The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

by Andrew Doyle

'A sober but devastating skewering of cancel culture and the moral certainties it shares with religious fundamentalism' Sunday Times

Engaging, incisive and acute, The New Puritans is a deeply necessary exploration of our current cultural climate and an urgent appeal to return to a truly liberal society.

The puritans of the seventeenth century sought to refashion society in accordance with their own beliefs, but they were deep thinkers who were aware of their own fallibility. Today, in the grasp of the new puritans, we see a very different story.

Leading a cultural revolution driven by identity politics and so-called 'social justice', the new puritanism movement is best understood as a religion - one that makes grand claims to moral purity and tolerates no dissent. Its disciples even have their own language, rituals and a determination to root out sinners through what has become known as 'cancel culture'.

In The New Puritans , Andrew Doyle powerfully examines the underlying belief-systems of this ideology, and how it has risen so rapidly to dominate all major political, cultural and corporate institutions. He reasons that, to move forward, we need to understand where these new puritans came from and what they hope to achieve. Written in the spirit of optimism and understanding, Doyle offers an eloquent and powerful case for the reinstatement of liberal values and explains why it's important we act now.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Sociology, Philosophy, Psychology, History, Cultural

384 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 2022

Reviews

[Nunyah Biznuss · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sharp & insightful discussion on the excesses of post-modernism and ridiculous identity politics from a centrist who happens to be a former teacher, a stand up comic as well as a public broadcaster. I was impressed by the intellect, the commonsense and the clear thinking, as well as Doyle's hope for a way out of this nonsense. As well, you feel like you're getting an education of the sorts that you probably missed at high school. I found myself looking up works of art, books, poems, memoirs. Excellent read! I hope Andrew writes more.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them. - Philip K. Dick

"Inconvenient truths are to be erased from this new globe. Behavioural trends that emerge due to biological sex differences, for instance, are simply to be ignored because they defy the rules of the new terrain. Instead, there will be conspicuous lacunae bearing the inscription ‘here be dragons'.
Writing in 1693, the puritan minister Cotton Mather defended his role in Bridget Bishop's trial in Salem by claiming that there was ‘little occasion to prove the Witchcraft, it being evident and notorious to all beholders'. This common logical fallacy is known as the ‘appeal to self-evident truth’, and is similarly characteristic of the new puritans. Rather than initiate a discussion about difficult issues, they exhibit the infuriating tendency to simply make assertions, and treat with hostility anyone who challenges them. Without the standard of objective truth, the demons of unreason will flourish.
"Is the accuser always holy now?" says John Proctor in The Crucible. The new puritans share with the magistrates of Salem the view that accusers must automatically be believed, and in doing so obviate the fundamental principles of due process. It is now standard practice among police officers in the United Kingdom to prioritise ‘lived experience’ over other evidential thresholds."

"In The Gulag Archipelago (1973), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn tells a story of six peasant farmers who returned to a field they had mowed in order to collect some hay for their cows. For this crime they were arrested, confined to Leningrad’s Kresty Prison for a short while, and eventually executed. Solzhenitsyn’s anger at this barbarity is palpable. ‘Even if Stalin had killed no others,’ he writes, ‘I believe he deserved to be drawn and quartered just for the lives of those six Tsarskoye Selo peasants!’ How is it that any government could descend to acts of such cruelty and injustice? Why did the All-Russian Central Executive Committee refuse to pardon these obviously innocent men? The answer, as Solzhenitsyn’s book so persuasively shows, can be encapsulated in one word:

Ideology — that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors.

"

[Sam Klemens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m thirsty for understanding and hungry for comprehension. In my long march through literature I’ve read three or four books about the woke and while these resources have been useful, The New Puritans is my favorite to date.

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I originally published this review on my Substack The Unhedged Capitalist - check out that article to read this review with images and better formatting...

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Andrew Doyle writes with an eye towards the theological and The New Puritans blessed me with insight to understand the plethora of ways that the 21st century’s most polarizing trend is a religion. This is a spiritual belief system for people who would laugh at the anachronistic Christian burden of original sin or the transformation of water into wine, but themselves have no trouble accepting that every white person is corrupted with a soul of oppressive instincts, or that racism can be summoned into existence by mere incantation.

In reading The New Puritans I found it frustrating that throughout the book Doyle repeatedly assured me that he doesn’t believe in racism, thinks we should “stamp it out” wherever it occurs and that he has the best intentions for society in mind. I believe him, and I believed him the first time he said it! So rather than repeat myself I’m going to make a single statement and trust that you will be able to interpret my arguments in good faith throughout this article.

I am not a racist. I condemn racism and think that it’s a blight on this world. I do not want to be judged by the color of my skin, nor do I wish for anyone else to be labeled, characterized, slotted or discriminated against because of the melanin ratio of their epidermis.

And now, having made my position on the topic clear, let’s see if we can decipher the religious intonations of the cultural warriors who we’re all so fond of shaking our heads at.

Our era is characterised by the white heat of political tribalism and, as it has escalated, I have watched with a growing sense of incomprehension the curdling of rational minds.

What is religion?

A religion is a framework for interpreting the world and a set of suggestions about how we should act in various situations. Christianity urges us to turn the other cheek, to love thy neighbor as we love our own family and to forgive those who have sinned against us. Even if you’re not religious I expect that you’re familiar with the most basic notions of Christianity. But here’s a slightly different interpretation that you might not have considered before.

Christian doctrine asserts that humans are inherently flawed. We’re born greedy, slothful, rapacious, unnecessarily violent and jealous, and only by surrendering ourselves to God’s rules and maintaining a constant vigilance to live by Christian standards can a human become the best possible version of themselves. You could even classify Christianity as an early version of the self-help movement. You have issues and you’re a mess, so let’s get you out of that puke-stained toga and into something more divine.

The new puritans have a different interpretation. They believe that words dictate reality, and that if humans are racist or bigoted it is only because culture has convinced them to become so. If you were to extrapolate out the puritans’ beliefs to their logical conclusions, a man who grows up in a cave, free of all human contact, would be devoid of racial bias and once he shaved off his beard, ceased his insane ramblings about the thunder god and joined the HR department of his local university he would never discriminate against minority job applicants.

Theirs is a belief in the perfectibility of humankind. The objective is not to critique society as it is, but to engineer an entirely fresh pseudo-reality through the imposition of limitations on language, thought and perception. They seek to publicly shame those who stray from the righteous path.

The new puritans believe that culture corrupts individuals, and are convinced that the west is systemically racist. If that’s how you see the world it makes sense why they’re fixated on dismantling our society one institution at a time. Nothing is too extreme if you’re saving the world from evil!

We might ask: is the west systemically racist? I do not believe it is, Andrew Doyle certainly doesn’t think so either and in his book he provides numerous examples of just how non-racist our culture is. You should read The New Puritans if you’d like to get into all the details. I will simply point out that a lack of evidence of systemic racism does not prevent the puritans from advancing their point of view.

The separation of church and state

Another hallmark of every religion is that its adherents believe things that aren’t true. There are several reasons for this.

Simplicity - Reality is infinitely complex and even now, with our Hubble telescope and Hadron Collider, there are vast oceans of ignorance in our scientific understanding. No religion, cult or belief system can explain reality with perfect objectivity and honesty. Religions are useful because they provide simple explanations that make the world seem predictable and safe.

In-group cohesion - Like wearing your team’s jersey to a home game or getting a gang tattoo in prison, believing something that’s objectively untrue is a method of signifying in-group membership. Objectively inaccurate beliefs are a feature not a bug since they allow humans to form tightly-knit groups that stand up to outside scrutiny. For evidence of this you need only speak to a passionate sportsball fan, their team is always the best even if the stats tell a different story.

We have a separation of church and state because we would prefer that Christians do not teach our children that the world was created a few thousand years ago by an invisible guy who lives in the clouds, women are the byproduct of a man’s superfluous rib and dinosaurs are taboo.

The hectoring and dogmatic tone, the obscene generalisations, the unfalsifiable claims in lieu of evidence, the lack of self-awareness, the narcissistic conviction that they can read other people’s minds, the impulse to interpret critics in the most uncharitable possible way, the outright bigotry and intolerance of dissent: all of this is characteristic of the new puritans.

