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The intellectual dark web (IDW) is a loose affiliation of academics and social commentators who oppose what they perceive as the influence of left wing identity politics and political correctness in higher education and mass media.

Individuals and publications associated with the term reject what they view as authoritarianism and ostracism within mainstream progressive movements in Western countries. This includes opposition to deplatforming, boycotts, and online shaming, which are perceived as threats to freedom of speech.

Origin and usage

The term "intellectual dark web" was coined as a joke^[1] by mathematician and venture capitalist Eric Weinstein and popularized by New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss.^[2]^[3] It has been used to refer to various academics and social commentators who express concerns over the perceived excesses of left-wing identity politics and political correctness.^[2]^[3] Media studies scholar John Postill argues that Weiss's essay, titled "Meet the Renegades", was a "defining media event" that offered an identity and cast of characters for the "anti-woke movement" to follow.^[3]

The first recorded usage of the term was on a 2017 episode of Sam Harris's podcast, when Weinstein used it to refer to a group of thinkers, including Weinstein and Harris, who used digital media to offer alternatives to mainstream media narratives.^[3] This occurred after Weinstein's brother, biologist Bret Weinstein, resigned in 2017 from his position as professor of biology at the Evergreen State College in response to protests against his criticism of a campus event that asked white students to stay off campus, as opposed to the previous annual tradition of black students voluntarily absenting themselves.^[4]

Derek Beres argues for Big Think that other controversies, dating back to 2014, should also be viewed as antecedents to the IDW. These include a debate between Harris and Ben Affleck on Real Time with Bill Maher in October 2014, the publication of "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber" by James Damore in August 2017, and Cathy Newman's interview of Jordan Peterson on Channel 4 News in January 2018, each of which related to controversial topics such as Islamic extremism and workplace diversity policies.^[5]

Membership and ideology

The IDW comprises an ideologically diverse network of commentators who share an opposition to left-wing identity politics and political correctness.^[3]^[6] Other issues of concern include postmodernism and "cultural Marxism", which are perceived as contributing to moral relativism and the suppression of free speech.^[7]

In her essay, Weiss characterized IDW members as "iconoclastic thinkers"^[8] who had found audiences online after being "purged" from institutions that had become "hostile to unorthodox thought".^[3] Eric Weinstein described the IDW as being opposed to "the gated institutional narrative" of the mainstream media and political elites.^[1] IDW figures often use alternative media, including podcasts and newsletters, to build identification with audiences who are disillusioned with mainstream media and politics by branding themselves as reasonable thinkers and reinforcing narratives of political polarization.^[9] According to Weiss, many IDW members identify as atheist, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Sam Harris, and Steven Pinker - all New Atheists. Commentators such as Douglas Murray, Maajid Nawaz, Joe Rogan, and Dave Rubin are also included.^[2] Other notable IDW members according to Weiss include Bret and Eric Weinstein, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Heather Heying, and Christina Hoff Sommers.^[3]

While IDW members tend to not espouse overt white supremacy and ethnonationalism, their beliefs overlap with those of the white-nationalist alt-right movement, such as in debates over gender identity, feminism, men's rights, and race science.^[2] IDW commentators tend to dismiss issues of transgender rights and racial and gender inequality as the concerns of leftist "social justice warriors" while welcoming some gay men, such as Murray and Rubin, into their ranks.^[2] A 2019 study by Ribeiro et al. examining patterns of user comments on YouTube videos described the IDW as a "gateway to the far right".^[2] Jacob Hamburger argues in the Los Angeles Review of Books that the IDW belongs to a neoconservative tradition of attacks on "political correctness" that began during the Reagan era, associated with commentators such as Allan Bloom, Roger Kimball, Dinesh D’Souza, David Brooks, Irving Kristol, and Norman Podhoretz.^[6] Hamburger describes leftists along with liberals and progressives as the "primary adversaries" of the IDW.^[6]

Some IDW members describe themselves as liberals in opposition to what they perceive as the excesses and indifference of the American Left, while others lean to the right.^[10] Those who have been linked to the IDW are generally critical of what they perceive as "conformist" liberals, and some have been associated with the alt-lite and the alt-right.^[11] Political scientist Daniel W. Drezner argues that the IDW contributes to polarization because of its need to appeal to a primarily right-wing audience, despite the political leanings of individual members.^[12] The Guardian characterized the IDW as "strange bedfellows" that comprise the "supposed thinking wing of the alt-right".^[13]

Nick Fouriezos of Ozy magazine describes IDW as "a growing school of thought that includes a collection of mostly left-leaning professors, pundits and thinkers united in their criticism of the modern social justice movement as authoritarian and illogical."^[10] Liberals who have been labelled as being part of the IDW often credit the Enlightenment with vast improvements in human welfare since the 18th century, and see Enlightenment values such as freedom of speech and individual rights as threatened by both political correctness on the left, and Trumpism and religious conservatism on the right.^[10]

Reception

Criticism of the IDW has come primarily from the left and support from the right.^[6]^[14] Jonah Goldberg, writing in the National Review, said the "label is a bit overwrought", writing that it struck him "as a marketing label – and not necessarily a good one. ... It seems to me this IDW thing isn't actually an intellectual movement. It's just a coalition of thinkers and journalists who happen to share a disdain for the keepers of the liberal orthodoxy."^[15] Henry Farrell, writing in Vox, expressed disbelief that conservative commentator Ben Shapiro or neuroscientist Sam Harris, both claimed to be among the intellectual dark web by Weiss, could credibly be described as either purged or silenced.^[16] Weiss' fellow New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted the irony of claiming popular intellectual oppression by the mainstream, while publishing in the Times, among the most prominent newspapers in the nation,^[17] although Weiss did not herself claim to be part of the IDW^[8] and would depart the Times almost exactly one year later over the same issues central to figures in it.^[18] David French contended many of the critics were missing the point, and were instead inadvertently confirming "the need for a movement of intellectual free-thinkers."^[19]

