A few words about the Biden Admin's systematic pressure campaign on social media and other platforms to censor wrongthink, particularly about COVID, would have bolstered the otherwise mostly balanced take of this piece. It's not as though the Trump Admin invented the recent history of censorial governmental actions -- they were/are just more open about it. An argument can be made that it's an improvement over subterfuge.
Major Correction: the "....Normal Healthy Human Mind..." is DEFECTIVE... the science, theories, etc that show this are SELF ERASING!!! ...and so humans' GULLIBILITY doesn't stop with deprogramming MAGAs...
...the deleterious ego is NOT TAUGHT because of...
THE DELETERIOUS EGO!!!! of the Professors! Dr Haidt is a FREAK because he has transended his ego due to his ADDICTION TO OXYTOCIN!!!
"that’s not Cancel Culture. It’s actually something much worse: the clear and naked use of political power to engage in authoritarian-style censorship."
I personally disagree with taking these actions on principle, but you can forget the self-interest argument having any validity here: These are the weapons the Left ALREADY forged and spend much of the last decade wielding ruthlessly against the right, middle, and even center-left. Before Kimmel got an unplanned week's vacation it was Tucker Carlson taken off the air after government officials jawboning. Before Trump ordered investigations of left wing organizations and political opponents, the Democrats did it to him and conservative organizations. Before Pam Bondi made that indefensible comment about 'Hate Speech' or Carr made that "easy way or the hard way" threat, these are actions and justifications that the Democrats had pushed repeatedly. The high point of authoritarian speech control here happened under Biden, not Trump.
That doesn't make them right. Getting down into the mud with a pig just gets a person as dirty as it is and the pig will enjoy it more, but you lose credibility here when you bring it up like any of this is Trump being 'unprecedented' or any worse than has been done to him and us already. I don't agree with the people casting principle aside for some catharsis, but I certainly understand the impulse. Maybe next time the Right picks up the weapons they've been assaulted with repeatedly you'll feel more compelled to remind the Left that THEY forged them, argued for their justification, and demonstrated their use to us OVER and OVER. No, the self-interest argument now is actually coming from the Right that it's past time to teach the Left the price for introducing those weapons precisely so that they might finally learn why they were warned so strongly not to.
Yeah, it's hard to make the both sides argument when one side literally motivates the killing the other.... Unofficially.... I guess the expectation is purity while they're killing us off.
Another slight disagreement: cancel culture does not require mobs. It works fine with just a few well-placed apparatchiks. Mobs are just one mode of cancel culture, not a necessary characteristic.
Right wing cancel culture backlash was inevitable once they got in power. Unlike the Left's, though, it has not justified rioting, destruction, and murder.
Even worse than cancel culture overall however is cancel culture applied to one side but not the other. We are basically in the bottom right box of the prisoner’s dilemma now with both sides defecting, but that is better than the boxes where one side defects and reaps outsized rewards while the side that cooperates gets punished.
Great observation. I thought exactly the same thing as I finished reading the article. I don't want to use a gun analogy in the circumstances. Let's call them cudgels instead. It would be better if neither side had a cudgel, because the harms are imposed on individuals, not sides. If anything the 'punishment' of individuals rewards the other side, because it gives them examples of cruelty and inhumanity to which to point. But the worst scenario is one side having a cudgel with which to beat the other side relentlessly with no fear of reciprocity. At least when both sides possess a cudgel, it's a disincentive- although it could also turn out to be a race to the bottom.
On a pessimistic note, our respective tribes have become a mob of guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment. It really allows the psychopaths to come out and play. Victims are victims, regardless of tribe. The only way this gets fixed is if we start using social enforcement on our own sides, but nobody is in the mood to listen.
The irony is there is perfectly good reason to avoid using cudgels. The side which is worst losses. A bad economy for ordinary working people might have helped, but the bullying preachiness of Dem activists definitely gave Trump as edge. All the evidence shows that the winnable independents who decide elections really don't like authoritarianism directed at sympathetic people. As a case in point, the 2022 midterms would have been catastrophic for the Dems if it wasn't for the abortion issue.
Here is the right argument: 'He who is most civil libertarian wins.'