Unfortunately the new puritans and their religion of social justice have sidestepped the boundary between church and state and gone straight for the jugular of institutional control. The puritans do not require evidence and if you push them hard they’ll passionately reply that evidence is a racist construct of the white patriarchy and “lived experience” is divine truth.

Lived experience being the notion that whatever a person feels to be real is real, and a person’s subjective interpretation cannot be contradicted by objective truths. “My lived experience is that my boss was being racist when he said he doesn’t like black coffee; therefore he was being racist.”

Lived experience is a bloody useful tool as it allows the puritans to suggest that whatever a person feels cannot be disputed. This is a technique for codifying emotions as reality. Intent, the cornerstone of our legal system and the difference between manslaughter and murder, has no seat at the banquet of lived experience.

If you challenge the puritans about the validity of lived experience they will retort that you’re a wicked soul beyond all redemption. Freed from the constraints of logic, reason, and objectivity the puritans can twist the narrative to suit their purpose. It is deeply unfortunate that we’ve granted so much control to a people who are clearly more religious than rational.

It is a common characteristic of ideologues to assume that any challenge to their belief-system must be symptomatic of an evil nature.

Why do we have puritans in the 21st century?

This is far from an exhaustive list, but based on the book I’ll provide three explanations to as why religious fanaticism has been repopularized in our ostensibly enlightened age.

1. Social media

Social media is fantastic at amplifying events completely out of proportion. For example, how many African Americans do you think are shot and killed by police in America proportionate to white Americans? Don’t forget all the stories you’ve heard about police brutality, senseless killings and overt racism in the force.

According to the Washington Post, since 2015 American police officers have killed 3,756 white Americans and 1,983 African Americans. The police have killed nearly twice as many white as black Americans.

Ah! But African Americans are only about 14% of the American population so once you adjust for population size you’ll find that African Americans are killed by the police at twice the rate. You see, systemic racism!

OK, but here’s another statistic that’s not especially pleasant. According to the FBI, in 2019 (the latest year I could find the FBI data for) African Americans were charged with 51.2% of all homicides in America. Violent crime is unusually concentrated in African American communities, which could go a long ways towards explaining the higher rate of police shootings.

Social media is really good at elevating a narrative to a near universal truth so that we start to think reality is one way and not another. This is an environment in which the puritans thrive.

Reality is a protean commodity for the new puritans; what is convenient to believe becomes the accepted narrative, and if the facts do not tally with this constructed version of events they are swiftly dismissed.

2. A 17th rate education system

Our education system doesn’t teach people how to think. I’m not just referring to the Baltimore public schools either, I mean the highest levels of our “education” system. I’ve seen numerous examples of what’s being taught at universities and a hell of a lot of it appears to be third-rate swill. Universities have become ideological indoctrination centers instead of commodes for inculcating high-level thought.

The impulse to censor, or remove entirely, such explicitly anti-racist texts in the name of ‘anti-racism’ is a reminder of how the new puritanism can only be sustained where critical thinking is absent.

3. Simple explanations are best

Seigniorage and the Cantillon effect are the real systemic oppressions gutting the middle and working class, but these words are hard to spell, require critical thought to understand and they don’t roll off the tongue at a cocktail party. So instead…

It’s racism!
It’s those damn Nazis!

Simple, clean, so loose in definition that the words can mean whatever the hell you want them to. Someone disagrees with you? They’re a Nazi, end of discussion!

The very same people who would openly pronounce ‘microaggressions’ and controversial opinions to be forms of ‘violence’ saw no contradiction in redefining vandalism and physical assaults as non-violence.

How will we respond?

For those of us who are unwilling to buy into the narrative that white people are scum, our country is a hotbed of racism and a bunch of children who went to private school and have never heard the word ‘no’ should rule society, it may be useful to consider how we will respond in the event that the activists try to tarnish our image with their high caliber slurs.

If someone calls you a Nazi or a racist it’s not enough to deny the charge and explain all the reasons why you are not that thing. Logicality holds no water in the court of emotion, lived experience and religious fury. Furthermore, by attempting to rationally defend yourself you’re already on the back foot, playing a game in which you don’t control the rules and all the refs are partial to the other team.

So how to keep one’s composure in a cancelarious situation? Here’s one reply I’m considering…

A twenty-five-year-old who has spent 84 seconds reading my point of view but has unwavering conviction in their own righteousness comes at me with: “you smorglorgion family-sized ration of steamed shit, you said things I don’t agree with. You’re a racist! Hey Twitter, this guy is a racist!”

Me, “Haha no thank you, I’m not religious.”
“Schmat! I’m serious, you’re a racist!”
“Yes yes, I’m sure. But I’m really not religious, thank you.”

In the event of a crash landing into controversy I plan to treat these cultural tyrants the same way that I would treat a Christian preacher who accosts me on the street and tells me that I’ll burn in hellfire for sixteen eternities unless I repent and accept Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior.

“Yes yes that sounds very hot, but I’ve got to get to the grocery store if you don’t mind. Thank you.”

Infantilization of society

Like a chunk of corn stuck in a back molar I’ve been picking at the puritans for years. Beyond the religious angle I’ve been curious about why a group of privileged people have gone so far overboard into radical ideology, and what makes them so damn nasty on top of it all.

My theory is that the people who believe words are violence and microaggressions are genocide were coddled as children. Their mothers and fathers told them that they were unique, beautiful beings who would one day step into a world where their materialistic dreams and spiritual demands would be delivered rapidly and with no surcharge for express shipping. Deprived of challenge, sheltered from adversity and taught to believe in a reality that doesn’t exist, these aspiring warriors of justice internalized an ethos of blame and victimhood rather than personal responsibility and hard work.

University with its safe spaces, trigger warnings, kowtowing to radical ideologies and flaccid classes about oppressed lasses did nothing to dissuade them of their worldview. Somnambulant and shielded from personal growth they took out mortgages in Neverland and joined the local country club too.

If you thought that by the time young people made it to university they would be less coddled, you would be wrong. Some institutions are now beginning to adopt what is known as ‘inclusive assessment’, a policy originally intended to support students with learning difficulties. According to guidelines from Hull University, the expectation that students ought to be able to write fluently is ‘homogenous, North European, white, male, and elite’.

The soft-palmed children graduated, took their first haughty steps into the world and demanded the beneficent bounty that they’d been raised to expect. And behold, the world said no… A college degree is a place mat without the little maze on the back, salaries are half of what you can make as a plumber and law school grads are slinging drinks and disrobing for winks at $10.99 a month per wanker on OnlyFans.

Illusions shattered and ego deflationary, a few choose introspection and reflection but the majority get mad. The coddlers are angry at the world, at a society that doesn’t match their fantasy, at a life that makes demands that they believe it has no right to make. The Disney channel narrative they were sold is substanceless and now they’re bitter at the truth and eager to make someone pay. They take to Twitter and boldly proclaim: you racist! You Nazi! As they seek solace in destruction, reassurance in ideology and self-esteem via signaling virtue. Their battle cry is,

Begone yeh blight,
Cancelled you cancer,
Give it back to me now,
That soft-cornered reality I’d been trained to expect.

What’s wrong, exactly?

Like the first time I tried snowboarding and fell on my ass so hard I couldn’t sit normally for the rest of the day, I’ve been struck. I’ve spent the better part of this article airing my grievances with the puritans without making explicit some of the reasons why I find their movement so distasteful. Let’s fix that.

Briefly, here are three problems that I have with the religion of social justice.

1. The persecution of the innocent

Who knows how many tens of thousands of lives have been ruined by the new puritans’ cancel culture. You liked a politically incorrect tweet, donated to the wrong organization, or made an off-color joke in 2012? Mmmk, gonna have to get you fired from your job now.

The puritans have elevated themselves to custodians of the career and through their DEI officials and other useful idiots they gatekeep the livelihood of tens of millions of Americans. No day in court or trial by your peers; if the puritans say you’re guilty well then you’re guilty and that’s all there is to it.

