I'm apparently at the center of a controversy about Substack. I haven't been paying much attention and tend to stay out of these things on principle. I write about topics like geopolitics, government budgeting, the ethics of eating meat, and broad trends in American governance. In other words, I'm interested in ideas. Other people are very interested in talking about who should or shouldn't be talking, or who should or shouldn't be platforming whom. I use Substack in order to communicate things I believe about the world and learn from others. Other people use their Substacks to talk about who should be on Substack. We're simply doing different things here.

The censors only matter if they can actually shut others down. In this situation, I'm sure they will fail. If the conversation of who Substack should or shouldn't allow on the platform is nonetheless interesting to you, knock yourselves out by continuing to focus on it.

That is not a conversation I'm interested in having. I'm writing this only because some people have told me they've come across my work due to the controversy, and I think it is therefore a good way to reach people on the topics of free speech and cancel culture more generally. As you probably know, I was reported to have written some extreme things over a decade ago. People pull up two tweets since that time to supposedly show that I'm still "racist." Those tweets have been taken out of context and misrepresented, and anyone who is interested can look at the background. I've written hundreds of thousands of words on race and related issues, so if you're interested you can read them instead of sitting around trying to interpret a few tweets. Regardless, I'm not going to "explain" them because it would involve participating in a ritual that justifies the attitude that you should look for the worst thing someone has said about a sensitive topic and then try to remove them from public life on that basis.

Let's say it was true that I hated black people, or trans, or whatever. I don't, but put that aside. Does that mean that you should not listen to me on social security? The Israel-Gaza war? Animal rights? Many people have strong views on all kinds of issues I find misguided or even evil, while I'm still able to benefit from their work on other topics. If a brilliant cardiologist is recorded yelling a racial slur after being cut off in traffic, should we not let him practice medicine? Everything within me revolts at this attitude, and tells me that we're not so lucky as to be able to cast aside people who might have answers to societal problems in such a cavalier way. 

To show how disagreement with dialogue is possible, I'll note that I've criticized religious fundamentalists, yet conservative Catholics and evangelicals have had me on their shows to talk about other issues. It is a distinguishing feature of wokeness, and much of modern leftism really, where some people demand orthodoxy on a few issues and try and use deviations to destroy an individual's influence in every other way. 

If all you know about me is what the speech police have said, you'll likely be surprised to learn that I've written well received articles on how liberals are more honest than conservatives; women are rebelling against the pro-life movement and they should; vaccine denial is wrong; eating meat is morally problematic; the mainstream media is largely better than its right wing critics (despite what it says about me!); immigration is actually good for the United States; and in favor of bodily autonomy on issues like euthanasia and surrogacy. If you're horrified by my supposed "racism," it's almost a sure thing that you agree with me on at least some of those issues, and to be honest I probably make the argument for the things you believe in better than most of your favorite writers do. This is why I've been able to build such a wide, diverse, and influential audience over a short period of time. I've also been published in places like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Atlantic. I'm not saying this to brag, but rather to open your mind to the possibility that I might be worth listening to on at least one or two topics. You should probably subscribe to the newsletter, and keep an open mind. 

Some have made cancellation their entire identity, and there may be no hope of reaching them. Hopefully I can show them that there's another path, and it's neither good for you mentally nor beneficial to society to go through life like this. For those interested, an earlier piece of mine explored the topic of how to get a diverse media diet, and how one can benefit from reading a range of voices from across the political spectrum.

richardhanania.com/p/towards-an-enlight…

I spend a lot of time trying to convince conservatives that they should not be so tribal and think through some of their unquestioned assumptions. Few things make that job harder than the left's constant demands for censorship. It's not that censorship necessarily makes people more likely to become extremists, but rather that it makes conservatives start to hate the left and fall for any crank or bigot who comes along because he shares the same enemy. Since I consume a diverse media diet, I can note that leftists think that the American right is constantly getting worse, but they seem unable to see the connection between that and their own turn towards censorship. 

The founding of Substack and Elon buying X are only two of the clearest signs of this. There is a critical mass of people who see what the censors have done to the discourse, and have decided that they want a different kind of society. Trying to treat Notes like a NYT Slack Channel and hope to get the same results is not going to work. I would encourage those who thought otherwise to reconsider what they are doing, and become actual participants in the marketplace of ideas rather than aspire to be its hall monitors. You might actually learn some things, including the value of listening to those you disagree with.

ncG1vNJzZmirpZfAta3CpGWcp51kjbO1wqGYq5yYlruiusiaZqenpJp8pHmTb2dubmJmfg%3D%3D