September Open Thread

and some notes of the final crisis of woke-ism

I’ve a lot going on in this next few days (including a presentation on paganism this Saturday), so I thought I’d post my monthly “open comment” thread.

I’ll tell you what’s on my mind at the moment, and maybe we can talk about that.

Writing that essay on Anarchism and Antifa was a really big thing for me, and I have to say I’m really fucking glad I left social media. I’ve heard from friends that there has been a pretty serious backlash on some social media sites, including calls to de-platform me and boycott the publisher I co-founded and direct.

Apparently there was also this call to eject me and chase me out of all leftist spaces in Portland, Oregon, which…well…I never actually lived there and have been there for a total of six days of my life. And I’m over 8000 kilometers away yet am apparently still a dire threat:

Of course I expected something of that sort, and expect much more.

I’m just catching up on some other cancellations of other people. I’m not a regular reader of Charles Eisenstein, but I find some of his work good. That being said, I was pretty startled to see what his publisher did after someone accused him of being antisemitic and a COVID denier.

I’ve read the essay in question, and there is no objective way to construe what he wrote as antisemitic. Of course, that label works really well to bad-jacket someone, even better than labels like crypto-fascist or racist.

I also learned another writer was also dropped from a publisher over some woke cancellation attempts, and besides this all being quite terrifying for the state of the world, it’s work thinking about how this again re-inforces my point that the woke--and especially Antifa--in the United States are increasingly desperate to silence not the right-wing, but people with “heretical left” ideas.

That’s technically a good sign, as horrifying at it will probably get for everyone. Because ultimately, if all you can do is try to force someone to shut up, you know subconsciously that you have lost an argument.

A punch to the face is the tactic not of someone who has reason on their side or even a coherent argument. It’s the tactic of an abuser against someone who refuses to conform to their demands.

It’ll all get worse before it gets better, but they’re at their crisis moment. The rest of us just need to be who we are while they self-destruct.

And it’s worth noting that the essay I wrote is now one of the most popular essays at Gods&Radicals already this year, so people are reading it. In fact, of the currently most-read articles on that site for 2021, all but three of them are by me and are articles people tried to cancel me for (the top two are A Plague of Gods--my rejection of the framework of cultural appropriation; and Mission Creep--my essay on one of the primary architects of American Antifa, Alexander Reid Ross).

I think other writers and publishers are experiencing similar things. The more directly you confront the truth, the more backlash you get but also the more sought-after those sorts of essays and other works become.

That’s what’s on my mind. What’s on yours?