I agree with the primary point but not sure the current administration is worse. They are more open about it but the left got away with it by being less obvious. They exerted pressure secretly instead of publicly and achieved the desires results in a different way. As for Ricoh, if there are people funding terrorists it may apply. I am concerned about redefining things to prosecute people but the left like Soros and USAID funded leftist are definitely working to destabilize and destroy our nation. Gutting the education system to save our childen will also be framed as a free speech issue. They are a legal institution destroying our country and controlled by the left. I'm not sure how you take the moral high ground and fight this with perfect integrity within the law and not be challenged or even defeated. It's a mess.
To remedy this, you ought to be arguing for the abolition of government schools! That is the core from which alll state-led impositions upon speech and thought originate.
No educational bureaucracy paid for by the compelled earnings of Americans against their will can ever teach Americans to be free thinkers because subservience is essential to the curriculum which propagates itself to keep bureaucracy in clover. When you argue only against the effects, you neglect the primary cause.
Framing the current environment as having a backlash quality is fair.
But framing it as especially chilling on the government end is nonsense. And undermines your warning about the backlash.
Google just announced that under government pressure they silenced thousands of regular American citizens from roughly 2020 - 2023. This pales in comparison to an FCC official observing out loud laws already on the books, or a handful of people being inconvenienced by *organic* backlash -- and speech -- because those inconvenienced thought it was hilarious to publicly spike a football over the most consequential political assassination in a generation.
By not providing this context, and instead virtue signaling some both-sides-ism, you undermine the warning. Because what the right is doing now *pales* in comparison to what was done to them for at least two decades. Corrective action is desperately needed by the left to avoid a real disaster. And the left will not course correct if they are reassured that they're alarming victims already.
Labeling the predicted backlash “right wing” is counterproductive to this debate. Lukianoff (unintentionally?) inserts a political label where a more neutral label would represent the “centric", “moderate", "middle-ground” or “common sense” backlash that has come to pass. Republicans, Conservatives and right-wingers are certainly a large part of the backlash, but not the entirety. Anything deemed “Republican,” “conservative,” or “right-wing” has been demonized and villainized to the point of becoming a political slur.
Government censorship by the Biden Administration far exceeds relatively meager recent attempts made by the Trump administration. I’d venture to say that at least 50% of America is unaware of recent admissions by Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. of widespread censorship suggested, urged, and coerced by the Biden administration.
I feel like we can draw a line from the modern feminist movement, empowering women to the idea that they "don't need a man" to raise a family --> to the high divorce rate where these empowered educated women are raising liberal kids and interfering/micromanaging their kids' lives by relying on current popular "parenting trends" (gentle parenting anyone?), where these single mothers are focusing on feelings, validation, and affirming ----> to these kids going to liberal colleges b/c they are following their mothers' footsteps/guidance. The colleges are just reinforcing their beliefs. The teachers are the same liberal women that are just like the students' mothers.
Is there any liberal single mother that encouraged her son to go to a trade or vocational school and do traditional male jobs?
I can see this anxious and micromanaging behavior on all the mommy groups - Millennial and Gen Z mothers ask the toxic social media hive WWYD for every single thing of mild distress their child encounters. These mothers are stepping in at every negative interaction for their child from preschool and on. And the majority of mother commentators offer a liberal perspective in handling the situation b/c liberal mothers are the ones on social media ALL THE TIME. So the advice is generally not sound or good for raising resilient and logical-minded children.
Lots in this piece--great work!--, but as to the "Coddling" reprise, I love the phrase "vindictive protectiveness."
As to your other key sentence in there, "Another point we made was that the problem lay not in the students, but in the adults who taught them to believe they are fragile. Universities and other institutions were reinforcing psychologically harmful ways of thinking," I would direct interested readers to my latest, "Honor Charlie, Ditch Existing Universities," which argues that the founding of new colleges, the increased support for the existing alternative ones, and the ditching of all typical ones is now the only realistic path to higher-ed reform. That path puts older but demonstrably-failed reform strategies, such as the "center" one, on the back-burner. The hopes for gradualist reform are largely gone. https://dissidentcon.substack.com/p/honor-charlie-ditch-existing-universities
“Coddling of the American Mind” was prescient and insightful. As someone who works in mental health, I have seen all of the consequences you predicted.
A few words about the Biden Admin's systematic pressure campaign on social media and other platforms to censor wrongthink, particularly about COVID, would have bolstered the otherwise mostly balanced take of this piece. It's not as though the Trump Admin invented the recent history of censorial governmental actions -- they were/are just more open about it. An argument can be made that it's an improvement over subterfuge.
