How "woke" is Canada?

"Surprisingly, despite their reputation," says Prof. Eric Kaufmann, "Canadians largely reject the woke ideology." 

Canadians aren’t actually ‘woke’ | The Hub ] Eric Kaufmann: 

February 15, 2024 - "'Woke' refers to the sacralization of historically marginalized race, gender, and sexual identity groups. This belief system elevates equal outcomes and emotional harm protection for such groups as its highest value.... Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has distinguished himself on the world stage as the paragon of this belief system, and many outside Canada assume he reflects an equally woke Canadian public. But is this truly the case? To better understand Canadian views, The Macdonald-Laurier Institute asked Maru Public Opinion Polls to conduct a nationally representative survey of 1,500 adults, in which I fielded numerous questions previously put to American and British samples.... 

"Surprisingly, despite their reputation, Canadians largely reject the woke ideology. For instance, they oppose the idea of separating pupils in class by race—assigning whites as privileged and minorities as oppressed—by a whopping 92 to 8. By 85-15, they reject the idea of teaching children that 'There is no such thing as biological sex, only gender preference.' Excluding those with no opinion, 80 percent of respondents were against the idea of J.K. Rowling being dropped by her publisher. By a similar slant, Canadians say 'political correctness has gone too far.'

"In most cases, respondents came out strongly against established practices found in Canadian institutions. For example, when Toronto teacher Richard Bilkszto pushed back against diversity trainer Kike Ojo-Thompson’s characterization of Canada as more racist than the United States, none of his colleagues defended him and his travails eventually drove him to suicide. Yet, by a stunning 95-5 margin, Canadians overwhelmingly reject the idea that their country is more racist than other countries. Among those with an opinion, just 30 percent say that Canada is a racist country while 70 percent disagree. A similar share says they do not want schoolchildren taught that the country is racist.

"Or consider the fact that almost all statues of Sir John A. Macdonald have been removed from major Canadian cities. Yet, Canadians oppose removing statues of Canada’s Father of Confederation by a two-to-one ratio. Among those with an opinion, a mere 8 percent say activists should be allowed to remove statues without government approval, with 92 percent against. Almost 45 percent of Tory and PPC voters strongly disagree with removing Macdonald. In addition, only 5 percent of Liberal, NDP, and Green voters strongly agree that his statues should be removed. The majority of left-wing voters oppose rather than support Macdonald’s removal.

"Canada has been one of the most trans-affirming societies on earth. Only in the past year have conservative premiers in New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, and Alberta begun to curb trans activism in education....  But when we look at public opinion on the trans question, an entirely different picture emerges. By a four-to-one ratio, Canadians oppose gender reassignment surgery for those under 16. By two-to-one, they want parents informed of pronoun changes at school and don’t want transgender women (i.e. biological males) to enter women’s sports competitions. Three in four Canadians say we talk too much about transgenderism. Even when it comes to people displaying their pronouns in work emails or social media profiles, more Canadians disapprove of this practice than support it....

"It is striking how similar Canadian public opinion is to that of supposedly more conservative America or Britain. Across 30 questions I asked in Britain in 2022 and Canada in 2023, the average difference in opinion between the two countries is just 0.3 of a percentage point. Furthermore, of the 13 questions asked in the U.S. in 2021, the average gap with this Canadian survey was just one point! There is essentially no appreciable difference.... French-English differences are also much smaller than the stereotype of woke English Canada versus plain-speaking traditional French Canada would lead us to expect. Francophones are somewhat less woke than Anglos on many transgender questions and more inclined to colourblindness rather than race and gender-conscious Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies. However, Anglophones are more critical of Black Lives Matter than Francophones, more likely to say political correctness has gone too far, and more opposed to removing statues and renaming buildings.... 

"English Canada’s culturally-left political and media elite contrasts with that of red-state America, and, to a lesser degree, with Britain and Quebec. If English-Canadian public opinion is largely aligned with the others, why have its policies and politicians diverged from their British, American, and Quebecois equivalents? One possible answer is Canadians’ relatively high trust in elites and institutions. More than half of Canadians trust journalists while fewer than 20 percent of Britons and barely a third of Americans do. Even 30 percent of conservative Canadians trust journalists compared to 11-15 percent of conservative Americans and Britons. A somewhat similar pattern holds with respect to academics and teachers. Canadians’ elevated trust in their largely progressive-dominated institutions gives the Canadian elite more leeway to deviate from public opinion.

"The key takeaway is that culture war issues are far less settled than a lot of mainstream commentary would have Canadians believe. Polling irrefutably shows that Canadians are as inclined as Americans or Britons to disagree with a lot of the woke shibboleths that are present in the media, universities, and other major institutions. As for the political implications, these findings may represent a glaring opportunity for conservatives and a glaring risk for progressives."

