Hope at the NYT: Douthat on cancel culture

Ross Douthat in the New York Times doubts that canceling Dr. Seuss is a good idea. That this essay made it in to the Times, of all places, and as of 9 AM Monday he has not yet been fired may give us some hope. 

The most daring and revealing bit: 

Just a few weeks ago the Amazonian giant decided to simply delete, without real explanation, a 2018 book by Ryan Anderson, a Catholic scholar and the head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, called “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.”

...I live and work among highly educated liberals, and I know that more than a few of them actually agree with the critiques of current transgender theory Anderson presents. They’re skeptical about the widespread use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria. They’re wary about the implications for women’s spaces, women’s sports. They don’t share Anderson’s Catholic presuppositions, but they are, at least, J.K. Rowling liberals.

In the last stages of the same-sex marriage debate, I never encountered a flicker of private doubt from liberal friends. But in the gender-identity debate, there are pervasive liberal doubts about the current activist position. Yet without liberal objection, that position appears to set rules for what Amazon will sell.

That this admission could be printed in the New York Times strikes me as good news for free speech. 

Let me be clear, as this is an explosive topic and I don't want my intent misconstrued. The question is not to judge anything about the gender-identity debate.  People I care deeply about lie on a trans spectrum, and I have learned a lot about their point of view. The question is whether public policy and medical or psychological fact on the issue can be discussed. Can evidence be sought, studies done, research discussed, books written and sold, and policy debated, actual science be performed? Can good progressives who work for the New York Times discuss these issues? Or is the current "activist position" on policy and medical issues undebatable? Nor is the issue, yet, legality of expression. Legality in a democracy only formalizes elite opinion. Amazon and Twitter censor first, law follows. Activists burn books first, law follows.  

Douthat makes a good case for open-minded Children's literature rather than indoctrination, again an obvious point, but in an unusual venue:

Western children’s literature really has been influenced by imperialism and racism. The Babar books have obvious colonialist undertones. Ditto the Man in the Yellow Hat. And as kids get older — well, “The Lord of the Rings” is waiting, with its Greco-Roman Gondorians besieged by darker races from the south and east.

The colonialist subtext in Babar is a complication in a brilliant series of books. In a free society that appreciates greatness, these flaws are good reasons to develop a diverse canon — but terrible reasons to make the works of important artists disappear.

It's more important than just overlooking "flaws." If you want your kids to understand racism or colonialism they have to see some real racism and colonialism. If you want your kids to  understand how some middle-class Belgians could possibly have countenanced what happened in the Congo, they should read Titin au Congo.  Your kids are not idiots. They will not become racist colonialists by reading this now thoroughly censored book. They may perhaps  understand something about the banality of evil, and what the the question is about, rather than just mouthing slogans. 

...it was a good thing when liberalism, as a dominant cultural force in a diverse society, included a strong tendency to police even itself for censoriousness — the [former] ACLU tendency, the don’t-ban-Twain tendency, the free-speech piety of the high school English teacher.

Now liberal cultural power has increased, the ACLU doesn’t seem very interested in the liberties of non-progressives anymore, and Dr. Seuss sells as pricey samizdat.

The link to Wendy Kaminer's ACLU op-ed is interesting. First, it links to the Wall Street Journal! In case you didn't know, 

The American Civil Liberties Union has explicitly endorsed the view that free speech can harm “marginalized” groups by undermining their civil rights. “Speech that denigrates such groups can inflict serious harms and is intended to and often will impede progress toward equality,” the ACLU declares

The [new] 2018 guidelines claim that “the ACLU is committed to defending speech rights without regard to whether the views expressed are consistent with or opposed to the ACLU’s core values, priorities and goals.” But directly contradicting that assertion, they also cite as a reason to decline taking a free-speech case “the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values.”

In selecting speech cases to defend, the ACLU will now balance the “impact of the proposed speech and the impact of its suppression.” Factors like the potential effect of the speech on “marginalized communities” and even on “the ACLU’s credibility” could militate against taking a case. Fundraising and communications officials helped formulate the new guidelines

Et tu, ACLU? One more institution of civil society falls to the movement. 

This is all tame stuff, you may say. And Douthat is the Times'  pet conservative. But they published it. What's noticeable, and worth a post, is that some self-reflection has come to this bastion of the woke revolution.  Sure, I wrote much more darkly in "Understanding the left." Sure, Edward Skidelsky has a great essay pointing to the parallels between today's woke movement and the totalitarians  of yore. All much deeper and harsher. But today's ray of hope is a little self-reflection from inside the movement. 

Update:

On Dr. Seuss, Dave Henderson has a great blog post on copyright law (aka Mickey Mouse protection!) and how absurd it is that 95 year old work is not public domain.