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News Brief: The Harper's Letter and Our Extremely Narrow, Self-Serving Definition of Cancel Culture (Patreon)

Published:
2020-07-08 16:07:05
Edited:
2020-12-09 06:03:26
Imported:
2026-06

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Content

A bizarrely vague, cliquish letter demanding everyone be open-minded has no interest in explaining what, precisely, it wants.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

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Comments

Emma & Brian

thank you! god, i read that shit and was thinking the same thing

Tom Kelly

A good further read into this is Julia Serano's Twitter threads about this open letter and highlighting letter signatory Jesse Singal having his followers pile on and "cancel" Jennifer Boylan for expressing regret and apologising for signing it before realising what the game was. Disappointing to see some ostensible leftists apparently have no problem with this Harper's stunt because it's ultimately "anti-woke", but happy to see Nima and Adam rise above it. This is the sort of News Brief that should be made public because a lot of otherwise well-meaning people are falling for this distraction (that's what it is, frankly) at a time of Black Lives Matter and other social upheaval and increased awareness of oppressive police behaviour and tactics etc. Professional and comfortable political talking heads just love to take the air out of collective movements and what they're all about. We should strive to pay them no mind - make *them* the targets of "cancel culture", especially if they make a whole song and dance of decrying its existence to cover up their targeting marginalised peoples or being dismissive of challenges to their viewpoints from said peoples.

rizzler

It’s such a circular concept. Lengthy and difficult to explain, impossible to actually direct address as an insular ‘issue’. Conceptual smoke and mirrors by the established pundit/academic/journalist block to justify their continued dominance. And Chomsky is probably the only person who signed it who actually believes in the idea in good faith.

Citations Needed

Oh the news brief is public! We have to load them on patreon as non public but this is on the Libsyn feed and soundclould. Also thank you for your kind words.

Patrick ODonnell

Was it ever officially confirmed that James Bennet told staff at the Times that he never actually read the Cotton op ed before it was published? I also remember reading something essentially saying that someone at the Times essentially pitched to Cotton that he write the piece. I don't have any insight into what goes on inside the NYT outside of what I see on Twitter but it's interesting how Weiss/Stephens/etc have spun this into a "cancel culture" issue and have essentially papered over anyone actually talking about institutional issues at the Times like Weiss/Stephens harassing employees.

Daniel Rooney

I was getting restless waiting for another one of these! Really great episode. I've been noticing the phrase "cancel culture" has been used a lot lately to trivialise calls for frank and accurate retellings of history, by trying to put these calls on the same level as petty disputes between YouTube celebrities.

Mark Schneider

Thank you for this episode, it's work like yours that is worth supporting. The letter was shared on Naked Capitalism around the time it came out and some were skeptical, but none tied it together the way you two did. I was disgusted when I saw Bari Weiss's name on the missive, knowing her role in shaming/ cancelling/ trying to get fired anyone who, as one of you said, considers Palestinians to be human beings. Yes, it's obviously a closed society that this group belongs to, as you point out, it's kind of like the old Nat Hentoff title, "Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee"-- they OWN the "acceptable" commentary, us peons who are not appropriately credentialed or connected need to defer to our "betters"' judgment. The NYT is an execrable rag, yet the discourse gets controlled in our "democratic" (lol) late Imperial Culture, you pulled back the curtain they try to hide behind.

chee rabbits

thank you for this. adam getting pissed off at disingenuous transphobes is good medicine.

John Zakour

Thank you guys for a good take on that god awful letter

Kate Willett

Love the show guys!! thanks for making it

Eric Adams

Fantastic episode. It’s suprising how many people have the wool over their eyes because of supposed free speech concerns. Never taking context into the situation.

The T-Party with Marti Abernathey

Agreed, but the whole thing with Chomsky signed something that says "The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away' is shown to be false by reading his own book, "Manufacturing Consent."

a flag with nothing on it

the funniest shit is when someone gets "cancelled" and you still hear them crying about it. like if your TERF ass was really cancelled we wouldn't be hearing your sobs rn

Coupcumber

Being an occasional hand-wringer about cancel culture, I appreciated this episode, but I do think there's a failure on the left to distinguish between the stalking horse of cancel culture complaints, and the very real existence of the vampire's castle.