On Bigotry, Bullying, and Tribal Enforcement

Why charges of bigotry on the left say more about the accuser than the accused

Over the past several years, I’ve noticed a trend in online discourse that started as a tendency but which now feels like a script. Where charges of bigotry were once rare when discussing contentious topics, any view that departs from the furthest reaches of cultural left orthodoxy is immediately branded “*-phobic” or “bigoted”. As a long-time left-liberal, for a long time it both stumped and enraged me (as, I’ve come to believe, it is intended to). Whereas I try to engage in these debates in good faith, I’ve come to realize that these interactions can’t be productive because the charges of “phobia” and “bigotry” aren’t intended to be persuasive; they play an entirely different discursive goal: to beat current and potential dissenters back into the orthodox view by threatening something precious to everyone, but especially to those on the left: their own self-conception as moral people and inclusion in the “elect,” the cultural-left tribe of moral superiority.

A Heretic’s Lament

For a very long time, as a literal card-carrying member of the cultural and political left, I believed that heterodoxy was far more acceptable on the left than on the right. And, before the Great Awokening, that may have been true. While the illiberal strains of left-wing thought were apparent already when I was in graduate school in the 1990s, enough of the intellectual anarchism of the 60s persisted until Postmodernism and Critical Theory replaced the spectrum of left-wing political thought of the 20th century. Perhaps it was because, as a long-time, early-adopting gay rights advocate (I was marching in Pride in the 1980s when my friends were dying all around me), I didn’t hold any heterodox views until fairly recently. Regardless, as someone who taught critical thinking for a decade and who values good-faith intellectual engagement over moral posturing, I’ve been mystified and horrified by the way the left has become every bit as censorious and puritanical as the religious right. The first volley in any online exchange frequently contains accusations of bigotry, phobias, and various isms. My question is: why? And perhaps more importantly, is there anything that can be done about it? This article aims to examine how the left became the primary accusers of moral turpitude and if there’s any way out of this morass.

My Thesis: The Power-Shaped Void

The replacement of actual ethical principles with Critical Theory-based analyses has left the left with a deep absence of meaning. Universal principles such as human rights, civil rights, equal justice, and equality of opportunity have been replaced by Theory’s binary oppressor/oppressed analyses, which leave no room for love, justice, or progress. What’s left when you get rid of these normative values and substitute the idea that the only thing any social system expresses is oppressive power? A void. A power-shaped void. Therefore, when power is the only thing that counts, the only thing worth expressing is power. According to Theory, people are never convinced, only forced. Arguments for fairness are just another kind of oppression; they are beside the point. So the only thing left is social control. This is ultimately what charges of bigotry are on the left currently: an admission that one is not engaged in a process of persuasion but one of tribal conformity enforcement.

The Bait-and-Switch: How “Critical” Replaced “Liberal”

To understand why, we must diagnose the mechanism. The current censoriousness isn’t some random spasm of puritanism (though the mechanics of puritanism are there for all to see); it’s the predictable endpoint of a philosophical bait-and-switch. The left, slowly and then all at once, traded in its traditional intellectual toolkit. The new tools aren’t just different; they are fundamentally incompatible with the old ones. They are epistemologically parasitic: they thrive on the host of liberalism (science, reason, universalism) while deconstructing the very foundations that give the host life.

First, let’s look at what we’ve lost: the liberal toolbox. I don’t mean “liberal” as in a large-D Democrat, but “liberal” in the larger tradition of the Enlightenment, the scientific revolution, and (ultimately) the Civil Rights movement. This framework was built on a few core, radical values: universalism (the belief that principles like justice and human rights apply to all people, everywhere, not just a specific group, a specific time, or a specific place); individualism (the idea that the individual, not the group, is the primary locus of rights and agency (even though we need to understand and engage in social groups); and persuasion (the conviction that good-faith actors can use reason, evidence, and argument to converge on a shared, if imperfect, truth).

This toolbox is what enabled the critique. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the great social justice movements were the ultimate liberal projects. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech was not a rejection of the American creed; it was a demand that America finally live up to it. He wasn’t deconstructing the Declaration of Independence; he was holding its “promissory note” to account. This framework is corrective. It allows for actual progress because it provides a universal standard against which we can measure the failures and shortcomings of our time and those before us.

Now, consider what we gained: the “critical” toolbox. To its credit, this framework emerged from a genuine critique of liberalism’s shortcomings. But like most critical projects, its outcomes are corrosive, and it has no reasonable constructive aims.

