Thread by @drvolts

Good thread, but this is the main & most irritating thing: the pretense among cancel-culture warriors that they are simply applying content-neutral principles ... yet somehow this leads them to devote 98% of their energy to small liberal arts colleges.

https://twitter.com/RottenInDenmark/status/1476837363028578310

Today & throughout history, it is fundamentalists & reactionaries & defenders of existing unequal systems that do the bulk of the censoring, because they don't want reigning dogma challenged. This is Politics 101. History 101. Psychology 101. There is something truly surreal ...

... about the fact that a bunch of people are pretending otherwise. It makes sense though, because what narrative better serves the powers-that-be than the notion that trans people, POC, professors, & students are the real source of suppressive power? Of course they elevate it.

When marginalized groups manage, in certain highly constrained & specific contexts, to accrue the power to set the acceptable bounds of discourse, it's a man-bites-dog story. It draws attention (esp. w/ a cadre of "thinkers" devoted to finding & elevating it). But ...

... the dog-bites-man stories, the standard ones, the ones that are unfolding around us thousands of times a day, obscured by their very familiarity, are: the wealthy & powerful setting the terms of discourse & punishing or suppressing the marginalized who challenge them.

This happens in workplaces, in schools, in families, in politics. It is the baseline state of affairs. Anyone who cared about freedom of association & expression -- in a true content-neutral way -- would ... align w/ progressives & against status-quo powers.

In other words, they'd just be involved in the same struggle for justice as all the other progressives. And where are the clicks in that? Where's the VSP credibility? Where's the funding? It's not counter-intuitive at all! It's just ... the same old struggle. Boring.

So instead we get: "the marginalized groups have taken over & they're going to treat you the way they've been treated!" Ludicrous on its face but endlessly attractive to editors & funders & people who are irritated by those groups on Twitter.