The Dixie Chicks analogy significantly weakens your otherwise outstanding argument; people choosing not to buy something is wholly different from trying to stop others from having the opportunity to buy it. A boycott is fundamentally and qualitatively different from a ban: If people were urging record stores to not carry their albums (and that may have happened; I don't recall it, but that doesn't mean it didn't), that would be different from a boycott. Because if choosing not to buy someone's records is censorship, then I've been "censoring" Yoko Ono for more than 40 years now.
On a serious note, Wilkinson's tweet was actually funny for anyone who has a sense of humor, whereas the tweet from his former boss was simply angry and hateful.
The answer to cancel culture is for people in positions of power to stop caring what is on Twitter. Just. Stop.
And those of us appalled by all of this should stop spending our money on organizations that indulge this crap.
Which mean, Glenn, we boycott businesses like Amazon, Google and Twitter - not to "cancel" them, but to spend our money on businesses whose practices don't contribute to cancel culture.
Again, it's important to differentiate between boycotts and bans.
How telling that AntiFA can, for OVER A YEAR, hold anti-Trump rallies, burn down countless buildings, drive numerous small businesses into bankruptcy, beat a journalist into a coma, and try to barricade federal officers into a building to burn them alive, and not a peep from Twitter (or Biden for that matter). But hold ONE anti-Biden rally, and Twitter leaps in, sanctimoniously. At this point, they're just insulting our intelligence.
At the post-graduate/doctoral level, even at a place such as Yale, the greatest fear, certainly in the humanities, is to be wrong about something, or merely to be thought wrong. So, what happens is doctoral students end up doing a version of self-censorship. Thus research, the willingness to try, to err, and then to move on in an effort to expand our knowledge and understanding is diminished.
Another great article! I am extremely happy with my choice to subscribe, if only to support one of the most clear, courageous, and consistent defenders of free speech and journalistic integrity operating in our time. Keep it up! We will, as a society, regain our senses and return to our ideals of freedom and liberty before long.
We are in some sort of moral panic (maybe perpetually) and is our way of justifying ourselves -- we have to vilify someone else. I think it's true that this is really exacerbated and organised by social media -- but I think this dynamic is as old as time. And that the individual always feels null and helpless when the mob is getting their way, but that is when individual actions matter most. Dante wrote The Divine Comedy after he was 'cancelled' and purged from Florence by the mob. Someone named Simon carried Jesus' cross when the mob was screaming and shaming -- history will never lose either name.
You cannot have a decent, self-governed society filled with stupid people. The craving for social acceptance is no different than any other instinctual craving - food, sex, ect. Intelligent, self-aware people recognize their instinctual craving and aren't governed by them - which is why we have a country filled with fat slobs who spend their days browsing porn (both the carnal and MSNBC/Newsmax variety). Its an undeniable, if harsh, diagnosis that very few people are willing to accept both because most Americans lack the capacity for self-awareness and because there is no easy fix for this problem.
How do you imbue hundreds of millions of people with the ability to think critically? How do you imbue hundreds of millions of people with an understanding of history? Its would be an herculean task even if the people were ready and eager to start learning and gaining cognitive function - but they aren't. Such a campaign would represent a major shift in our nation's priorities while the oligarchs at the top have a vested interest in keeping people stupid and easily brainwashed. Fixing our broken society isn't a matter of simply filling the empty heads of our citizens with the "right" ideas, because those empty heads can be just as easily filled with the "wrong" ideas by the next demagogue to stroll along. Only the ability to think and discern the "right" ideas independently inculcates an individual against propaganda and group-think.
While anything is possible, I don't see a path towards improvement. Our society is in a death spiral of ignorance, stupidity and narcissism following the pied piper of the oligarchs and the national security state into a dystopian nightmare. But at least the people can keep up with the Kardashians along the way.
One point unstated here by Glenn is that the whole new impeachment is based on "incitement" from a rally which was less pointed and more milquetoast than this tweet. For this tweet to be explained away as sarcasm and/or not a "call for violence," would require people giving at least a moment's pause to think that the former President might not have truly "incited violence" earlier this month.
In other words, "Too Soon."
I wonder if even Gilbert Gottfried would be brave enough to make a 1/6 joke today...
Anytime a journalist loses their job, I find it difficult to work up much sympathy. Far from acting like the fourth branch of government, the mainstream media has lied, covered up important stories for political reasons, promoted censorship, used a different standard for rioting by the left and right, has been ridiculously biased and acted in concert with the massive monopolies in the tech industry to censor (of all things) the media and conservative voices The mainstream media acting jointly with the far left media has been disgraceful. The media has earned all of the poor ratings and skepticism of the public.
