Why the "Intellectual Dark Web" annoys me

Contrarian provocateurs appealing to Bro Culture through contrarian provocation

They wow the dim with smart-sounding terms like “postmodern relativism”. They take victimhood to new extremes with their wailing about being canceled and outcast for their blasphemously un-woke ideas. They redefine hypocrisy with their identity politics war on those they accuse of playing identity politics. And mostly, they won’t just shut the hell up and go on with their lives.

For the blessedly uninitiated who may not know what I’m talking about, the “intellectual dark web” is a (now somewhat dated) term for a subculture of mostly podcast personalities, mostly conservatives, who found a popular niche in fighting back against “political correctness”. It’s a large group but its core was originally guys like Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Bret & Eric Weinstein, Steven Pinker, Ben Shapiro, and so on. Some have rejected their inclusion in the club, while remaining in ideological lockstep just without the label; such as in 2020 when Sam Harris famously said that to whatever degree the IDW exists, he turns in his membership card. Their appeal has been largely to Bro Culture, with Rogan’s podcasting table as their Holy of Holies.

(It’s important to remember we’re here to criticize ideas, not individuals. That list of names doesn’t matter. I’ve been in agreement with many of those listed — to varying degrees — on other things they’ve said or written; and most of their output has probably been good stuff. I’ve also been disappointed in some of them who found this outlet lucrative and went with it.)

The IDW’s basic schtick is to take the craziest, most extreme politically correct or “woke” views — that very few people would agree with, and that are often so fringe that virtually nobody actually holds them — pretend they represent the bulk of the academic left, and then claim to be under their stranglehold. Here are some of the examples I find most exasperating.

• Gender is their new big thing. They pretend to be outraged by All Things Gender and here are their three favorites:

  • Transgender medical treatment for “children” — Sorry, no statistically significant number of people is arguing for “children” (young adults, sure, but not “children”) to be given irreversible surgery or hormonal treatments. It’s the ultimate example of the IDW magnifying a real issue into something completely detached from reality, and pretending that is mainstream liberalism.

  • Transgender athletes: they argue “men” should not be allowed to compete against women. Well guess what, nobody argues they should! The reality is that people with complex conditions that cannot be easily categorized have unique situations for which there’s no perfect solution. The recent example was Olympic boxer Imane Khelif of Algeria, who was born with female genitals and was assigned female at birth — most conservatives’ incontrovertible gender test — and who was publicly alleged to have XY chromosomes by one Russian boxing association, which has never been proven, confirmed, or acknowledged by Khelif. Nevertheless, in the eyes of the IDW, this instantly made her simply a “man”.

  • They’re in lockstep with the populist right position that sex and gender are absolutely binary, something that no science can be shoehorned to support.

• Cancel culture. It’s not all that rare for students at college campuses — most of which are pretty liberal — to protest the appearance of a conservative speaker, and often to have it canceled. It’s rarer than they’d have you believe, but it does happen. While the IDW acts like this is some outrageous and unprecedented assault on freedom of speech and thought and expression; it’s not. It’s human nature. Suppression of opposing viewpoints has been part of human society for as long as human society has existed. And tellingly, the IDW’s constant opposition to that viewpoint is the very apex of hypocrisy. Cancel the cancelers.

• Vaccines. Some of the IDW “thought leaders” are full-throttle vaccine deniers. If that’s not bad enough, most of the rest focus instead on the “tyranny” of mandated public health measures. Instead of “Let’s all work together to end this global pandemic,” they go with “How can I increase my personal brand by being contrarian today” and literally put lives at risk.

• Global warming. Why not be contrarian on this as well? If some people are triggered by California mandating a certain percentage of new electric car sales, let’s magnify that into tyranny also, and justify the mock outrage by repeating decades-debunked anti-science claims about global warming.

• Even UFOs, for god’s sake. I have no goddam idea why this became part of the IDW agenda, but all whom I’ve heard speak on the subject are rejecting basic astrophysics and astrobiology in the service of uplifting the most fringe and/or disproven claims about alien visitation. We’re just asking questions. Isn’t national security important? And, actually, I do know why this is on their agenda. It’s because it’s popular, and the IDW is all about elevating their personal brand with “forbidden, heretical ideas.”

Please don’t buy into the contrarian provocateurs of the Intellectual Dark Web. Ignore them, and do something intelligent with your day.