AC GRAYLING Discriminations: Making peace in the culture wars. Reviewed by Ann Skea

At a time when ‘woke’ has become a term of abuse, AC Grayling argues that respect for human rights needs to be the basis of open debate. 

‘Wokeism’ and ‘cancel culture’ became terms of war – culture war – in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The war itself had already been long in progress, the issues at stake of universal significance; only the terms were new.

AC Grayling sets out to bring a philosophical perspective to the debate, because philosophy ‘seeks to dig deeper and see further’; to look at ‘ideas and viewpoints’ and to discriminate (in the positive philosophical sense of discern and understand) ‘between what is right and wrong in them’. At the core of this book is his call for convivencia: harmony ‘achieved by mutual respect for rights’, and he is committed ‘without reservation to the principle that the concept of human rights is fundamental to solving the problems at issue’.

This, as he acknowledges, is a huge, idealistic aim, but 

[t]hat an aim is idealistic is no reason for not attempting it; the realistic part of idealism is that one gets closer to achieving its goal than by not trying at all. 

Being a philosopher, he begins by defining his terms and by disclosing his own ‘positionality’. He describes his background, highlighting those things he believes have shaped his views, and he concludes that his ‘political sympathies are left-leaning’ and that he is ‘a committed supporter of human rights, civil liberties and social and economic justice’, as his many books and articles prove. As a philosopher, he is also committed to ‘respect evidence’, to ‘listen to the other side and try and comprehend its motives’ but ‘not necessarily, and certainly not always, to forgive them’.

Discriminations, therefore, examines the historical, biological and sociological background of wokeism and cancel culture, beginning with the human impulse to form communities – ‘tribes’ – which tend to organise themselves hierarchically and to set boundaries within and around the tribe. 

Othering – the awareness of Them and Us – he regards as an instinct. And othering is fundamental to what is known in modern culture as ‘wokeism’, ‘cancelling’ and ‘no-platforming’. But ‘when and how in what ways is it justified?’, Grayling asks.

He explores historical warfare, and the social and religious frameworks that have shaped history – the stipulations in various societies of what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’, and the punishments imposed. Discussing the difference between a sin and a crime, he refers to the religious and judicial frameworks within which they are defined, and the belief, in many religions, that disobedience to a god or gods is a fundamental sin; and shaming, exclusion, exile, and sometimes even death, are the imposed punishments.

‘Wokeism’ Grayling defines as identity politics. Wokeist activists: 

variously promote their views by all or some of Critical Race Theory in history classes, campaigning for same-sex marriage, educating about diversity in sexuality, supporting medical gender transition, advocating changes in language … encouraging Me Too avowals. At the same time a significant number of them promote no-platforming and cancellation as weapons in this struggle.

In our own Western culture where social media now has so much influence on who, and for what reason, someone gets shamed, cancelled or no-platformed, the results can be devastating and can ruin careers and lives. How are we to ensure that quarrels are defused, ‘due process’ is undertaken, and action is deemed necessary before such punishment is imposed?

As examples of the way othering, exclusion and cancelling for the heresy of not conforming to current political, religious, and social dictates can radically affect the lives of individuals and groups, Grayling describes the downfall of Oscar Wilde, the Calvinist persecution of the Spanish theologian Michael Servetus, the horrors of Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and the ongoing effects of the Indian caste system. 

He also turns to literature, using quotations from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book, The Scarlet Letter, to show the emotional and life-changing trauma suffered by Hester Prynne when she is punished for adultery by being publicly shamed, forced to wear an embroidered ‘A’ on her breast, and ‘made to stand for three hours on the scaffold exposed to the condemnation of the crowd’. The novel, he notes, is as much about double standards and the men in her society as it is about

questions of guilt, sin, reparation, and emblematically the allusion to the first-ever-recorded cancellation – the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden. 

In trial by social media, judgment is too often based on feelings and emotion, and on the interests of the group doing the judging rather than empathy and consideration of the human rights of the individual being judged. In such cases, there is no recourse to ‘due process’, which, for Grayling, means all judgments are made on the basis of respect for human rights and civil liberties, as laid down in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In particular, if the distinction between interests and rights is clearly made, much of the heat dissipates. Rights are non-negotiable; interests can be rationally adjusted to maximise opportunities for them to coexist.

‘Consider the concept of freedom of expression,’ he writes, ‘and note what it assumes.’ 

In most communities there will be a ‘diversity of views’ and ‘people will not always agree about everything’:

This is what underlies the requirement for mutual recognition of the right to free expression: the right to disagree, the right to have a view and to express it, the right to be heard, the right to a place in the debate (which is, in effect: the right to participation in society).

Only with these rights can society change and progress. 

One must never forget that those who combat discrimination [in issues of religion, race, gender and sexuality, for example] once did not even have the right to demand their rights. 

Grayling’s examination of the historical and current demands for free speech and human rights, alongside the proscriptions imposed by political and legal processes, is thorough. He looks at arguments for and against activism, marches, strikes, demonstrations, revolution, exclusion and cancellation, and at the results, and the backlash some of these strategies provoke. And he acknowledges the instincts, tribalism and anger that are involved and shows how attitudes can, and have been, changed.

Overall, this is an impressive and thought-provoking book and Grayling’s arguments for understanding, empathy, truth and justice are strongly presented and supported. He is, however, arguing from a Western democratic perspective and even within this particular demographic there are many different, and often conflicting, jurisdictions: as well as courts of law and laws enacted by elected governments, there are religions, universities, schools and clubs, for example, each with their own rules and proscriptions. This is not to say that human rights cannot be argued for in any of these jurisdictions, simply to note that there is huge complexity in trying to apply this ideal.

How, too, in this world of AI, deepfakes, algorithmic manipulation, image manipulation and unreliable facts, can we ever be sure of what can be relied on in order to discriminate truth from falsity?

And how, in a world where, as Grayling says, ‘many if not most people wait to be told, or have suggested to them, what to think’, can logical, thoughtful argument succeed?

Discriminations offers a detailed and thorough expression of an ideal which Grayling suggests could lead to Pax Humana. One can only hope that such idealism prevails.

AC Grayling Discriminations: Making peace in the culture wars Bloomsbury 2025 PB 288pp $32.99 

Dr Ann Skea is a freelance reviewer, writer and an independent scholar of the work of Ted Hughes. She is author of Ted Hughes: The Poetic Quest (UNE 1994, and currently available for free download here). Her work is internationally published and her Ted Hughes webpages (ann.skea.com) are archived by the British Library.

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Tags: AC | Grayling, cancel culture, discrmination, human rights, Nathaniel Hawthorne, philosophy, wokeism