"Oh, I see you're complaining about Nero fiddling while Rome burns again. Pretty ironic that you found time to complain about this *as Rome burns*."

--Very Smart People in 59 AD, presumably

Thread:

Where the analogy between that and what I criticize in my new book breaks down is that it would have been fine for Nero to play his fiddle a bit--actually, my understanding is that it was probably a cithara, but never mind that--if he'd *also* been doing something about the fire.

By contrast, spewing moralistic nonsense that gives persuadable people whose economic interests align with our agenda a terrible impression of the left (all the left pathologies that "canceling comedians" shorthands) is bad even if you're also doing all sorts of useful activism.

Criticizing that behavior, meanwhile, is useful for at least two reasons.

One is that most leftists who contribute to the culture of moralistic nonsense that's undermining our efforts are basically well-intentioned people and I see no reason to think that lots can't be convinced to relate to this stuff in a healthier way.

The other is that the mere act of criticizing it signals to people outside the left that lots of leftists hate it all as much as they do and they can join us without liking it.

And no, "outside the left" here doesn't mean "the right." It means everyone who isn't affiliated with us yet but could be.

What we *are* seeing right now, though, is that the right is getting all sorts of mileage out of talking about this stuff--which is exactly what left critics of cancel culture like Noam Chomsky have been warning us would happen for a very long time.

Also worth talking about non-CC manifestations of moralistic nonsense on the left like a refusal to reconsider even the most hideously counterproductive antifa tactics.

I worry that we'll be seeing the right weaponize *that* to sell the public on all kinds of terrifying neo-McCarthyite state repression that might be coming down the line.

The tl;dr of all of this is "the world is burning at a much faster rate than it was when I wrote the book *and that's exactly why we need to talk about this stuff*."