Aug 31, 2022·edited Aug 31, 2022Liked by Frank Lee
Interesting experiment. Alas, not surprising.
It has a lot to do with why I have moved towards the independent center. When I was young, independent thinking was not widely banned on the political left, and I felt fairly welcome. Now, the progressive left is mostly dogmatically attached to their strategies and no dissent is allowed.
The strutting martinets of my youth were from the right. The neo-progressive left now seems to have even more of them (in my non-random environment at least).
My experience is that this is not inherent to liberalism (and has not always been true), but largely a more recent phenomenon as a toxic mind virus (ideology) has infected most progressives and many liberals.
They think they are still liberal. In fact, they think they are still non-political (the new ideology is just about doing the moral thing, which all reasonable people should agree with; that that moral thing happens to be entirely aligned with neo-progressive politics is coincidental).
I would say that one of the key steps in being absorbed into this ideology is "supporting the oppressed is the prime directive, displacing truth and traditional concepts like reciprocality, merit, and the golden rule". Because it's selflessly supporting the weakest and most vulnerable, one has the unquestionable moral high ground, and when you have that, you need not treat others as you wish to be treated (like listening to them if they will listen to you). That's just for people with the same moral standing, which doesn't apply.
And I posit that this is part of why the new ideology became so much censorious. They are convinced they have righteousness on their side because they are caring people who accept their white cis heteronormative guilt, and so it's OK if they shut down dissent. If doing so would protect a marginalized person from the psychological harm of being disagreed with, all the more moral and praiseworthy. But eventually the power corrupts and they may reflexively shut down disagreement even without that justification.
I don't think this ideology has as much traction with more traditional conservative values (which is not to say there are no mind viruses more crafted to appeal to conservatives). But I see elements of the victimhood narrative crop up on the Right as well, just not as centrally yet.
From the perspective of a very long time liberal, it's like a horror film about the invasion of mind controlling aliens (ok, an exaggeration). People start changing personalities.
And that is NOT traditional liberalism. It's an infected version.
Thanks for writing this unique piece. It's reminds me of an old joke
How do you catch a unique mouse?
You niq up on it
How do you catch a tame mouse
Tame way
U niq up on it
This piece niqs up on you
++++++
Constitutional law issue.
I have the right to do as I please.
The government can impose reasonable restrictions but cannot deny me my right to my General Welfare.
We do not live in a majority rule government.
The Republican Fascists and Democratic Fascists have created that for their own benefits.
Our problems all stem from this two sides
We have 2 sides:
Republican Fascists
Democratic Fascists.
Conservative versus liberal right versus left Fascists.
Rich versus poor and so forth.
Look at most legislation. It is one side versus the other side
That is why we are in the mess we are in.
The missing wording is "promote the general welfare"
All laws must be based upon providing for the General Welfare of all people.
All laws must allow for all sides to have their "general welfare"
++++++
It is the people establishing the constitution.
It is the US government guaranteeing to each State ( not people ) a Republican Form of Government
++++
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
(Preamble to the US Constitution.)
+++++
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence. ( Article IV, Section 4 US Constitution)
ALL LAWS MUST ALLOW FOR ALL PEOPLE THE RIGHT TO DO AS THEY PLEASE WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS BUT WITH REASONABLE RULES AND REGULATIONS.
We have just eliminated fascist government legislators
Before Substack there were Facebook pages. I have two strikes against me. 1, I am an atheist and 2, I am a climate skeptic. The atheist bit is really not a problem to believers. My brand of atheism is a problem to American atheists. They have a rigidly orthodox dogma on abortion, political leanings, race, gender, climate and the rest of the laundry list. I was kicked off several American atheist pages, not for abusive argument but simply for persisting in presenting my quiet viewpoint. Pro-choicers are welcome on pro-life pages. Climate alarmists are welcome on skeptic pages. Not so the other way round. Although I've been to Facebook Jail a couple of times, the Facebook Stasi are overall pretty tolerant I think except where COVID is concerned. Naturally this bias did not always pertain and in the somewhat distant past the lynch mob was as likely to be conservatives as bolsheviks. Today... I do a LOT of self-censoring. Cancel Culture is not my imagination.
Coming back nearly a year later, it occurs to me to wonder if the results would have been different a decade, or a few decades, ago.
My guess is that it might have been. Political cultures change.
It is an open question for me whether the censoring tendency that you tentatively observed on the left side (if real) is inherent downstream consequence of following the slope of liberal principles, or an avoidable mutation that could have played out differently.