Read more: https://thehub.ca/2024-02-15/eric-kaufmann-canadians-are-not-actually-woke/

Read report: https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/politics-of-culture-wars-canada/

The True Definition of Wokeness? - Eric Kaufmann | The Equiano Project |  September 8, 2023:

Why the "Intellectual Dark Web" exists

Why the Intellectual Dark Web Had to Go Dark - Foundation for Economic Education - Tyler Brandt:

June 14, 2018 - "Recently, The New York Times ran an exposé on the “Intellectual Dark Web.” The piece profiles all the heavy hitters of the movement: Jordan B. Peterson, Bret Weinstein, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, and Sam Harris.... The piece characterizes the Intellectual Dark Web as a shadowy underground of renegade iconoclasts who dare to challenge the orthodoxies of academia and the media [but] glosses over the reason why these thinkers have been ostracized....

"Peterson rose to fame when he controversially criticized a 'humanitarian' bill legally mandating the use of certain pronouns. Bret Weinstein, who happens to be a progressive, was ejected from Evergreen State because he refused to bow to illiberal students calling for a no whites allowed 'day of absence.' Sam Harris rose to popularity after being called gross and offensive by Ben Affleck for criticizing Islamism. After The Young Turks had Sam Harris on their show and Dave Rubin saw how hostile and irrational the host was, Rubin left his job and started The Rubin Report, a show founded on open dialogue.

"What these individuals have in common is that, in the pursuit of truth and free expression, they offended arbiters of politically correct opinion. These thinkers are the new heretics who challenge the religious convictions of society and they are excommunicated in the same way that those who went against the church once were....

"We are selectively choosing which arguments are ok to make by a cabal of politically correct youth, who claim to stand for the oppressed. The world of truth is too dangerous for these vulnerable persons, so we must bubble wrap knowledge as to not harm their sensibilities, so the logic goes. Well, in bubble wrapping the world, we disguise its reality, and that is a surefire way to cause catastrophe. We can’t put blinders on certain corners of the world and expect to come out with a proper understanding of how it functions.

"We can’t select the truth based on offensiveness.... Offense is subjective by nature and largely determined by individual temperament. A claim of subjective emotion can hardly be invalidated. This means that scientific hypotheses are being rejected on claims of subjective emotion instead of meticulous checking....

"We have started concentrating the power of who determines truth in the hands of educational administrators, politicians, and bureaucracies. What we have lost is a dialogue between intellectual community members about what the truth is. When not able to satisfy that need in public institutions, many great thinkers have taken their thoughts to the internet....

"The Intellectual Dark Web exists because many still venerate objective truth. With the rules of truth-proving being rewritten by our institutions, many expelled thinkers continue their pursuit online. It’s a blessing for those who want to have discussions on evolutionary biology, religion, culture, economics, and politics, without any toxic ideology polluting the outlet."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/why-the-intellectual-dark-web-had-to-go-dark/
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What is a 'cultural libertarian'?

In Search of the Elusive Cultural Libertarian - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Elizabeth Nolan Brown:

April 20, 2016 - 'What is a 'cultural libertarian?' While young conservatives claim the term originated in a 2015 Breitbart article, it's actually a term that's been thrown around by libertarians and conservatives in the media since at least 2001. But does the 'cultural libertarianism' debated in outlets such as Reason and the National Review back then share anything with the version espoused by the likes of Canadian activist Lauren Southern and Breitbart personality Milo Yiannopoulos these days? Yes and no.

"Today's 'cultural libertarians' claim to be concerned, first and foremost, with free speech and fending off the 'illiberal' or 'regressive left.' Where they succeed, from a libertarian-no-qualifier perspective, is in igniting the passions of young people toward the protection of civil liberties. Where they fail is by turning off more people in the process than they win over, delighting in the kinds of tactics and stunts that provoke but little else....

"Southern positions cultural libertarianism as a sub-branch of broader libertarian philosophy. 'Libertarians who are not Cultural Libertarians would argue that the only suppression of speech and expression that is unacceptable is suppression that is perpetrated by the state,' says Southern, making it sound like just another way of saying 'thick libertarian.' Thick libertarianism is a term used by liberty-movement types to describe libertarians who 'concern themselves with social commitments, practices, projects or movements that seek social outcomes beyond, or other than, the standard libertarian commitment to expanding the scope of freedom from government coercion'....

"Breitbart's Allum Bokhari defines cultural libertarians in opposition to cultural authoritarians.... cultural libertarians believe in open expression, viewing art as separate from its political overtones, and recognizing 'that efforts to police language and expression are not only counter-productive, but also fragile'.... Tellingly, Bokhari mentions the main goal of cultural libertarian to be 'needling their foes' on the Internet 'with waspish critiques and satire'.... When it comes down to it, the cultural libertarians of the Breitbart set just want to mock 'social justice warriors' while invoking natural rights.

