Newton's third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
If we're to witness a renaissance of ethics and a rejuvenation of what we once fought for, we must fight the regressive agenda anywhere it attempts to censor information and stifle free-thought. We MUST re-enter the world of rationalism, empiricism. We MUST re-introduce the importance of free speech without any limits. Two-state solution between Jews and Muslims? This can only happen if both sides adopt secularism as the forefront principle. You want equality? Look no further than the society which fully embraces its core and distinct originating principles: Britain. The first to abolish the institution of slavery, the first to give all members of its state a vote to elect their leaders based on their shared values. After its election in 2015, its outright rejection of regressive dogma in the form of Russell Brand and Ed Miliband, you must look to this country as the spawn of a new generation of defenders of free-thinking. All of the free-thinkers must take this moment in human history as an opportunity to change humanity's priorities for the next countless generations to commence their drive through the world. Take up arms by taking up intellectualism and find any way you can to counter the insurgency of censorship and deceit in the new left-wing's dogmatic definition of 'criticism'. They only criticise what they perceive to be the oppressor, but their definition of an oppressor is completely false and skewed. They are all closet authoritarians waiting to find themselves on a seat in the United Nations to enact another elaborate scheme to display an excuse to censor information and to censor free will of diverse and shared opinion. The equal reaction to this agenda will be inevitably wiped out. And I am on this forum to cleanse this poison from the system; albeit a small sub-section of the system.
I see a problem in countering the "regressive agenda" with a push for free speech, empiricism, and rationalism. These goals are not ends in themselves, but rather can be seen as instrumental conditions, which serve in the pursuit of those things which are proper ends, principally happiness. As such, they can very easily be subsumed into the regressive narrative: that free speech, empiricism, and rationalism do nothing but facilitate oppression. Indeed, feminists argue that the experiential, sociological, and even scientific data which informs empirical inquiry is implicitly androcentric, and patriarchially biased. A shift in schools of thought only shifts the battlefields.
It seems that the central meme of critical theory is the notion of oppression. Oppression, by its nature cannot remove the ultimate end(s) of human inquiry and activity, it cannot "break the human spirit", but merely thwarts its progress. Perceived oppression (be it real, or imagined), finds itself in the cross-hairs of fury, driven by the full force of that "human spirit." Alternatively, oppression (real, or imagined) can be met with pusillanimity, with the surrender of personal agency/responsibility: In this case, not to "fate", but to the oppressive control of an oppressive sociological group, or an oppressive ideology. Believing that one's fundamental agency has been surrendered/taken to/by another places responsibility for one's happiness in the hands of another, or at least makes the destruction of that other an acceptable and necessary priority. The "big picture" regressive agenda of our times is probably indifferent to any social group, or any ideology; even if many groups and ideologies will be casualties along the way. The regressive agenda is the perpetuation of the notion of effective oppression, which diverts humans from pursuing their own happiness, to "punching the air" and flailing at imagined ghouls: a perpetuation of fundamentally unnecessary conflict. The disturbing reality is that even though oppression may be largely imagined, the conflict is tangible and real, reinforcing the sense of oppression, to the point that even the most indifferent, successful, educated white male may truly feel oppressed.
In my opinion, the central implicit belief of the agenda must be addressed: that one's pursuit of happiness/fulfillment/actualisation/etc. can be thwarted/oppressed/etc. by an external agent is false. Of course this cannot be shown to be true, or possible, if the apex of happiness/fulfillment/actualisation/etc. is seen to be monetary, professional, physical, sensual,etc. - because those are limited and particular goods, which can never be equally distributed/earned/attained/etc. It must be a universal (not particular), ubiquitous, unlimited, immediately available good - whose accessibility is entirely within the exclusive, undelegatable responsibility of each person. Personal ethics, whose responsibility cannot be surrendered to another, is only possible if one's ends, and the means to those ends, cannot be in any way perceived to be removed by another. That is to say, to oppose the myriad manifestations of critical theory, requires the cultivation of an "interior life".