We're done being nice to these people. Ruthlessness is called for and appropriate.
They haven't earned niceness or respect. They don't deserve it. And more importantly, it's counterproductive. They need to be mocked until they are laughingstocks and social pariahs. That's how the culture heals. It's the only way.
Is this an empirically based conclusion? I'm just wondering because the entire Democratic party has been mocking Trumps based non-stop and intensively for over 8 years. Surely the effort has been 10,000 times stronger than Walsh's, yet I'm having a hard times seeing the healing effect.
If mocking is "the only way," what is the point of Persuasion?
Click on "About." "Persuasion is a publication and community for everyone who shares three basic convictions:
Yascha's Point #3 is: "We seek to persuade, rather than to mock or troll, those who disagree with us."
Your new Point #3: "Ruthlessly mock until they are laughingstocks and social pariahs."
I'd just note that MLK used Persuasion and won, Black Power tried the "ruthless" approach, accomplished little except for the destruction of the Democratic Party from '64 till Nixon's landslide in '72. "Ruthless mocking" is the feel-good, virtue signaling approach, but it's not strategic and it doesn't lead where you hope it does.
This is in no way a defense of Trump's base or an attack on the Democrats.
The arguments in this article are well spoken, clear and correct. However, social and political satire exists for a reason, and the tone set by this article will not resonate with many among us who are deeply and passionately committed to equality of rights but are nevertheless horrified by the sweeping popularity of the radical anti-racist movement and agenda. I agree that the movie will fuel polarization--but not for the right reasons. The people it will offend most have shown us time and time again that they cannot take a joke. It certainly will make some people angry and offended. But, again, isn't that oftentimes what political satire is for? I didn't see any massive outcry from the left when South Park laid into Mormons, and the Mormons that I know did not react with increased polarization against the comedy channels. When Cartoonist Garry Trudeau savagely and hilariously lampooned Donald Trump, the Donald reacted with ill-chosen and hard words for Garry but all he accomplished was to make for better copy on the back cover of a retrospective Doonesbury compendium. Nobody accused Trudeau of fueling division--he just made our Sunday mornings a bit more entertaining. If Walsh's work offends some people and hurts some feelings I would say that this is a much better alternative than, for example, relentlessly destroying careers, livelihoods and reputations. Enough people have had burning kerosene poured over our heads for so long now--I would say they deserve a good laugh. Meanwhile, we would all be delighted to see the woke left dial up on comedy and satire while dialing down on destroying the lives of good and innocent people with devastating personal attacks by mobs of humorless and self righteous charlatans. The real problem with this movie is that the people who most need to see it will not, but when history looks back at this period it will probably be viewed as being a natural by-product of a very confusing period in in our wild, wooly and often ridiculous cultural history.
I agree with all your points, but think you're missing a crucial one -- how polarization really works. As Yascha frequently points out, left extremism fuels the polarization of the entire right, and right extremism fuels polarization of the whole Democratic Party. It's a vicious cycle that benefits only the two extremes.
In this case Walsch appears (and that's all that matters) as a right-wing extremist to Democrats. The mistake is to think that this will only polarize the people he's attacking. That's exactly backwards. They are already fully polarized.
The problem is that moderate Dems and Dem-leaners will have sympathy for the underdog (a mistake, but oh so common) and will react against Walsh, the "right-wing extremist." This pushes moderate Dems to feel protective of the extreme left and to hate everyone on the right (who they identify with Walsh).
If you think about it, extremists (L & R) always deliberately provoke attacks on themselves in order to gain sympathy, they want to look like martyrs. Walsh is playing into this.
It's well worth understanding how polarization really works and why Yascha frequently points out that it's a vicious cycle.
I now appreciate what you are saying even though it took me quite a while to digest it. A disturbingly long time. My mental block was that it's hard for me to relate to this kind of comedy as an "attack" especially in this environment where truly organized and ruthless personal attacks (cancellation, de-platforming, gaslighting, destruction of careers based on intentional lies and distortions, decontextualization and so on) are so commonplace--the movie seems to be free of this style of attack and instead turns the mirror on it's subjects. But insofar as Walsh's technique can or should be regarded as an attack your point is well taken and appreciated. Thanks!
Thanks for understanding. I'm completely sympathetic with your not seeing it as an attack or worse a ruthless attack as Walsh himself calls it and the top comment here doubles down on. So it's only the "can ... be regarded" part I'm arguing for. Unfortunately as McMillian notes, many DEIers are well-intentioned true believers, and moderate Dems very easily "can regard" them as being ruthlessly attacked. It's mostly a matter of sorting out who is thinking what. It's the moderate Dems that I want to wake up, so I pay attention to how they get duped and what offends them.
