Sorry.
I know you’re all sick and tired of hearing about cancel culture. It’s been the buzzword of the moment, ever since Thomas Chatterton William’s letter about cancel culture — famously signed by luminaries such as Noam Chomsky, Margaret Atwood, and Steven Pinker — was published in Harper’s Magazine and started circulating the internet and the mainstream media.
The contours of the controversy are well known at this point — or probably are, to my regular readers. (You’re all so genuinely brain-poisoned by the internet, none of this is new to you!) But in case we have some actual newbies reading this, let me explain the controversy, a little.
The letter itself, as pointed out by writer Freddie DeBoer, contained nothing particularly objectionable. Who could really object to a reaffirmed commitment to free speech? As someone who themselves has experienced a high level of Twitter-induced cerebral toxicity I strongly defend anyone’s right to be a complete and utter moron in our new public squares, the annals of the internet: social media. I know I have made quite a few terrible posts in my lifetime. I don’t deserve to be cancelled for any of it, even though I have, on more than one occasion, expressed my deeply-felt lust for Minnesotan Senator Amy Klobuchar, disgusting everyone who knows me as well as strangers all over the globe.
And yeah, I’m a journalist. That’s what I do when I’m not making bad jokes on the internet. I care deeply about the right of people to say things that are true, no matter how unpopular they might be. Not only do I want people to not face carceral repercussions for their speech, I want there to be space in our culture to tolerate views we might find challenging, or even reprehensible. I want this because I am on the left. I am a socialist. I don’t believe that billionaires should exist, and I have views about political violence that centrists don’t love. Look, I post guillotine memes a lot, and while I think they’re hilarious, I can see how most normies wouldn’t love that shit. I think the whole “I don’t agree with what you say, but will defend your right to say it” sentiment is important, because it should help us leftists.
We leftists are being real dumb dumbs if we don’t recognize how liberal free speech rhetoric is a way that we can be protected from right-wingers and centrist forces.
But the problem is — free speech rhetoric too often does not defend us, on the left. Liberals will defend outright fascists before lifting a finger to help socialists and communists. Several signatories on The Letter, most notably Bari Weiss and Cary Nelson, have active records of trying to suppress speech on the left that they found objectionable.
Nelson, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, was instrumental in getting Steven Salaita, a Palestinian professor on his campus, fired for “antisemitic” speech. Salaita, under enormous pressure, gave up his tenured position, and today, works as a school bus driver. Weiss, as a college student at Columbia, spearheaded a campaign to get Palestinian professor Joseph Massad fired from his position for allegedly expressing antisemitic sentiments from the lectern.
Weiss, in particular, is notorious for talking a big game about expanding toleration, in media circles, for things like Charles Murray’s neo-phrenology, or journalist Jesse Singal’s transphobia. (Hey, they’re just posing questions! They have a right to raise serious concerns about things like the right of people to choose the gender that fits them the best, about the intellectual capabilities of Black people.)
But I wish she’d couch her defense of these ideas on the grounds that these questionable ideas are ideas that she likes, rather than defending them on the principle of free speech. Because when it comes to ideas she doesn’t like, she’s nowhere to be found.
Where was Bari’s grand defense of Nick Cannon, host of a long-running TV improv sketch show Wild ‘N’ Out, who made antisemitic comments on his podcast? Why didn’t anyone who signed the letter defend Cannon? Cannon, a Black man, was unceremoniously fired by his employer, CBS-Viacom, despite apologizing for what he said on his podcast, which included several antisemitic conspiracy theories and an assertion that “Black people were the true Hebrews.”
All of that is bullshit, of course. But why wouldn’t Weiss, and others, defend Cannon? Why didn’t anyone who signed the Harper’s letter defend Cannon? Why not defend him on the principle of it — as a person who said something bad, who then got cancelled for it, and then suffered a real hit to his reputation and income?
On Friday, Cannon posted a lengthy Instagram post with a caption that showed that he was reading Weiss’s book, entitled How to Fight Anti-Semitism.
Which led Weiss to post a grateful series of tweets that came close to forgiving Cannon, if not totally absolving of him of his guilt.
It’s a relatively sweet story, if you ignore the chilling repercussions of Weiss’s brand of anti-anti-semitism — i.e. a straight-up full-throated defense of Israel with nothing less than a bold-faced affirmation of its right to exist in its present form — becoming the mainstream opinion of what affirmation of Jews and Jewish life looks like. On the most surface level, It is a nice story of two people who didn’t know a lot about each other learning to have grace in each others’ presence.
But, here’s the thing: I don’t care. I don’t care that you, Bari Weiss, graciously let Cannon bend the knee to you, I am not impressed by you only accepting an apology from Cannon that elevates your own personal brand and your own deeply held (bad) beliefs.
Cannon already got fired, and you, as an opponent of cancel culture, had one job: to defend him from getting “cancelled” because he had an opinion no one liked. You failed. To my knowledge, no one who signed the Harper’s list lifted a fucking finger to help Cannon keep his job — although, to be fair, Noam Chomsky probably doesn’t know who Cannon is, and explaining the concept of The Masked Singer to him might be a slight chore.
But now that Cannon has stepped more into the mainstream with his views — he’s suddenly palatable and worthy of un-cancellation?
I wish everyone who signed the letter would just nut up and say what they really mean: we like the (conservative and centrist) ideas that we like, and think they should be propagated, at the expense of left and even liberal ideas. We are using “free speech” as a cover to have those ideas propagated. We’re against cancel culture if cancel culture means the rightful backlash to bad, conservative ideas and regressive, repressive action. We’re against #metoo, because too many men are getting cancelled for things we don’t really find problematic. (Besides, their “victims,” they were asking for it.) We’re against social media “call-out” culture because it means we’re seeing too many racists and queerphobes go down. We’re against rightful consequences being doled out to people in positions of power by people who have historically had no power, because mob justice is getting a little too close to us for comfort.
Until they start being a little more honest, consider me not impressed.
Most of my efforts, these days, are directed towards editing Them & Us Media, which is the new local media organization I and Tyler McNeil have started. We cover news about social justice and movements for change in the Capital Region.
Here are some notable recent posts:
A (very) long read about the Grace Baptist Church, a racist, sexist, and Islamophobic congregation in Troy, NY that makes you touch a slice of ham before you enter.
A very sweet story about a woman in Troy who is at the center of an effort to have a local park named after her.
Also, Tyler and I have started Them & Us Media’s podcast, Brick & Vinyl.
You can listen to the first episode here:
Thanks! See you next time!
#20 - Another note on cancel culture
I am on the opposite side of political spectrum from you but I agree with this whole article. I don't think those people who you're talking about (and yes they are hypocrites to the max) support many of the ideas I support. They are supportive of one idea only and that is that they should say whatever they want, and both the left and the conservatives should not, and everyone who disagrees with them in any way should be not only cancelled but wiped off the face of the Earth.
Now, as it happens to be (sadly) many US Conservatives believe in this idea that some people are more equal than others, so you can talk sh** about almost everyone, but not those who are more equal. the untouchable.
I think the unimaginable will have to happen for this to change, the left and the right finding a common language, realizing it's not the two sides but the classes that are the problem... but somehow I don't see this ever happening.
That last paragraph!!! So true!