At last, someone else circumspect enough to call bullshit - rightly - on both sides. My own political views can't be pigeonholed in some facile "right-left" spectrum point: the world is more complicated than that.
I was raised by old-school lefties who were about class struggle, workers' rights and due process, and not what "neoberalism" has morphed into with victimization and recrimination as the great motive forces in society, so i have found myself ideologically homeless for some time. I mean to make a token contribution to aid your work, but i am legitimately poor (to maintain medicaid coverage), so i can't commit to a subscrition at this point. My encouragement will have to suffice for now. Keep up the good work. Thank you.
I decided I wanted to write about this a week and a half ago, and in the time since, literally everyone wrote their own version. I think mine goes a bit deeper than most.
I’d rather talk about ethnocentrism and ethnoreligious bias in the Middle East and why America still works despite the challenges of historic inequalities than “cancel culture.”
In theory, the practice should work. In practice, the theory doesn't work. In this case, the saying applies perfectly. Yes, in theory, someone who is a free speech advocate and cancel culture disliker, should principally oppose ANY cancel culture and support ALL free speech. In theory.
In practice, what you have, is a zero sum game. You either have the left wing or right wing who will win hegemony (if you're lucky, they are balanced - which is when freedom of speech is most free; but that's not the point). And people like you are missing the strategic forest for theoretical trees.
First, currently the left wing holds hegemony - in part because McCarthy, for all his tactical failings was strategically right, and commies - or rather Gramscian Marxists - have used West's freedom to capture education and media and used that hegemony to raise 2 generations of left wingers while the right wing snoozed and whined about unimportant BS like gay marriage. In other words, when you principally support left wing because "free speech", what it does isn't save free speech. It murders it by letting the cancel-culture left wing maintain its hegemony - whereas this crisis - to use Obama's words - goes to waste.
Second, if you look at things in nuance, yes, right wing also doesn't care about freedom of speech for everyone, and was all about cancel culture when they can. BUT, their footprint was MUCH MUCH lighter than left wing's. If I as a libertarian have to live in right wing distopia or left wing distopia, I'd choose the former 100 out of 100. For many reasons, including the fact that I actually had the "pleasure" of living in a socialist country and voted with my feet where my mouth was by escaping to USA. Yes, McCarthy wanted to stymie commie speech. What you really want to do is analyze, what was the amount of people he was interested in stymieing compared to trans activists? Which side, right or left, IMMEDIATELY went from "cancel on social media" to "punch the xxx" narrative?
I appreciate much of the article but disagree with the stereotyping of any who has been against the 'cancel culture' of the past decade and considers themselves an independent who more often than not agree with centrist or right of center policies and politicians. As with any other approach to politics the 'American Right' is not a monolith and should not be treated as such.
At last, someone else circumspect enough to call bullshit - rightly - on both sides. My own political views can't be pigeonholed in some facile "right-left" spectrum point: the world is more complicated than that.
I was raised by old-school lefties who were about class struggle, workers' rights and due process, and not what "neoberalism" has morphed into with victimization and recrimination as the great motive forces in society, so i have found myself ideologically homeless for some time. I mean to make a token contribution to aid your work, but i am legitimately poor (to maintain medicaid coverage), so i can't commit to a subscrition at this point. My encouragement will have to suffice for now. Keep up the good work. Thank you.
Thanks for the kind words. No worries, paid subscriptions are fully optional, the mailing list is free.
Great article. I also received an email notification about this article about a half hour later. This topic sure is making the rounds. https://rosselliotbarkan.com/p/does-anyone-care-about-free-speech
I decided I wanted to write about this a week and a half ago, and in the time since, literally everyone wrote their own version. I think mine goes a bit deeper than most.
Not gonna cry over punishing the antisemites. They should rot in hell.
I’d rather talk about ethnocentrism and ethnoreligious bias in the Middle East and why America still works despite the challenges of historic inequalities than “cancel culture.”
In theory, the practice should work. In practice, the theory doesn't work. In this case, the saying applies perfectly. Yes, in theory, someone who is a free speech advocate and cancel culture disliker, should principally oppose ANY cancel culture and support ALL free speech. In theory.
In practice, what you have, is a zero sum game. You either have the left wing or right wing who will win hegemony (if you're lucky, they are balanced - which is when freedom of speech is most free; but that's not the point). And people like you are missing the strategic forest for theoretical trees.
First, currently the left wing holds hegemony - in part because McCarthy, for all his tactical failings was strategically right, and commies - or rather Gramscian Marxists - have used West's freedom to capture education and media and used that hegemony to raise 2 generations of left wingers while the right wing snoozed and whined about unimportant BS like gay marriage. In other words, when you principally support left wing because "free speech", what it does isn't save free speech. It murders it by letting the cancel-culture left wing maintain its hegemony - whereas this crisis - to use Obama's words - goes to waste.
Second, if you look at things in nuance, yes, right wing also doesn't care about freedom of speech for everyone, and was all about cancel culture when they can. BUT, their footprint was MUCH MUCH lighter than left wing's. If I as a libertarian have to live in right wing distopia or left wing distopia, I'd choose the former 100 out of 100. For many reasons, including the fact that I actually had the "pleasure" of living in a socialist country and voted with my feet where my mouth was by escaping to USA. Yes, McCarthy wanted to stymie commie speech. What you really want to do is analyze, what was the amount of people he was interested in stymieing compared to trans activists? Which side, right or left, IMMEDIATELY went from "cancel on social media" to "punch the xxx" narrative?
I appreciate much of the article but disagree with the stereotyping of any who has been against the 'cancel culture' of the past decade and considers themselves an independent who more often than not agree with centrist or right of center policies and politicians. As with any other approach to politics the 'American Right' is not a monolith and should not be treated as such.