Why did a school board in Tennessee remove the acclaimed graphic novel Maus from its eighth-grade curriculum? For the good of the children, of course!
They mustn’t be allowed to read crass words, or see nude cartoon mice, you see. Teachers are also being restricted in how they talk about sensitive topics of race, gender, religion and so forth. It’s for everyone’s protection!
This theme, which I see running through so much of our cultural discourse, is nothing new:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C.S. Lewis
Not many years ago, people brought the same type of argument against the LGBTQ rights movement: God will send hurricanes and earthquakes as punishment! Society will fall to pieces. Children need both a male and a female parent (for their own good)!
Hell, it’s the same justification used to prevent women in some countries from leaving home without body coverings and a male escort: It’s for their own benefit, of course, and the good of society.
This is a pernicious instinct.
Control and safety
It isn’t just religion that turns people into control freaks, either. Many secular societies crave the benefits of firm controls. South Korea was praised for curbing the spread of COVID-19 early, for example:
“After a positive case gets confirmed, officials then use GPS phone tracking, credit-card records, medical records, and video surveillance to trace an infected person's travel history.”
Who needs privacy when the greater good is on the line? Strict controls in China also received applause in the early days of the pandemic. Here’s how those lockdowns resulted:
Unbelievable, isn’t it!? They brought the disease under control. Totally flattened the curve… well, then again, maybe all that chart shows is that absolute power needs to conceal information that gets in its way.
In a crisis, people often think the “extraordinary circumstances” and “special categories” are a good justification. But controls over speech, thought, and behavior rarely turn out to be temporary.
This brings me to Joe Rogan, Neil Young, and the latest annoying culture-war topic.
What does this have to do with Neil Young?
Folk rock legend Neil Young pulled his music catalogue from Spotify last month, costing the multimillionaire an estimated $750,000 a year in royalties. Young said he didn’t want his music on the same platform as MMA commentator Joe Rogan’s podcast.
That is his right, of course. Young should be able to do what he pleases with his music. However, the chorus of demands, canceled Spotify memberships, and petitions from a roisterous left-wing crowd felt familiar…
It’s that urge to control people for their own good: Rogan can’t be allowed to spread misinformation. His audience can’t be permitted to hear it. It’s for their own good!
Fellow Canadian rocker Joni Mitchell joined the movement:
"I've decided to remove all my music from Spotify. Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives."
Mitchell seemed to be ignoring that Neil Young himself has been the source of a lot of misinformation. In fact, Young doesn’t have a great record on pandemics, as evidenced by his early remarks on AIDS.
For years, Young has been obsessed with pushing misinformation about genetically modified foods (GMOs). By some estimates, the anti-GMO activism led by Young and other public figures likely resulted in millions of deaths.
Few media outlets noted the hypocrisy.
Instead, Young has spent the past weeks absorbing gushing praise for his brave stance against misinformation. Few media outlets pointed out that Young spread anti-GMO drivel with insidious conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai.
However, you can find audio of their joint appearance posted to Ayyadurai’s deranged pseudoscience podcast. Apparently, neither Young nor Mitchell had any concern about scientific misinformation during the 11 years they shared the platform with Ayyadurai.
Anyway, I suppose my first point is that Young is not a hero who stands up for sound science. Neither is Mitchell.
Does Spotify have a misinformation problem?
Gwyneth Paltrow, whose brand, goop, is a wellspring of unscientific bunk, has a podcast on Spotify too. She has been sharing absurd covid misinformation since 2020, with few demands that she be silenced.
It’s not just Spotify either—her podcast is carried by Google, Apple and Pandora; Netflix hosts her show, which follows similar themes.
Google, one of the top podcast platforms, carries a series by medical quackery legend Dr. Oz. If you go looking for Ayyadurai on Pandora, you’ll find every zany bit of him (though no artists are threatening to de-list their music over it).
Is Apple Podcasts any better? They ran a cheeky ad calling their platform the “Home of Neil Young,” without mentioning that Neil shares that home with both Ayyadurai and Paltrow. Paltrow suggested eating kimchi and taking infrared saunas to help cure long COVID, and I guarantee neither Young nor Mitchell will be demanding their music be removed from Apple, Pandora, and Google.
*sigh*
They don’t care about scientific misinformation and all of this is so stupid.
Frankly, I don’t like defending Rogan. I’ve listened to two or three of his episodes all the way through, and there’s plenty to criticize. But I understand why his supporters are frustrated. In Rogan’s most recent episode, he described what’s happened as a political hit-job, and it could not be more obvious that he’s right.
Young was able to spread dangerously false information for years with no consequence. Where were the demands that YouTube block his anti-GMO appearance with Stephen Colbert? Imagine if actors and musicians boycotted CBS until the episode was excised, or started demanding their content be pulled from Netflix until Gwyneth Paltrow’s show was removed.
Young and Paltrow shouldn’t be removed from these platforms too, to be clear. That isn’t the point. Corporations like Spotify, Apple, Google and Pandora shouldn’t be so involved in speech issues.
Tech companies are not good arbiters of truth, medical accuracy, and scientific consensus. For those of us on the political left, we ought to be cautious asking corporations to act as censors. Ben Burgis writes in the Daily Beast, Progressives Who Want Joe Rogan Off Spotify Should Be Careful What They Wish For.
“Advocating for escalated corporate censorship is playing with fire.”
Jack Shafer also makes good points at Politico: The Dangerous Appeal of Neil Young’s Righteous Censorship.
Almost nobody I know on the political left has shared any concern about this, and it irks me.
For Rogan’s fans, a deeper frustration is that everyone has been wrong about pandemic issues at some point. It’s simple to find videos of CDC director Rochelle Walensky saying, “Vaccinated people do not carry the virus — they don’t get sick.” This is a false statement, yet official channels for NBC and MSNBC still carry videos saying exactly that. There’s no disclaimer pointing people to a more accurate source.
There are very different standards at play here.
Control is not the right choice
We can’t save everyone from themselves. Although I’ll admit I understand the urge to see things differently when it’s a public health issue that affects everyone. “Special circumstances,” right?
But I agree with Jon Stewart that censorship and de-platforming is usually the wrong response. I’m sure there’s a line to be drawn somewhere—Spotify has rules prohibiting dangerous, deceptive, sensitive, or illegal content. There’s no problem with adding disclaimers.
However, trying to stifle misinformation seems less effective than building up reliable, accurate sources. Control makes people want to rebel, especially in a give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death country with a those-who-sacrifice-freedom-for-security-deserve-neither mentality.
There’s a reason the position, “pro-vaccine but anti-mandate” is so popular: People want to be encouraged and persuaded to make the right choice, not compelled. As Princess Leia told Grand Moff Tarkin, “the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
OK, maybe it’s unfair to compare a government’s well-intentioned attempts to stop a pandemic to an evil empire... But the Galactic Empire in Star Wars sincerely felt that structure and order were in the public interest. That’s exactly the problem.
If only I could simply wave a magic wand and force people to stop being so controlling, we wouldn’t have this problem...