Thread by @Nymphomachy

So I have an thought that's kind of inspired by the current YouTube drama and kind of not:

The mentality that somebody like Sam Harris—who has all but fullthroatedly endorsed phrenology—nevertheless has interesting things to say and listen to is why we still have Logan Paul

Like in any sensible world, people would agree that you don't get to just make fun of the corpse of a suicide victim and continue on with your career.

You do that, your platform disintegrates, nobody knows who you are on SNL reruns of Weekend Update five years from now.

Like, that's it. That's the smoking gun. That's an abhorrent enough behavior that after doing it you should forever after be reduced to a fraction of yourself

To be able to carry on as normal after doing something so abominable is an injustice to all the people he hurt

But there's this latent perception that actual, comprehensive restorative justice—relinquishing him of his celebrity—would *in itself* be an injustice because it...I don't know? Precludes future installments of his oeuvre?

Like it's "aborting the kid who could have cured cancer"

This idea that his work is so indispensable that the need for its continued existence outweighs the right of wronged people not to have the harm done to them trivialized as a minor offense?

like someone's gonna die if Logan Paul stops being an asshole on the internet?

To me, the idea that that man continues to exist is a slap to the face of everybody who's ever died or known somebody who died in Aokigahara. Really, anybody who's lost someone to suicide.

But I guess harming them can be dismissed as unimportant if the alternative is losing Paul

And this bothers me in the context of Sam Harris, and people very close to me who nevertheless are of the mindset that stanning for Charles Murray is not significant cause for them to totally abandon engagement with Harris, his work, or his ideas

They still listen to his podcast

To me the idea somebody can cape for Charles Murray and people would continue not only to peruse their work but RECOMMEND it—PROLIFERATE it—bothers me a lot, a whole lot

It is appalling to me. Disgusting. Revolting. Infuriating. Maddening. Astonishing. Despicable. Loathsome.

But I'm constantly met with a refrain that Sam Harris has "interesting guests" sometimes.

Oh, okay fine, so I guess we'll put a pin in his unrepentant proliferation of Nazi science until he runs out of interesting guests.

Like fucking really? Is hearing Sam Harris talk to some asshole so god damn indispensable to your intellectual nourishment that abstaining from his work would result in you becoming an inferior person? It's really THAT necessary for you to normalize him in discourse??

And if I point out how uncomfortable this makes me it always gets turned around as an insult, like I think that decent, socially conscious people are too intellectually feeble to listen to his podcast and not get instantly converted to fascism.

Not. What I'm fucking. Saying!

Or otherwise it gets turned around on me, like I'm not willing to listen to Sam Harris because I'm afraid of being "challenged on my worldview" or some shit

I don't listen because I'm too indolent to do the intellectual labor of learning how to respond to a critic, apparently

But silly, silly Della, don't you know that being aware of this statistic makes you immune to it?

Because once you're aware, you're one of the "Active Thinkers", and immunized from being wrong or hurting people

https://twitter.com/snomid/status/1136731140071591937

I'll be frank.

If there was no harm done by listening to Harris' podcast, other than pushing said podcast up in the rankings by exactly one download, it would still be a fundamentally immoral and unethical thing to do. It would still be an injustice.

No, nobody is perfect. Every creator has flaws.

But you know what? Most decent people in this world haven't caped for the fuckin' Bell Curve.

I think that's one of the things that inherently impeaches you as a voice.

And you can argue I guess? You can claim some people need to be excused on merit?

But then the floodgates open for that logic to be used to defend fucks like Crowder.

No, decent ppl aren't listening to Crowder. But the ones who do are watching the arguments decent ppl make

If you've already indicated that you don't think somebody should be unilaterally deplatformed for transgressing sacred ground and defiling the corpse of a tragedy victim, or for LITERALLY DEFENDING NAZI SCIENCE, then why shouldn't Crowder be excused just for harassing a gay guy?

If it is at all important for you to see the voice of someone like Crowder go away—and it should be!—then you CANNOT be squeamish about dropping someone in that oubliette.

You HAVE to set a threshold and be firm on it. You can't just "endure" somebody's shitty side.

I just don't get why this is so hard for people.