For example, liberalism cherished and defended freedom of expression. Nearly all kids learned the aspirational "sticks and stones my break my bones but words will never hurt me". It's not literally true, but it speaks to the cultural value of emotional robustness and stability, as well as internal locus of control. And in turn, it helps set a bright line between words and violence; we learn to ignore annoying words, rather than needing to take physical action to stop them.
But at some point, we integrated very reasonable concept that emotional abuse, especially of a child, can be as damaging as physical or sexual abuse. Then the same might be applied to a spouse. But where is the line between arguing and emotional abuse? The difference can be in the eye of the beholder, a vague and subjective boundary which can be fudged for rhetorical advantage. So we saw some people apply "emotional abuse" a bit too freely to reinforce their position. And that in turn set the stage for concepts like "microaggressions". Disagreement gets reframed as causing harm, as a verbal attack as damaging as a physical attack. It becomes an actionable grievance. It becomes a moral duty to protect designated vulnerable groups from the harm caused by not just intentional insults, but any criticism, any questioning of a narrative, any dissent from a strategy. Words are (tactically, not universally or reciprocally) equated with violence. And then the slogan becomes "silence is violence". Shutting down speakers we disagree with becomes a moral mandate in order to protect the marginalized, who are imagined dying the the streets every day because a dissenting voice was allowed a platform. And "freedom of speech" should only apply to speech which doesn't offend the wrong person or group - which isn't freedom of speech at all, since there was no danger of banning agreement with power. After all, the first Amendment (in the US) is just some words on paper written by white cis men centuries ago, why should we give it any weight at all when victims are dying every day?
Was that slide down the slope inevitable, or nearly so? Or was there an unforced error, a wrong turn, a stage at which liberal political culture could have said "stop here, we've taken the concept as far as makes sense", but which we missed?
I don't know. My sense is that the words=actions slippery slope which liberals or progressives have followed was part of a larger trend with many interacting concepts growing more common in the culture, and that things could have gone differently.
If and when the West declines enough to make the problems of the direction we are going it unavoidable, it will serve warning to the other cultures of the world. In some of them, freedom of speech is not a guiding principle anyway, but they will observe the outcome of a culture which slips into self harm and cutting while convincing itself it's only surgically lancing an abcess to allow healing. And they will avoid taking a similar path.
Did they just cancel without warning or was one given?
It is assumed that the manner was equally bad by both you and whoever you were responding too so it was the content not the manner that was the problem.
I thought I already unsubscribed once from this lousy Substack. This time I am making sure of it.
Interesting experiment. Alas, not surprising.
It has a lot to do with why I have moved towards the independent center. When I was young, independent thinking was not widely banned on the political left, and I felt fairly welcome. Now, the progressive left is mostly dogmatically attached to their strategies and no dissent is allowed.
The strutting martinets of my youth were from the right. The neo-progressive left now seems to have even more of them (in my non-random environment at least).
My experience is that this is not inherent to liberalism (and has not always been true), but largely a more recent phenomenon as a toxic mind virus (ideology) has infected most progressives and many liberals.
They think they are still liberal. In fact, they think they are still non-political (the new ideology is just about doing the moral thing, which all reasonable people should agree with; that that moral thing happens to be entirely aligned with neo-progressive politics is coincidental).
I would say that one of the key steps in being absorbed into this ideology is "supporting the oppressed is the prime directive, displacing truth and traditional concepts like reciprocality, merit, and the golden rule". Because it's selflessly supporting the weakest and most vulnerable, one has the unquestionable moral high ground, and when you have that, you need not treat others as you wish to be treated (like listening to them if they will listen to you). That's just for people with the same moral standing, which doesn't apply.
And I posit that this is part of why the new ideology became so much censorious. They are convinced they have righteousness on their side because they are caring people who accept their white cis heteronormative guilt, and so it's OK if they shut down dissent. If doing so would protect a marginalized person from the psychological harm of being disagreed with, all the more moral and praiseworthy. But eventually the power corrupts and they may reflexively shut down disagreement even without that justification.
I don't think this ideology has as much traction with more traditional conservative values (which is not to say there are no mind viruses more crafted to appeal to conservatives). But I see elements of the victimhood narrative crop up on the Right as well, just not as centrally yet.
From the perspective of a very long time liberal, it's like a horror film about the invasion of mind controlling aliens (ok, an exaggeration). People start changing personalities.
And that is NOT traditional liberalism. It's an infected version.
Thanks for writing this unique piece. It's reminds me of an old joke
How do you catch a unique mouse?
You niq up on it
How do you catch a tame mouse
Tame way
U niq up on it
This piece niqs up on you
++++++
Constitutional law issue.
I have the right to do as I please.
The government can impose reasonable restrictions but cannot deny me my right to my General Welfare.