We start with Foucault’s dyad of Power/Knowledge. Foucault’s core claim was that “knowledge” and “truth” are not neutral facts we discover, but are produced by systems of power to sustain their own control. “Reason,” in this view, isn’t a universal tool; it’s just one particular “discourse”—often a “white,” “male,” “Western” one—used to silence and marginalize other “ways of knowing.” This was the first acid bath for universal truth.

Then came Derrida’s deconstruction. He argued that all texts and concepts are built on unstable binaries (man/woman, rational/emotional) and contain their own contradictions. This “play of signs” can be intellectually intoxicating to those who lack the critical thinking tools to see its own contradictions, but when applied as a political program, it dissolves what Derrida called “metanarratives,” the foundational stories we tell ourselves, like “Progress,” “Justice,” “Truth,” and “Humanity.”

The final, fatal step was the Applied Turn (Pluckrose, 2022). Thinkers like Foucault and Derrida were primarily descriptive and academic. Their acolytes were irritating interlocutors around the faculty lunch table, but posed little threat beyond the university. However, the application of postmodernism in the form of critical race theory, queer theory, disability studies, postcolonial studies, and intersectional feminism transformed this descriptive skepticism into a prescriptive political project. This collapsed all the nuance of power into a simplistic, exclusive Oppressor/Oppressed binary. Every person, every text, every interaction must be filtered through this singular lens. Your identity, your group affiliation, is your destiny.

This is how we arrived at our current position. When you deconstruct “Truth” with Derrida, unmask “Reason” as power with Foucault, and then map that power onto a rigid group-identity binary, what is left? Nothing. Meaninglessness is the result. This is the intellectually and emotionally desiccated worldview I’ve written about elsewhere. There is no common ground. “Humanity” is a fiction. “Justice” is just a word for one group’s power. All that remains is group affiliation and the will to power. In this world, persuasion is logically impossible. You can’t appeal to a “racist” or a “transphobe” with reason, because their “reason” is just a tool of their “privilege.” Their dissent can safely be assumed to be a manifestation of bad faith because, in Critical Theory, there is no good faith—especially from a person who is not oppressed in the very specific ways that Theory understands. The only thing left to do is force their compliance.

Accusations of “Bigotry” as a Social Technology

Once persuasion is off the table, the only tool remaining is the accusation. In the world of applied Theory, the charge of “bigotry”—be it racism, transphobia, misogyny, etc.—is not a claim to be debated. It is a social technology, a weapon designed for a system in which only power matters.

First, the accusation is performative, not descriptive (CT adherents *love* them some performativity). A traditional accusation (”You are a thief”) is a descriptive claim. It makes a statement about reality that can be tested against evidence (Did you take the wallet? Is there a video?). A “critical” accusation (”Your view is racist”) is a performative utterance, in the tradition of J.L. Austin. Its purpose isn’t to describe reality but to create a new one. It is a speech act designed to do something: to inflict reputational damage, to de-platform, to socially nullify the target. It’s not an argument; it’s a social-media-friendly incantation.

This leads to its primary logical feature: The Unfalsifiable Trap. This is the self-sealing fallacy that makes reasoned engagement impossible. It is the mechanism of bullying, and it works in three steps.

• Step 1: The accusation is leveled (”Your statement is X-ist”).

• Step 2: The target, operating under the old liberal rules of persuasion, attempts to defend themselves with reason, nuance, or evidence (”That’s not what I meant. Here is my data. Here is my principled argument...”).

• Step 3: This very act of self-defense is immediately re-framed as conclusive proof of guilt. “Your defensiveness is just your white fragility.” “Your ‘concern’ is transphobic violence.” “Your reliance on ‘logic’ and ‘data’ is epistemic oppression and proves you are invested in your privilege.”

This is a classic Catch-22. There is no permissible response. To be silent is to be complicit. To offer a defense is to prove your guilt. The mechanism is not designed for debate; it is a ritual of condemnation.

This reveals its true function: tribal enforcement. If the accusation isn’t meant for the target—since they have no way to respond—who is it for? It’s for the audience. The accusation serves as a public performance with two primary goals. First, it serves as a purity signal from the accuser, a means to demonstrate their own virtue and correct ideological alignment. Second, and more importantly, it is a threat to the rest of the in-group. It is a powerful, public demonstration: “This is what happens to heretics. This is the fate of those who ask the wrong questions or stray from the line. Conform, or you are next.” This is the tribal conformity enforcement. It is a low-cost, high-yield policing mechanism, essential for maintaining ideological uniformity in a system that, having discarded reason, has no other way to do so.

