Helen, your statement of "Humans will always have different ideas and they will always factionalise over them" seems to clearly identify the core issue in play. Thank you!
Liberalism accepts this statement as simply a given truth that must be acknowledged and negotiated from - then seeks to find ways to constructively manage all the inherent tensions that follow, one of which is maximizing potential freedoms and minimizing the potential harms to others.
Denying that truth, or seeking to go against it, seems to always lead to Authoritarianism of one stripe or another.
You’ve stirred my thoughts! What this piece helps me name is how much of our political and moral struggle is actually psychological.
Humans are complex, contradictory creatures who nonetheless crave coherence. We want frameworks that tell us who is right, what is safe, and where the boundaries lie. That desire is not a flaw—it is part of how we survive. But when uncertainty rises, that desire can quietly harden into something else: a longing for control disguised as moral clarity.
What I find compelling here is the insistence that liberalism does not attempt to cure human messiness. It accepts it. It offers a structure that allows disagreement, error, and revision without immediately translating discomfort into domination. That is a demanding posture. It requires restraint, patience, and a willingness to live without final answers.
As someone shaped by systems that promised certainty in exchange for obedience, I’m increasingly aware of how easily my own thinking gravitates toward neat lines—this idea is dangerous, that one must be banned, this group must be stopped before harm occurs. Sometimes those instincts come from care. Other times, they come from anxiety about ambiguity and loss of control. Learning to tell the difference feels like real political work.
What stands out to me is the reminder that authoritarianism rarely announces itself as cruelty. It presents itself as protection, order, and moral seriousness. The temptation is to believe that this time coercion will solve the problem, that this silencing will prevent future harm. History—and psychology—suggest otherwise.
The challenge, then, is not to abandon ethical clarity, but to resist turning it into totalizing narratives that deny human complexity. Thinking well in public requires tolerating uncertainty, opposing harm without flattening dissent, and holding principles steady without reaching for domination as a shortcut.
That may be less satisfying than certainty—but it is far more honest, and far more humane.
Yes! I think that’s something I have really come to appreciate in the last year. So much of what we believe to be conclusions drawn from serious thought is, in fact, a matter of our collective psychology as humans and so many differences that we have and believe to results of evaluating ideas comes down to hardwired personality traits. I don’t think appreciating that need make us deterministic. If we accept that such a thing as ‘human nature’ exists, we can avoid doing things that trigger its worst impulses - e.g., positing that black and white people are entirely separate tribes with different knowledges, values and experiences and with interests in conflict and then thinking this will help a species of tribalistic ape overcome racism. If we accept that many of our political inclinations are rooted in personality traits, we can think “I’m likely to be biased in this direction” and “People with different personality traits will not be convinced by this and will make this objection. How do we find common ground there?”
The single most beautiful and important statement in the US constitution in my opinion is, “We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect union”. Not a perfect union but a more perfect one we’re always supposed to be making it more perfect as we learn more from each other.
With that said I think one of the most dangerous flaws of liberalism that has been exposed is the paradox of tolerance which says that as we liberals attempt to tolerate others and their ideas we end up tolerating ideas and actions which are not compatible with liberalism. These ideas often come from those who are opposed to liberalism and are attempting to tear it down by including these ideas in the marketplace we’re beginning the destruction of our system. We are not actually required to tolerate the ideas of those who are opposed to our system and society, those who refuse to play by the inherent rules of liberalism do not enjoy the protections of liberalism and do not have to be included in the debate. We must protect the system first then tolerate others ideas once we have ensured they are committed to the rules and values of liberalism before we give them the protections and freedoms of shaping the conversation. I think this is key as we move forward in shaping the 3rd American republic once we have thrown off our tyrant! ✊✌️🫶
Very thought-provoking, as usual. Reality is messy. Yes. Often there is no line. Yes. It seems to depend partly on what level of society we are talking about. If my family home environment has established specific ‘rules’ and/or expectations over time which all who live there agree makes that environment more pleasant - e.g. something as simple as removing one’s shoes at the threshold - it would surely be reasonable to expect any visitors to respect and abide by those clear, unmessy rules - those ‘lines’. Likewise, it would surely be right for us to be expected to respect and abide by any clear, unmessy rules - ´lines’ - which we encountered when visiting the home environment of others. Unfortunately, this sort of mutual understanding and respect does not seem to be easily scalable to the level of the nation state, let alone to the scale of multi-state entities like the EU, despite the still (?) widely quoted ´When in Rome, do as the Romans’ proverb. A perception that this proverb’s call for mutual cultural sensitivity and respect has been violated often seems to lie at the root of current concerns regarding immigration, particularly from non-European/non-Western places.
