Lee Fang: "The Right Has Embraced Cancel Culture; Did It Ever Really Believe In Free Speech?"

Yeah, I think this is a reasonable characterization of the Gay/Ackman/Rufo incident. I'm not sure it's optimal, but it's reasonable.

   I do think that the idea motivating the anti-Gay initiative can be seen as similar to or basically the same as the central idea of cancel culture: Disagree with our politics and we will destroy your career and/or your life.

   OTOH, the criticism was focused on her position and professional work. My hazy view at this point is that it wasn't that different than ordinary rough professional battles. Such stuff wouldn't be odd at all in, say, Presidential politics. Gay was a representation of a bad and dominant policy idea (DEI), she made some controversial statements (before Congress, no less) qua Harvard president, and then the other side revealed that she'd engaged in professional shenanigans. It's all within the realm of some kind of professional warfare. I'm not sure I can think of any good reasons against it...though I'm not really happy about it.

   Anyway, some things I've mostly already said:

(a) Something like "From the river to the sea" is clearly protected by the First Amendment.

(b) It's alleged to be what the left calls a "dog whistle" (when the non-left does it.) (Of course, they think everything that isn't over RAZIZM HATEZ ZBEEJ!!!111 is a "dog whistle"...). Roughly: it's basically code for something it doesn't say overtly. And that something is: Kill the Jews.

(c)  The best gloss on Stefanik's grilling of the university presidents is: You all are being inconsistent. Your speech codes punish shit like "microagressions" (lol), but not "From the river to the sea."

(d) Even if the Rufo/Ackman attack on Gay is cancel-culture-y, they can deploy a sauce-for-the-gander defense. As long as such folks are willing to stop if the left stops, I think they are on solid ground.

   

   So, was Gay right that "context" determines whether "From the river to the sea" constitutes harassment? Dunno. Usually appeals to "context" are bullshit, in my experience...but she may well have a point here. OTOH, given that Harvard seems to think that utterances like "Where are you from" and "All lives matter" constitute harassment...not to mention using English pronouns in standard ways...well...kinda hard to consistently defend "Kill the Jews." No wait...I mean "From the river to the sea." As usual, the deck is stacked in favor of the left. But the problem here is that universities like Harvard have adopted crazy leftist standards of harassment when it comes to speech the left dislikes. The solution is: stop doing that. It's not: ok, adopt equally crazy standards when it comes to speech the non-left dislikes. Though forcing Harvard to make that choice moves the ball downfield even if they choose crazy restrictive standards across the board. Because that's unsustainable. Maintaining crazy and asymmetrical leftist standards probably IS sustainable, unfortunately. So forcing consistency--even crazy restrictive consistency--is a step in the right direction. Or so it seems to me.

   But it's complicated, and I could be wrong, obviously.