We do not live in a majority rule government.
The Republican Fascists and Democratic Fascists have created that for their own benefits.
Our problems all stem from this two sides
We have 2 sides:
Republican Fascists
Democratic Fascists.
Conservative versus liberal right versus left Fascists.
Rich versus poor and so forth.
Look at most legislation. It is one side versus the other side
That is why we are in the mess we are in.
The missing wording is "promote the general welfare"
All laws must be based upon providing for the General Welfare of all people.
All laws must allow for all sides to have their "general welfare"
++++++
It is the people establishing the constitution.
It is the US government guaranteeing to each State ( not people ) a Republican Form of Government
++++
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
(Preamble to the US Constitution.)
+++++
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence. ( Article IV, Section 4 US Constitution)
ALL LAWS MUST ALLOW FOR ALL PEOPLE THE RIGHT TO DO AS THEY PLEASE WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS BUT WITH REASONABLE RULES AND REGULATIONS.
We have just eliminated fascist government legislators
Before Substack there were Facebook pages. I have two strikes against me. 1, I am an atheist and 2, I am a climate skeptic. The atheist bit is really not a problem to believers. My brand of atheism is a problem to American atheists. They have a rigidly orthodox dogma on abortion, political leanings, race, gender, climate and the rest of the laundry list. I was kicked off several American atheist pages, not for abusive argument but simply for persisting in presenting my quiet viewpoint. Pro-choicers are welcome on pro-life pages. Climate alarmists are welcome on skeptic pages. Not so the other way round. Although I've been to Facebook Jail a couple of times, the Facebook Stasi are overall pretty tolerant I think except where COVID is concerned. Naturally this bias did not always pertain and in the somewhat distant past the lynch mob was as likely to be conservatives as bolsheviks. Today... I do a LOT of self-censoring. Cancel Culture is not my imagination.
Coming back nearly a year later, it occurs to me to wonder if the results would have been different a decade, or a few decades, ago.
My guess is that it might have been. Political cultures change.
It is an open question for me whether the censoring tendency that you tentatively observed on the left side (if real) is inherent downstream consequence of following the slope of liberal principles, or an avoidable mutation that could have played out differently.
For example, liberalism cherished and defended freedom of expression. Nearly all kids learned the aspirational "sticks and stones my break my bones but words will never hurt me". It's not literally true, but it speaks to the cultural value of emotional robustness and stability, as well as internal locus of control. And in turn, it helps set a bright line between words and violence; we learn to ignore annoying words, rather than needing to take physical action to stop them.
But at some point, we integrated very reasonable concept that emotional abuse, especially of a child, can be as damaging as physical or sexual abuse. Then the same might be applied to a spouse. But where is the line between arguing and emotional abuse? The difference can be in the eye of the beholder, a vague and subjective boundary which can be fudged for rhetorical advantage. So we saw some people apply "emotional abuse" a bit too freely to reinforce their position. And that in turn set the stage for concepts like "microaggressions". Disagreement gets reframed as causing harm, as a verbal attack as damaging as a physical attack. It becomes an actionable grievance. It becomes a moral duty to protect designated vulnerable groups from the harm caused by not just intentional insults, but any criticism, any questioning of a narrative, any dissent from a strategy. Words are (tactically, not universally or reciprocally) equated with violence. And then the slogan becomes "silence is violence". Shutting down speakers we disagree with becomes a moral mandate in order to protect the marginalized, who are imagined dying the the streets every day because a dissenting voice was allowed a platform. And "freedom of speech" should only apply to speech which doesn't offend the wrong person or group - which isn't freedom of speech at all, since there was no danger of banning agreement with power. After all, the first Amendment (in the US) is just some words on paper written by white cis men centuries ago, why should we give it any weight at all when victims are dying every day?
Was that slide down the slope inevitable, or nearly so? Or was there an unforced error, a wrong turn, a stage at which liberal political culture could have said "stop here, we've taken the concept as far as makes sense", but which we missed?
I don't know. My sense is that the words=actions slippery slope which liberals or progressives have followed was part of a larger trend with many interacting concepts growing more common in the culture, and that things could have gone differently.
If and when the West declines enough to make the problems of the direction we are going it unavoidable, it will serve warning to the other cultures of the world. In some of them, freedom of speech is not a guiding principle anyway, but they will observe the outcome of a culture which slips into self harm and cutting while convincing itself it's only surgically lancing an abcess to allow healing. And they will avoid taking a similar path.
Did they just cancel without warning or was one given?
It is assumed that the manner was equally bad by both you and whoever you were responding too so it was the content not the manner that was the problem.
Update. Robert Reich eventually canceled me.