What's the Justification for decency laws that bases on the harm-principle? The reduction of communication caused by face covering in public space seems a more discernible harm than the one of topless women.
There isn't any. Some cultures don't have those laws. If there was a significant movement of women wanting the right to walk about topless, they could argue for this using liberal principles and I'd support them. There isn't. The fact that such laws are somewhat arbitrary and social constructs does not justify adding more arbitrary and socially constructed rules that suit some people's political agendas. That's the line. If you want to prevent people from doing more things, justify it with harm.
Arguments could be made against complete nudity on the grounds of hygiene and arguments against face coverings can be made on the grounds of security.
What constitutes harm in a liberal framework is still quite unclear to me. Asking people to show their faces in public space and facial recognition certainly increases security if those operating the system are to be trusted. But there are certainly strong liberal arguments in favor of the possibility of anonymity in public space.
On the other hand, the display of religious and other tribal symbols can objectively segregate people causing harm to societal cohesion. Would this qualify as harm? Would it qualify as harm if it could be shown that it makes it harder to recruit people for national Defense?
No. If you want people not to have different religions, you'd need to try to talk them out of having a religion or any religion other than one. Demanding people hide indicators of their religion is a denial of religious freedom and also won't stop people from actually having different religions and siloing into religious communities. Historical attempts to socially engineer religious homogeneity in this way has never worked and has just resulted in factionalism and bloodshed.
Religious freedoms are not absolute. Liberal societies do ban genital cutting. Ukrainian language law make it illegal to speak Yiddish in some contexts. My point is that, as you say, reality is messy and liberal values are often to be negotiated against other values that even liberals accept. Or that might be even necessary to protect a liberal Society.
I have one challenge that I think you'll find interesting to ponder:
I agree that "often there is no "line"", but I believe that there is actually a baseline somewhere on socially acceptable discourse, and it's critical that we hold that line.
I'm calling this line our timeless, sacred, and essential moral taboos against hatred - namely overt bigotry, dehumanization, and the endorsement of violence. It is undeniable that these taboos have started to erode, as society has seemingly become more tolerant of them by not socially punishing violators (and their enablers) and allowing them to continue operating in polite society and our mainstream discourse and politics. I believe the way we responded to the KKK, with social ostracism for their member and anybody who remained associated with them, is quite instructive and something we need to begin practicing for all other egregious taboo violators.
I have just started an initiative, anchored by my Substack 'Holding the Line' (elevin11.substack.com) that is trying to mainstream this idea that we must restore and uphold these critical taboos (leveraging social consequences), or we will see our social fabric tear apart beyond repair.
Thank you! I’m not sure how this would work. It isn’t that we don’t already have a social line against hateful speech and have grown more tolerant of it, but that we have different ones and there is no societal-wide norms. People who celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk and people who celebrated the death of Renee Good are condoned by the people whose approval they want and reviled by the people whose approval they don’t want.
Charlie Kirk's death and the responses to it were quite instructive for me to sharpen my thinking here, and actually gave me some hope. I intend to write about this further, but here's my current summary view:
The direct responses to Kirk's assassination were one of these three:
1. The Remorseful - people that were sad and appalled, no matter what they thought of Charlie or if they knew anything about him. The vast majority of people fell in this camp.