"Yet at the very bottom of Bokhari's list, there is this: 'celebrating culture in all its forms' ... this idea is the closest that Cultural Libertarianism 2.0 comes to its 2001 counterpart. Let's look at that old debate for a moment. In a December 2001 National Review post, Jonah Goldberg decried the 'Chinese-menu culture' that 'basically says that whatever ideology, religion, cult, belief, creed, fad, hobby, or personal fantasy you like is just fine so long as you don’t impose it on anybody else, especially with the government'.... This attitude, embodied by the 'arrogant nihilism" of Nick Gillespie and former Reason editor Virginia Postrel, was 'rapidly replacing liberalism as the real threat to America, and the true opposition to conservatism,' warned Goldberg.

"According to cultural libertarianism ... we can pick from across the vast menu of human diversity — from all religions and cultures, real and imagined — until we find one that fits our own personal preferences. Virginia Postrel can write triumphantly that the market allows Americans to spend $8 billion on porn and $3 billion at Christian bookstores, because she isn’t willing to say that one is any better, or any worse, than the other."

Read more: http://reason.com/blog/2016/04/20/the-elusive-cultural-libertarian
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The rise of the cultural libertarians

Rise of the Cultural Libertarians - Allum Bokhari, Breitbart News:

August 24, 2015 - "Cultural authoritarians from both the left and right occupy most positions of power in government, academia and the media. Both argue that art and expression can be harmful. Conservatives say that overly-violent video games and movies are the cause of school shootings and youth crime.... Progressives argue that 'problematic' media can lead to racism and misogyny....

"Underlying both ... arguments is the idea of culture as a corrupting influence, one that must be policed. This view has little scientific evidence to support it. A recent long-term study found no link between video games and sexism, and violent crime has been in decline for decades despite the growth of violent media. Nonetheless, arguments for a link continue to surface....

"In order to control what they see as dangerous expression, authoritarians often resort to casual and spurious accusations of misogyny, racism, and homophobia. The goal is to manipulate the boundaries of acceptable speech by smearing their targets with socially unacceptable labels and to write off speakers they don’t like as bigots so they don’t have to engage with the speaker’s arguments.

"The range of socially acceptable speech and art is sometimes called the 'Overton window.' The purpose of much contemporary criticism, according to cultural libertarians, aims to move or simply narrow that window.

"Cultural libertarians recognise that efforts to police language and expression are not only counter-productive, but also fragile. The people pushing for greater control are a small segment of the population, whose voice is amplified by media support. To fight them, all you have to do is ignore them – or, better yet, mock them....

"They’ve also worked out that the people leading the charge in social media mobs have vastly disproportionate influence thanks to their publishing platforms and that not only are they hopelessly out of touch with popular opinion but that their tactics are unpleasant and hectoring, often veering into outright cruelty and persecution....

"Cultural libertarians recognise that efforts to police language and expression are not only counter-productive, but also fragile. The people pushing for greater control are a small segment of the population, whose voice is amplified by media support. To fight them, all you have to do is ignore them – or, better yet, mock them.

"Because the social justice tendency takes apparently fringe issues and elevates them to the status of historic civil rights battles, and because humour can be in short supply wherever you find authoritarian points of view, cultural libertarians have found needling their foes with waspish critiques and satire highly effective.

"Cultural libertarians can frequently be found skewering critics who take themselves too seriously or are excessively earnest, especially when making specious arguments about the supposed 'real-world effect' of violent or allegedly offensive media. Their attitude is refreshing for readers tired of being lectured to by newspaper columnists and east coast bloggers, and one of the reasons cultural libertarianism is gaining traction so quickly."

Read more: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/24/rise-of-the-cultural-libertarians/
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Camille Paglia slams ‘fascist’ politically correct silencing of Phil Robertson

Lesbian Libertarian Camille Paglia Slams ‘Fascist’ Politically Correct Culture That Punishes ‘Duck Dynasty’ Star’s Right To Free Speech : Personal Liberty™: - Ben Bullard

December 19, 2013 - "Count on Camille Paglia to turn her progressive, myopic, ivory-tower echo-chamber colleagues red with indignant rage anytime she opens her mouth to speak the simple truth.

"Paglia weighed in on the sanctimony-fueled uproar that 'Duck Dynasty' star Phil Robertson’s 'suspension' from the massively popular A&E show generated Thursday, as the openly gay professor, intellectual and pop culture critic tore into the pervasiveness of politically correct timidity throughout American culture on an appearance on the Laura Ingraham radio show.

"Paglia, author of the 1991 landmark Sexual Personae ... hewed to the same fierce defense of free speech that has kept progressive critics – nearly all of whom lack the academic chops to assail her thinking on the merits – throwing off-the-mark ad hominem spears at her for two decades.

"'I speak with authority here, because I was openly gay before the ‘Stonewall Rebellion,’ when it cost you something to be so,' said Paglia. 'And I personally feel as a libertarian that people have the right to free thought and free speech.'"

Read more: http://personalliberty.com/2013/12/19/lesbian-libertarian-camille-paglia-slams-fascist-politically-correct-culture-that-punishes-duck-dynasty-stars-right-to-free-speech/
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