2. The elevation of emotion over reason

Nigerian Americans are one of America’s most successful ethnic groups. Much like the Christians and dinosaurs, the puritans are unable to reconcile their thesis of a systemically racist country with the undeniable success of Nigerian Americans. That’s because the puritans elevate emotion over logic, and whenever pushed into a corner they’ll just call you a racist for putting them there.

The puritans view of the world is that a thing must be true because they feel like it’s true. Emotion over logic may be a fine way to write a novel or compose a symphony, but it’s no way to run a country. The only reason we have nice things like iPhones and an electric grid is that we’ve decided as a society to elevate reason and logic as our highest ideals. The puritans want to dismantle that infrastructure and are too blinded by ideology to imagine the consequences of what they’re advocating.

Conclusions

Humans take to religion the way dolphins take to the sea. The furthest leftward thrust of the social justice movement has all the badges of a religion and it matters little that the Twitter congregation would never in a million microaggressions admit to theirs being a faith-based movement.

The way the puritans see it they’ve stumbled upon an ineluctable truth that explains all the world’s injustice. The way I see it they’re propagating...

This review is too large for Goodreads. If you'd like to read the entire thing, please check the link at the top of this review!

[Domhnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

The New Puritans describes the explosion onto the political scene of the social justice movement and explains its destructive and regressive social consequences. Doyle sets out his stall in very plain and straightforward language, without the academic clutter in the main text, but every page is backed up by notes at the end of the book, either clarifying or citing references and sources. There is excellent support for all of his arguments.

Andrew Doyle frames his account of the social justice movement by analogy with the Salem witch trials and finds many chilling analogies.

“In the throes of victimhood, these children had found the means to become the most powerful members of the community. They could see their fellow citizens executed on the basis of ‘spectral evidence’ alone, what we might today refer to as ‘lived experience’.” [8]

He starts out by establishing a clear analogy of “wokeness” with a form of secular religion. This not only makes the movement more intelligible but also explains why it is often deeply confusing for observers.

“Above all, the title of this book is my attempt to find an accessible shorthand for these cultural revolutionaries who make every effort to reject all labels that are assigned to them.” [14]

“The objective is not to critique society as it is, but to engineer an entirely fresh pseudo-reality through the limitations on language, thought and perception. They seek to publicly shame those they consider dissidents, and condemn all those who stray from the righteous path.” [15]

“The new puritans have become adept at the reapplication of existing terms that deviate from their widely accepted meanings. Phrases such as ‘social justice’, ‘anti-racism’, ‘liberalism’, ‘equity’, ‘whiteness’, ‘violence’, ‘safety’, and endless others, now bear connotations that are understood only by a minority of activists.” [20]

“In Is everyone Really Equal? (2017), Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo emphasize that the mainstream understanding of ‘social justice’ is not the aim of their movement. This, after all, would be a liberal humanist approach, one that the ‘woke’ ideology explicitly seeks to undermine. Rather, a ‘critical approach to social justice refer to specific theoretical perspectives that recognize that society is stratified (i.e. divided and unequal) in significant and far reaching ways along social group lines that include race, class, gender, sexuality and ability.’ Critical Social Justice, therefore, ‘recognizes inequality as deeply embedded in the fabric of society (i.e. as structural) and actively seeks to change this.’” [26,27]

This last statement establishes a clear conflict – direct opposition – between the aims of the social justice movement and those of liberal humanism. Doyle goes on to observe how much has been achieved by the “liberal humanist approach” to make racism, sexism and homophobia unacceptable and to instal legal protection against discrimination; something which in no way denies the many outstanding issues to be resolved; but they will not be resolved by the methods of the social justice warriors. Doyle’s book demonstrates with many examples that these achievements are being put into reverse and even lost as a consequence of the way the social justice movement operates.

“For those of us who still believe in liberal values, the reduction of individuals to mere representatives of their particular demographic leaves us feeling somewhat unhorsed. … They would rather see people defined predominantly by their race, gender and sexual orientation, as opposed to their own distinct qualities.” [47]

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comedian, satirist and TV presenter Andrew Doyle analyses cancel culture and the ‘woke’ movement, comparing aspects of it to the 17th century Salem witch trials. Doyle argues convincingly that social justice campaigners – ‘New Puritans’ as he dubs them – have actually made the world more racist and intolerant, the very opposite of their stated aims.

This isn’t just a rant about how terrible it all is, the book also offers thoughtful solutions, notably encouraging the development of critical thinking and returning to the values of the Enlightenment.

The sad thing is that the people who would benefit most from reading this book won’t go anywhere near it because they’ll have decided in advance that it’s a dreadful right-wing polemic.

[Frrobins · Rating 3 out of 5]

My upbringing is unique. I was born in the 1980s and raised as an atheist with classic liberal values in the Bible Belt. My parents taught me Rationalism and Empiricism, and I embraced those values and ways of thinking, as well as skepticism and Humanism. I also held strongly to the belief that I may disagree with what you say but I will defend your right to say it and have always been very anti-censorship. None of this was particularly popular when I grew up and I was often targeted for bullying by Christians (it is very hard for me to lie and say I believe things I don't truly believe so I was an easy target).

Life takes us to strange places and as I grew older I was surprised as atheism became more popular. The more time passes the more I am disheartened over how the atheism that I grew up with, that stressed classical liberal values, is not the type that has become popular and that in a lot of ways this popular brand of atheism feels more like the Born Again Christian movement that surrounded me while growing up in different clothing. So I was interested when I heard about this book.

I think the author made some beautiful connections and explained some things well that had mystified me for a long time. For instance, given the extent of the bullying I received for being an atheist while growing up and seeing how people who embraced Christianity were lauded, the narrative that Christians are persecuted in the US always mystified and enraged me. I often wished the Christians who embraced the persecution narrative would try to live as an open atheist for one day so they could learn that people do not laud those they are persecuting and what it really feels like to be persecuted. Doyle's observations about the persecution of a perfect man leading to salvation were very helpful for me to understand the role this plays in their faith.

And as another thing I am preoccupied with is dissecting everything that has happened since the 2016 elections in America, Doyle's observations about why the Social Justice movement has lost the support of blue collar workers were similarly astute even if some of it was hard medicine to swallow.

Basically while I think the aims of the Social Justice movement are laudable, I think their methods are horrific and counterproductive. This was always my gut instinct but since I supported the end goals, as it started to unfold I did sit on the sidelines at the beginning as I wondered if perhaps the people preaching these methods might be on to something because I agree with them on these other issues. But the more time that passed the more alarmed I become, especially as it reminded me more of how I was treated by Christians who were convinced of their moral superiority while growing up. Basically I know first hand how alienating is it to be treated that way and how it is a good way to turn outsiders away from your cause. And I feel as though Doyle had a good grasp of the shortfalls of the movement. That said, I feel that his accusations against the Social Justice movement were also rather vague even if I could think of good examples for him for every charge he lobbed.

For instance he would talk about how people deep in the movement shut down debate and rely on blind faith but did not describe how this happens. When he stated this, though, I thought of how if a claim is made, if someone from a group that is perceived to be privileged asks for an explanation, they will be torn apart for demanding another person's emotional energy. I even saw one page that would demand that people donate to a charity and put proof of the donation in the comments before someone would provide proof for charges they lobbed. You could either accept whatever they said on blind faith or pay up. In short, this is not rationalist discussion or consistent with classical liberal values of empiricism. And in one case when I saw one person try to use this as a get out of jail free card in a place that still retained those classical liberal values and she was challenged she fessed up that she didn't even understand the intricacies of her argument and couldn't defend it. And the scary thing is that her argument was not fringe in the Social Justice movement but one of it's pillars.

I do care deeply about free speech and like Doyle I have concerns about how this is handled in the Social Justice movement and it is one thing that has caused me to be disillusioned with it. However, I do have to disagree with his statements about trump being deplatformed. Every right has limits and trump used social media to led an insurrection in an attempt to stop our rightfully elected President, Joe Biden, from taking office. People died in this insurrection, others have gone to prison, and it was a grave threat to American democracy. And unlike Iranian leaders who most Americans know nothing about, every American felt the impact of trump's actions. If anything the January 8th committee has done a brilliant job illustrating how trump used social media to do this.