2. The Remorseless - people who thought Charlie was evil and boasted that they didn't feel bad that he was killed. Probably ~10-20% of the left would fall in this camp, though ofc most didn't articulate their views publicly and permanently.
3. The Rejoicers - people who celebrated and endorsed his murder. This was a very small group, especially those that did so publicly and permanently.
Some of Charlie's fans, understandably incensed, collaborated to try to get the people from both groups 2 and 3 fired. By and large, from everything that I saw, when pressure was applied, the taboos actually held firm. The people from group 2 (who said things that were perhaps uncouth, but not taboo) did not lose their jobs, while the people from group 3 did, as they clearly violated an inviolable taboo. That showed our moral taboos working as expected.
Now, indeed, that was high profile, and there was a lot of pressure on employers to fire their employees for their very public taboo violations, though, to their credit, many didn't fire the "Remorseless" (group 2) employees. I believe we need to take those same principles and encourage everyone to start applying them consistently, even when the violations come from one's own tribal/political in-group.
I don't pretend like this is going to be easy. But I do think that I'm appealing to a sense of morality and baseline decency that >90% of Americans would agree with, even if they sometimes act tribal and unprincipled and hypocritical to excuse those that are close to them.
I wouldn't accept the premise in any of those six examples. Even in the one involving the hospital worker, firing him wouldn't mean that such a crime wouldn't be committed. It would only mean that someone who might commit it would keep his views to himself before committing the crime. Something like this happened in New York State recently.
Helen, your statement of "Humans will always have different ideas and they will always factionalise over them" seems to clearly identify the core issue in play. Thank you!
Liberalism accepts this statement as simply a given truth that must be acknowledged and negotiated from - then seeks to find ways to constructively manage all the inherent tensions that follow, one of which is maximizing potential freedoms and minimizing the potential harms to others.
Denying that truth, or seeking to go against it, seems to always lead to Authoritarianism of one stripe or another.
You’ve stirred my thoughts! What this piece helps me name is how much of our political and moral struggle is actually psychological.
Humans are complex, contradictory creatures who nonetheless crave coherence. We want frameworks that tell us who is right, what is safe, and where the boundaries lie. That desire is not a flaw—it is part of how we survive. But when uncertainty rises, that desire can quietly harden into something else: a longing for control disguised as moral clarity.
What I find compelling here is the insistence that liberalism does not attempt to cure human messiness. It accepts it. It offers a structure that allows disagreement, error, and revision without immediately translating discomfort into domination. That is a demanding posture. It requires restraint, patience, and a willingness to live without final answers.
As someone shaped by systems that promised certainty in exchange for obedience, I’m increasingly aware of how easily my own thinking gravitates toward neat lines—this idea is dangerous, that one must be banned, this group must be stopped before harm occurs. Sometimes those instincts come from care. Other times, they come from anxiety about ambiguity and loss of control. Learning to tell the difference feels like real political work.
What stands out to me is the reminder that authoritarianism rarely announces itself as cruelty. It presents itself as protection, order, and moral seriousness. The temptation is to believe that this time coercion will solve the problem, that this silencing will prevent future harm. History—and psychology—suggest otherwise.
The challenge, then, is not to abandon ethical clarity, but to resist turning it into totalizing narratives that deny human complexity. Thinking well in public requires tolerating uncertainty, opposing harm without flattening dissent, and holding principles steady without reaching for domination as a shortcut.
That may be less satisfying than certainty—but it is far more honest, and far more humane.
