An impromptu post responding to some rather problematic commentary the other day… In a widely shared Slow Boring essay entitled “More Courage, Less Fear,” Matthew Yglesias argued that accounts of cancel culture and excessive ‘wokeness’ tend to have become overblown, especially since the peak of Black Lives Matter in 2020, and that “exaggerated criticism can generate exaggerated fears.”
Yglesias: "So I wish the anti-cancellers would chill out a bit, do a bit more helping and a bit less warning, and also try to be more precise and accurate in the claims that they are making."
This is a great example of mealy-mouthed nonsense and intellectual quislingism.
Translating from the original weasel-speak it reads as:
"I know that our culture and discourse have been captured by ideological zealots who demand we all praise the Emperor's New Clothes and proclaim that math is racist and women can have penises, but could we just keep our voices down and speak in a kinder tone? When someone demonizes you for wrongthink and attempts to get you fired, be the bigger person and respond calmly w precise and accurate facts [as if this has ever worked!]...Also, me and some other famous journalists are doing well, so it can't be so bad, right?"
Liberals are just congenitally incapable of confronting Leftists, they are too afraid of being accused of being conservative-adjacent and are always supine before anyone pushing an Egalitarian agenda (however spurious), and thus will always and forever be Useful Idiots.
May 4, 2023·edited May 4, 2023Liked by The Ivy Exile
Al-Gharbi here.
So, I may be at Columbia now, but I started at a community college, attended a public land grant, and starting in the fall, will be back at a public land grant (Stony Brook).
I know a thing or two about the risks involved in speaking up. I was successfully 'cancelled' by Fox News from my teaching appointment at University of Arizona (discussed here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/musa-al-gharbi-academic-truth-duncan-moench). It didn't lead me to grow bitter or extreme (as sometimes happens), nor did it lead me to keep my mouth shut.
Granted, I managed to 'fail upwards,' and I'm now at Columbia. But again, I was doing what I'm doing now long before I was at an Ivy League school, and I'll continue doing it as a tenure-track person at a public land grant university starting in the fall. I don't need to wait for tenure to do this. Nor do I need to be at Columbia.
Put another way, I don't speak up because I have institutional privilege at an Ivy League school, or a secure academic post. I'm driven instead by my conviction and my confidence that, in fact, most of my peers are also supportive of these ideals. And in a world where they weren't, I'd just do something else with my life. I only recently began to think of myself as an 'academic' (and came to view that term in a non-pejorative way). If this line of work actually did make it impossible to study the things I want to and speak the truth as I see it, I'd do something else with my life.
More broadly, I think people fool themselves when they say, 'if only I wait for security, then I'll speak my mind.' If someone keeps their head down and their mouth shut for 4 years while getting their BA, 5 more to get their PhD, another 6 while working through the tenure track -- at the end of this 15 year process, they are no longer the type of person who says bold things. They're a person who keeps their head down and colors within the lines. So my choice has always been to be the kind of scholar I want to be -- from the outset through the present. And if I can't be the kind of scholar I want to be, then I will choose not to be a scholar.
I didn't wait until I got into grad school to speak out. I didn't wait until after the job market to speak up. I didn't wait until I got tenure to speak up. I started doing the public-facing work I do as an undergrad, and I haven't stopped. The freedom I feel comes not from privilege, but from a confidence that, even if I were cancelled (again), life moves on. I'd do something else. It'd be alright. The other ways one can make a living are not a horror or social death for me. They're what I more-or-less expected to do with my life until circa 2016.
I experienced cancel culture at Ameriprise. I lost quite a lot of the respect I once had for them. I feel sorry for the salesmen who lost my accounts. That wasn't his fault. But, I could find equally competitive financial services elsewhere so I did.
Yglesias: "So I wish the anti-cancellers would chill out a bit, do a bit more helping and a bit less warning, and also try to be more precise and accurate in the claims that they are making."
This is a great example of mealy-mouthed nonsense and intellectual quislingism.
Translating from the original weasel-speak it reads as:
"I know that our culture and discourse have been captured by ideological zealots who demand we all praise the Emperor's New Clothes and proclaim that math is racist and women can have penises, but could we just keep our voices down and speak in a kinder tone? When someone demonizes you for wrongthink and attempts to get you fired, be the bigger person and respond calmly w precise and accurate facts [as if this has ever worked!]...Also, me and some other famous journalists are doing well, so it can't be so bad, right?"
Liberals are just congenitally incapable of confronting Leftists, they are too afraid of being accused of being conservative-adjacent and are always supine before anyone pushing an Egalitarian agenda (however spurious), and thus will always and forever be Useful Idiots.
Al-Gharbi here.
So, I may be at Columbia now, but I started at a community college, attended a public land grant, and starting in the fall, will be back at a public land grant (Stony Brook).
I know a thing or two about the risks involved in speaking up. I was successfully 'cancelled' by Fox News from my teaching appointment at University of Arizona (discussed here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/musa-al-gharbi-academic-truth-duncan-moench). It didn't lead me to grow bitter or extreme (as sometimes happens), nor did it lead me to keep my mouth shut.
Granted, I managed to 'fail upwards,' and I'm now at Columbia. But again, I was doing what I'm doing now long before I was at an Ivy League school, and I'll continue doing it as a tenure-track person at a public land grant university starting in the fall. I don't need to wait for tenure to do this. Nor do I need to be at Columbia.
Put another way, I don't speak up because I have institutional privilege at an Ivy League school, or a secure academic post. I'm driven instead by my conviction and my confidence that, in fact, most of my peers are also supportive of these ideals. And in a world where they weren't, I'd just do something else with my life. I only recently began to think of myself as an 'academic' (and came to view that term in a non-pejorative way). If this line of work actually did make it impossible to study the things I want to and speak the truth as I see it, I'd do something else with my life.
More broadly, I think people fool themselves when they say, 'if only I wait for security, then I'll speak my mind.' If someone keeps their head down and their mouth shut for 4 years while getting their BA, 5 more to get their PhD, another 6 while working through the tenure track -- at the end of this 15 year process, they are no longer the type of person who says bold things. They're a person who keeps their head down and colors within the lines. So my choice has always been to be the kind of scholar I want to be -- from the outset through the present. And if I can't be the kind of scholar I want to be, then I will choose not to be a scholar.
I didn't wait until I got into grad school to speak out. I didn't wait until after the job market to speak up. I didn't wait until I got tenure to speak up. I started doing the public-facing work I do as an undergrad, and I haven't stopped. The freedom I feel comes not from privilege, but from a confidence that, even if I were cancelled (again), life moves on. I'd do something else. It'd be alright. The other ways one can make a living are not a horror or social death for me. They're what I more-or-less expected to do with my life until circa 2016.
I experienced cancel culture at Ameriprise. I lost quite a lot of the respect I once had for them. I feel sorry for the salesmen who lost my accounts. That wasn't his fault. But, I could find equally competitive financial services elsewhere so I did.
So in other words, you're a coward, but you think it's justifiable. Ok, fair enough. At least you are honest about it.