This YouTube interview (Connor Beaton with Coleman Hughes) argues that free speech is chronically contested and that those with cultural power often seek to silence critics. Hughes traces historical examples (McCarthyism, slaveholders) and applies the pattern to contemporary cultural institutions, suggesting left-leaning elites presently exert power to limit speech. He cites the controversy around Abigail Shrier’s book (marketing suspended/removed from some retailers) as an example, and Connor Beaton shares a personal anecdote about receiving backlash to posts about body-image and fitness. The tone is analytical-critique with illustrative anecdotes.
Chapters
Free speech is always under attack. It's been under attack throughout all of American history. At any point in time you can find people say, saying, actually, we should shut, we should shut those voices down. And the people saying that are always the people who have cultural power. Right? The people who have cultural power in any given moment, they always want to silence their critics. It's like a human nature tendency in every society on Earth. The concept of letting other people speak and letting everyone have an opinion, that's pretty actually rare. More, more common is to say, they're the enemy, we have more power. Let's freaking kill them or throw them in prison.
So essentially, the people that have cultural power always want to get rid of free speech. McCarthyists essentially wanted to get rid of free speech because of the threat of communism.
You know, the slaveholders wanted to get rid of free speech for, for abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass because, you know, they were threatened. Who has cultural power today in some way? You can always see who has cultural power by who is trying to get rid of free speech. Right? Because they are assuming getting rid of it will benefit them. They're assuming they won't be thrown in prison or canceled or have their lives destroyed. So the people calling to get rid of free speech are quite often, almost always the ones with the cultural power who would benefit from such a change. And in the year, you know, 2023, that happens to be because of recent changes in American history and culture that happens to predominantly be people with liberal views on issues like race and gender. Right.
Like, for example, to give one example, I may get the facts slightly wrong here, but Abigail Shrier, who wrote a book critical of trans activist ideology, her, I think the marketing campaign on Amazon, it was suspended. Like her book was suspended for a little while. And I think it was. It may also have been taken off of the target website. Right. And it's not a bigotry screed by any. It's a journalistic account of how certain young teen girls are, are.
Suffering from rapid onset gender dysphoria and quickly moving into trans medical transitions that they potentially later regret.
It's like happening within groups. Right? Like she specifically does research around how it's like happening in clusters, essentially, if I'm not mistaken.
Right. Which you would not expect if it was.
Which, which is, which suggests a social contagion element. Anyway, that's her thesis. Agree with it or don't. That's her thesis. Generally you're allowed to write a book with a thesis about society and it doesn't get like, taken off major booksellers, even if it's like crazy, right? There are thousands of crazy, horrible, vicious arguments in books. They never get taken down. On the other hand, if you were a pro, like a very left wing pro trans activist, you. There's no book you could write crazy enough to get it removed from the Target website at this moment. It just, it wouldn't happen. So what does that say about cultural power at this moment? I'm not talking about political power. I'm not talking about who has money or who is in the halls of Congress. Those are different questions, important questions, but different one. I'm talking about who has sort of power at a lot of elite American institutions, corporate institutions. Right now that power skews a bit to the left. And so it's no accident that you see mostly people on the left.
Attacking free speech.
That's a very interesting way to put it. And I appreciate that because I think.
That pieces some things together for me that I've. That I've wondered about. It does seem like we've entered into this space where.
Advocacy has turned in, has been weaponized. You know, like, I made a post the other day talking about, I'm on this mission to be. I turned 40 in November, and so part of what I wanted to do was try and get into the best shape of my life by 40. And it just seemed like a good goal for me to set. And so I'd made a post about, you know, body image and how 40% of men struggle with body image and how that was something that growing up, you know, at one point I was like 245 pounds, and I didn't really like the way that I bought my body looked. I was a little overweight, et cetera. And I started to talk about how really getting into, you know, keeping care of my body and working out five, five, six times a week and eating healthy has been incredibly rewarding. And it's changed and altered the way that I view my body. And I was, I mean, maybe I shouldn't have been shocked, but I was a little surprised at how many people were messaging me being like, oh, this is, you know, toxic body positivity and this is so unhealthy. And I mean, I, you know, all I was saying was I've enjoyed working out and eating healthy.
And was it, was it mostly men or women?
It was mostly women. And were they like women in your.
Audience or just like Internet strangers?
A little bit of both, yeah. A little bit of both, yeah. And what I, what I noticed is that it was, like, a little bit of, like, tagging, like, anytime that I have a controversial post.
Like about a year and a half, two years ago, I put a post up that's like, I said, you know, I'm not sorry for being a man or something. Something along those lines, like. And that, I mean, that just garnered a tremendous amount of hate and, and ferocity, which was really interesting to.
