The author’s new book, Anti-Civilization, is out today and available from Amazon and Sutherland House. Beauregard argues that the dismantling of the norms of our civilization has plunged the west into a crisis. The following is an excerpt from a chapter entitled Equality Through the Common Good.
By: Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard
Authenticity as a social principle is a risky bet, taking identities out of the private sphere to turn them into public banners. Perversely, the complete politicization of life inevitably leads to the loss of personality: individuals cease to be singular as they are transformed into “representatives” of their respective groups.
By claiming to free us from the burden of public hypocrisy, authenticity “requires each of us to be what we appear to be,” which is all the more insidious. The idea of “diverse representation,” often used as a euphemism to refer to non-white people, embodies this pernicious flaw in identity politics. The individual is no longer important once he or she becomes a “representative” of his or her colour, sexual orientation, faith, or any other group that erases his or her own personality. Contrary to what fashionable progressivism would have us believe, they lose their freedom, because they are no longer free to be themselves; they become activists enlisted in the service of a cause, who must do what is expected of them in order to be a “good representative.” Québécois conservative politician Éric Duhaime, in a book on his homosexuality, shares these reservations. He explains that he has never spoken publicly about his sexual preferences before, precisely because he refuses to make it a “public” issue and considers it a matter of his personal life:
This is the first time I have publicly mentioned my sexual orientation. I have resisted all temptations, all invitations . . . I refused to talk about it in the media because I am not a gay activist. My sexual orientation is just one of the things that characterizes me, not an ideology adhere to . . . Above all, I don’t want to be defined first and foremost by the gender of the person I sleep with. I also feel that displaying our differences automatically makes us spokespersons or standard-bearers for the cause. I certainly don’t want to be one!
He is right to fear a completely politicized world, where everyone’s identities would be constantly debated in the public arena. Once an identity leaves the private sphere to become a political cause or banner, the entire political community has a say in what was previously a matter of personal choice. If “the private sphere is my business, and therefore no one else’s,” it ceases to be private when demonstrations are organized in its name, when it is shouted from the rooftops, and when those who are not concerned are forced to take a position.
The strategy of highlighting differences has not always had positive results. On the contrary, Robert Putnam, the great American theorist of social capital, points to a fact often overlooked by contemporary identity activists: while cohesion and the sense of unity it generates lead to equality, emphasizing differences creates a “clash of authenticities,” which often leads to a backlash in attitudes between groups. In The Upswing, Putnam highlights the “hidden progress” of the first half of the 20th century in the United States for women’s and African American rights, which has disappeared from collective memory since it was overshadowed by the activism of the 1960s. While the pre-1960 era is now considered a “dark age” for the rights of everyone except white men, followed by spontaneous progress that finally brought equality, the story is quite different.
In fact, the 50 years preceding contemporary activism, driven by a strong ethic of conformity and duty, coincided with major changes in general attitudes toward Black people and women, a product of greater social and national cohesion. In terms of health, education, economic prospects, and voter turnout, African Americans experienced a marked and rapid improvement in their conditions, but above all, racist attitudes toward them among white Americans declined dramatically. While in 1940 only 30 per cent of white Americans supported integrated schools, this proportion jumped to almost 70 per cent in the early 1960s. Similarly, support for equality between men and women in the workplace and in politics increased dramatically until 1970, when it reached a plateau. In both cases, solidarity born of the war effort, where men mixed ethnically in the army and women entered factories en masse, is often cited as a turning point in social attitudes. It was therefore solidarity and rallying around a common cause that paved the way for equality, not pitting groups against one another.
Thus, the civil rights gained in the last half-century are less of a revolution in attitudes (which had changed before) than the law catching up with social mores. Without the social capital and egalitarian vision produced by the cohesion of the early 20th century, these social movements would never have been possible —public opinion would not have allowed it. The idea that all citizens are part of the same nation, in pursuit of the common good, is, on the contrary, a powerful driver of equality. In other words, society had to already be moving toward equality for inequality to be shocking:
In many ways, it was the very progress women had made before the 1960s that fueled growing discontent with these inegalitarian realities. Ever-greater numbers of women were reaching adulthood educated, ambitious, and independent-minded, only to find their agency and options artificially curtailed.
The progress made since the 1960s and 1970s, such as the evolution of laws giving full legal status to women and Black Americans, or the greater representation of minorities in many leadership positions, was the product of societies already engaged in a dynamic of equality. It was precisely in light of this progress that legal discrimination appeared anachronistic and was eventually abolished. If we want to judge the fruits of the ethics of authenticity, we should instead look at the resurgence of differentialism over the past 10 years: since 2014–2015, there has been a marked reversal in satisfaction with racial relations in the United States. If 55 per cent of citizens were satisfied in 2014, 70 per cent were dissatisfied in 2021. It is not the objective conditions of minorities that have deteriorated during this time, but the tone of the conversation on equality and discrimination, poisoned by a resentful discourse.
The same could be said of relations between men and women: the rise of reactionary masculinism via Andrew Tate, a notorious influencer among young men and a convicted sex trafficker, comes at the same time as a vocal fringe of feminism that unashamedly asserts that “men are trash.” In the eyes of conservative feminist Mary Harrington, these are two sides of the same “gender separatism,” which does not bode well.
The current deterioration of public debate is the direct result of a “clash of authenticities.” Those authenticities no longer pass through the mediation of civilizing social norms. Unsurprisingly, the deconstruction of rules that tempered everyone’s subjectivity, and the tarnishing of the nation as a rallying point for all citizens, has not created greater solidarity among citizens of Western countries. In order to relearn how to live together, we must leave behind the strategy of confrontation and return to that of cohesion, which creates sympathy and unity beyond differences. The political left has failed this important test by gradually dissociating itself from the figure of the people and instead focusing on criticizing the common good through the politics of recognition.
Excerpted from "Anti-Civilization: The Collapse of Society & the Case for the Common Good" by Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard. Copyright © 2026 Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard. Published by Sutherland House Books. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.
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Thank you, Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard, for peeling the onion, so to speak, WRT the history of equality, and the importance of reserving one’s right to privacy in respect of things like sexual orientation. The key point you made, about not surrendering that in service of “a cause”, and the damage done when one becomes a caricature in that context, was sound and well-presented.
Self-described progressives would do well to think hard on this point. The same is true of their opposite number on the right.
The left's separation and ranking was always a grotesque oversimplification, never helpful or additive, and ethically indefensible.