Minor correction, they didn’t call for censorship of comedy, they called for censorship of Jimmy Kimmel. 😁
“Kimmel” and “comedy” don’t belong in the same sentence.
I love this! I guarantee you that at least one of Kimmel’s writers would have made that joke in the room. That’s why comedians are the best!
Major Correction: the "....Normal Healthy Human Mind..." is DEFECTIVE... the science, theories, etc that show this are SELF ERASING!!! ...and so humans' GULLIBILITY doesn't stop with deprogramming MAGAs...
...the deleterious ego is NOT TAUGHT because of...
THE DELETERIOUS EGO!!!! of the Professors! Dr Haidt is a FREAK because he has transended his ego due to his ADDICTION TO OXYTOCIN!!!
CBT is the Clinical Science of GULLIBILITY
🙉🙊🙈🙄🤔🤕😲
"that’s not Cancel Culture. It’s actually something much worse: the clear and naked use of political power to engage in authoritarian-style censorship."
I personally disagree with taking these actions on principle, but you can forget the self-interest argument having any validity here: These are the weapons the Left ALREADY forged and spend much of the last decade wielding ruthlessly against the right, middle, and even center-left. Before Kimmel got an unplanned week's vacation it was Tucker Carlson taken off the air after government officials jawboning. Before Trump ordered investigations of left wing organizations and political opponents, the Democrats did it to him and conservative organizations. Before Pam Bondi made that indefensible comment about 'Hate Speech' or Carr made that "easy way or the hard way" threat, these are actions and justifications that the Democrats had pushed repeatedly. The high point of authoritarian speech control here happened under Biden, not Trump.
That doesn't make them right. Getting down into the mud with a pig just gets a person as dirty as it is and the pig will enjoy it more, but you lose credibility here when you bring it up like any of this is Trump being 'unprecedented' or any worse than has been done to him and us already. I don't agree with the people casting principle aside for some catharsis, but I certainly understand the impulse. Maybe next time the Right picks up the weapons they've been assaulted with repeatedly you'll feel more compelled to remind the Left that THEY forged them, argued for their justification, and demonstrated their use to us OVER and OVER. No, the self-interest argument now is actually coming from the Right that it's past time to teach the Left the price for introducing those weapons precisely so that they might finally learn why they were warned so strongly not to.
Yeah, it's hard to make the both sides argument when one side literally motivates the killing the other.... Unofficially.... I guess the expectation is purity while they're killing us off.
Wise comment. I wish Auron MacIntyre would read it (along with Greg's piece, of course).
Another slight disagreement: cancel culture does not require mobs. It works fine with just a few well-placed apparatchiks. Mobs are just one mode of cancel culture, not a necessary characteristic.
Glad you're out there doing what you do. Thanks Greg. (From fellow forky lover)
Right wing cancel culture backlash was inevitable once they got in power. Unlike the Left's, though, it has not justified rioting, destruction, and murder.
You do important work.
Thank you.
Even worse than cancel culture overall however is cancel culture applied to one side but not the other. We are basically in the bottom right box of the prisoner’s dilemma now with both sides defecting, but that is better than the boxes where one side defects and reaps outsized rewards while the side that cooperates gets punished.
Great observation. I thought exactly the same thing as I finished reading the article. I don't want to use a gun analogy in the circumstances. Let's call them cudgels instead. It would be better if neither side had a cudgel, because the harms are imposed on individuals, not sides. If anything the 'punishment' of individuals rewards the other side, because it gives them examples of cruelty and inhumanity to which to point. But the worst scenario is one side having a cudgel with which to beat the other side relentlessly with no fear of reciprocity. At least when both sides possess a cudgel, it's a disincentive- although it could also turn out to be a race to the bottom.
On a pessimistic note, our respective tribes have become a mob of guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment. It really allows the psychopaths to come out and play. Victims are victims, regardless of tribe. The only way this gets fixed is if we start using social enforcement on our own sides, but nobody is in the mood to listen.
The irony is there is perfectly good reason to avoid using cudgels. The side which is worst losses. A bad economy for ordinary working people might have helped, but the bullying preachiness of Dem activists definitely gave Trump as edge. All the evidence shows that the winnable independents who decide elections really don't like authoritarianism directed at sympathetic people. As a case in point, the 2022 midterms would have been catastrophic for the Dems if it wasn't for the abortion issue.
Here is the right argument: 'He who is most civil libertarian wins.'
