why does the exact same article keep getting written? pic.twitter.com/1ithcre8KO
— Jean-Michel Connard 🎃 (@torriangray) May 17, 2023
I’m sure it’s a very successful PR pitch for Pamela Paresky, which was presumably the whole point:
… The second rule of the gatherings is that Pamela has to like you. Pamela is Pamela Paresky, the gathering’s organizer, a fifty-six-year-old psychologist who lives in Chelsea. She has spent her life among the intelligentsia; she attended Andover and Barnard before going to the University of Chicago for her Ph.D., and spent years living near the tony ski town of Aspen, Colorado. In early 2019, while Paresky was visiting New York, a friend forwarded her a dinner invitation from the journalist Bari Weiss. “Dear Thought Criminals,” Weiss’s note began. Paresky found the greeting funny and decided to copy it when, during the first fall of the pandemic, she invited a few people to a dinner of her own. She began holding her gatherings on a monthly basis and eventually moved to the city. Now anywhere from a dozen to sixty people might show up at each event. (Some of the attendees I spoke with refer to themselves as Thought Criminals, embracing Paresky’s tongue-in-cheek nickname. Others find the moniker cringey and avoid using it.)
“In a place like New York, you feel surrounded by people who are so far removed from where you are,” Nick Gillespie, an editor-at-large at the libertarian magazine Reason and a regular at the gatherings, told me. “Every conversation is about how capitalism is evil or how America is the most racist, sexist, homophobic country in the world.” As a result, he said, “There’s a lot of political homelessness.” On average, the group probably leans to the right, at least when compared with the rest of the city. But a few socialists go, along with a contingent of libertarians, such as Gillespie, who come ready for debate. “And you bring drugs,” he added.
A social club so fascinating professional Libertarian Nick Gillespie needs drugs to get through the gatherings…
Many of the attendees aren’t interested in advertising their participation. Others, including Michael Thad Allen and Samantha Harris, co-owners of a law firm who jokingly refer to themselves as the Lawyers to the Cancelled, are more open. “We’re not at Thought Criminals soliciting business,” Harris told me, although she has sent several clients toward the group—including Joshua Katz, a former Princeton professor who wrote a controversial essay in 2020 calling an anti-racist protest group, the Black Justice League, “a small local terrorist organization.” In 2021, Katz and his wife, Solveig Gold, a former student of his who finished her undergrad at Princeton a few years ago, started commuting into the city to attend Paresky’s gatherings. In 2022, Katz was fired from Princeton after the university said that, among other things, he had not been fully honest and coöperative during an investigation into a consensual sexual relationship that he had with another student in 2006 and 2007. Paresky was texting him and his wife every day to check in on them. “I doubt we’re the only people she’s doing that for,” Gold told me. Katz has taken to calling Paresky the Mother Hen of the Cancelled…
It’s a commonly held belief on the left that concerns about cancel culture are overblown, if cancel culture even exists at all. Paresky considers it a genuine threat. In our conversations, however, her definition of “cancelled” was somewhat elusive; it encompassed people who suffered professional consequences, sure, but she also referred to instances of social-media pushback as “attempted cancellations.” However she defines it, she’s clearly preoccupied with the idea. Her writing, primarily featured in Psychology Today, focusses in part on the social dynamics of ostracization…
More big reveals: Paretsky also promotes an ‘edgy’ comedian who she discovered making “a crude (video) series mocking Dylan Mulvaney”, and the aggrieved mother of a Yale swimmer who’s devoted herself to demanding transgender women not be banned from competion:
Jones doesn’t consider herself cancelled; she believes that “ninety-nine per cent of people agree with almost everything I say.” Paresky jumped in: “But how many people are willing to be vocal about it?” Jones replied, “This is why I love coming to the Thought Criminals.” Elsewhere, she said, “People who are frightened to read up on something or to dig into a controversy will be, like, ‘Oh, I agree with you, but I just don’t know how to articulate it, or what if I lose my job?’ ”…
Or what if you’re just… a giant yarping tool, someone normal people can’t wait to get away from?
trying to make these people seem interesting is truly an impossible feat lmao pic.twitter.com/RM1lpcJBA6
— p.e. moskowitz (@_pem_pem) May 17, 2023
“A happy hour for ‘canceled’ conservatives is being bankrolled by a wealthy donor and no one wants to tell me who it is. Oh well! Anyway this one guy says he can’t get jobs because he’s white and I’m just gonna print that without comment.”
— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) May 17, 2023
“Cancelled” nyc conservatives are willing to go in the record and liberals in rural areas are legit afraid, what does th at tell you.
— Crabcake Inspector (@ilpomodoro2) May 18, 2023
The concerns about cancel culture somewhat belied by willingness to be written about by name in the New Yorker. Let’s consider the inverse, libs in North Florida who’d get their mailbox shot at if they put up a Biden sign so they stay quiet.
