Against Moralism

Considerations of Inter- vs. Intra-Group Moralism

Gegen den Moralismus

This is v1.1 of the essay.

Moral outrage is ubiquitous in leftist discourse. However, this essay presents a provocative thesis: Moralism—the personal condemnation of political opponents as “evil,” “stupid,” etc.—is strategically counterproductive. It hardens fronts and reproduces the very thought patterns it seeks to combat. Trying to fight the rightward shift by morally condemning right-wingers is at least as counterproductive as trying to fight drug abuse by morally condemning drug addicts.

Moralism as Social Control

The critique of moralism in an inter-group context can be understood functionally: its primary effect is social control within a group that already shares a basic consensus as well as a certain proximity on an interpersonal level. When directed toward an out-group, this dynamic flips. The moral accusation is not perceived as legitimate criticism, but as an attack on collective identity, provoking defensive distancing. In social-psychological terms: it creates reactance and reinforces “us vs. them” thinking. In this medium and in this application, even universalist messaging can only have particularist, tribalist effects.

The hatred that left moralists feel toward the Right mirrors the latter’s hatred. Moralists justify their hatred through the concept of free will. While right-wing hate is essentialist, left-wing hate is supposedly different: queer people “simply are” queer, while queer-phobes are queer-phobic “by choice.” My disagreement with this reasoning is outlined in the companion essay Deterministic Ethics, but that is not the main point here. The critique is not that it is “equally unjust” to hate queer-phobes as it is to hate queer people, but that in practice this hatred contributes to its own object’s reproduction.

Positions vs. Their Moralistic Manifestations

A further, often overlooked problem: moralist politics consistently reduces right-wing positions to their most moralistic form and then fights that caricature. Opposition to drug abuse is not the same as “drug addicts are evil.” Opposition to murder is not the same as “murderers are subhuman.” Likewise, opposition to homosexuality is not the same as “homosexuals are evil”—it can likewise be formulated structurally.

Almost all right-wing positions that manifest moralistically—through demonization, essentialist hatred, dehumanization—have a parallel “civil” formulation: a contestable claim that is empirical or moral but not moralistic in nature. When the left reduces these positions to their worst manifestation and responds with mirrored moralism, it makes theoretical engagement impossible and perpetuates the “us vs. them” thinking it decries. Steelmanning—theoretically engaging with the strongest, most reasonable version of an opposing position rather than the most hateful one—is more effective than the alternative.

The Agonistic Alternative

Chantal Mouffe’s distinction between antagonism and agonism is useful here. Antagonism is the friend/enemy relation: the opponent must be destroyed. Agonism is the adversary relation: the opponent holds legitimate (if contested) positions, and the struggle is over hegemony, not annihilation. The aim of agonistic politics is to construct the “them” in such a way that it is no longer an enemy to be destroyed but an adversary whose ideas can be genuinely contested.

Crucially, this is not liberal “both-sides” neutrality, nor does it require abandoning extralegality or revolutionary ambition. Fighting fascism through extralegal action when materially necessary is distinct from moralism and antagonism. One can extra-legally prevent a fascist attack without demonizing fascists, just as one can extra-legally prevent a murder without demonizing murderers. Antagonism and militancy are not the same thing. Slogans such as “make racists afraid again” conflate these two modes. Militant anti-fascism as self-defense is one thing; a campaign of moral terror designed to produce shame and fear in a broad, loosely defined category of people is another. The latter reproduces exactly the antagonistic logic it claims to oppose, and provokes exactly the reactance that entrenches the positions it seeks to defeat. The rejection of moralism / antagonism is not a rejection of conflict. It is a rejection of the form of conflict that mirrors and reproduces what it opposes.

The Problem with (Consumer) Activism

In addition to intentional moralism, one must sadly note that any moral appeal can be perceived moralistically. This means that any call to do something for moral reasons creates—intentionally or unintentionally—a feeling of being morally judged in those who do not follow the call. Due to its lack of organized power, leftist culture is highly morally charged, even if one excludes moralism in the narrower sense. Leftists seek the “right life in the wrong,” i.e., they try to do as much good as possible through abstention and self-sacrifice in the form of (consumer) activism. This is absolutely laudable, and one should not deny that these actions make a difference, but the central position of self-sacrifice in leftist culture also has negative side effects that arguably outweigh the benefits.

For example, right-wingers hate the party Die Linke, and seemingly hate the Greens even more. This is partly because these parties are associated with morally motivated abstention and self-sacrifice. However, leftist organizations like unions and parties do not function through abstention, but through conquest: people pool their power and take what they want. Right-wingers have no objection to this. They vote for the AfD because it promises them nothing else. They hate Die Linke and the Greens because, due to leftist and left-liberal culture, these also give off the impression that we should all be making sacrifices, thereby implicitly condemning everyone who does not do so.

Seeking to do good through self-sacrifice is absolutely unproblematic. It only becomes a problem when this self-sacrifice becomes a significant or even dominant part of our optics. At that point, harm reduction through self-sacrifice and political organizing for the purpose of conquest are factually in competition with each other. The proposal, therefore, is to minimize the role of abstention and self-sacrifice in left-wing optics. Or, in the words of comrade Jesus:

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.

– Matthew 6:3

What Is To Be Done?

As clearly seen in the example of drug abuse, systems can be fought without fighting the individuals involved in them. Furthermore, if necessary, one can also fight those individuals without hating or morally condemning them. Opposing drug addiction does not require hating drug addicts. Opposing fascism does not require demonizing fascists.

The reader is not expected to immediately prefigure a “perfect” leftist culture, and certainly not to start morally condemning moralistic leftists from now on—that would be to reproduce the very problem. But if we all nudge a little, we might be able to transform leftist culture in the medium term. We don’t need to make a huge scene every time a speech at a Grindcore show or an Antifa protest is moralistic, but we can refrain from writing such speeches ourselves and potentially withhold applause when they are made.