Now the left wing media is in a quandary after denouncing the police for six months as racists while supporting the defund the police movement. This all suddenly changed when right wing rioters forced entry into the United States Capitol. Suddenly the police were heroes. The National Guard were welcomed (after an editor at the New York Times was fired for publishing Tom Cotton's op ed on bringing in the military to restore order in cities with rioting and looting). Whereas, the mainstream media referred to the BLM rioters as a very tiny percentage of the protests, it was clear that the 75 million people that voted for Trump were all going to overthrow the government. The double standards and hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Finally, what does the media do about the far left antifa protesters in Portland who yesterday rioted and vandalized a police station and carried a large sign with an assault rifle drawn on the sign calling for revenge against the police and the government? You do just what most media outlets did - ignore it - and/or you go back to the same lies as before - police brutality, systemic racism and defund the police!
In a discussion I had with some graduate students at Yale 2 years ago, I heard that in doctoral studies, at least in the humanities, research is now being driven by fear of being wrong, or being thought wrong, factually and, I suppose, morally and ideologically. As a result, the pursuit of knowledge is now crimped and diminished by such fear. Therefore, more and more students are writing what they believe to be acceptable, what will benefit their careers, what will keep them respectable, and so on. We all lose.
Clearly the comment was said in jest in an attempt at black humor. It should not require an apology let alone cancellation.
Yet there is an inescapable schadenfreude at a member of a powerful, virtue-signaling preening aristocratic class being hoisted by their own petard if only for a while. He of course will eventually return thanks to him being part of the aristocracy of our betters.
Ironically, as noted, the head of this org, Jerry Taylor himself posted both a defamatory and hatefully violent tweet towards a couple - which SHOULD have had consequences but didn’t simply because that expression of violence was directed at the “right” people.
Ultimately, cancel culture and the hypocritical contradictions it inevitably generates will eat itself.
The supposed zero tolerance policy for inciting violence is just an empty platitude. All laws are ultimately backed by the threat and actuality of state violence. So in a way all non-libertarian political advocacy is a form of incitement of violence. The NYT is okay with political violence so long as it's done by the men with the right funny hats pursuant to laws that the NYT agrees with.
The Dixie Chicks analogy significantly weakens your otherwise outstanding argument; people choosing not to buy something is wholly different from trying to stop others from having the opportunity to buy it. A boycott is fundamentally and qualitatively different from a ban: If people were urging record stores to not carry their albums (and that may have happened; I don't recall it, but that doesn't mean it didn't), that would be different from a boycott. Because if choosing not to buy someone's records is censorship, then I've been "censoring" Yoko Ono for more than 40 years now.
On a serious note, Wilkinson's tweet was actually funny for anyone who has a sense of humor, whereas the tweet from his former boss was simply angry and hateful.
The answer to cancel culture is for people in positions of power to stop caring what is on Twitter. Just. Stop.
And those of us appalled by all of this should stop spending our money on organizations that indulge this crap.
Which mean, Glenn, we boycott businesses like Amazon, Google and Twitter - not to "cancel" them, but to spend our money on businesses whose practices don't contribute to cancel culture.
Again, it's important to differentiate between boycotts and bans.
Very few people actually have the courage to stand against their peers and proclaim something is wrong.
I'm very happy that GG is one of those people.
How telling that AntiFA can, for OVER A YEAR, hold anti-Trump rallies, burn down countless buildings, drive numerous small businesses into bankruptcy, beat a journalist into a coma, and try to barricade federal officers into a building to burn them alive, and not a peep from Twitter (or Biden for that matter). But hold ONE anti-Biden rally, and Twitter leaps in, sanctimoniously. At this point, they're just insulting our intelligence.
At the post-graduate/doctoral level, even at a place such as Yale, the greatest fear, certainly in the humanities, is to be wrong about something, or merely to be thought wrong. So, what happens is doctoral students end up doing a version of self-censorship. Thus research, the willingness to try, to err, and then to move on in an effort to expand our knowledge and understanding is diminished.
That's the problem with Twitter - comments are not in context. The best thing to do about Twitter is get off of it.
First they came for the Trumpers, but I wasn't one, so I cheered them on...
Another great article! I am extremely happy with my choice to subscribe, if only to support one of the most clear, courageous, and consistent defenders of free speech and journalistic integrity operating in our time. Keep it up! We will, as a society, regain our senses and return to our ideals of freedom and liberty before long.
The tyranny of the mob is very real
We are in some sort of moral panic (maybe perpetually) and is our way of justifying ourselves -- we have to vilify someone else. I think it's true that this is really exacerbated and organised by social media -- but I think this dynamic is as old as time. And that the individual always feels null and helpless when the mob is getting their way, but that is when individual actions matter most. Dante wrote The Divine Comedy after he was 'cancelled' and purged from Florence by the mob. Someone named Simon carried Jesus' cross when the mob was screaming and shaming -- history will never lose either name.