I do not state that I feel it was right that trump should have been deplatformed lightly. And I admit I might be wrong. Social media is so new that I don't think we have good, empirical data on how best to manage it. My thinking now is that when a public figure with as much power as trump did misuses it in the manner that he did and with the dire consequences that resulted then that public figure needs to face serious consequences.

Overall, though, since this is such an important issue I think it is something that does need a lot of thoughtful discussion and research to find the best approach to deal with propaganda and authoritarianism while preserving free speech on social media and elsewhere.

As the author is Irish there was a natural focus on Great Britain and there were things that he did not provide enough context for someone on the outside to understand. I also feel as though there are a few things he did not understand about Americans. In all I do think this is an important book to read right now. I disagree with Doyle about a lot, but I do agree with his beliefs on classical liberal values and how they are important for true progress.

[Tess Mortimer · Rating 1 out of 5]

take a shot every time 1984 is mentioned!
i resonate with the premise that our cultural moment is incredibly religious (despite being nontheistic) and does not welcome productive dialogue.

so i don’t understand why this book perpetuates this with such an uncharitable contribution????? i was genuinely shocked to read the author’s call at the end to “resist the temptation to interpret our opponent’s motives in the least charitable manner” after reading 250 pages of him giving into that temptation😄

obviously the author sees himself as a heretic against the oppressive social justice majority for his views such as his support of brexit… which is odd given that would place him in a (52%) majority??? he dismisses the left’s reliance on “lived experience” while substantiating a bulk of his claims with personal anecdotes 🆗🆒

i also just dont think his historical analysis is accurate?? claims that the original puritans believed poverty was the will of God so it would be sacrilegious to attempt to obtain social mobility?? but i suppose these inaccuracies are what happen when you use historical events as nothing other than fodder for your political arguments.

occasionally helpful things were said such as reference to the logical fallacy of the “appeal to objective truth”& the desire to manufacture ‘folk devils’. but ultimately the book never escaped the us vs them whiny tone and was just generally poorly written😄

if you like watching pragerU gotcha compilations i suppose this book is for you…

in the words of andrew doyle himself: “this is political discourse at its most infantile.”

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Doyle's The New Puritans is not the only book to persuasively link modern social justice activism to religious orthodoxy (see John McWhorter's Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America). Nor is it the first to argue that its modern inscrutable stances on race, gender, etc. are directly linked to mid-20th century French postmodernism (see Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsey's Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody) or that the conflation of words with violence and dissenting opinions with tangible harm is melodramatic and disingenuous (Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt's The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure). Doyle's book doesn't present a novel argument at all, but what it does do is make its case better than any of these aforementioned books. Although it's not a perfect book--it's overly long and repetitive, for one thing--it probably is the one to read for left-leaning (actual) liberals, who have grown tired of the authoritarianism of modern social justice dogma, its Orwellian forays into thought control particularly on the subjects of race and gender, and the pervasive culture of fear that has kept regular people from failing to acknowledge what their eyes and ears clearly tell them: we are living in a deeply regressive and illiberal moment in discourse and desperately need to find a way out. Worth reading.

[Jeff Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coincidentally, I read Andrew Doyle’s “The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World” on the heels of reading Noah Rothman’s “The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives’ War on Fun.”

Despite the parallels in everything down to their titles—TRotNP slightly beat TNP to market—“The New Puritans” distinguishes itself from the American “Rise” by being oh-so-British. It’s really more akin to Douglas Murray’s recent “War on the West” (yes, I realize Doyle is Irish, but we Yankees are known for flubbing such distinctions).

Befitting someone with “a doctorate in early Renaissance poetry” from Oxford (apart from the ‘seriously-WTF!?’ factor, I like that it’s necessary to designate ‘early,’ as if to declare he’s into the Renaissance poets before they sold out), TNP is awash in literary references. I’m even tempted to re-read Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” which Doyle cites often.

I could go further into TNP, but suffice to say it’s the latest of tracts by left-of-center intellectuals who resist the direction zealots are dragging their side… and a very good one at that.

[Thomas George Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Doyle quotes Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" in the opening flap of this book:

'To the untrue man, the whole universe is false, - it is impalpable,
- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far
as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed,
ceases to exist.'

Mr. Doyle lambasts the 21st century version of the "new puritans" in his well balanced book. He pulls no punches in his drive to expose identity politics for what it is: The modern day version of "McCarthyism."

Mr. Doyle has a similar writing style to that of the late, great William F. Buckley; no doubt his speech is similar as well. Although I must admit that I have not heard his voice.

[Andrew Innes · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would be hard to find a book that so eloquently expresses how SJ has actually made the world more racist and homophobic than it was before post modernism became applied post modernism.

[Emil O. W. Kirkegaard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not going far enough. Basically a summary of woke insanity interspersed with "but Millian liberalism is really the best system".

[Ryan McCarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read for anyone unhappy with the current political climate and its attendant disregard for the importance of good-faith debate. It’s pretty telling that writing a book whose message essentially boils down to “maybe identitarians shouldn’t be so certain that their political positions are objectively correct” resulted in the author being accused of fascist sympathies. Extra funny when considering that the author is himself gay, something he doesn’t even mention in the book because his arguments stand so well on their own, and because identity politics is exactly what he’s arguing against.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

An overview of of the “woke” movement from its origins up to today. The author describes it as a neomarxist movement that seeks to replace Marx’s class disparity with racial disparity and views all things through that lens. The author argues for a return to the liberal values of progress and critical thinking.

[Jeff Rudisel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reclaim the courage to think and speak for yourself.
Learn how to not be cowed into submission by the new puritanical scare tactics and silencing tactics of this minority of witch-hunters who dominate as the Squeaky Wheels in media/politics at the moment.
They are on the way out.

The new Puritans' nature is ultimately cannibalistic, and the narcissistic craze will eventually self-destruct.

[Ms Jayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive review of various aspects of the 'culture wars'. Andrew Doyle's central premise that core tenets of liberal society such as freedom of speech and the right to debate are under threat from identity politics, online pile-ons and an insistence on 'no debate' is intelligently argued with plenty of relevant examples.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

This topic has become something of an obsession of mine lately as both parties in the US have taken off screaming down the road to lunacy. The reason this topic in particular grabs me as opposed to all the other political histrionics is because while I've always been an independent and not a party-line voter, I've aligned myself primarily with the left for the last 15 years and now they leave me feeling totally alienated and quite alarmed for their mental health, and really indignant that I'm supposed to go along with their totally hysterical nonsense. In the end I found myself more aligned with the right as the overton window shifted, and that's pretty much entirely because of the left's insanity.

There are a few thinkers on this topic that I like, if you'll allow me a little sidebar to make some recommendations. Doyle is one, Helen Pluckrose is another (and James Lindsay, with whom she cowrote a book called Cynical Theories), and John McWhorter. There's also Douglas Murray, who I find sneeringly pretentious and based on his books that I've read often a bit reductive, but still worth listening to on some topics and an entertaining, funny writer. McWhorter and Pluckrose are my favorites - Pluckrose done tons of podcasts and panel discussions that you can find on YouTube and I recommend you look for her there if you don't feel like committing to a whole book.

Anyway Doyle I think comes across better in longform conversation, like for example his episode of the Skeptic podcast (where you can also find all of the above mentioned authors). His Titania McGrath book was stupid and not funny at all and this was kind of what I was waiting for, but I found that it got lost in itself trying to break down all the theory. All this BS descends from strands of postmodernism and I studied all that garbage like Critical Theory, postcolonialism and postmodernism generally in grad school as part of International Relations Theory fairly recently actually, so I'm very familiar with it, and even I got lost in the weeds when he was trying to explain it. That's not because there is no cohesion to the lineage of this ideology from postmodernism, it's just he didn't explain it well. And instead of explaining it well once he tried semi-successfully to explain it like 17 times. Pluckrose and Lindsay do a much better job in Cynical Theories, and that's kind of the topic of that book actually.

Doyle's strong suit is just as a cranky social commentator even if his Oxford literary education makes itself obvious in his language. I preferred it when he was trying to make me laugh rather than repeatedly trying to explain Foucault. For example he really let loose making fun of Robin DiAngelo who deserves every bit of his ridicule and that was awesome. This is his normal dry sense of humor which you might find weird if your main exposure to him was the stupid Titania McGrath stuff or Jonathan Pie.