The Steep Price of Purity: Why This System Fails Itself and Its Subjects

This power-only framework is not only logically incoherent and alienating, but also a moral and pragmatic disaster. It ultimately fails the very groups it purports to champion.

The most perverse and condescending outcome is that it robs “subjects” of agency. A system allegedly built to liberate the oppressed denies them the slightest shred of individual autonomy. By casting individuals (whether Black, female, gay, or trans) as mere products of inescapable “structures” of oppression, it reduces them from actors to reactors. Their only authentic voice is the “lived experience” of their own victimhood.

This is profoundly disempowering. And insulting. It denies the possibility of individual resilience, achievement, or thought. It denies the possibility of disagreement. What is a Black conservative? What is a gender-critical feminist? In this framework, they are not legitimate dissenters; they are objects of pity or scorn, victims of “false consciousness” or “internalized oppression.” They are “traitors” to their group. This simplifies the complex and diverse reality of human experience into a single, one-dimensional narrative of victimhood.

Next, this system alienates allies. A political movement that cannot build coalitions is doomed to fail. This system runs on a “hermeneutics of suspicion,” a constant, paranoid search for impurity in its own ranks. It creates a circular firing squad. It repels the very good-faith actors, the classic liberals, the undecideds, and the agnostics needed for any robust political movement.

It demands an ideological perfection that is impossible to meet, not least because the definitions of “problematic” and “harmful” are in constant, deepening flux. Yesterday’s ally is today’s bigot for failing to update their terminology fast enough. This isn’t solidarity; it’s a climate of fear. It teaches potential allies that no amount of good faith will ever be enough, so the only rational choice is to disengage entirely.

Finally, the framework is morally and pragmatically bankrupt. Morally, it is the ad hominem fallacy developed into a pseudophilosophical system. It doesn’t critique the argument; it critiques the identity of the speaker. This is the essence of “standpoint epistemology,” the idea that one's social location (such as race or gender) determines one's access to truth. It’s a logical fallacy dressed up in impenetrable academic prose.

It simply does not work. It doesn’t persuade anyone. It doesn’t win converts. It only hardens the opposition, provides endless ammunition to the Right, and makes the accusers feel righteous and powerful. It achieves no tangible, real-world progress for the groups it claims to champion. It makes the left weaker, more fragmented, and hopelessly focused on its own internal purity tests rather than on opposing its actual political adversaries. It is a political dead end.

Conclusion: Reclaiming Persuasion

So, why has the left become so censorious? Because the dominant intellectual framework it adopted (Applied Critical Theory) rejects persuasion as a liberal fiction and views power as the sole determinant. The meaninglessness left by the deconstruction of universal values was filled by the only thing Theory recognizes: the will to power, expressed as tribal conformity. The accusations are the symptoms of this disease.

Is there anything that can be done? The way out is not to surrender, nor is it to meet illiberalism with more illiberalism. The way out is through.

First, we must refuse the frame. This is the most crucial step. Do not apologize to the mob. Do not accept the terms of the unfalsifiable accusation. Do not participate in the ritual. State your position calmly, clearly, and ethically. Do not be drawn into the trap. The trap only works if you accept its premise. Say your piece, point out the bad faith of the accusation, and then take your leave.

Second, we must actively reassert liberal principles. This is the hard, constructive work. We must rebuild the foundation we allowed to erode. This means re-centering the individual as the locus of rights, not the group. It means re-valuing free inquiry and viewpoint diversity as the engines of progress. And, most importantly, it means returning to the difficult, adult project of persuasion, however flawed, as the only ethical path forward in a pluralistic society.

Finally, we must model good faith. The only way to defeat a system based on bullying is to refuse to be bullied and to refuse to become a bully. This means weathering the accusations, modeling the very good-faith engagement that Theory denies is even possible, and holding the line.

The solidarity I felt marching in the 1980s, a necessity born of plague and persecution, was powerful because it was expansive. It was a call for inclusion into a shared humanity, a demand to be seen as fully human and fully individual. The joyless, power-obsessed framework of Theory is sterile and restrictive. We must find our way back to a politics based on that shared humanity, not one that finds its only purpose in tearing it apart.