Royal Society of New Zealand

The Psychology of the New Puritans Modern discourse has shifted from the objective to the purely subjective, creating a social environment where self-perception overrides external reality. Andrew Doyle suggests we are living through a "frenzy of conformity" where the Overton Window has shrunk to a degree that makes dissent a form of social suicide. This environment mirrors the rigid moral structures of historical Puritanism, where specific behaviors and linguistic cues signal membership in the virtuous class while others serve as markers for the pariah. This is not merely a political shift; it is a psychological one. When we prioritize the "vibe" or the "mood" over observable traits—as seen in recent cultural attempts by the New York Times to redefine physical attractiveness as a self-declared state—we remove the grounding wire of reality. Growth requires friction. It requires the ability to be told "no" or to recognize that our internal feelings do not always dictate external truths. When we dismantle these boundaries, we create a fragile psychology dependent on constant validation. This fragility is the engine of modern cancel culture. If my identity is purely self-defined and requires your total agreement to exist, then your disagreement is not just an opinion—it is an act of violence against my personhood. This explains why the presence of someone like Ben Shapiro at a podcasting event can be described by attendees as causing literal "harm." It is a retreat into a child-like state where the world must be curated to protect the ego from the complexity of differing viewpoints. Spectral Evidence and the Lived Experience The most dangerous parallel to historical tragedies like the Salem Witch Trials is the elevation of "spectral evidence" into the modern legal and social framework. In 1692, the court in Salem allowed accusers to claim they saw a spirit or a "yellow bird" attacking them—evidence that only the victim could see. This is the direct ancestor of the modern concept of Lived Experience. While personal stories are vital for empathy, they cannot function as the sole basis for justice or policy. When the College of Policing in the United Kingdom records hate crimes based solely on the perception of the complainant, they are institutionalizing spectral evidence. This shift abandons the principle of Due Process. If the perception of the victim is the only metric that matters, the truth of the event becomes irrelevant. This leads to what Doyle calls a "legitimation crisis." When the National Health Service or police departments are forced to prioritize ideological language over biological facts—such as the case where hospital staff were reportedly instructed to deny the presence of biological males on female wards despite reports of sexual assault—the public trust in these institutions evaporates. We cannot navigate a world where the experts are required to gaslight the public to maintain a specific moral narrative. The Religious Structure of Critical Social Justice To understand why this movement feels so immovable, we must recognize it as a secular religion. It possesses all the hallmarks of a fundamentalist faith: sacred texts written by figures like Judith Butler and Kimberlé Crenshaw, a unique liturgical language (equity, intersectionality, cis-normativity), and the practice of excommunication. Andrew Doyle points out that while traditional religions have largely receded in the West, the human impulse for moral certainty and tribal belonging has not. Critical Social Justice fills this void, offering a clear hierarchy of saints and sinners. This religious framework is particularly attractive to the "unpersuaded" liberal because it uses familiar moral terms like "justice" and "equality" as Trojan horses for anti-liberal goals. As Richard Delgado and other early Critical Race Theory scholars have stated, the movement is explicitly against Liberalism because it views the system itself as inherently biased. This is why the movement feels so aggressive; it is not trying to improve the system, it is trying to replace it with a new moral order. In this new order, guilt is inherited and dissent is heresy. The focus on Intersectionality creates a "hierarchy of grievance" where individuals are judged not by their character, but by their demographic categories. This effectively kills individual agency—the very thing required for personal growth and resilience. Why Intelligence Fails as a Guardrail A common misconception is that this ideological capture only affects the uneducated. On the contrary, Andrew Doyle notes that it is the most intelligent and highly educated members of society—academics, journalists, and civil servants—who are the primary drivers of this movement. Intelligence is not a prophylactic against ideology; in many cases, it acts as a tool to mastermind a deeper delusion. Smart people are often better at constructing complex justifications for why 2+2 might not equal 4, or why biological sex is a "myth," as recently suggested by Scientific American. This is a form of intellectual outsourcing. Thinking is difficult, even for the brilliant. An ideology provides a pre-packaged framework that answers all of life’s complex questions, relieving the individual of the burden of critical thought. This is especially prevalent in the Social Sciences but is rapidly seeping into the hard sciences. When the Royal Society of New Zealand faces internal revolts for suggesting that indigenous myths should not be taught as equivalent to empirical science, we are witnessing the sunset of Enlightenment values. If we lose the ability to defend the primacy of objective truth, we lose the tools that built the modern world. Finding the Way Out: Ridicule and Reality The solution to this frenzy of conformity lies in two places: the restoration of reality and the use of ridicule. History shows that movements based on hysteria, like Salem, eventually collapse when the elites stop humoring the accusers. The Salem trials ended overnight when high-ranking clergymen finally declared that spectral evidence was inadmissible in court. We need a similar moment of institutional courage where leaders in the NHS, the police, and the judiciary stop apologizing for biological and objective truths. Equally important is the role of humor. Ideologies are brittle; they cannot survive being laughed at. Satire and mockery are the most effective ways to make these movements socially toxic and "uncool." When the language of Social Justice becomes a meme of itself—such as university trigger warnings for "graphic fishing" in The Old Man and the Sea—it loses its power to intimidate. Resilience comes from standing firm in what you know to be true, even when the crowd is screaming otherwise. Growth happens when we choose the difficult path of individual thought over the easy path of groupthink. By reclaiming the primacy of truth and refusing to participate in the linguistic games of the new puritans, we can begin to dismantle the architecture of this modern delusion.