Several people this week kindly sent me a link to this New Yorker story: The Party Is Cancelled. The site is paywalled for some of you, so here’s the opening to the story, written by Emma Green: Every month, more than two hundred people from the media, academia, and other intellectual circles are invited to a private hangout in New York City, which is known as the Gathering of Thought Criminals. There are two rules. The first is that you have to be willing to break bread with people who have been socially ostracized, or, as the attendees would say, “cancelled”—whether they’ve lost a job, lost friends, or simply feel persecuted for holding unpopular opinions. Some people on the guest list are notorious: élite professors who have deviated from campus consensus or who have broken university rules, and journalists who have made a name for themselves amid public backlash (or who have weathered it quietly). Others are relative nobodies, people who for one reason or another have become exasperated with what they see as rampant censorious thinking in our culture.
While I see your point and understand why you feel the way you do, I agree with the person you quoted here:
"For Siskind, one of the worst parts about her notoriety was the “weird bedfellows and allies” it brought. “A lot of people will be, like, ‘I read your article, and I really thought it was insightful, and the reaction you’re getting is really hard, and, you know, there should be fewer Black people at Harvard,’ ” she said. “And you’re, like, ‘Oh, my God!’"
I run into this often. It's hard to find people who agree with my opinions about cancel culture who aren't also just blatantly racist, sexist, homogeneous, transphobic, etc. I find them online, but rarely in person! Maybe this is why I appreciate the small collection of liberal skeptics I've found here on Substack so much.
While I see your point and understand why you feel the way you do, I agree with the person you quoted here:
"For Siskind, one of the worst parts about her notoriety was the “weird bedfellows and allies” it brought. “A lot of people will be, like, ‘I read your article, and I really thought it was insightful, and the reaction you’re getting is really hard, and, you know, there should be fewer Black people at Harvard,’ ” she said. “And you’re, like, ‘Oh, my God!’"
I run into this often. It's hard to find people who agree with my opinions about cancel culture who aren't also just blatantly racist, sexist, homogeneous, transphobic, etc. I find them online, but rarely in person! Maybe this is why I appreciate the small collection of liberal skeptics I've found here on Substack so much.