Yes! I think that’s something I have really come to appreciate in the last year. So much of what we believe to be conclusions drawn from serious thought is, in fact, a matter of our collective psychology as humans and so many differences that we have and believe to results of evaluating ideas comes down to hardwired personality traits. I don’t think appreciating that need make us deterministic. If we accept that such a thing as ‘human nature’ exists, we can avoid doing things that trigger its worst impulses - e.g., positing that black and white people are entirely separate tribes with different knowledges, values and experiences and with interests in conflict and then thinking this will help a species of tribalistic ape overcome racism. If we accept that many of our political inclinations are rooted in personality traits, we can think “I’m likely to be biased in this direction” and “People with different personality traits will not be convinced by this and will make this objection. How do we find common ground there?”
The single most beautiful and important statement in the US constitution in my opinion is, “We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect union”. Not a perfect union but a more perfect one we’re always supposed to be making it more perfect as we learn more from each other.
With that said I think one of the most dangerous flaws of liberalism that has been exposed is the paradox of tolerance which says that as we liberals attempt to tolerate others and their ideas we end up tolerating ideas and actions which are not compatible with liberalism. These ideas often come from those who are opposed to liberalism and are attempting to tear it down by including these ideas in the marketplace we’re beginning the destruction of our system. We are not actually required to tolerate the ideas of those who are opposed to our system and society, those who refuse to play by the inherent rules of liberalism do not enjoy the protections of liberalism and do not have to be included in the debate. We must protect the system first then tolerate others ideas once we have ensured they are committed to the rules and values of liberalism before we give them the protections and freedoms of shaping the conversation. I think this is key as we move forward in shaping the 3rd American republic once we have thrown off our tyrant! ✊✌️🫶
Very thought-provoking, as usual. Reality is messy. Yes. Often there is no line. Yes. It seems to depend partly on what level of society we are talking about. If my family home environment has established specific ‘rules’ and/or expectations over time which all who live there agree makes that environment more pleasant - e.g. something as simple as removing one’s shoes at the threshold - it would surely be reasonable to expect any visitors to respect and abide by those clear, unmessy rules - those ‘lines’. Likewise, it would surely be right for us to be expected to respect and abide by any clear, unmessy rules - ´lines’ - which we encountered when visiting the home environment of others. Unfortunately, this sort of mutual understanding and respect does not seem to be easily scalable to the level of the nation state, let alone to the scale of multi-state entities like the EU, despite the still (?) widely quoted ´When in Rome, do as the Romans’ proverb. A perception that this proverb’s call for mutual cultural sensitivity and respect has been violated often seems to lie at the root of current concerns regarding immigration, particularly from non-European/non-Western places.
I became a paid subscriber as a result of this piece. Great work, Helen.
Thank you, Phil!
What's the Justification for decency laws that bases on the harm-principle? The reduction of communication caused by face covering in public space seems a more discernible harm than the one of topless women.
There isn't any. Some cultures don't have those laws. If there was a significant movement of women wanting the right to walk about topless, they could argue for this using liberal principles and I'd support them. There isn't. The fact that such laws are somewhat arbitrary and social constructs does not justify adding more arbitrary and socially constructed rules that suit some people's political agendas. That's the line. If you want to prevent people from doing more things, justify it with harm.
Arguments could be made against complete nudity on the grounds of hygiene and arguments against face coverings can be made on the grounds of security.
What constitutes harm in a liberal framework is still quite unclear to me. Asking people to show their faces in public space and facial recognition certainly increases security if those operating the system are to be trusted. But there are certainly strong liberal arguments in favor of the possibility of anonymity in public space.
On the other hand, the display of religious and other tribal symbols can objectively segregate people causing harm to societal cohesion. Would this qualify as harm? Would it qualify as harm if it could be shown that it makes it harder to recruit people for national Defense?
No. If you want people not to have different religions, you'd need to try to talk them out of having a religion or any religion other than one. Demanding people hide indicators of their religion is a denial of religious freedom and also won't stop people from actually having different religions and siloing into religious communities. Historical attempts to socially engineer religious homogeneity in this way has never worked and has just resulted in factionalism and bloodshed.