But anyway I did enjoy it and honestly it was a good read. It gets knocked down a star because of the incoherent attempts at explaining theory and sort of a generally incoherent form to the book. However, it's validating just to hear from someone left of center who thinks this sh*t is untenable, unscientific, ahistorical, narcissistic and deeply illiberal.

[Andrés Astudillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy explains EXACTLY what dafuq is going on, when it comes to arguing with a social justice warrior.
So, this book explains what is going on, literally everywhere. This book contains explanations that are taken from many books, such as James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt, Jordan Peterson, and uses the theme of "The Salem Witch Hunt" to explain, just like Axel Kaiser did in his amazing book "The Neo Inquisition", how SJWs are able to destroy you as a person, or your career for something that you did or not do, such as an opinion 15, 30 years ago, or just for arguing. A bunch of people has been destroyed by the hordes of Twitter (now x, thankfully).
The book is so amazing, that most of the quotes extracted from this book are actually paragraphs!

Cancel culture, "post truth era", "wokism", and "science denial" are the basic premises of these people. Even asking the question of "what is a woman?" or "what is a man?" or virtually any question is immediately tackled with hostility. These people are emocrats (the bleed because of what they feel), and ideologically fixed. Every hostile interaction is explained in this book. Have you seen a SJW being triggered? for anything? They do get triggered, just search that on YouTube and a zillion videos appear. The culture wars was something of fiction, but these people turned that into reality, they are the high priests of human morality, they actually believe they are above you on moral grounds, you eat meat, then you are a murderer; you believe in biology, then you are a transphobic; so, Hamaas is a terrorist group, then you are a jew capitalist and far right bigot; so, criminal gangs must go to jail? then you are someone who does not believe in human rights; so, you don't call me by my pronouns? then I’m going to demand that you get fired from your job, and the fucking awkward truth is that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Wokism is everywhere. Look at every goddamn movie made in the recent years, look at Marvel, at Rachel Zegler, at the box office bomb that was “The Marvels”, and every recent Disney movie, at every book; the most stupid books are those that teach parents how to teach their kids (and toddlers) how not to be: white, racist, transphobe, and misogynists. TODDLERS FOR FUCKS SAKE.

As Gad Saad once recommended, we have to show our honey badger; we should not give a fuck about these stupid and tyrannical opinions, look at where we are now. We are living in a place where we can't even explain what a woman is, this backed up by people with Ph.Ds. and in positions of power. We can't even accept puberty, because it is "violence". We can't even condemn a pedophile, because he is a MAP!

COME ON WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!

[fara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to give this book 5 stars upon juts finishing it, but decided against it. It’s still a fantastic read, I learned so much new facts and I greatly enjoyed Andrew Doyle’s writing style. I loved the subtleties, the complexities, the irony, the structure, the references to history and art, the overall politeness with occasional imho justified and literary bluntness… Yeah, it’s very nicely written, and it’s definitely a much needed dose of rational thought for so many.

That’s pretty much been my response to the entire book, positive and not really necessary to be explained in more detail… So I’d rather include here a long paragraph with my criticism to a specific section that I wrote in my notes.

I can easily imagine how all sorts of people whose worldview I as a radical feminist am completely opposed to would use this book to try and justify their inhumane opinions on certain things. There isn't anything offensive per say because the author is relatively nice and soft compared to many people in the same camp - the camp of sceptics, rational thinkers, sorta cynics, those for the total freedom of speech etc. But some things can be interpreted wrongly and used unjustly against some of us really fighting for our rights that are really under threat. What I'm leading to is his criticism of the idea of "lived experience". I agree wholeheartedly that a lot of the times it's used nowadays is to support claims unsupportable by real evidence and logic. However, the conclusion that I come to in relation to that is that this concept, first proposed to be used in such a context by Simone de Beauvoir, has been stolen from us and used in all the inappropriate ways that it wasn't meant to be, thus discrediting it in the eyes of many people. And, to my mind, a clear distinction has to be made between using it to talk about sexual abuse (stigmatized, old as the world itself, most of the time not even seen as what it is because of how deeply misogynistic our world is) and all other sorts of things that can at least theoretically be thought in terms of true and false... But Doyle goes on to mash all the uses of this concept, that has been of great help to even begin talking about sexual abuse as a problem because I guess it's really hard to recognize just how ubiquitous something so dehumanizing can be in a society that thinks of itself as liberal and democtaric, together, his critisism beginning not with those who appropriated and discredited the term but with Simone de Beauvoir herself.

Right. So yeah besides this I don’t really have any qualms with this book. I’m also going to read some Stella Benson following the author’s recommendation.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Epistemic closure is the hallmark of all cults, religions and yes, the woke movement. In resisting categorization along an endless collection of axes (gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, age, income, ethnicity...ad infinitum) the meaning and utility of language and thereby any possibility of sensible dialogue is perverted. Instead language is weaponized in order to advance an agenda of intolerance and repression; ironically the very same evils social justice warriors seek to eliminate in the first place. Welcome to the absurd politics of resentment.

Be sure to check out the hilarious satire by Titania McGrath, the author's ventriloquist persona;
My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism
Woke: A Guide to Social Justice

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's very little meat on this bone; Doyle rabbits on for 22 pages before giving the first example of the problem he's meant to be examining. DNF at page 45 (but perused the epilogue) because it's so damned boring, recounting the Salem witch trials and telling us what others have said about cancel culture rather than actually building a convincing argument. (I don't disagree with the premise that knee-jerk social activism is problematic but fuck, present some facts already!)

[Herb · Rating 5 out of 5]

" ‘Don’t become an academic,’ he said. ‘You’ll end up deranged, running around the quad screaming “ Why did I waste my life?”’"

A book that lead me to the realization that the French are to blame once again.

A fascinating and well argued exploration of not only the "culture wars", but also on the current state of academia in the US and UK. Specifically in regards to literature studies and applied postmodernism.

[April · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Books are well written, or badly writen. That is all." - Wilde.

Doyle treats this quote with a certain religiosity, which is somewhat ironic considering the whole tenet of this work. Now, let me be clear. I don't agree with Doyle's ethos in this, and I think he comes off largely as a condescending prick who can't see past his own pedestrian life, but probably suffers from the narcissism he likes to remind people for which the Millenial generation is famous. However, Doyle, would no doubt like to believe the fact that I don't agree with him and think his assumption that his principles are the best for civilization as a whole is a risible idea as a personal attack. (I'm merely applying the same research to Doyle that Doyle applies to his opponents. There is a marked rise in narcissism as reported in Doyle's own work, and as far as I'm concerned, his myopic worldview is as indicative of it as he thinks it is of his opponents. However, I am not going to sit here and call him or adherents to his belief system "crazy children" (305) like Doyle does, so for all his posturing about the high ground, Doyle is neck deep in the mud.)

Even disregarding all that, and I shan't be, the fact remains that his book is not well written. Now, whether something is well written or not is largely subjective, which I will freely admit. (Doyle will not. In all matters, his taste is what is good, and things not to his taste are not as good.) The bottom line, however, is that early on in this train wreck Doyle makes the argument that his so-called New Puritans falsely equate the idea of words with violence. And then Doyle spends 305 stultifying pages outlining all the ways in which his chosen group of witches have used words to harm people. The same cannot be said of people for whom Doyle has more respect, i.e., JK Rowling and Jordan Peterson, for example. Their words cannot hurt people because they are espousing an ideology with which Doyle finds himself aligned, but words against them apparently can cause a great deal of hurt. It's a weird catch-22 that exists, and Doyle seems either unaware of his blatant hypocrisy or just too dull to pick up on it. I don't know which one it is, and I honestly don't care. The point remains that is your central tenet is that your ideological opponents conflate the idea of words causing harm with actual harm, which according to Doyle is not possible, then you probably shouldn't turn around and claim that billionaires like Rowling have been harmed by people disagreeing, even disagreeing vociferously, with their views. (The added corollary of expecting that the actors who starred in the Warner Bros. adaptation of those books somehow owe JK Rowling some sort of weird ideological fealty because they starred in those movies is beyond bizarre. Doyle wants people to think for themselves, except apparently when they disagree with people with whom he agrees.) He also wants to talk about how people take online criticism too far, which is a valid argument to make, but again, he only wants to acknowledge one side of it. And I'm not even talking about the neo-Nazis threatening entire "races" of people. I'm talking about the average guy who gets on the internet and threatens to kill a woman who wouldn't go out with him. Doyle explicitly talks about people who speak of taking the "red pill" in this work, but at no point does he address the rampant misogyny present in that community. (It's also a strange reference for him to make considering his stance on biological determinism.) What's good for the goose is never good for the gander in Doyle's arguments because Doyle doesn't want to admit that the ideological system he espouses is not perfect.

