What to Do with Dangerous Writers
Concluding (for the moment) the discussion of Nazis on Substack
What is to be done with dangerous writers, or shall we say, writers with dangerous ideas? Last time, we talked about the issue that was raised in November about the fact that there are a handful of Nazi writers who are allowed to publish and earn subscription incomes on Substack.
A few of the thousands of writers here have reacted in various ways to this problem. Below are four approaches people have taken or talked about, and for those who are used to skimming, I’ve turned these into headings so you can jump to topics of your interest.
Boycott — in some situations, this action can apply financial pressure to any platform that allows, embraces or benefits from offensive writers.
Escape — individuals may wish to leave, which is somewhat similar to boycotting but more of a personal need than an activist agenda.
Ignore — some are apathetic, busy, and prefer to ignore offensive writers; others disagree that they are dangerous, and consider Nazi writers impotent; and others ignore them because they advocate free speech but don’t want to take a stand themselves.
Counterprotest — some have engaged in an active effort to rebut, ridicule, or otherwise defang dangerous writers.
I’ll discuss the first two options, Boycott and Escape briefly, because one requires organization that didn’t take place in this instance, and the other is a personal decision. The next, Ignore, is fairly common and worth a look, including a little story of my personal discussion with a very popular Substack writer.
The last option, Counterprotest, may be the most interesting one for those who wish to take action, but how to do so online? In discussing that, I’d like to draw on the story about why ACLU actions did NOT actually result in the proverbial march by Nazis in Skokie.
Boycott the Platform
Well-organized boycotts clearly have impacts when the boycotting protesters have leverage over the offending organization or company. I’m not sure how much leverage concerned writers have had over Substack, and although there appear to have been more than twice as many writers protesting the existence of Nazi writers as those who wanted to ignore them on the grounds of free speech, it’s not clear that the protesters were interested in organizing a boycott. They seemed more focused on raising awareness, stirring discussion, and getting Substack to remove offensive posts, or even the writers who make them, from the platform.
The purpose of a boycott would be to protest the platform for giving the dangerous writers a place to publish. Protesting the writers themselves, individually and directly, is a different approach, which I’ll discuss under Counterprotest.
Although there was no official boycott to apply financial pressure to the platform, bad publicity from the original Atlantic article (see my first article on the subject for the link) and subsequent protests against Substack may be why the platform actually did take down some offensive posts, enforcing policies it may have been lax about in the past.
Escape Them
If some writers, once made aware that they shared a platform with Nazis, felt so uncomfortable that they needed to leave in order to share their work with a clear conscience, this is nothing anyone can argue with. Hardly anyone wants to hang around with, or be seen hanging with, people who write approvingly of hatred and paranoid violence. Few even want to read these people’s writings enough to identify whether they are heat-seeking bullies or mindless ignoramuses aping the views of others, rather than active ideologues.
Ignore Them
There’s a case to be made for the notion that the Nazis on Substack are extremely sparse, with very few readers (except for one that I came across), and are not as dangerous as some. As I pointed out last time, only one of 21 organizations involved in the racist “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville actually identified itself as Nazi.
There are many dangerous ideas being promulgated these days. For example, we have a mainstream political party that is normalizing the vigorous efforts of Trump and Putin to undermine the rule of law, both internationally and domestically. We have antivaxxers, antiscience conspiracy theorists, Christian supremacists, white supremacists, Islamaphobes, mysogynists. We have a surge of people, many of them highly educated, channeling millennia of deep-seated and sometimes thinly veiled antisemitism. (As Dara Horn notes in her recent article on this issue, one activist many years ago successfully sued newspapers for libel after they accused him of being antisemitic when he claimed he was merely “anti-Zionist” — his name was Adolf Hitler.)
In the specific case of Substack, I do not believe the handful of Nazi writers here deserve the uproar their presence provoked, but I do think some of the other writers should not be ignored. Of course, we are all busy. What kind of action is worth taking on this issue? I’ll discuss some ideas on that in the Counterprotest section.
A Libertarian Approach
In the meantime, allow me to address those who ignore dangerous writers in the name of free speech. When the Nazis-on-Substack issue reared its ugly head, I asked the opinions of a very popular Substack writer whom I respected. He was the one who had inspired me to join this platform.
His response was to link me to an open letter he and about 100 others had written, appealing to Substack’s owners to ignore the problem in the name of free speech. He was particularly proud that Edward Snowden was one of the signatories.