Religious freedoms are not absolute. Liberal societies do ban genital cutting. Ukrainian language law make it illegal to speak Yiddish in some contexts. My point is that, as you say, reality is messy and liberal values are often to be negotiated against other values that even liberals accept. Or that might be even necessary to protect a liberal Society.
Yes, those aren’t liberal values, though. I argue for liberal values and keeping the bar very high and on the grounds of harm.
I love your thinking and writing, Helen!
I have one challenge that I think you'll find interesting to ponder:
I agree that "often there is no "line"", but I believe that there is actually a baseline somewhere on socially acceptable discourse, and it's critical that we hold that line.
I'm calling this line our timeless, sacred, and essential moral taboos against hatred - namely overt bigotry, dehumanization, and the endorsement of violence. It is undeniable that these taboos have started to erode, as society has seemingly become more tolerant of them by not socially punishing violators (and their enablers) and allowing them to continue operating in polite society and our mainstream discourse and politics. I believe the way we responded to the KKK, with social ostracism for their member and anybody who remained associated with them, is quite instructive and something we need to begin practicing for all other egregious taboo violators.
I have just started an initiative, anchored by my Substack 'Holding the Line' (elevin11.substack.com) that is trying to mainstream this idea that we must restore and uphold these critical taboos (leveraging social consequences), or we will see our social fabric tear apart beyond repair.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Thank you! I’m not sure how this would work. It isn’t that we don’t already have a social line against hateful speech and have grown more tolerant of it, but that we have different ones and there is no societal-wide norms. People who celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk and people who celebrated the death of Renee Good are condoned by the people whose approval they want and reviled by the people whose approval they don’t want.
Charlie Kirk's death and the responses to it were quite instructive for me to sharpen my thinking here, and actually gave me some hope. I intend to write about this further, but here's my current summary view:
The direct responses to Kirk's assassination were one of these three:
1. The Remorseful - people that were sad and appalled, no matter what they thought of Charlie or if they knew anything about him. The vast majority of people fell in this camp.
2. The Remorseless - people who thought Charlie was evil and boasted that they didn't feel bad that he was killed. Probably ~10-20% of the left would fall in this camp, though ofc most didn't articulate their views publicly and permanently.
3. The Rejoicers - people who celebrated and endorsed his murder. This was a very small group, especially those that did so publicly and permanently.
Some of Charlie's fans, understandably incensed, collaborated to try to get the people from both groups 2 and 3 fired. By and large, from everything that I saw, when pressure was applied, the taboos actually held firm. The people from group 2 (who said things that were perhaps uncouth, but not taboo) did not lose their jobs, while the people from group 3 did, as they clearly violated an inviolable taboo. That showed our moral taboos working as expected.
Now, indeed, that was high profile, and there was a lot of pressure on employers to fire their employees for their very public taboo violations, though, to their credit, many didn't fire the "Remorseless" (group 2) employees. I believe we need to take those same principles and encourage everyone to start applying them consistently, even when the violations come from one's own tribal/political in-group.
I don't pretend like this is going to be easy. But I do think that I'm appealing to a sense of morality and baseline decency that >90% of Americans would agree with, even if they sometimes act tribal and unprincipled and hypocritical to excuse those that are close to them.
I do not see any other alternative to reverse course from this incredibly dangerous path we're on. And importantly, I think we can do this with grace, and I've laid out some principles that can help guide us - at some point I'll bring these over into my Substack https://medium.com/@elevin11/the-lawful-but-awful-speech-that-must-be-made-taboo-again-1955c0ab69ac.
I wouldn't accept the premise in any of those six examples. Even in the one involving the hospital worker, firing him wouldn't mean that such a crime wouldn't be committed. It would only mean that someone who might commit it would keep his views to himself before committing the crime. Something like this happened in New York State recently.
If they wish to persuade us, they must come with evidence and reasoned argument.
Authoritarians do not wish to persuade us. If they were interested in persuasion, they wouldn’t be authoritarians.