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Whitham, Ben (2020) 'A postmodern neo-Marxist’s guide to free speech: Jordan Peterson, the alt-right and neo-fascism.' In: Riley, Charlotte Lydia, (ed.), The Free Speech Wars: How Did We Get Here and Why Does It Matter? Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 227-238.

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Abstract

Jordan Peterson is a central figure in the so-called ‘culture wars’. Lumping together 'postmodern neo-Marxists', feminists, queer theorists and transgender rights activists as the ‘social justice warrior' blob he stands against, Peterson has become a poster boy of the transnational far right. This chapter tackles Peterson’s conceptualisation of his enemies head-on, arguing that he identifies something real: unity among diverse critical traditions in our opposition to ‘free speech’. ‘Postmodern neo-Marxists’ may be an oxymoron, given the well-documented animosity between these two intellectual movements. But what postmodernists (or poststructuralists), Marxists, feminists, and gender and queer theorists share in common is a belief that the ways in which we theorise, explain and act in our world must stem from actual social practices rather than abstract, ahistorical principles. Whereas the ‘alt-right’ depicts a right to free speech as a universal principle, endogenous to ‘Western civilisation’, in practice it has always and everywhere been strictly limited. And so it goes today – not least in the culture wars, where, for example, women of colour calling out racism are routinely ‘shut down’ for ‘incivility’. A guide to free speech politics in the age of Peterson, this chapter shows how inescapably raced, classed and gendered the exclusionary practice of ‘free speech’ really is, and what this tells us about liberalism’s inadequacy in responding to neo-fascism.

Item Type: Book Chapters
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > Department of Politics & International Studies
ISBN: 9781526151162
Copyright Statement: This is the version of the chapter accepted for publication in Riley, Charlotte Lydia, (ed.), The Free Speech Wars: How Did We Get Here and Why Does It Matter? Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 227-238. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526152558.00027 Re-use is subject to the publisher’s terms and conditions
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526152558.00027
Date Deposited: 30 Sep 2021 09:56
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/35559

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