The challenge of keeping up with regular posts to my blog has to do with a certain editorial paralysis, which itself stems from a few related things:
- My self-identification as a writer, which makes it feel as though my every output is either a proof or a denial of that claim. This is, naturally, tied up with my self-worth.
- My interpellation into the norms of the Academy, in spite of the fact that I’ve personally disavowed the legitimacy of the whole institution. As I’ve said elsewhere, I feel that I must anticipate and “write ahead” of any future critique, not because I fear critical engagement with my work, but to shore it up against bad faith attacks on form rather than substance
- I am often writing “against the grain,” which means greater scrutiny, and requires greater rigor as it concerns supporting my claims with research or sources of any kind. I usually avoid this by writing speculatively or dwelling in abstraction, because I often don’t have the time, energy, or attention for that kind of rigor. Until I do, which results in my periodic long form essays.
But recent events — namely high profile murders and contentious debates about “free speech” — have me reconsidering all of this. I have never been a “free speech absolutist,” if indeed such a person exists at all, because “speech” does not exist in a vacuum. It very often has material consequences, and these consequences tend to fall with inversely proportionality to the degree of power people have in society, which is the basic argument I made in my essay on cancel culture some years back.
The about-face by the US political right on what speech should be protected is a direct attempt to reinforce existing power dynamics, manifest in white supremacy, patriarchy, and the rest, which the powerful — both in relative and absolute terms — perceived as under threat from the rise of social justice politics.
I’m years late to reading Freddie DeBoer’s scathing yet undeniably accurate analysis of the social justice movement, which as he astutely pointed out, did not actually win anything, least of all in material outcomes for the marginalized people for whom it claimed to advocate.
What it did accomplish, however, was to give cultural legitimacy and political ammunition to its critics, who have in turn captured state power and turned it ruthlessly — and materially — against those same marginalized groups. So it wasn’t only a lack of a win, but a loss so grave that we’ll be probably be feeling the aftershocks for a generation or more.
Coming back to this idea of free speech, the paralysis of my own expression, the anticipation of critique, only needs to be an issue where I actually care about what others think of my writing. Where I implicitly believe that my identity as a writer, or even my character, hinges upon opinions, validations, or rebukes from innumerable potential readers on the internet.
But this is a false premise. First of all, almost no one reads my work. And second, only I – and perhaps the relative handful of people with whom I am in close or even proximal relationship – know my mind, my heart, my integrity, the intentions behind whatever I post: right, wrong, supported by adequate evidence or not. There’s some irony in the fact my occasional readers and real life connections are entirely different groups of people, given that the latter also do not read anything I write here.
Third, the culture of the internet is averse to any earnest pursuit of truth or even arguments made in good faith. Charlie Kirk, who W. Kamau Bell, Will Shoki, and many others have rightly pointed out, was a grifter and a parasite who gorged himself on controversy and conflict, not from the conviction of his beliefs, but for profit and notoriety. Neither the actual facts nor the cultural and political impacts of his free speech mattered as much as the returns in followers, clicks, and income.
He was, for these reasons, and the actual content of his speech, an awful person. And yet, none of that justifies his murder, or the spectacle of his death, which itself will remain fodder for consumption until something else comes along to sate people’s appetites for violence.
But here I am, paralyzed, because my speech is a direct reflection, an extension, of who I am as a person, my values, my convictions, my integrity. And my commitment to justice, to liberation. I also feel a distinct tension between the strong desire for my writing to disseminate far and wide, and a commitment to remaining relatively obscure on the internet. It would seem that I am the diametric opposite to someone like Charlie Kirk.
So why should I feel so constrained, where he was entitled and emboldened to shower his millions of followers in venom and shit? If I speak from my values and toward my purpose, then shouldn’t it be okay for me to get it wrong sometimes — most of the time! — to engage in principled discussion and debate in a search for even better answers?
Of course there are other considerations, like the professional risk of taking unpopular or even controversial positions. Especially considering that the internet’s memory, reinforced by the archive, and a virtual army of digital forensic sleuths willing to unearth and mischaracterize any speech to serve personal or political agendas.
But I can’t – and haven’t – let myself be constrained by these potential threats either. I am already on record as not only supporting Palestinian liberation, a position which I think will age as well as the support for genocide must certainly curdle and rot – perhaps on that day when “everyone will have always been against it“. But I am also on record with my belief that the state of Israel should no longer exist – a seemingly extreme position, but one that with a good faith reading will be understood as a case for true liberation for both Palestinians and Jewish people. Such a reading is unlikely on the internet, with its algorithmic hunger for outrage, controversy, and conspiracy. I have likely already sealed my fate in that regard, and yet, I remain steadfast and unabashed in my position because it consistent with my values.
So I think I will lean more into this commitment to speak my mind — free speech! — and all the social and professional peril it brings, for what I might be able to contribute toward a greater purpose I share with so many comrades, of speaking truth to power.
It seems like the least I can do.