The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

by Andrew Doyle

We have seen how the culture war is not just a matter of competing ideologies, but competing realities. The first is the liberal model deriving from the Enlightenment, promoting human and civil rights, free speech, scientific enquiry, individualism and justice. The second maintains that truth is illusory, speech can be violence, and we are products of systems of power and privilege revolving around group identity. The paradox of this model of reality should not go unnoticed; it believes that the only truth is the one we feel as individuals – ‘lived experience’ – but at the same time it promotes a collectivist view of humankind. One of the reasons why the religion of Critical Social Justice has been so difficult to combat is precisely because it rejects the concept of reason that is so key to Enlightenment thinking. One cannot argue with someone who believes that the argument itself is an oppressive denial of his or her truth.

Another contrast of woke contrast with enlightenment social liberalism