The DEI movement is an authoritarian movement that both should and deserves to be exposed and defeated intellectually as well as through satiric mockery. The article seems to assume that any honest belief in epistemically crazy and morally corrupt ideas should be protected from criticism. I would guess that McMillan here in not symmetrical, this is a special protection he grants the DEI movement. I would be surprised if he would propose and ask for the same protection towards individuals or authoritarian movements on the right or various fundamentalist religious communities that honestly believe crazy stuff.
MLK did not for one second believe that the KKK/Police should be protected from criticism. Yet he told his followers to love their enemy (although he said they were not required to like them). Instead of basing his actions on what they deserved, he (and many who deserve more credit) thought strategically — they cared most about winning. And they won. In spite of treating thuggish adversaries with respect. And in fact they won because they treated their adversaries with respect, and the nation saw the difference.
Four months after Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act and after a year of politics focussed on race, Johnson won the biggest landslide in the whole 200 year history of the Democratic Party.
Then the Black Power radicals deliberately and methodically killed the Civil Rights Movement and shifted to disrespecting and attacking their adversaries. Black Panthers spawned the Black Liberation Army that conducted police assassinations. In 1972 Nixon defeated the Dems with a landslide as big as Johnson's. It had lost 40% (20 million voters) of the support it had with MLK-Johnson.
Many of the comments here today are the result of the authoritarian far-left movement, which we abhor, having erased the memory of James-Farmer (CORE)/Bayard Rustin/MLK strategy and replaced it with their own failed beliefs.
So you're basically saying these people can be for years as over the top insufferable as they want and those on the receiving end should remain 'nice'. I have a foot deeply in both left and right camps and I can tell you that I have been shocked at the ugly remarks about the right I hear from people on the left at cocktail parties and social gatherings. Until recently, people on the right i know have been far more likely to scratch their head in bewilderment while expressing confusion about people can believe some of this stuff, or saying bless their hearts (in the southern meaning of the word), and when really provoked saying these folks must be mentally ill rather than horrible people. I think you are expecting saintly behavior from folks who have been roundly abused for too long.
Sorry, John. The public needs to be reminded and reminded again about the abuses of the antiracism trainers and their promoters at universities, . . . Most of the people I meet in my daily life don’t read Substack blogs about DEI’s demise; they’ve fallen for white guilt and what Yascha terms an ‘identity trap.’ So, yes, keep up the barrage, Matt Walsh, until society returns to normal.
We are both professors; we have both been mocked. I am fine with that. But I disagree that Walsh's movie only inflames the problem. When I saw it, I was embarrassingly enlightened by the degree of the inauthenticity of those he interviewed. It is easy for those of us who teach generally compliant students, those of us who embrace the Rawlsian idea of Justice as Fairness, those of us who feel deeply the goodness of the Catholic principle of the Preferential Option for the Poor... to be entirely blind to how such great ideals are transformed into raw scam in the hands of academic hustlers. So indeed, you can never be too helpful when you deflate a balloon like Robin DiAngelo. Academia: Heal Thyself! Thanks Walsh; now I see the ailment more clearly, and yes I also feel a little nauseous for seeing it.
I agree with John that Walsh’s film fuels polarization but makes good points. However, his real news is: “Turns out, left-wing illiberalism can be defeated through the normal process of cultural change.” And he endorses “America is becoming less ‘Woke.’”
Many seem to believe Woke flared up in about June 2015 when BLM bought StayWoke.org. Trouble is he’s missing the first 50 years of its history. Don’t let the name changes fool you.
Read Peniel Joseph or his interview on NPR about how Malcolm X and MLK worked together as a team. He’s the lead Crit historian from the same grad program as Kendi. Do a little more research and you’ll find the true history of Black Power(BP) / CRT / Identity Politics / Systemic Wokeism. Lot’s of ups and downs but long-run growth that’s phenomenal.
Some history: 11/10/63 Malcolm X launches BP (not yet named). Calls MLK an Uncle Tom. Calls for violent anti-colonial Black Revolution || 6/19/66 Stokely Carmichael launches BP on Face the Nation. Calls MLK white supremacist, explains CRT’s two key principles. || 1968 BP invades campuses, still continuing || 1980 Derrick Bell writes up Carmichael’s “whites never help Blacks unless in their self-interest” principle as foundation of CRT || 1989 K. Crenshaw launches CRT “movement” and ID Politics together || 1992 Feinberg launches Trans Movement || 2014 CRT microaggressions adopted and spread by UC || 2015 BLM adopts Assata Shakur, Black Panther cop-assassination leader from 1972 || 2019 Kendi reveals his concept of racism is from Derrick Bell and M. X, and that his anti-racism is from Carmichael. || 2023 M. X’s colonial views break out on campuses.
