Anatomy of the “Cancel Culture”

By: Jaffer Ali

A little more than a week ago I was suspended from the largest professional email forum in the world. I was a founding board member many years ago. I survived several attempts over the years at being banned…but in this climate it seems the commons need protection from a crass person like me.

Apparently among other things, people complained about my recounting how IQ was measured in the 19^th century as outlined in Gould’s book, The Mismeasure of Man. I am not complaining here. My post was considered unduly political as well as vulgar. I read what I posted in a stream of consciousness several times. I received about a dozen private emails “supporting” the overall POV but aside from one person trying to get me reinstated, there was no public discussion, unless it happened after my suspension.

I decided not to try to get reinstated. 

– Jaffer Ali

Post #1

Folks,

I know posting here is like yelling into a wind tunnel with only me hearing the sound. This is one of the last forums from which I have not yet been kicked out.

Before I go any further, I despise Trump…(and Biden for that matter). I despise Alex Jones and a raft of others who may or may only have a passing acquaintance with facts. My post is about media and the arena of ideas. I support a pluralist arena for all with whom I agree or disagree. Zionists? Nazis? Antifa? Flat Earthers? David Icke? Buzz Aldren (2^nd man to step foot on the moon who says the Pyramids were definitely made by aliens), Sacha Baren Cohen AKA Borat…

If we do not muddy the water here with incitement to violence and address the notion that if we accept the notion that there is something like a Ministry of Truth, we will absolutely go down the road to informational totalitarianism, followed by real totalitarianism. The Truth is a huge sticky wicket and like science itself is self correcting. In the late 19^th Century, intelligence was thought to be inversely proportional to the distance between the tip of a man’s penis to his naval. To wit, the bigger the penis, the less intelligent one was deemed (As outlined in Stephen Jay Gould’s history of IQ work, The Mismeasure of Man). At the time, Africans were thought to be less intelligent because….they had bigger penises. For some reason, I seem to remember Swedish men being the most intelligent (or maybe that is a punch line to a joke).

What is obviously true today may be completely wrong tomorrow. Truth is not and more importantly SHOULD NOT be the arbiter of what should be seen by the great unwashed. Moses, Jesus, Muhammad were all heretics in their day.

So now the media is de-platforming the President. Oligarchs run wild… Whether Trump was lying or not is not the point. He is the frickin’ President and he is being censored. Again, I do not personally care on wit for the content of what he was saying, but unless people begin to understand what is really at stake, we are headed for something worse than lies dominating our FB timelines, Twitter feed, email stream or airwaves. Lies (if they are thought to be lies) are best rebutted with someone’s version of the truth.

To see so many people in favor of censoring what they think are lies is a bridge too far for my silence. I will wait being warned for not playing well in the sand box here while others obsess about permission based subscriptions.

Jaffer

Post #2

I believe MailChimp censored Steve Bannon. Again, I do not follow Bannon. Email marketing is what I do. Political email marketing seems to be within the purview of this forum but please note that I am not advocating ANY specific political program but questioning the wisdom of Big Tech stifling the free flow of ideas. I am not even questioning their “right” or [Administrator’s] right to limit discussion. I question the wisdom of limiting the commons. In ancient Greece, Oligarchs (where the name first came from) limited the free expression of ideas inside the commons. This usually was to stifle dissent.

I am not surprised by [Administrator’s] suggestion to “disregard” the post and/or myself. It seems to me that this is the proper forum to discuss email censorship. My post had no partisan political content whatsoever. MailChimp and its Big Tech brethren are seemingly the arbiters’ of Truth. This is as much epistemological as anything and certainly about the limits of power.

If you think email industry professionals should not address ESP arrogance, then where can this discussion take place? Judging from many private emails I received, there seems to be interest. I would imagine the pro-censorship folks that are certain they have dead aim on the Truth are up in arms and wanting to do what they like doing; stifle POVs in which they do not agree. Meanwhile MailChimp and ESPs who are clever at delivering a commodity at significant prices would not be terribly happy at an open discussion. Even those that agree with me are *cautioning* me to maybe just discuss these issues with people that agree with me.

But if we shine a light on what I believe is a grave danger to our industry and society, I am prepared to die on this hill. If you want to ban me, that is your prerogative. This issue is bigger than any of us.

Jaffer