Take for example the fact the bemoans Donald Trump being banned from Twitter in January of 2021 in his arguments on free speech. Doyle would like you to buy in to the fact that this is some New Puritan conspiracy to muzzle free speech and thought led by the politically correct censors of the New Left. For the record Donald Trump was banned from Twitter on January 8th, 2021, a fact that Doyle gleefully relates. The fact that he was banned from Twitter for using the platform to incite an attempted coup against a democratically elected government on January 6th, which led to the storming of the Capitol, which led to nearly $3 million dollars in damage, 174 injured, and 5 people dead either the day of or within the next 36 hours. It also led 88 felony charge for Donald Trump and 34 convictions at the time of my penning this review. Doyle's liberalism has respect for only one of these sets of facts, but it beggars belief that Doyle believes that corporations are going to accept the kind of liability risk that allowing a man to quite literally foment open insurrection amounts to. Unless, of course, Doyle would like to present some alternative facts, but considering his reaction to the George Floyd riots in 2020, neatly presented in this book, law and order and property damage are two things for which he has no sympathy. Except...

Which, I guess brings us to that weird sort of argument about the George Floyd riots and Doyle's contempt for the Black Lives Matter protests, which is just dripping from the pages of this work. (I'm projecting, I know, but it's so easy considering the condescension with which Doyle treats his opponents throughout the course of this entire work.) Doyle makes mention of the murder of Floyd, but he implies--he doesn't state outright because he doesn't do that, he just sort of likes to come side-along to his contentious points that might make him look like a fucking asshole--that this murder by the police was indicative of a bad cop and not a system that encourages it. He purposefully omits the list of names of unarmed Black men and women and children killed by the American police since 2014 (and earlier). For Doyle, Floyd's murder is an isolated event, rather than one in a long series of events, and it remains risible to me that he attempts to act in this manner. To me, this is a bad faith argument in the extreme. Doyle wants to make a point that his New Puritans have turned Floyd into a martyr, devoid of real life realities. But the reality remains that 12 year old Black boys with toy guns are being fatally shot by the American police, but white men who enter churches and gun down 9 people in cold blood can be arrested and stand trial. If there is not some systemic element of racism there, which is not a reality to which Doyle subscribes, I would dearly like Doyle to explain to me how the "bad cops" seem to be largely involved in arresting unarmed POC. The good ones get to arrest mass murderers. (Doyle would no doubt classify this as a personal attack on his morals, which honestly I'm fine with. If your argument is that there's not a societal element at play because the societal element is made up by people with whom you don't agree, at least do your readers the courtesy of explaining the body of evidence rather than cherry-picking a singular incident.)

None of which matters because this is all lived experience, and that doesn't count. Only studies count. Unfortunately, I did not flag a relevant passage to point to this, which clearly makes me a bad empiricist, but it's okay because so is Doyle. (For reference, you can read his thoughts of DiAngelo's White Fragility to get a sense of how he views lived experience. As far as he's concerned, at least in my interpretation, lived experience doesn't equate with facts. Which yeah, okay, you have me there. This ties in to his argument because it generally is that just because people who advocate foe having felt and -ism--largely in Doyle's case racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia--doesn't mean they actually have. Because according to Doyle, there are facts that are immutable. I tend to agree, but I think we disagree largely about the content of those facts. Doyle would posit that certain sociological concepts are immutable facts. My personal take, definitely more influenced by post-modernism than Doyle's--is that there's nothing immutable about any sociological concept, so there's probably no way that Doyle and I were going to see eye-to-eye about this, but Doyle largely rejects the idea that language helps to frame reality. This is convenient when you want to deny things like systemic racism or transphobia exist because you can simply cherry-pick a couple of studies or read a couple of books by like-minded individuals and talk about how worthy their research is, and call it a day. Doyle doesn't bother to delve into any sort of statistics compiled about trans suicide rates or instances of trans children being kicked out of their families, I can only assume because such emotional subjects would undercut the argument he's trying to make. It's all well and good to argue your point, but you inevitably end up looking like an asshole when you do it in the face of another human's suffering. (I know these facts because I looked them up after reading Dutchman-Smith's Hags and the attempted suicide rate for trans people in Great Britain, as reported by the UK government is 34%, where women and girls was 5.3%. Dutchman-Smith was more interested in how the existence of trans people affects women, which is an argument that Doyle again side-alongs when he talks about a woman being raped in a hospital in Britain by a trans woman, but while Dutchman-Smith comes at least from a place of authenticity--that lived experience that matters not at all--Doyle comes from a place of cherry-picking single instances to bolster a flagging point about domestic violence and semantic pedantary about what it means to be a woman. Regardless of what it means or doesn't mean, I really don't think it's Andrew Doyle's place to be trying to define it.)

So, now that I've gotten lost in the weeds, let's talk about all the instances in which lived experience is okay. For example, when Doyle asserts that "more and more gay people are feeling uncomfortable about the Pride flag," which may well be true, but Doyle offers no evidence to support it, so I am forced to conclude that he knows this only by lived experience, and thus the conclusion that he has reached about identarianism is invalid. Likewise, I find the assertation that he makes on page 132 (I'm not going to bother to quote the whole paragraph) about how librarians just used to be guardians of knowledge and never used to gatekeep it risible. The bottom line is this: throughout the course of history, things have been saved because people find them valuable, whether in libraries or palaces or records rooms or where have you. But value is a subjective judgment. The idea that in the 1700s the libraries of the British universities were treating with the same care histories from North American or South Pacific indigenous peoples is the logical conclusion of this line of thinking. Show me where the 200 year off books written in Cree are housed in the Bodleian, and I will withdraw my complaint. As a person living in North America, in an area of the continent that still keenly feels the effects of the British attempts to destroy the indigenous cultures of this area through residential schooling and reserves, I doubt it's there. So, to me, it seems that librarians and libraries have always been gatekeepers, but Doyle is mostly upset about the fact that the things that are arguably being gatekept are things that he values, i.e., Shakespeare and Chaucer and Milton. The pearl clutching that a group of university students might study English literature and not read Shakespeare would be comical if he wasn't so serious about it.

I've gotten fucking side-tracked again--this review might end up being as much of a mess as the actual work--but the most egregious instance of Doyle's lived experience comes when he talks about stand-up comics. His argument that "humour can certainly be used as an excuse for slander, or as a device to cause harm to the vulnerable, this is hardly ever the case when it comes to professional comedians." Considering how this argument is again supported by not a shred of empirical proof, only Doyle's lived experience in comedy, the argument should be, by his own standards, thrown out wholesale. The fact that only the line before he is talking about Louis C.K. and his jokes about the Parkland school shooting--demonstrably to most people not a source of humour--Doyle seems to be on the opinion that the comedians' right to say anything should be defended--explaining that whole Nazi dog aside--but this is, of course, not a right he extends to the "crazy children.”

As an aside that has very little to do with the actual review, I wanted to reach through the book and slap Doyle when he went off about Classical statues being white and people claiming a lack of diversity in the ancient world, both because he is deliberately misunderstanding the ancient world when it comes to race--which as the concept that we understood it arose in the Enlightenment, which this hero of the Enlightenment failed to mention, but also because he fundamentally misrepresented statuary in the ancient world. They weren't white; they were painted, which anyone with 12 seconds, Google, and an ounce of interest would know. They were left white when rediscovered largely because it fit the Enlightenment ethos of what those statutes should look like, which in case you were wondering was also when the modern concept of racism took hold.

