Between the riots of last spring and the recent storming of the U.S. Capitol, the forces of polarization appear stronger than ever, manifesting across American society with increasing energy and destruction. Despite all our talk of “unity,” the division only seems to fester, perpetuated by the spread of misinformation and partisan efforts to justify all sorts of reckless disregard.
The various movements have their distinctions, to be sure. Each represents a unique set of grievances among a subset of the marginalized and misunderstood. Each focuses its rebellion on specific targets and enacts its chaos through particular methods of “culture war” and insurrection. Each has its own rhetoric, slogans, heroes, and enemies. Yet each finds unity with the others in one important way: These are manifestations of mob politics, pure and simple – and they stretch across cultural, religious, and political lines.
The new ochlocracy is everywhere, from online efforts to “own the libs” or cancel conservatives, to the secularized political religions of the Left and Right, to the Capitol crusades by barbarians with Bibles. The tribalism cuts deep, and the more widely it spreads, the more we risk making an idol of collective power and a mockery of ordered liberty. Without the proper safeguards – spiritually, morally, institutionally, and otherwise – the whims of the masses are likely to lead us to the whiplash of the state.
In his book The Smallest Minority: Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics, Kevin Williamson warns of these temptations, noting that while they may be ancient in their origins, they have found a new foothold amid the disruptions of modern capitalism and the decline of civil society. “[Frederich] Hayek worried that we were on the Road to Serfdom, and we are,” Williamson argues. “But it begins with the Road to Smurfdom, the place where the deracinated demos of the Twitter age finds itself feeling small and blue.”
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