You cannot have a decent, self-governed society filled with stupid people. The craving for social acceptance is no different than any other instinctual craving - food, sex, ect. Intelligent, self-aware people recognize their instinctual craving and aren't governed by them - which is why we have a country filled with fat slobs who spend their days browsing porn (both the carnal and MSNBC/Newsmax variety). Its an undeniable, if harsh, diagnosis that very few people are willing to accept both because most Americans lack the capacity for self-awareness and because there is no easy fix for this problem.
How do you imbue hundreds of millions of people with the ability to think critically? How do you imbue hundreds of millions of people with an understanding of history? Its would be an herculean task even if the people were ready and eager to start learning and gaining cognitive function - but they aren't. Such a campaign would represent a major shift in our nation's priorities while the oligarchs at the top have a vested interest in keeping people stupid and easily brainwashed. Fixing our broken society isn't a matter of simply filling the empty heads of our citizens with the "right" ideas, because those empty heads can be just as easily filled with the "wrong" ideas by the next demagogue to stroll along. Only the ability to think and discern the "right" ideas independently inculcates an individual against propaganda and group-think.
While anything is possible, I don't see a path towards improvement. Our society is in a death spiral of ignorance, stupidity and narcissism following the pied piper of the oligarchs and the national security state into a dystopian nightmare. But at least the people can keep up with the Kardashians along the way.
One point unstated here by Glenn is that the whole new impeachment is based on "incitement" from a rally which was less pointed and more milquetoast than this tweet. For this tweet to be explained away as sarcasm and/or not a "call for violence," would require people giving at least a moment's pause to think that the former President might not have truly "incited violence" earlier this month.
In other words, "Too Soon."
I wonder if even Gilbert Gottfried would be brave enough to make a 1/6 joke today...
Mr. Greenwald
Anytime a journalist loses their job, I find it difficult to work up much sympathy. Far from acting like the fourth branch of government, the mainstream media has lied, covered up important stories for political reasons, promoted censorship, used a different standard for rioting by the left and right, has been ridiculously biased and acted in concert with the massive monopolies in the tech industry to censor (of all things) the media and conservative voices The mainstream media acting jointly with the far left media has been disgraceful. The media has earned all of the poor ratings and skepticism of the public.
Now the left wing media is in a quandary after denouncing the police for six months as racists while supporting the defund the police movement. This all suddenly changed when right wing rioters forced entry into the United States Capitol. Suddenly the police were heroes. The National Guard were welcomed (after an editor at the New York Times was fired for publishing Tom Cotton's op ed on bringing in the military to restore order in cities with rioting and looting). Whereas, the mainstream media referred to the BLM rioters as a very tiny percentage of the protests, it was clear that the 75 million people that voted for Trump were all going to overthrow the government. The double standards and hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Finally, what does the media do about the far left antifa protesters in Portland who yesterday rioted and vandalized a police station and carried a large sign with an assault rifle drawn on the sign calling for revenge against the police and the government? You do just what most media outlets did - ignore it - and/or you go back to the same lies as before - police brutality, systemic racism and defund the police!
I have no sympathy for Will Wilkinson whatsoever.
In a discussion I had with some graduate students at Yale 2 years ago, I heard that in doctoral studies, at least in the humanities, research is now being driven by fear of being wrong, or being thought wrong, factually and, I suppose, morally and ideologically. As a result, the pursuit of knowledge is now crimped and diminished by such fear. Therefore, more and more students are writing what they believe to be acceptable, what will benefit their careers, what will keep them respectable, and so on. We all lose.
Cancel Social Media. It's become the brown shirts of the 21st Century.
Clearly the comment was said in jest in an attempt at black humor. It should not require an apology let alone cancellation.
Yet there is an inescapable schadenfreude at a member of a powerful, virtue-signaling preening aristocratic class being hoisted by their own petard if only for a while. He of course will eventually return thanks to him being part of the aristocracy of our betters.
Ironically, as noted, the head of this org, Jerry Taylor himself posted both a defamatory and hatefully violent tweet towards a couple - which SHOULD have had consequences but didn’t simply because that expression of violence was directed at the “right” people.
Ultimately, cancel culture and the hypocritical contradictions it inevitably generates will eat itself.
The supposed zero tolerance policy for inciting violence is just an empty platitude. All laws are ultimately backed by the threat and actuality of state violence. So in a way all non-libertarian political advocacy is a form of incitement of violence. The NYT is okay with political violence so long as it's done by the men with the right funny hats pursuant to laws that the NYT agrees with.