The tyranny of the 'easily insulted' does indeed inculcate traits which can appear fascistic but are more the result of frightened human beings exhibiting all the tribal traits of a siege mentality: especially prevalent during a moral panic.

And these traits become dangerous and puritanical.

Once the ideology of a moral panic is more or less firmly established, and while there still must be some form of liquidity to deal with new challenges to the resultant dogma, heretics and apostates must be identified and 'cancelled'.

Social media warriors, armed with intellectually impoverished but easily translated sloganeered credos, are sent out not just to spread the new gospel but also to cleanse the movement.

As it is with all moral panics, there must be folk devils -- easily identified and labelled.

With McCarthyism it was of course the Communists, in the 60's it was the drugged out Hippies, in the 80's and 90's, it was predatory fathers sexually abusing their daughters or Satanic cults preying on Daycare children.

For arguments sake, here's a good definition from Stan Cohen, who coined the term and wrote extensively on the topic:

"...moral panics have four key agents: mass media, moral entrepreneurs, the control culture, and the public."

Therefore, it would appear that our latest moral panic is against the 'Unawoke': white mostly male folk devils.

It is one based first on sexual politics.

The #MeToo movement, while imperative to remove real predators like Epstein and Harvey Weinstein from positions of power, cast a huge net.

An ever-widening series of male behaviours from the non-contextualized past, were defined as sexual harassment. These were then conflated with sexual assault. In the process, all men were seen as potentially toxic: guilty for the sins of the few.

And any calls for due process, let alone dialogue, were relegated to the realm of the criminally motivated enabler.

Even worse, it branded historical pioneering feminists like Margaret Atwood, who made the claim that women have both a light and dark side, and are therefore human, as 'bad feminists'.

It became a modality for the current moral crusade.

And mass media fuelled the panic 24-7.

The moral entrepreneurs are of course the 'Woke culture'.

They demand the resignations of editors for daring to print contrary ideas from a wide diversity of thought, articles which essentially trust that readers can make up their own minds as to the value of an article.

Silly naive editors! We the readers need the censorship of 'The Woke'.

This 'Woke' Culture also demands resignations for 'thoughtcrimes' by democratically elected officials and they demand perpetual banishment for anyone found guilty by a mob mentality better suited to the guillotine-happy Paris 1793 than 2020.

Companies which rely on advertising pay attention to these memes and shrill demands, and willingly and rapidly offer CEO heads on a platter to show their contrition.

And that's not saying that some heads should roll but the process is the prize!

This all further fuels if not feeds the power of the new priesthood.

And twitter is of course just one weapon used in this our current moral panic's control culture.

Universities offer 'safe rooms', academic rigour is diluted, professors with unpopular ideas are boycotted and all accusations are equated with guilt, no matter how outrageous the charges.

Those who accuse must be believed, those who are easily offended 'validated' and if found responsible for having falsely accused a person and destroying his or her reputation let alone vocation, well then those people are acceptable casualties in the crusade to cleanse society.

And the public, having caught the contagion blithely go along with the fear and dare not raise their heads in protest lest they find themselves on the steps leading up to the platform of the guillotine.

Forget historical accuracy or common sense, for during a siege mentality, any ideas on the other side of the walls are the arsenal of the devil, the enemy, who while supposedly somnambulant, must never be allowed through the portcullis and be a stain on the robes of those who vigilantly protect their flock from the impure.

Oh the irony!

In raging against the tyranny of fascism, the Woke have become tyrannical.

Of course these are trying and frightening times.

A demagogue is in the White House, a pandemic is raging, an economy is on the edge with the promise of a more equitable distribution of wealth on hold, and technology, while on the one hand connecting us, is on the other freeing the darkness of what Jung would call our shadow.

And rather than taking accountability for our own shortcomings, and respectfully reaching out to others with diplomacy and a call for dialogue, many project their fear and anger onto others and instead puritanically embrace the fanaticism of absolutism.

How self-infantilizing.

How Orwellian.

Indeed, how tragic and tribal and ultimately how limiting to human potential.

Thanks Tom.