Thread by @DamonLinker

Here’s a thread about the latest developments in “cancel culture.” I’ll use that term as shorthand, but I agree with the Harper’s letter in thinking it more accurate to describe it as a rising censoriousness in American life, usually backed up by cultural power. 1/20

Two things are obvious to me about this trend: First, it is getting worse, with every week bringing news of new firings, books being banned, etc. Second, many on the center left are anxiously eager to mock and dismiss those who are concerned about it. 2/20

This eagerness manifests itself as a series of assertions about why the trend is really No Big Deal. The latest example is the claim that the years following 9/11 were far worse for censoriousness than anything we’re seeing today. 3/20

For example: Remember the Dixie Chicks being cancelled? The incredible pressure among journalists to go along with the Iraq invasion, etc.? 4/20

Several things can be said in response to this arg. For one, if what happened from 2002-2005 was bad, isn’t that an argument in favor of resisting something similar, if milder, happening now? Shouldn’t it be an argument in favor of fewer cancellations today? 5/20

In any case, I think the post-9/11 period and today are distinct in important ways while also having an important continuity. The continuity is a kind of collective panic attack producing a wild overreaction to a threat. 6/20

One difference between then and now is that the errors of 2002-2005 had vastly higher stakes. Then we started a war that led to countless thousands of deaths and destabilized a region for a generation. 7/20

Today we’re talking about a handful of people losing their jobs and some cultural artifacts being placed into a category of the Morally Unacceptable. That’s obviously vastly smaller in its consequences. 8/20

Yet there’s another difference that gets insufficient attention and that underscores the unique perniciousness and corrosiveness of today’s censoriousness. 9/20

Back in 2002-2005, there was a strong political and cultural consensus in favor of how the Bush administration responded to 9/11. Those who opposed it were a minority. (I was in that minority, by the way.) E.g., Bush’s approval in the run-up to Iraq was in the mid-60s. 10/20

That was bad in lots of ways that should trouble liberals concerned about the tyranny of the majority. But of course it also made the response broadly democratic in a majoritarian sense. 11/20

The contrast with today is quite stark. Where is the majority – or even sizeable minority – clamoring for Donald McNeil to be fired from the NYT or Ryan Anderson’s book to be kicked off of Amazon or Dr. Seuss to be memory-holed? There isn’t one. 12/20

What’s going on here is that a relatively small number of outspoken progressives who work in industries with an extraordinary amount of cultural power are demanding that these things happen – and the liberals who run these organizations are capitulating to the pressure. 13/20

In other words, those who run these organizations are taking on the role of a vanguard party, running out ahead of public opinion in an effort to mold it in a direction favored by progressive activists. 14/20

Now political and cultural power are very different. People who wield political power can start wars, throw people in jail, and actually ban books. Cultural power is far subtler, but it is real, as the Dixie Chicks learned in 2003. 15/20

It should matter to liberals whether those who wield power are responding to public opinion or defying and seeking to shape it. It should matter because one is democratic/ majoritarian and the other is … not. 16/20

But even aside from attachment to majoritarianism, which liberals appeal to in making their arguments against the counter-majoritarian means Republicans use to gain and hold political power, there’s a strong prudential reason why acting this way is bad. 17/20

As I argued in a recent column, it’s an effort to skip over the work of persuasion by attempting to change the rules. 18/20

theweek.com/articles/96926…

Not “I think your view of X is wrong because of Y,” but “I’ve decided you’re wrong about X, so I’m going to use my cultural power to punish you for saying it or make it much harder for you to say it in print.” 19/20

That’s the use of force instead of reason. Don’t be surprised if it provokes groups in American society who disagree to respond in kind, and with much greater numbers, and justified grievance, on their side. 20/20