Now, I have dozens of photos of subjects I wanted to raise on my phone, so the last thing I wanted to address what Doyle's rhetorical style. He compares his New Puritans to Stalin and his gulags explicitly several times, and after doing so for pages walks it back by saying, I'm not saying they're this bad, but... The point of this rhetoric is to tie the two together. Something as bad as the gulag prison system that led to the deaths of millions and this "New Puritanism," which has so fat led to the deaths of a few careers indelibly in the readers' mind, but when called upon, Doyle can say, I didn't say that. It strikes me as disingenuous in the extreme because rhetorically speaking, the first association is the one that sticks with you; i.e., these people are just like these evil people who murdered millions.

The other weird thing about Doyle's argument is that while admits that structural inequality exists--there's a lot more poor brown people and black people and women and LGBT people have traditionally faced discrimination--he seems to believe that a concerted effort to go back to how it was in the late 90s and early 2000s would improve the situation for these people. He has no concrete ideas as to how, and he proudly touts supporting gay marriage in 2003 when people in his office thought it was a joke, but it's not Doyle's problem to solve because it's not a problem that he has to live with, one assumes. Doyle wants to go back to a time when it was okay to make Nazi jokes and gay jokes and Jewish jokes because free speech, but he doesn't want to admit that the problems that existed then are the same ones that exist now and his brand of liberal bootstraps-mentality did nothing to alleviate that. (I assume this is also at the heart of his screed about the English language and how it's being degraded and text speak is being allowed etc. My grandparents would not countenance calling us kids because those were baby goats, but Doyle presents the English language as some sort of immutable monolith, and by the dint of scaling it, you will achieve that to which you set your mind. ok boomer.)

I also found his defence of King Leopold II a weird one. Look, you can name things after whomever you want, but the idea that people might not want things named after a dude whose actions in the Congo led to the death of around 10 million people is not weird to me. The idea that statues (or hospital wings) celebrating people who made millions selling other people into slavery--do not bring the Parthenon into this either because it was a temple and while it was built in all probability by slavery, the idea that Doyle promulgates that they are synonymous is a false equivalency--is not weird to me. Statutes and public monuments valorize people and things. The Confederate flag flew in the US until the 2020s on state capitols in the south and represented the ideas of white supremacy on which the southern confederacy was built, and I don't think the fact that you get to ignore that fact because some people like it. Likewise, in Canada, statutes of MacDonald, who founded the residential school system in addition to being the first PM, have been coming down. The idea that monuments do not indicate what we as a society value is tone-deaf, and bizarre, and honestly, as what society values changes, i.e., the social justice Doyle so despises, so might the statuary change. There are no more Swastikas in Germany even though there once were. Doyle has no problem with that, strangely enough.

His thoughts on trigger warnings are also not super coherent to me. His one concrete example is of traumatizing a student with a poem about a hanging after the suicide of a family member (naturally, this is described only in terms of how hard this was on Doyle). He talks about how harmful trigger warnings, which he does offer studies, but I got the sense that Doyle seems to think that it’s society’s job to continue traumatizing people with some of the most terrible events of their lives indiscriminately. Victims of trauma are allowed to decide how and when they deal with that trauma, and I find it at odds with Doyle’s stated liberalism that he’s against allowing that. (I suppose all that really matters here to Doyle is that you cannot make rape jokes because it might traumatize rape victims. Any sort of social sensitivity is beyond him, as also evidenced by his digression on pronouns. Calling someone what they asked to be fallece even if you think it’s stupid is clearly beyond Doyle, as evidenced by his condescension with regards to the new pronouns or even the singular they.) I can only guess that Doyle likewise objects to film ratings since they moderate content for the people who choose to engage with the subject. (Or in the cases of the schoolwork Doyle talks about, are forced to engage.) Being able to decide as an individual if you can deal with a sensitive subject and providing people warnings about it—yes even up to outdated content that might require conversations to explain to younger people—seems to be a weird hill to choose to die on, but you do you.

Look, bottom line, I don't agree with Doyle. I'm never likely to agree with him because quite frankly, I don't think there's an argument he can present that I would find compelling. This no doubt makes me one of his so-called "crazy children" and from the lofty heights of his particularly middle-class, white, and British upbringing, he will condescend to me about how the world could be improved. Because that is the crux of this matter: the world is changing, and Doyle doesn't like how it's changing. He doesn't agree. That's fine. But the weird moral religiosity with which he condemns his enemies, and beatification that he extends to Kant--Kant of the theory of scientific racism--truly makes it hard to take. (I mean Doyle would tell me it's okay because even though the man thought that a large part of world was inferior because of the colour of their skin, I shouldn't hold that against him. He's just a product of his time: this ignores the fact that he is fact the progenitor of that idea, and it led to the suffering of untold millions in the Middle Passage, hundreds of years of slavery and Jim Crow laws, but you do you.) The bottom line is that Doyle is just not compelling, the writing is not great, nor is his choice of Benson--the passage he includes is florid and eye-searing to me--and this is just bad. Not morally. Aesthetically.

[Julian Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andrew Doyle is probably best known for his hilarious alter-ego Titiania McGrath, a twitter parody account of a most plausibly absurd wokist. Perhaps the reason why his satirical alter-ego is so funny and spot on, is because Doyle has studied his subject matter in a meticulous and academic manner.

I was firstly drawn to Doyle’s book because I had even started listening to audiobooks about the 17th century Puritans, to see how their views and perspectives were in alignment with this emerging mob I saw mostly coming out of the United States.

Perhaps I see this issue differently from many other people, as what I am seeing is that there is an actual metaphiysical possession driving the bigotry and hatred people are calling “cancel culture”, which represents not witchcraft, but perhaps in the old parlance “demonic possession”.

Doyle is a traditional left winger, who saw his fellow left wingers captured by what he may describe as metaphorical dark forces, as a political pole shift has occured and yet Doyle and many others do not at all fit into the traditional right wing or “alt right”.

For a lot of us these days, we can palpably feel the teeth against heterodox characters in the world today, who fall out of line with established orthodoxy. (It is amusing that few charismatic left wing character seems to ever really falls out of favour, as few as there are, just as few right wing characters would never fall from grace, say in the 1960’s or 70’s) Of course, it used to be the left wing who railed against the establishment, but apparently the left wing no longer fulfils that function. Now I have middle aged rockers with ponytails telling me they are ashamed to say, now they are now right wing!

Doyle’s book does a good job of recounting tale after tale, which makes it startlingly clear that there is an insanity that has taken hold in western society, where a rational sense of proportionality is absent and a kind of psychopathic unkindness has taken its place. A good example where an old working class employee was taking city folks through a gate, and was almost sacked for saying “ladies and gentleman”. This torrent of tales is a good remedy to those people who don’t even believe that people are getting cancelled.

Doyles book is so articulate, so on point, and perhaps a slightly bit too intellectual to reach any decent sized audience. However, since I last looked on amazon, I can see it is actually selling quite well. Doylewas schooled in this academic style of abstraction that praises the use of words like discursive, signification and diachrony, and so he knows of what he speaks of, but he is a mutant, full of rationality, sense and groundedness.

I think what we may sometimes forget is that the so-called intellectual elite of the world, went to university and at the top of the food chain in their so-called “education” are these largely incomprehensible, self ejaculating intellectual French theorists whose work has essentially betrayed the intellect and strayed into the realm of the irrational, which unfortunately, people have taken far too seriously.

But where else was there to take the intellectual arena of the abstracted, nihilist western mind, except into the surreal, absurd and unuseful? The intellectual mind itself doesn’t go anywhere inherently meaningful, and these “secular” New puritans clearly have the buttoned up arrogance and pseudo-morality of the old style religionists.

I’ve come to feel that many of these people, having so much pride in becoming educated in the humanities, then may end up as a teacher or in academia (as Doyle himself used to be), and be paid a pittance, and that there is some element of fiscal resentment fuelling their irrational attacks.

If the label “racist” cannot be stuck upon you, then maybe “coloniser” might fit? Graham Hancock was recently labelled a “white supremicist” after releasing a documentary-series on Netflix confronting or challenging ideas about humanities past. Why do we tolerate this kind of nonsense? Where are the people saying, “Sir, have you no shame?”