I agree with the primary point but not sure the current administration is worse. They are more open about it but the left got away with it by being less obvious. They exerted pressure secretly instead of publicly and achieved the desires results in a different way. As for Ricoh, if there are people funding terrorists it may apply. I am concerned about redefining things to prosecute people but the left like Soros and USAID funded leftist are definitely working to destabilize and destroy our nation. Gutting the education system to save our childen will also be framed as a free speech issue. They are a legal institution destroying our country and controlled by the left. I'm not sure how you take the moral high ground and fight this with perfect integrity within the law and not be challenged or even defeated. It's a mess.
To remedy this, you ought to be arguing for the abolition of government schools! That is the core from which alll state-led impositions upon speech and thought originate.
No educational bureaucracy paid for by the compelled earnings of Americans against their will can ever teach Americans to be free thinkers because subservience is essential to the curriculum which propagates itself to keep bureaucracy in clover. When you argue only against the effects, you neglect the primary cause.
A big difference on campus now is the Left has proven they’ll assassinate an ‘enemy’ not by words.
Framing the current environment as having a backlash quality is fair.
But framing it as especially chilling on the government end is nonsense. And undermines your warning about the backlash.
Google just announced that under government pressure they silenced thousands of regular American citizens from roughly 2020 - 2023. This pales in comparison to an FCC official observing out loud laws already on the books, or a handful of people being inconvenienced by *organic* backlash -- and speech -- because those inconvenienced thought it was hilarious to publicly spike a football over the most consequential political assassination in a generation.
By not providing this context, and instead virtue signaling some both-sides-ism, you undermine the warning. Because what the right is doing now *pales* in comparison to what was done to them for at least two decades. Corrective action is desperately needed by the left to avoid a real disaster. And the left will not course correct if they are reassured that they're alarming victims already.
Labeling the predicted backlash “right wing” is counterproductive to this debate. Lukianoff (unintentionally?) inserts a political label where a more neutral label would represent the “centric", “moderate", "middle-ground” or “common sense” backlash that has come to pass. Republicans, Conservatives and right-wingers are certainly a large part of the backlash, but not the entirety. Anything deemed “Republican,” “conservative,” or “right-wing” has been demonized and villainized to the point of becoming a political slur.
Government censorship by the Biden Administration far exceeds relatively meager recent attempts made by the Trump administration. I’d venture to say that at least 50% of America is unaware of recent admissions by Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. of widespread censorship suggested, urged, and coerced by the Biden administration.
Fair enough. I was attempting to be as charitable as possible.
I feel like we can draw a line from the modern feminist movement, empowering women to the idea that they "don't need a man" to raise a family --> to the high divorce rate where these empowered educated women are raising liberal kids and interfering/micromanaging their kids' lives by relying on current popular "parenting trends" (gentle parenting anyone?), where these single mothers are focusing on feelings, validation, and affirming ----> to these kids going to liberal colleges b/c they are following their mothers' footsteps/guidance. The colleges are just reinforcing their beliefs. The teachers are the same liberal women that are just like the students' mothers.
Is there any liberal single mother that encouraged her son to go to a trade or vocational school and do traditional male jobs?
I can see this anxious and micromanaging behavior on all the mommy groups - Millennial and Gen Z mothers ask the toxic social media hive WWYD for every single thing of mild distress their child encounters. These mothers are stepping in at every negative interaction for their child from preschool and on. And the majority of mother commentators offer a liberal perspective in handling the situation b/c liberal mothers are the ones on social media ALL THE TIME. So the advice is generally not sound or good for raising resilient and logical-minded children.
Lots in this piece--great work!--, but as to the "Coddling" reprise, I love the phrase "vindictive protectiveness."
As to your other key sentence in there, "Another point we made was that the problem lay not in the students, but in the adults who taught them to believe they are fragile. Universities and other institutions were reinforcing psychologically harmful ways of thinking," I would direct interested readers to my latest, "Honor Charlie, Ditch Existing Universities," which argues that the founding of new colleges, the increased support for the existing alternative ones, and the ditching of all typical ones is now the only realistic path to higher-ed reform. That path puts older but demonstrably-failed reform strategies, such as the "center" one, on the back-burner. The hopes for gradualist reform are largely gone. https://dissidentcon.substack.com/p/honor-charlie-ditch-existing-universities
Thank you so much for what you do.
“Coddling of the American Mind” was prescient and insightful. As someone who works in mental health, I have seen all of the consequences you predicted.