Now would be a good time to discard the analysis and opinion of any member of the commentariat who has been on the “free speech crisis on campus” beat but somehow only ever focuses on the threat of leftwing “cancel culture” instead of the escalating assault from the Right.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/25/texas-a-m-professor-opioids-dan-patrick/
Freedom of speech and academic freedom are indeed under assault in this country – from a radicalizing reactionary movement that is in control of the Republican Party and uses whatever power it can get, including the coercive powers of the state, to go after its enemies.
There is simply no equivalent to this on the “Left,” just as there is no equivalent to the escalating assault on academic freedom in red states that is spearheaded by Ron DeSantis in Florida. And yet, major columnists constantly remind us of the dangers of leftwing censoriousness.
Please also discard the opinions of anyone who has helped normalize Christopher Rufo as anything but the disingenuous rightwing hack he so clearly is, anyone who has helped popularize and legitimize his extremist crusade against what he calls the “left-wing ideological regime.”
Marvel at the depths of bad-faith nonsense in service of DeSantis’ authoritarian takeover of education in Florida (“fine, good, and democratic”!) – and remember people like Graeme Wood at The Atlantic still offering “a qualified defense” of Rufo’s crusade not that long ago.
@tzimmer_history I did a double and triple take at this. "Free speech" on campus has been their clarion call for decades. Now that Rufo is seated and dismantling New College, of course he changes the script. Feels strange to be living in these times.
Take it all as a reminder of how unbelievably disingenuous the “free speech crisis” discourse is, how utterly unserious the moral panic over leftwing “cancel culture.” Much of the “moderate” commentariat has utterly disgraced itself in the face of proper state censorship of critical dissent.
As the reactionary assault on multiracial, pluralistic democracy is escalating, so are the attempts to normalize and legitimize it. This is how democracy dies: With an armada of “respectable” voices working to make extremists and their talking points palatable to the mainstream.
For the newsletter, I wrote extensively about the pervasive idea that America is experiencing an acute “free speech crisis” and dove into the available evidence. Something is indeed happening in America - but the “cancel culture” narrative is deeply (and often deliberately) misleading.
At its core, the “cancel culture-free speech crisis” discourse is the latest iteration of an elite struggle to stave off and discredit certain long-term political, social, and cultural changes that elites - including certain self-proclaimed “moderates” - perceive as threatening.
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-free-speech-crisis-is-not-a-crisis
This is why the bizarre fixation of the centrist “free speech crisis” brigades on leftwing “cancel culture,” even in the midst of radicalizing rightwing censorship, is so revealing: Their overriding concern is preserving their prerogative to define public speech norms.
@tzimmer_history there is a recent case in Canada where a retired principal committed suicide. Turns out he was in shambles a full two years after being corrected by a Black woman who facilitated an antiracism seminar at his workplace. After this, he quickly started a Canadian chapter of a reactionary group called Foundation Against Racism and Intolerance (FAIR) which is an anti woke org. Now the right wing grift in Canada is blaming his suicide on the facilitator and there may be lawsuits.