In this highly individualised culture, full of people of feet of clay, who wants to associate with the person who has these inconvenient labels painted upon them? When stupidity seems so common, sometimes it seems we are all held hostage to the lowest common denominator, who is gullible and uncurious enough to believe that what the label says is actually true!

Who can stand up to the idiocy and dare to point out that these labels don’t fit and that the witches are not actually witches? When you then stand liable to be called a witch yourself by the possesse

The issue with the person who is possessed, is that they cannot own it themselves, so this shadow must be projected onto others. There does not appear to be any level of spiritual maturity in the New Puritans, whereby they acknowledge, that they too have a shadow. They have all the worst elements of religion, yet with no sign of any real spirituality whatsoever.

We are reminded of Jesus saying to the people about to stone the female adulterer, “he who is without sin, cast the first stone!” People 2000 years ago had the conscience to stop and reconsider their punishment and their own past action, but apparently these days, the wokists too arrogantly claim sinlessness, able to complacently cast stones, because in their paradigm, virtuousness is so easy to achieve! Just follow their shallow rules and don’t step out of line or misgender someone! I suppose that is actually not hard to do, if you are just a keyboard warrior drone at your call centre job!

The New Puritans generally don’t have any true creative ethos or directionality, and why would they? By focussing on wider political issues, they can obvert their own unkindness and shitty interpersonal behaviour into an uncreative, shallow avenue of just enforcing a moralising high ground, that actually doesn’t in any way evolve or improve the human situation.

Another factor here, many disbelieve that this is happening in the first place and many are so captured by their political or social affiliations that they simply don’t see it (typically till it happens to them)They just don’t see the bad faith behaviour or believe this irrationality is real. They want to be seen as caring and virtuousness people who “do the right thing”, and yet that tendency is being abused and many people are being siloed into ideological prisons, unable to speak out against injustice.

Western society, and especially American society, with its highly individualised ethos, involving covering one’s arse first and foremost, is just rife with people of feet of clay, unable to step up and defend the sanity of “the commons”. And yet this is the world we live in, where there are not people guarding “concept creep”, where suddenly the definitions of “rape” have crept into absurd definitions, where suddenly verbally defending yourself against an upset woman is verbal rape or kissing a woman on the cheek is also rape, as happened to Pulitzer Prize writer Juno Diaz. And he is not the first and not the last man to be thrown under the bus, simply because people don’t want to sully the name of the holy hashtag.

This is apparently the new world, where due to critical race theory, everyone is in fact a racist, and so every white person is guilty, it is the woke cultures version of original sin. And in essence, every man is also a rapist, this the ideology of fear and uncertainty, of repression and treading carefully, lest you step out of line, is just the same as the one that western society has lived under for many hundreds of years, in the name of religious moralistic repression.

Of course, Doyle makes many clear references to exactly HOW this inane culture, has all the worst aspects of religion, with none of the good, “redemption, forgiveness, compassion”. And so this woke religion is an insane religion, driven by hatred and full of arrogance that its abstracted intellectual wankery, is the epitome of intelligence - common sense be damned!

Like Doyle, I was also one of perhaps 17 people who read Judith Butler in the early 90’s, but more as a curiosity as I think everyone did back then. A few decades later, and apparently no other western intellectuals have anchored any ideas more worthy or interesting. We live in a bizarre world where these theorists are apparently now taken seriously in the “real world”. Clearly “the academy” has lost its way, post modernism and post-structuralism have led us completely down the garden path to the point, where there are not even solid facts anymore.

Doyle makes the point that these people do not have defendable points, and they are not open to discussion and debate, as their ideas are not defensible in any sensible arena. Yet their loudness and viciousness online means that people are scared of them. Corporations and those in power, often don’t seem to have any ability to stand up against them, and such institutions are populated by people who were schooled in this literal nonsense at univsersity.

The missing part here, is that this tyranny, appearing within the culture, is a phenomena of possession of malefic spirits. Doyle and many others emerging from the secular intellectual world, will likely not become so superstitious or apparently foolish. Yet, as the western world becomes evidentially more mentally ill, it is not gaslighting to say that and it is demonstrable, where there is no essential moral compass anymore. We can clearly witness this inexplicably mad malevolence, this palpable feeling of teeth and this supernatural trancey insanity so reminiscent of 17th century Salem, where good people’s lives were destroyed by collective cowardice and fear, and the stupidity of the mindless mob, and those who choose to led us all astray, to not stand up to the insanity.

Doyle’s book is an essential guide to the shape that this tyranny presently has in our culture, along with James Lindsay’s book “Cynical Theories”. It is indeed a relief to finally have a map so as to understand what is driving these preposterous ideologues.

[Colin Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is, I believe, a very important book. The interesting thing is that I don’t agree with all of it by any means, and my personal politics are probably not highly aligned with the author’s, but that’s rather the point.

The book does go to the heart of the increasing polarisation in society, and how the way in which we communicate the most important issues increasingly lacks nuance. That the underlying complexity of many real life issues is poorly served with trying to draw razor sharp lines in ethics and morality.

In particular, we are bad at navigating the ethics of situations where the rights of individuals or groups have some level of tension with another. This was obvious in the acute stage of the COVID pandemic where the rights of individuals around vaccination, for instance have an inherent clash with the rights of groups of vulnerable people. We aren’t good in dealing with such matters without resorting to name calling.

Similarly, the rights of transgender people are important, the rights of women are important, and how do we deal with situations where these may be in tension? At least one obvious premise of the book is that simply assuming bad faith, indulging in name calling, and piling on the “unrighteous” is not only unethical, but ineffective. It has helped to rob important discussions of the nuance they require.

Another important theme is that societal disadvantage caused by financial deprivation isn’t getting the attention it deserves because it often takes a back seat to other factors that are nevertheless important in promoting equality, diversity and inclusion.

However, in my opinion the book often stretches these things too far and makes its own polarising assumptions. I often found myself thinking this, but for me this was the most important point of the book: we need to learn how to engage with viewpoints we don’t agree fully agree with, and still be intellectually and ethically honest enough to acknowledge the good faith of such conversations and recognise the good points being made.

There are, I believe, genuinely important points in this book worth engaging with.

[Maria Lyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the author made his case well around the metaphor of ‘cancel culture’ being effectively a wave of Puritanism. It’s three stars from me though, because the metaphor is constant and about as subtle as a brick in the head. I didn’t think there was enough variety of material to justify a book of this length and it could have merited some editing.

[Sam Aird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pokes a lot of the obvious holes in the Critical Social Justice movement, but could still acknowledge that for many there are good intentions behind the zealotry. I think it still left questions to be answered about whether this is a movement we can laugh off which will be gone in a decade, or whether, as the author thinks, this is something more insidious.

[Hiccopolit · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't aware of him prior to a friend recommending this book - but in both positive and negative ways Andrew Doyle reminds me of Owen Jones.

In this punchy polemic the author articulately rails against the excesses of the "woke" left. Some very solid arguments, well presented and mostly engaging to read.

But ultimately I'm not convinced that the woke left is the existential threat he plays it up to be. Indeed, that he can publish a book on the topic and appear regularly on national and international media (which he references in the book), suggests that he hasn't been too cancelled.

Repeated claims to be on the side of reason and evidence also begin to grate a little. As if the social sciences can be governed by controlled experiments, spreadsheets and equations!

Still, better than expected.

[Stephen Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful and brilliant from Andrew Doyle.

[Stephen Mooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be widely read and stand at the front of other books on this topic.

This book tries to assume the best motives to the thought leaders of the new Social Justice and woke ideologies. It recognizes their valid criticisms of modern western society. It is all the more devastating for all that. It stands up for the classical liberal enlightenment ideas. It analyzes how the new ideologies go wrong, for example by redefining words, assuming the result, and refusing to engage in calm debate. The book is not a rant. It is easy to read, and full of examples, and credits other books and opinions. It is in no way an academic tome, but it contains 59 pages of notes to source the authors arguments and facts. This makes it a good book for those who want to explore further and bolster their own arguments.