Why do we leap to the defence of those who hate us?
It’s a lesson the Right is incapable of learning, and the reason the Left has been so absolutely dominant for so long.
There is something heart-warmingly naive about conservatives. Believing in a transcendent idea of truth and reality, they remain wedded to certain principles.
That people should not be hindered from advocating certain viewpoints is key among these. ‘We must,’ comes the cry, ‘defend all who have their voices silenced. Today they are silenced, tomorrow it is us.’
So, in theory, goes the argument. In its core it is a sound one. It is commonsensical.
It is unevenly applied in practice, however. When fellow travellers, often of a spicier variety, are kicked off from a Big Tech platform there is little commotion from those on the right who wish to remain cosily in the cordon sanitaire of modern discourse. Milo, Gavin McInnes, Alex Jones et al: all disappeared off the interwebs with nary a complaint among the cosmopolitan right.
It was not just those types who were cancelled. Big Tech flexed its muscles and banned Trump himself off their platforms, his absence now treated as just another fait accompli of modern censorship.
Indulging in the ‘what if’, say ‘Ten For The Big Guy’ Biden were banned from social media platforms, or perhaps Bernie Sanders or our very own Comrade Corbyn. It is instructive, although, of course, it would never happen. Campaigns would be launched, teeth would be gnashed and anger would pour in from every side.
This is, after all, what happened when Novara Media was briefly dumped by YouTube, its channel banned for no apparent reason. Those on the right, full of empathy having been through the same thing countless times, stood up for their comrades in decrying this unwarranted suspension of freedom of expression.
‘Comrade’ is the key word. The outlet is run by a motley crew of LARPing communistas, its Ash Sarkar memorably declaring ‘I’m literally a communist’ on national television.
Communism is an ideology whose ability to dodge historical accountability is unmatched. For the initiate psychopath, hell-bent on shedding the blood of their political opponents, it is the perfect vehicle. Classes can be liquidated, suspect ethnic groups rounded up, deported and worked to death, and power concentrated in the hands of party cadres. It is the ideology that initiated the Red Terror and murdered millions in paranoid pursuit of a perfect society. Nevertheless, declaring one’s allegiance to the evils of Marx and Lenin remains publicly acceptable.
Yet, we are somehow asked to leap to the defence of those advocating for it when they fall victim to the totalitarian monster of modern tech censorship – something they have played no small part in creating. I searched in vain on Twitter this morning for Novara’s condemnation of Trump being taken off the platform. One of its staff at that time said that having a Twitter account was not an ‘inalienable right’.
‘But,’ many will still argue, ‘we must argue from principle.’ Common sense would tend to agree. However, it feels increasingly as if common sense requires commonality: an overlooked part of the equation.
‘Tolerate those who advocate for your eradication’ – this is forever the cry of the modern person of principle. Tolerating yourself into the forgotten annals of human history, your cause snuffed out by opponents whose morals proved far more flexible and whose nose detected opportunity to score points far more readily.
Sorry, I can’t bring myself to get too upset about Novara, not that it mattered anyway: they’ve already been reinstated. These are the people advocating the destruction of our civilisation and who go in for the kill when the chance presents itself.
It’s a lesson the Right is incapable of learning, and the reason the Left has been so absolutely dominant for so long.