I don't see why this is smells of "far right partisanship." It looks like just the thing from my center left, Trump hating, Harris voting, anti woke perspective.
Wow, matches my own take to a 'T'. "Great minds," and all that....
"...but it nevertheless had me (an ardent DEI critic) occasionally feeling sympathy for the DEI zealots being ridiculed. Many of these folks have deleted their Twitter and other social media accounts since the movie was released. However misguided they are, most of them (with the notable exception of Rao) seem quite sincere about what they are teaching."
Holding sincere fanaticism up to ridicule is off limits?? That exemption lets just about every fanatic off the hook. (If any serious historian has accused Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, or Pol Pot of insincerity, for instance, it's news to me.)
That's not what I'm saying at all. Satire and ridicule are some of the most powerful weapons against tyranny. In fact, one of the best ways to identify the tyrannical party in any situation is to observe who is most humorless.
The problem I had with Walsh's technique was the deceit involved -- the same problem I have with Sacha Baron Cohen's stuff. They both use that deceit, along with the complaisance of ordinary Americans, to make their subjects look worse and more extreme than they actually are.
I also wish Walsh had done a little less clowning and just let these folks talk more. The absurdity and incoherence of their views would have been even more apparent if he had done that.
Did Robin DiAngelo look more extreme than she actually is when, following Walsh's lead, she handed a $30 cash "reparation" to the film's black producer? I thought that was hilarious.
If Professor McMilllian really believes that "DEI is already in retreat", I recommend Sam Kahn's excellent piece published only six days before his in this very magazine, "Woke is Here to Stay":
Bottom line, it's a strategic retreat at best. Let the satire and parodies continue as if our freedoms depended on them, since to an extent, they still do.
We're done being nice to these people. Ruthlessness is called for and appropriate.
They haven't earned niceness or respect. They don't deserve it. And more importantly, it's counterproductive. They need to be mocked until they are laughingstocks and social pariahs. That's how the culture heals. It's the only way.
Walsh is "doing the work" here. Bravo to him.
Is this an empirically based conclusion? I'm just wondering because the entire Democratic party has been mocking Trumps based non-stop and intensively for over 8 years. Surely the effort has been 10,000 times stronger than Walsh's, yet I'm having a hard times seeing the healing effect.
If mocking is "the only way," what is the point of Persuasion?
Click on "About." "Persuasion is a publication and community for everyone who shares three basic convictions:
Yascha's Point #3 is: "We seek to persuade, rather than to mock or troll, those who disagree with us."
Your new Point #3: "Ruthlessly mock until they are laughingstocks and social pariahs."
I'd just note that MLK used Persuasion and won, Black Power tried the "ruthless" approach, accomplished little except for the destruction of the Democratic Party from '64 till Nixon's landslide in '72. "Ruthless mocking" is the feel-good, virtue signaling approach, but it's not strategic and it doesn't lead where you hope it does.
This is in no way a defense of Trump's base or an attack on the Democrats.
The arguments in this article are well spoken, clear and correct. However, social and political satire exists for a reason, and the tone set by this article will not resonate with many among us who are deeply and passionately committed to equality of rights but are nevertheless horrified by the sweeping popularity of the radical anti-racist movement and agenda. I agree that the movie will fuel polarization--but not for the right reasons. The people it will offend most have shown us time and time again that they cannot take a joke. It certainly will make some people angry and offended. But, again, isn't that oftentimes what political satire is for? I didn't see any massive outcry from the left when South Park laid into Mormons, and the Mormons that I know did not react with increased polarization against the comedy channels. When Cartoonist Garry Trudeau savagely and hilariously lampooned Donald Trump, the Donald reacted with ill-chosen and hard words for Garry but all he accomplished was to make for better copy on the back cover of a retrospective Doonesbury compendium. Nobody accused Trudeau of fueling division--he just made our Sunday mornings a bit more entertaining. If Walsh's work offends some people and hurts some feelings I would say that this is a much better alternative than, for example, relentlessly destroying careers, livelihoods and reputations. Enough people have had burning kerosene poured over our heads for so long now--I would say they deserve a good laugh. Meanwhile, we would all be delighted to see the woke left dial up on comedy and satire while dialing down on destroying the lives of good and innocent people with devastating personal attacks by mobs of humorless and self righteous charlatans. The real problem with this movie is that the people who most need to see it will not, but when history looks back at this period it will probably be viewed as being a natural by-product of a very confusing period in in our wild, wooly and often ridiculous cultural history.
