Heresy - a further explanation

In Paul Graham's essay, "Heresy", he asks:

"Why? Why has [heresy,] this antiquated-sounding religious concept come back in a secular form? And why now?"

And his answer:

You need two ingredients for a wave of intolerance: intolerant people, and an ideology to guide them... In the late 1980s a new ideology of this type appeared in US universities...

His explanation is essentially, new ideologies gained footholds in the US, which enabled intolerant people to cry heresy once more. 

I find this to be lacking substance, so I'll add a bit more.

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Tanner Greer, who writes on the blog "The Scholar's Stage", wrote a post on the postmodern transition from a culture of dignity to a culture of victimhood. I highly recommend to read it if you're interested in theories of culture. 

It expounds 3 types of cultures in human history in relation to conflict resolution:

A culture of honor (Ancient history) - In societies where law enforcement is weak, individuals are expected to display their bravery by engaging in violent retaliation against those who offend them (defend their honor). 

A culture of dignity (Modern history) - Instead of relying on your own retaliation to defend yourself, individuals appeal to courts and the police, but the threat of doing so is enough to deter most conflict (live in your own dignity). 

A culture of victimhood (Post-modern history) - Individuals feel helpless to defend themselves and thus retaliate against those who offend them by appealing to large external parties.

This theory is focused on how cultures resolve conflicts, and it suggests that outward context defines the methods available for individuals to resolve conflicts and shapes society's culture. 

The availability of law enforcement is one such context. Restating the above, if law enforcement is weak, individuals can't rely on outward intervention to defend themselves. Thus, threat of retaliation becomes the primary mode of defense, and societal behavior and customs reflect this in cultures of honor (if you kill me, my family will come after you and kill your entire family). 

But if law enforcement is strong, individuals can rely on outward intervention (don't make me call the police on you). This confidence in an external system of justice reduces the need for threats of retaliation and individuals develop an empowered internal sense of self worth. 

Well, what outward context is moving us from a culture of dignity to a culture of victimhood? It is the eroding of confidence in external systems, or the increase of systemic injustices - acts of aggression that are done, not by individuals, but by the systems themselves (institutions, laws, and social structures that make up society).

PG comes from a culture of dignity. With that background, the system he has grown up with is fair, protects him from aggression, and enables him to the pursuit of happiness. The systems he relies on makes him experience the world as an even playing field where logic and reason are the tools of conflict resolution, and appeals to anything but logic and reasoning are undignified and immoral. Me too. I grew up believing that logic and reasoning can be used to solve any problem. 

But a person from a culture of victimhood lives under an unfair system - the system itself aggresses them. The key point is this - in such a system, an individual cannot defend themselves with logic or reasoning, or appeals to the system. The law enforcement systems that suppress black Americans - blacks cannot defend themselves with logic. Wealth generates wealth more than labor generates wealth - labor cannot defend themselves through reasoning. The next generation will inherit a climate changed disaster of a world that they didn't produce - kids cannot defend themselves with appeals to the system. 

What can they do to defend themselves? Cry heresy. Specifically, morally appeal to large third parties with enough power to protect you from systemic injustice. Welcome to the culture of victimhood. 

Intolerance is a fun word, but a bit naive. In PG's perspective, people are abandoning their dignity by leaving the sacred grounds of logic and resorting to underhanded ways of conflict. And while that can be true on the fringes, it fails to address the growing normal - namely, that heresy is quickly becoming the way (and dare I say, one of the only ways) to defend yourself in the postmodern age. 

Like it or not, it's here to stay.