaction negatively to perceived transgressions. They also attribute motive because they have difficulty understanding conservative moral foundations. If you make a transgression you may upset a liberal disproprotiately and that transgression may be of something minor that you don't view as worthy of getting upset. Leftists put a high value on the moral foundation of harm avoidance. Since someone is "harmed" by your use of language and you are just telling a joke or making a remark, you are the one being selfish. You are needlessly causing harm when it would be easier to just modify your language or be more appropriate.
Liberal beliefs become about politeness and not being rude. When you call a transwoman "he" you are deeply harming them. Some would say this leads to violence. However, if you call a transracial black person like Rachel Dolezal white, you are saying something obvious and this is okay no matter how much it upsets Rachel Dolezal. Conforming to the standards of the left is about what they see as legitimate harm. Legitimate harm is politically correct offense. If your coworker saying "Oh my God!" is upsetting to you because you are a devout Catholic, well too bad. Your religious moral foundations are not worthy of consideration.
The social norms begin to evolve more towards leftist beliefs. Saying "oriental" is a really bad thing to do. Saying "negro" is a really bad thing to do. The left uses new terms to be more woke and social signal. So the new term is stripped of any negative connotation because the left doesn't ever use it in a negative connotation. The old word becomes associated with the negative meaning.
People begin to enforce these things through social stigma. If you enter into a group to discuss something unrelated to politics, the leftist who sees small interactions and normal hierarchies as unjust will begin noting that. Something like a minor comment about the representation of women. If the group is a leftist political advocacy group and everyone is leftist, you end up with bizarre customs because they are out-harm reducing each other into antics like jazz hands instead of clapping in order to not trigger autistic people or whatever.
When people like this enter organizations, they enforce their rules not with coercion but with upset. If they are in HR, they have a means to more directly enforce things. Now everyone put their pronouns in their email signature. If you don't, you are causing harm. In order to articulate your views about trans people and why you don't want to put your pronouns, you cause harm in the left leaning peoples eyes. Why don't you just conform? You don't want to lose your job and it's not that big of a deal, so you just conform. Even conservatives like Ben Shapiro will say "she" when talking to a transperson in order to not upset them. But Catholics cannot get outrageously upset about blasphemy or maybe they just don't because religious people are less neurotic.
Academia is suffering from this problem now. Noah Carl knows this well. The pursuit of truth is being undermined by leftists concerned with their specific form of harm reduction. Noah Carl just believed that investigating a certain issue was worthwhile! I believe investigation of this issue should not be suppressed. But when leftists have political control all other values are undermined. When conservatives are upset about things like sexualized media, their moral foundations loses out because the charge of leftists is harsher. A small group has disproportionate influence and others conform.
These people infiltrate institutions and move them left.