Beautifully said.
I agree with all your points, but think you're missing a crucial one -- how polarization really works. As Yascha frequently points out, left extremism fuels the polarization of the entire right, and right extremism fuels polarization of the whole Democratic Party. It's a vicious cycle that benefits only the two extremes.
In this case Walsch appears (and that's all that matters) as a right-wing extremist to Democrats. The mistake is to think that this will only polarize the people he's attacking. That's exactly backwards. They are already fully polarized.
The problem is that moderate Dems and Dem-leaners will have sympathy for the underdog (a mistake, but oh so common) and will react against Walsh, the "right-wing extremist." This pushes moderate Dems to feel protective of the extreme left and to hate everyone on the right (who they identify with Walsh).
If you think about it, extremists (L & R) always deliberately provoke attacks on themselves in order to gain sympathy, they want to look like martyrs. Walsh is playing into this.
It's well worth understanding how polarization really works and why Yascha frequently points out that it's a vicious cycle.
I now appreciate what you are saying even though it took me quite a while to digest it. A disturbingly long time. My mental block was that it's hard for me to relate to this kind of comedy as an "attack" especially in this environment where truly organized and ruthless personal attacks (cancellation, de-platforming, gaslighting, destruction of careers based on intentional lies and distortions, decontextualization and so on) are so commonplace--the movie seems to be free of this style of attack and instead turns the mirror on it's subjects. But insofar as Walsh's technique can or should be regarded as an attack your point is well taken and appreciated. Thanks!
Thanks for understanding. I'm completely sympathetic with your not seeing it as an attack or worse a ruthless attack as Walsh himself calls it and the top comment here doubles down on. So it's only the "can ... be regarded" part I'm arguing for. Unfortunately as McMillian notes, many DEIers are well-intentioned true believers, and moderate Dems very easily "can regard" them as being ruthlessly attacked. It's mostly a matter of sorting out who is thinking what. It's the moderate Dems that I want to wake up, so I pay attention to how they get duped and what offends them.
100% reasonable :)
The DEI movement is an authoritarian movement that both should and deserves to be exposed and defeated intellectually as well as through satiric mockery. The article seems to assume that any honest belief in epistemically crazy and morally corrupt ideas should be protected from criticism. I would guess that McMillan here in not symmetrical, this is a special protection he grants the DEI movement. I would be surprised if he would propose and ask for the same protection towards individuals or authoritarian movements on the right or various fundamentalist religious communities that honestly believe crazy stuff.
MLK did not for one second believe that the KKK/Police should be protected from criticism. Yet he told his followers to love their enemy (although he said they were not required to like them). Instead of basing his actions on what they deserved, he (and many who deserve more credit) thought strategically — they cared most about winning. And they won. In spite of treating thuggish adversaries with respect. And in fact they won because they treated their adversaries with respect, and the nation saw the difference.
Four months after Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act and after a year of politics focussed on race, Johnson won the biggest landslide in the whole 200 year history of the Democratic Party.
Then the Black Power radicals deliberately and methodically killed the Civil Rights Movement and shifted to disrespecting and attacking their adversaries. Black Panthers spawned the Black Liberation Army that conducted police assassinations. In 1972 Nixon defeated the Dems with a landslide as big as Johnson's. It had lost 40% (20 million voters) of the support it had with MLK-Johnson.
Many of the comments here today are the result of the authoritarian far-left movement, which we abhor, having erased the memory of James-Farmer (CORE)/Bayard Rustin/MLK strategy and replaced it with their own failed beliefs.
So you're basically saying these people can be for years as over the top insufferable as they want and those on the receiving end should remain 'nice'. I have a foot deeply in both left and right camps and I can tell you that I have been shocked at the ugly remarks about the right I hear from people on the left at cocktail parties and social gatherings. Until recently, people on the right i know have been far more likely to scratch their head in bewilderment while expressing confusion about people can believe some of this stuff, or saying bless their hearts (in the southern meaning of the word), and when really provoked saying these folks must be mentally ill rather than horrible people. I think you are expecting saintly behavior from folks who have been roundly abused for too long.
Sorry, John. The public needs to be reminded and reminded again about the abuses of the antiracism trainers and their promoters at universities, . . . Most of the people I meet in my daily life don’t read Substack blogs about DEI’s demise; they’ve fallen for white guilt and what Yascha terms an ‘identity trap.’ So, yes, keep up the barrage, Matt Walsh, until society returns to normal.
