The Rampaging Harridans of the New Orthodoxy

As witnessed on the campuses of so-called higher learning and elsewhere, the champions of inclusion and tolerance don't seem very good at being, well, inclusive or tolerant. The late Richard Neuhaus, in The Unhappy Fate of Optional Orthodoxy, described them as a "rampaging harridan":

The new liberal orthodoxy of recent decades is hard and nasty; compared to it, the old orthodoxy was merely quaint. The old orthodoxy was like a dotty old uncle in the front parlor; the new orthodoxy is a rampaging harridan in the family room.

A Typical Rampaging Harridan

But what's under the harridan's hood, what drives the motor of radical inclusion to run over any and all opposition? A set of radical ethical imperatives, for sure, to say nothing of good old fashioned revolutionary ardour. And what lies behind this? Neuhaus parses the issue in terms of "identity" and "experience":

Proponents of the new orthodoxy will protest, with some justice, that they, too, are committed to normative truths. These truths, however, are not embodied in propositions, precedent, ecclesial authority, or, goodness knows, revelation. They are experiential truths expressing the truth of who we truly are —“we” being defined by sex, race, class, tribe, or identifying desire (“orientation”).

He goes on:

With the older orthodoxy it is possible to disagree, as in having an argument. Evidence, reason, and logic count, in principle at least. Not so with the new orthodoxy. Here disagreement is an intolerable personal affront. It is construed as a denial of others, of their experience of who they are. It is a blasphemous assault on that most high god, “My Identity.”

There can be no appeal against this other than an assertion of identity, of self, and the rules of that playing field are at best a short step away from a raw assertion of power, to a triumph of the will that allows no dissent, whatsoever.

You have been warned.

Your Old Friend,

LSP