A word about Snowden: He became a poster boy for free speech after exposing a U.S. domestic spying program that was found to be illegal in a court case in 2020. He calls himself a whistleblower but never applied for that status or sought its legal protection. Instead, he stole and released thousands of security secrets after flying out of the country for his own safety in 2013. Since then, he sought asylum in Russia, where he has become a citizen of, worked for, and took a loyalty oath to a government that recently imprisoned people for 15 years for using the word “war” instead of “special military operation.” Ironic for an icon of free speech! I can’t help vividly contrasting Snowden’s ideals vs actions with those of the great dancer and choreographer Bill T Jones, who emphasized the artist’s need for as much freedom as possible. When asked by his students how much freedom they can have, he said, “As much freedom as you’re willing to die for.”
After linking me to the open letter, the Substack writer, whom I’ll refer to as T, sent me this statement: “I urge you to support individual rights and civil liberties.”
Interestingly, he had strong ideas about liberty but never took a stand on the Nazi issue. To me, it felt like he was flying the flag of liberty from the back row of the crowd as he watched marchers in the parade goose-stepping down the road.
T went even further in his messages, and claimed that those who suggest limiting offensive speech are the ones with the “real Nazi problem.” He then compared them to the instigators of Soviet gulags and the Spanish Inquisition! Having expected a thoughtful response, I must say I was surprised at this slapdash abuse of stereotypes.
The truth is that although the right to free speech was laid out in the Constitution, it has, over the years, been limited with care and consideration by the courts, in the light of real circumstances. Libel, slander, falsely shouting “fire” in a theater, inciting violence, or aiding and abetting enemies, have all been considered off limits. The First Amendment never actually gave people a right to be respected, heard, or published; it simply protected people from legal jeopardy for their views. A private company such as Substack is not prevented from choosing which writers they permit on their own platform. Like the courts, it may be our responsibility from generation to generation to make sure our rights are fair for all.
My response to T’s libertarian mantra was to write, “I urge you to acknowledge that no society or economic system has ever functioned effectively without regulating individual rights and civil liberties. Even Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, in his Wealth of Nations, made clear that his beloved ‘natural liberty’ cannot succeed if governments pander to what he called ‘the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind.’”
Instead of mustering a coherent argument, T then resorted to name-calling. That’s when I lost a lot of respect for this prolific and popular writer. It made me think again about some of his posts and even the book of his that I liked so much, wondering whether it had actually been well-researched, or was more of a polemic.
T seems to be one of those who likes to call for civil liberties while hiding behind a computer and taking no stand himself about bad actors or difficult situations. Supporting freedom is apparently noble enough for him, leaving it to others to actually speak up, as if free speech itself will magically take care of things, because there are other people who care, other people who might even be willing to die for their freedoms, as Bill T Jones put it.
Philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote, “Bad men need nothing more…than that good men should look on and do nothing.” He went on to say, “He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name...because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject."
Another version of this sentiment, popularized by President Kennedy, is quite eloquent: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
So what can we actually do to oppose mean-spirited or even dangerous writers, of whom Nazis are a tiny fraction? Let’s take a brief look at Skokie 1977, a moment when the ACLU got anti-protest ordinances struck down, and, contrary to popular belief, the Nazis did not march.
Why the Nazis did NOT march in Skokie
Before the Nazis announced their decision to march in Skokie, there had been conflict in Marquette Square, Chicago. The Martin Luther King Association was organizing protest marches in support of integration, while the Nazi group from the other side of the square organized marches against it. Tired of keeping a police presence in Marquette Square, the city passed an ordinance requiring protesters to post a bond for the enormous sum of $250,000, ostensibly to cover possible damage from an event, but really to stop people from marching. This tactic had been tried lots of times in the South to prevent civil rights marches, so the ACLU was well practiced in striking it down as unconstitutional.
The ACLU quickly agreed to take the case for the MLK Association in Chicago, and the Nazis approached the ACLU to do the same for them. The ACLU refused, pointing out that it would be a duplication of effort — when they won the case, it would allow the Nazis to march as well as the MLK Association. The Nazis didn’t want to wait a year for the case to be resolved, though, so they decided to march in a suburb of Chicago. They wrote to a dozen suburbs, all of which ignored them except for Skokie. At that time home to about 7000 Holocaust survivors, Skokie made clear to the Nazis that they would not be permitted there. So of course they made plans to march there. Because they were AHoles and enjoyed getting in people’s faces.
Skokie tried to stop them with three new ordinances, including one like Chicago’s bond ordinance which, naturally, the ACLU took on as unconstitutional.
What happened next is what’s most amazing. Because of attention drawn to the issue, some 60,000 people planned a counterdemonstration. When they heard about this, the Nazis cancelled their plans. They never did march in Skokie.
