Relaunching The Overflowings of a Liberal Brain.

A Place for Liberalism to Come to be Resuscitated

“Has Liberalism failed? Or are we, as a society, failing to be liberal?”

Liberalism is the underlying philosophical framework of liberal democracies and, consequently, the defining feature of Western Civilisation. If you hold the following values, you are, in the most fundamental sense, liberal.

• A commitment to individual liberty - freedom of belief, speech, association (individualism)

• Tolerance of difference and a will to live and let live as well as a recognition of the value of viewpoint diversity to advancing knowledge and resolving conflict in a democratic society (pluralism)  

• Recognition of our shared humanity and the common rights, freedoms and responsibilities this bestows upon us all (universalism), 

• A drive for reform over revolution or reactionism as a model for resolving societal problems. 

• A commitment to actively protecting others' right to believe, speak and live as they see fit, provided they do no material harm to anyone else nor deny them the same freedoms.

• The belief that all people come into the world with the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and this can only justifiably be removed from any individual due to their own demonstrable harmful actions.

• An understanding that threats to freedom come not only from the state but from authoritarian ideologies, individuals and groups, so liberal principles need to be protected not only in law but widely understood and valued in society. 

• A belief that it is in the interests of the overwhelming majority to conserve liberalism and the liberal democracies within which it flourishes. 

We live in a time where the majority of people are, in this most fundamental sense, liberal and yet we are plagued by growing illiberalism, authoritarianism and polarisation. There are some who believe that liberalism has failed. I believe this gets the problem backwards. A more accurate diagnosis is that too many factions of society have been failing to be liberal.

This is not a mere semantic quibble. It’s the difference between antibiotics failing to eradicate an infection and an individual failing to take their antibiotics. The outcome might be the same - a persistent and worsening infection - but the problem and thus the solution are different. When antibiotics do not work, we need to consider another, more radical, solution to save the patient - society. When the patient is not taking the antibiotics, we need to persuade and demonstrate to them the benefits of doing so.  That is why I am relaunching The Overflowings of a Liberal Brain and bringing as much of my writing, speaking and engagement with others as I can here. Here, we apply the first principles of liberalism to current events as they arise and talk about how to create a more liberal society that protects the rights of all to believe, speak and live as they see fit, provided this does no material harm to anybody else nor denies them the same freedoms.

Despite the concept creep of the term ‘liberal’, especially in the United States, to refer to the (often illiberal) left, this philosophy and system of governance has never belonged to the left. “Liberal” in its fundamental philosophical sense is not the opposite of conservative but of authoritarian, and the thinkers who developed the philosophy have been and continue to be instrumental to both left-wing and right-wing thought. Equally, there are illiberal ideologies and factions on both the left and the right and to push them back, those of us who value our freedoms need to work together. To be liberal is always to be, in some sense, both conservative and progressive, because liberalism seeks to conserve that which is good and build upon it and reform it to make it stronger. A democracy is best served when it has liberals of a more conservative disposition at the head of its right-wing parties because they will push to have the need to conserve properly considered and liberals of a more progressive disposition leading its left-wing parties as they will seek to ensure that reforms to flawed or unjust systems do occur in a timely fashion. These act as good checks and balances for each other but achieving this requires a good amount of trust and stability.

Right now, we are not seeing a great deal of trust or stability in the political realm. Instead, we are seeing an escalation of polarisation and warring narratives. As documented frequently and particularly well explained by Jonathan Haidt, people become more liberal and able to look outside of ourselves and prioritise individual rights and freedoms for everyone when they feel secure. However, when we experience a sense of existential threat, we are inclined to become more intolerant of other groups and more authoritarian within our own groups. As polarisation grows and political discourse on social media, in particular, is characterised by intense suspicion and hostility of political opponents, we see a growth of the childish, tribalistic ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is a Nazi/communist” mentality. Ideologues of all kinds express a greater willingness to be illiberal with a justification of ‘Well, they started it, and we are at war.”  As this sense of existential fear and suspicion of the other side grows, people are drawn to authoritarian leaders and become more open to radical revolutionary or reactionary solutions.  

We can’t address this purely on a level of policy, because, in order to be successful, politicians must sell us what we want, and currently, way too many people want solutions that are authoritarian.  We need to address the growth of illiberalism in culture, and this requires building bridges between liberals on the left and on the right. Bringing liberals together around a unified goal is always challenging because we tend not to do collectivism. The metaphor about herding cats comes to mind. Nevertheless, I have gathered a number of liberal conservatives and liberal leftists over the years as well as liberal Christians, liberal Jews, liberal Muslims, liberal feminists, liberal opponents of racism, liberal defenders of the rights of sexual minorities and more. Whatever your other political, philosophical or religious frameworks, together, we are liberal society and to overcome illiberalism, we need to expand our ranks. We must convince progressives who have become illiberal that liberalism has produced much progress and can continue to do so and persuade conservatives who have strayed into illiberalism that we cannot conserve what we think of as Western Civilisation without conserving liberalism.  It is only by uniting against authoritarianism consistently and supporting each other that we stand a chance of doing that. The ability to do that is an advantage that the liberals of all groups have which the authoritarians do not.

What do I intend to do with my SubStack?