In 2019, a study from the Federal University of Minas Gerais found a pattern of migration of viewers who comment on YouTube videos, from commenting on clips associated with the IDW and the "alt-lite" to commenting on more "right-wing and/or alt-right" videos. The study looked at over 331,000 videos that an algorithm had classified as right-wing, analyzed 79 million YouTube comments, and found a group that migrated from IDW channels to "alt-lite" channels, and then the alt-right channels. The subjects who left comments at an IDW channel were more likely to graduate after a few years to leaving significantly more comments on alt-right channels than the control group. The study's authors said they were not intending to "point fingers", but to draw attention to the effects of YouTube's recommendation algorithm.^[20]^[21]

References

^ ^a ^b Kelsey, Darren (2020). "Archetypal Populism: The 'Intellectual Dark Web' and the 'Peterson Paradox'". In Kranert, Michael (ed.). Discursive Approaches to Populism Across Disciplines: The Return of Populists and the People. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 174. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-55038-7_7. ISBN 978-3-030-55038-7.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Sheedy, Matt (2022). Owning the Secular: Religious Symbols, Culture Wars, Western Fragility. Routledge Focus on Religion. London: Routledge. pp. 89–90. doi:10.4324/9781003031239. ISBN 978-0-367-46802-6.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Postill, John (2024). "Introduction". The Anthropology of Digital Practices: Dispatches from the Online Culture Wars. New York: Routledge. pp. 7–8. doi:10.4324/9781003335238-1. ISBN 978-1-003-85133-2.
^ Svrluga, Susan; Heim, Joe (June 1, 2017). "Threat shuts down college embroiled in racial dispute". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 26, 2019. Retrieved July 14, 2024.
^ Beres, Derek (March 27, 2018). "5 key moments that led to the rise of the Intellectual Dark Web". Big Think. Archived from the original on March 26, 2019. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Hamburger, Jacob (July 18, 2018). "The 'Intellectual Dark Web' Is Nothing New". Los Angeles Review of Books. Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Retrieved October 5, 2024. Despite their various differences, all members of the movement believe their ideas are being stifled by an epidemic of 'political correctness.' [...] These thinkers ought not to be allowed to pretend that its ideas are, historically speaking, anything other than conservative.
^ Sheedy (2022), pp. 89–90: "For some IDW figures, the influence of postmodernism and 'cultural Marxism' is said to be particularly dangerous, contributing to moral relativism, political correctness, and the stifling of free speech."
^ ^a ^b Weiss, Bari (May 8, 2018). "Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 31, 2020. Retrieved May 8, 2018.
^ Baker, Stephanie Alice; Maddox, Alexia (2022). "From COVID-19 Treatment to Miracle Cure: The Role of Influencers and Public Figures in Amplifying the Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin Conspiracy Theories during the Pandemic". M/C Journal. 25 (1). doi:10.5204/mcj.2872. ISSN 1441-2616.
^ ^a ^b ^c Fouriezos, Nick (August 10, 2020). "American Fringes: The Intellectual Dark Web Declares Its Independence". Ozy. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
^ Finlayson, Alan (2021). "Neoliberalism, the Alt-Right and the Intellectual Dark Web". Theory, Culture & Society. 38 (6): 167–190. doi:10.1177/02632764211036731. ISSN 1460-3616. S2CID 239690708.
^ Drezner, Daniel W. (May 11, 2018). "The Ideas Industry meets the intellectual dark web". PostEverything. The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 29, 2019. Retrieved October 5, 2024.
^ "The 'Intellectual Dark Web' – the supposed thinking wing of the alt-right". The Guardian. May 9, 2018. Archived from the original on June 10, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2019.
^ Bowden, Blaine (May 6, 2019). "Yes, The Intellectual Dark Web Is Politically Diverse". Areo. Archived from the original on August 5, 2019. Retrieved July 30, 2019.
^ Goldberg, Jonah (May 8, 2018). "Evaluating the 'Intellectual Dark Web'". National Review. Archived from the original on July 15, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2019.
^ Farrell, Henry (May 10, 2018). "The 'Intellectual Dark Web,' explained: what Jordan Peterson has in common with the alt-right". Vox. Retrieved July 14, 2024.
^ Bonazzo, John (August 5, 2018). "NY Times 'Intellectual Dark Web' Story Savaged on Twitter—Even by Paper's Staffers". The New York Observer. Archived from the original on July 22, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2019.
^ Pompeo, Joe (July 14, 2020). "In Dramatic Exit From the Times, Bari Weiss Makes Bid for Woke-Wars Martyrdom". Vanity Fair. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
^ French, David A. (May 11, 2018). "Critics Miss the Point of the 'Intellectual Dark Web'". National Review. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2019.
^ Dickson, EJ (August 28, 2019). "Study Shows How the 'Intellectual Dark Web' Is a Gateway to the Far Right". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on September 21, 2019. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
^ Ribeiro, Manoel Horta; Ottoni, Raphael; West, Robert; Almeida, Virgílio A F; Meira Meira, Wagner (2020). "Auditing radicalization pathways on YouTube". Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. New York: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 131–141. doi:10.1145/3351095.3372879. ISBN 9781450369367. S2CID 201316434.