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Jim Harper's avatar

A nit and a "not."

I stopped short on the placement of "identity politics" in scare quotes. Isn't the phrase descriptive, and fairly so, of giving people's immutable characteristics primacy in the social and political world? Identity politics is a real thing, I think, and the identification of it can help show its weakness in structuring our thinking and ordering society.

"Virtue signaling" has gotten the same treatment. I think it's a legitimate description of performative acts aimed at confirming conformity with one's allies. My sense is that the left treat the phrase as a right-wing shibboleth and ignore it at a cost to the quality of their Facebook discourse. (Haha. "Facebook discourse.")

That's the nit.

The "not" is the part on "book banning." (Again with the scare quotes!) Overreach and pearl-clutching make some of it seem foolish, but I can't see parents insisting on a role in their children's upbringing as censorship. Are these books being taken out of local bookstores? Amazon deliveries being intercepted? These are not banned books. These are books disfavored by parents who want to mold their children's experience consistent with their values, which is entirely appropriate, IMO.

I don't take time to comment on poorly done articles. This is a thorough and well-structured piece that inspires what I hope is thoughtful push-back in a few small areas. Thanks for it!

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Terry M.'s avatar

There may some justification for labelling both left and right wing censoriousness with the same term -cancel culture - even if the term is generally uniquely associated with the left. But you have not constructed that case. I wonder what your motives are in doing this.

I personally associate the term with the activities of unelected radical intellectual groups first and foremost. People who have not been elected into office and choose the recesses of the internet as a place to execute their cancelling strategies. It is a largely anonymous movement.

Whatever we think about the governor of Florida, he is an elected representative. How he executes his strategies is open to question, of course, but he is substantively different from pressure groups in his status and legitimacy. He holds office, is personally accountable and is subject to formal, regulatory and electoral process. The same cannot be said for the woke movement. Who the hell are they?

I do not support the extreme right or the extreme left and do certainly not support ad hoc censorship by activists of any kind, publishers, media moguls or online trolls. I welcome any attempt to make sense of this crazy climate but this piece seems to me to have been assembled rather hastily and with a desire to square circles that cannot yet be squared.

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