We live in a world of mutually assured cancellation. Piled-on abuse and career destruction are now standard when dealing with political or intellectual opponents.
I wrote about this on my personal Substack last month. There, I drew on the escalating—and global—war of words and deeds over Israel-Palestine. Finally, conservatives and dissenting liberals had found a way to wound the woke and radical left, and they were proceeding to dish it out in spades. Many lefties, who’d never had to mind their Ps & Qs before, fell to bits quite badly in public. Alternatively—as this activist complains—others simply “refused to speak about Palestine” at all.
Well, that’s what happens if you suspect articulating your views will get you sacked. Welcome to the party, pal (with apologies to Bruce Willis).
However, I need not have drawn upon the hour’s global conflict (Ukraine was unceremoniously sidelined last October). I could have used what was—and in some ways still is—going on at Substack to illustrate the world in which we now live. I watched that controversy as it unfolded.
The contretemps started in November last year with this Atlantic article and then made the rounds of the houses on Substack itself and in other outlets. The essence was this: there are Nazi newsletters on Substack. If the company didn’t at least demonetise them, then multiple writers—some of them popular, bearing Substack’s in-house “bestseller” ticks—would leave. Whether anyone has left yet is unclear, although some people have turned off paid subscriptions. Paid subscriptions are, of course, how Substack makes its money.