Loved this essay. The phrase “aggressively conventional minded” is genius, and may contribute a lot towards the solution. As someone coming from an ex-soviet state, I’ve felt personal alarm bells ring more and more, as I experience the kind of intolerance and double speak America is heading into. Both the left and the right my opinion are missing the key points on freedom (the left suppressing and labeling, the right…
Doesn't help that the conformists have been allowed to frame the narrative as 'either you agree with us, or you're literally Hitler/Stalin' depending on political alignment, which is a very powerful weapon to shut down discourse.
This rising culture is freedom and diversity in all things except thought. This is how totalitarian regimes form. This is what my parents dumped their entire life savings into escaping, and here I am watching it rise again.