The purpose of Overflowings is to remind people what liberalism is by breaking down its principles and applying them to current events, and to bring different kinds of liberals together to discuss this in a community-focused way. This is, of course, what I have been doing for what must be nearly fifteen years on Twitter (or X). I have always loved Twitter for the opportunity it gave me to think out loud in real time in response to whatever it is that people are talking about and the ways they are talking about it. Twitter, I once argued, was an ideal medium for breaking down issues and arguments into concise, consecutive points formed into a thread that people could then consider and respond to point by point.  This, I once claimed, was ideal because it not only prevented me from waffling off into the weeds, but also prevented readers from misunderstanding or missing the point. I seriously underestimated people’s capacity for misunderstanding and point-missing, given sufficient determination to do so. Despite recognising that the problem is only occasionally a lack of clarity on my part, I have not been able to cure myself of the impulse to keep explaining my point over and over again to a degree where my sleep, diet and exercise (as well as more productive work) fall by the wayside, and I become quite seriously unwell. I have had to accept that Twitter is not a thing I can do if I wish to be healthy and productive.

One reason I have been reluctant to accept this is because I do not want to let go of the facility offered by Twitter to keep up with current events and the development of popular discourses about them in real time. I don’t think cultural commentators can really culturally commentate if they only follow the opinions of the writers of opinion pieces. The vast majority of people do not write for a living, but still certainly have opinions which they express on social media where they have formed themselves into like-minded communities which very certainly contribute to the culture wars. Anybody who wants to address the culture wars needs to keep up with what is often referred as the ‘vibes’ but what I would suggest is more properly called ‘popular discourses.’ However, I can address this by having a Twitter account that doesn’t actually do anything but follows all the people my main account does and from which I can click on hashtags. This will enable me to keep up with the discourses but also prevent me from getting sucked into the toxic and pointless arguments with people who are determined to miss my point

The other reason I have been so reluctant to give up Twitter, though, is that I like to engage with people and test my own ideas. When people think I am wrong, I would like to know why (unless it is because I am fat which a surprising number of people from all over the political spectrum seem to think both relevant and to be a thing I may not have noticed).  I am surely wrong about some things and Twitter really can act as a meeting of minds. Some of those minds are absolute sewers but most are not. When I think out loud, people respond to me and make interesting points that I then like to break down and address in my threads. I want to make Overflowings a place where I can continue to address popular cultural discourses, break them down, apply liberal principles to them and actively engage with other people’s thoughts on them.

I am always delighted when people tell me they have found my work on breaking down CSJ ideology and applying liberal arguments to complex tangly issues helpful for understanding and thinking through Culture War issues that arise in their own lives. The feedback I value particularly highly is when someone tells me that I have been able to help them give verbal shape to what they have been thinking and feeling but struggling to articulate to their own satisfaction or that I have helped to bring clarity to their deliberations on a certain ethical issue. That is exactly what I am trying to do, and my writing is typically a product of me wrestling with them myself. For that reason, it is also extremely valuable when somebody spots a flaw in my reasoning or raises something I had not considered or simply makes a good counterargument.  For this reason, The Overflowings of a Liberal brain will be a heavily reader-dominated platform. It will be focused on what people in this community are talking about, concerned about or uncertain about and provide plenty of opportunities for subscribers to raise issues that they would like to see covered in more detail. Here, people can ask me questions or disagree with me or bring issues to my attention and this will continue to guide what I will write about

 Going forward, I intend to essentially set up residence here and do all the things I have previously done on Twitter in a more healthy and productive way. Having explored all the functions of SubStack, I think it has the capacity to do that. Now that my health is significantly restored, I intend to return to having regular working hours and be much more regularly productive of written and spoken posts, chats, threads, notes and podcasts.  I may also have guest posts written by other liberals coming from a different political (or religious) perspective to me or who focus on different aspects of our current crisis of liberalism. It is absolutely essential that liberals have these conversations among ourselves if we are to be able to articulate, argue for and defend the liberal principles that underlie our liberal democracies and that we engage civilly and honestly with critics of liberalism (so, if you are not one, you are very welcome too!)

It is paying subscribers who will enable me to dedicate more of my time to reading about, thinking about and writing about the illiberalisms that currently plague us. Yet, I know that not everybody who finds my breakdowns and arguments useful to consider when forming their own liberal stances on these issues can afford to be a paying subscriber. Therefore, I pledge to keep all my written content freely available. Those of you who are able to become paying subscribers will help me to produce more writing that is accessible to everyone. I will show my appreciation of this by giving you access to voiceover recordings of my pieces read by me, access to the forthcoming weekly Pluckrose Pontificates Podcast and an invitation to my monthly Ask Me Anything Chat.  If you are in a position to contribute a little more, you’ll get all the perks of a paid subscription in addition to a bonus surprise that may or may not have something to do with the only correct method for brewing the perfect cup of tea. Founding Members can also submit questions which I’ll aim to answer in my weekly podcast and will receive invitations to occasional virtual tea and liberalism meetups.

The governing system rooted in individual liberty, democratic pluralism and universalism that has produced the best systems of knowledge production, self-correction, institutional reform and conflict resolution the world has ever known has not failed. Too many of the beneficiaries of liberal democracies have been failing to uphold their foundational principles. We need to remind people what liberalism is, why we developed it in the first place and why it is to all of our advantages not to let it die.