When the bond ordinance in Chicago was struck down, the Nazis went ahead and marched there. But they could hardly be seen or heard due to the number of counterprotesters. And shortly afterwards, that chapter of Nazis folded. (For the full story, see this interview)
Counterprotest
Perhaps the moral of the story is the counterprotest. I say “counter”protest because offensive writers are always the protesters airing grievances, always the freeloaders who, as I wrote about, take for granted the centuries of hard work others have put in to sew together the fabric of society. They believe this fabric so strong that they can unravel it to benefit themselves and assume it will survive.
It’s interesting to note the numbers when hearing about marches by Nazis, Klan members, other white supremacists, antivaxxers, or Christian supremacists. In Skokie, there were zero Nazis and 60,000 counterprotesters. When the Nazis ended up marching in Chicago again, there were so many counterprotesters they couldn’t be heard, and they closed up soon after. In the violent “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, 2017, there were about twice as many counterprotesters as marchers, and at the anniversary march in 2018 there were about two dozen marchers and thousands of counterprotesters.
Maybe the response to offensive writers is not a laissez-faire approach, or an idealistic support for liberty. Perhaps the answer involves a real response, a counterprotest of sorts, by whoever cares about the issue: An online counterprotest, with facts, common-sense values, and if possible, a generous dose of humor.
Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions." Mark Twain’s take was, “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”
Jefferson and Twain are right, and for that reason, we should be grateful to people such as Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel for providing actual video clips from the news accompanied by withering and entertaining commentary that sets those clips into a common-sense perspective, disrupting the spell that the original speaker was attempting to cast. These are more than comedians; they provide a real social service. As Mary Poppins put it, “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.” And nothing makes a bully feel smaller and more impotent than ridicule.
One writer on Substack who offers analysis interspersed with humor about current events is Jay Kuo in his column The Status Kuo. In addition to serious analysis, Kuo provides a weekly bit of sugar in his “Just for Xeets and Giggles,” where he curates a long list of humorous and thought-provoking tweets each week that manage to reframe disturbing news items into a healthy perspective. For example, in a recent edition, one of the many tweets highlighted was a rant by Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming that Democrats are “blinded by hate & jealousy” of Donald Trump because they don’t have someone like him to root for. She concludes with a parting shot at Democrats: “Psycho.” And the devastating and hilarious response to that is a simple tweet by Bryan Taylor Cohen replying to MTG: “You don’t have to sign your tweets at the end.”
For Colbert, Kimmel, Kuo and others, humor is only one weapon to keep crazy ideas from being normalized. They also use rational, fact-based analysis. They are effective precisely because they seek out those facts to maintain perspective in the face of delusional or propagandistic thinking.
I think it makes a difference to respond to bad ideas rather than run away from them. If the response is fact-based and rational, and if we know when to stop (for me, after one or two replies), this can help remind writers with dangerous ideas that they’re not in a safe bubble, that people notice their failings, and that their community may be a marginal one.
On the other hand, it can be scary to respond to such off-base writers because for many of them, their M.O. is to play the bully and seek to intimidate and hurt people. The situation is not symmetrical — those who oppose bullies are not fans of authoritarianism and actually respect the rule of law. They do not respect or commit acts of intimidation. They know that responding to someone like that may call attention to themselves, and there can be a fear of putting themselves or others at risk in some unknown way.
One approach to this worrisome assymetry is to respond anonymously. If still maintaining values of being rational, even humorous, this may actually level the playing field, and it can be done on any platform. There are email addresses available that are anonymous and untraceable. They may not allow outgoing messages but will automatically confirm the email address if requested by the platform, and can receive messages (in some cases available to anyone who knows the email address). Writing anonymously but insisting on delivering thoughtful, concise, limited responses might be just the ticket for internet counterprotest.
If thoughtful counterprotesters have far outnumbered protesters in person, and resulted in diminishing their power, maybe counterprotests can be effective online as well, whether organized or one-on-one.
When someone tells a racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, anti-any-group joke or comment, whether in person or online, they need to be called out. An amazing movie about this was made in 1947 by Elia Kazan, called Gentlemen’s Agreement, about the consequences of not calling people out.
Proponents of dangerous ideas need to know they are seen, are unpalatable, and can’t hide or grow in the dark.
I appreciate your wrestling with this tough dilemma, Ed. I thought of Sebastian Haffner's journal written in Berlin during the rise of Nazism: when he and his friends were at their most depressed, a comedian poking fun at the Nazis gave them strength. Good satire is energizing. Sorry you had that bad experience with the popular writer.