We are both professors; we have both been mocked. I am fine with that. But I disagree that Walsh's movie only inflames the problem. When I saw it, I was embarrassingly enlightened by the degree of the inauthenticity of those he interviewed. It is easy for those of us who teach generally compliant students, those of us who embrace the Rawlsian idea of Justice as Fairness, those of us who feel deeply the goodness of the Catholic principle of the Preferential Option for the Poor... to be entirely blind to how such great ideals are transformed into raw scam in the hands of academic hustlers. So indeed, you can never be too helpful when you deflate a balloon like Robin DiAngelo. Academia: Heal Thyself! Thanks Walsh; now I see the ailment more clearly, and yes I also feel a little nauseous for seeing it.
This is wonderfully put, thank you.
Thank you.
I agree with John that Walsh’s film fuels polarization but makes good points. However, his real news is: “Turns out, left-wing illiberalism can be defeated through the normal process of cultural change.” And he endorses “America is becoming less ‘Woke.’”
Many seem to believe Woke flared up in about June 2015 when BLM bought StayWoke.org. Trouble is he’s missing the first 50 years of its history. Don’t let the name changes fool you.
Read Peniel Joseph or his interview on NPR about how Malcolm X and MLK worked together as a team. He’s the lead Crit historian from the same grad program as Kendi. Do a little more research and you’ll find the true history of Black Power(BP) / CRT / Identity Politics / Systemic Wokeism. Lot’s of ups and downs but long-run growth that’s phenomenal.
Some history: 11/10/63 Malcolm X launches BP (not yet named). Calls MLK an Uncle Tom. Calls for violent anti-colonial Black Revolution || 6/19/66 Stokely Carmichael launches BP on Face the Nation. Calls MLK white supremacist, explains CRT’s two key principles. || 1968 BP invades campuses, still continuing || 1980 Derrick Bell writes up Carmichael’s “whites never help Blacks unless in their self-interest” principle as foundation of CRT || 1989 K. Crenshaw launches CRT “movement” and ID Politics together || 1992 Feinberg launches Trans Movement || 2014 CRT microaggressions adopted and spread by UC || 2015 BLM adopts Assata Shakur, Black Panther cop-assassination leader from 1972 || 2019 Kendi reveals his concept of racism is from Derrick Bell and M. X, and that his anti-racism is from Carmichael. || 2023 M. X’s colonial views break out on campuses.
I’m sure this will end any day now.
I don't see why this is smells of "far right partisanship." It looks like just the thing from my center left, Trump hating, Harris voting, anti woke perspective.
Wow, matches my own take to a 'T'. "Great minds," and all that....
"...but it nevertheless had me (an ardent DEI critic) occasionally feeling sympathy for the DEI zealots being ridiculed. Many of these folks have deleted their Twitter and other social media accounts since the movie was released. However misguided they are, most of them (with the notable exception of Rao) seem quite sincere about what they are teaching."
https://jensheycke.substack.com/p/am-i-racist-a-review
Holding sincere fanaticism up to ridicule is off limits?? That exemption lets just about every fanatic off the hook. (If any serious historian has accused Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, or Pol Pot of insincerity, for instance, it's news to me.)
That's not what I'm saying at all. Satire and ridicule are some of the most powerful weapons against tyranny. In fact, one of the best ways to identify the tyrannical party in any situation is to observe who is most humorless.
The problem I had with Walsh's technique was the deceit involved -- the same problem I have with Sacha Baron Cohen's stuff. They both use that deceit, along with the complaisance of ordinary Americans, to make their subjects look worse and more extreme than they actually are.
I also wish Walsh had done a little less clowning and just let these folks talk more. The absurdity and incoherence of their views would have been even more apparent if he had done that.
Did Robin DiAngelo look more extreme than she actually is when, following Walsh's lead, she handed a $30 cash "reparation" to the film's black producer? I thought that was hilarious.
Agreed.
If Professor McMilllian really believes that "DEI is already in retreat", I recommend Sam Kahn's excellent piece published only six days before his in this very magazine, "Woke is Here to Stay":
https://www.persuasion.community/p/woke-is-here-to-stay
Bottom line, it's a strategic retreat at best. Let the satire and parodies continue as if our freedoms depended on them, since to an extent, they still do.
Here’s my very short review. https://substack.com/@scottgibb/p-149728030
And here is a more thorough review by Bryan Caplan. https://www.betonit.ai/p/reflections-on-am-i-racist?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true