— Crabcake Inspector (@ilpomodoro2) May 18, 2023
Even in a post-Thielbux world I don’t think we really grasp just how much fucking money is being set on fire subsidizing these people and trying to force them into relevance https://t.co/n0aRtvLAFp
— WEF Enjoyer (@lib_crusher) May 18, 2023
it’s brave, actually, that this journalist and this magazine were willing to step out on a limb and write and publish the first profile of this group of a half dozen boring local celebrities that anyone has read in at least two or three months
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) May 18, 2023
Sadly Emma leaned so hard into covering white evangelicals sympathetically in 2014-17 that she just fell hook, line, & sinker for right-wing culture war grievance bullshit. Hate to see it.
— Matthew Terrill (@Matt_Terrill) May 18, 2023
Emma Green is dim. Her articles on religion for The Atlantic repeatedly framed politics as pious Christian Republicans vs mostly anti-religious but also the extremely rare Christian Democrats
That nitwittery got her hired by The New Yorker. https://t.co/yAqDSTFN4w
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 18, 2023
Baud
Kay bait.
zhena gogolia
Getting ever closer to cancelling my New Yorker subscription.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I see that you must have commented on my thread right before I pulled it.
Omnes Omnibus
It’s like a human Salon des Refusés in the Upsidedown.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: I was wondering what happened to it.
Kay
Guffaw. Do NOT dare to speak to these people. There will be NO PUSHBACK in freespeechland!
They have an even funnier definition than “people said I had dumb opinions online”. If they can’t point to a specific cancelling incident they say the person “self censored” so therefore was effectively cancelled, it’s just that only (the whiner) knows about it.
You could be cancelling them and not even know it!
dmsilev
“Cancelled” because apparently he had a habit of sleeping with undergrads? Oh, the humanity!
zhena gogolia
@dmsilev: The NYT did a profile of his present wife a while ago. It was vomit-inducing.
craigie
I call shenanigans that these libertarians actually exist.
Kay
@dmsilev:
The author of the piece includes “fired for breaking university rules” in “cancelling”. What?
I love that they can’t just get fired- they’re WAY too special for that. They have to dress it up as a violation of their rights, and the author buys this bullshit completely. She nods along approvingly as they spoon feed her this self serving nonsense.
“He got fired for sleeping with students” is much less grand and noble than “he was fired for HIS BRILLIANT IDEAS”
justawriter
Why do I imagine these evenings all the voices are those of little children dubbed in like those Haribo commercials? Except more annoying.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Anne Laurie’s went up a few minutes after mine, and I figured mine could wait.
Hungry Joe
Michael Hobbes (quoted twice in the post) was co-host of the (still) outstanding podcast “You’re Wrong About.” He now co-hosts two equally compelling podcasts: “If Books Could Kill,” which systematically and hilariously eviscerates popular crapola books like “Freakonomics” and “Hillbilly Elegy,” and “Maintenance Phase,” focusing on pop nonsense about diets and wellness.
Anne Laurie
If the tenured profs can’t take their pick of the crop, why do we even *have* coeds?…
Wasn’t it just… *nicer*, when only a token number of non-white students were permitted in the Ivy League?…
Transgenders: are they even people? And why must they be all up in our business, where they know they’re not wanted?
JUST ASKING QUESTIONS!!! Why must the normies turn us into Thought Criminals?!? Oh, the humanity… [to the fainting couch]
SpaceUnit
First rule of Snowflake Club is never shut up about being in the Snowflake Club.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@zhena gogolia: I canceled my Atlantic subscription last week. Too much anti-Trans punching-down crap.
Anne Laurie
I have not personally met him, yet I am forced to believe that Nick Gillespie, Professional Libertarian, exists.
And goes to parties like this. To, y’know, network.
Dorothy A. Winsor
My book is not a best seller. It must be because I have been cancelled. (insert eyeroll emoji)
Kay
See how hip they are? They do drugs and sing folk songs. Sometimes they go to gay clubs.
So much of this is people who thought they were cool and leading-edge hitting middle age and recognizing that no one younger thinks they’re interesting anymore. It’s people that are aging poorly. Bitterly. They all think the 1990’s were the Golden Age. It’s pathetic.
different-church-lady
Because the exact same thing keeps happening.
Shalimar
Crabcake Inspector is exactly right about Northwest Florida. Politics don’t intrude into daily life that often and it is a gorgeous place to live, but I am definitely not putting any Democrat’s sticker on my car. That would be a good way to get hit or shot intentionally.
kindness
I wonder which rich Daddy is financing this group. It would be wrong not to know.
different-church-lady
@SpaceUnit: Win.
Ripley
Have these people never worked in a large for-profit organization? Maybe pushback is for “the little people”.
I’m reminded of George Costanza at the Physical Therapist’s office: “Ohhh, the delicate genius has a POLICY!!”
Delk
I wonder who the intellectual dark web’s most eligible bachelor is?
Kay
@Hungry Joe:
My daughter is a PA and she uses Maintenance Phase to inform her practice because she’s trying to come up with a science-based, sensible, non shaming way to talk to people about their weight, (particularly women) who are often all fucked up about eating and weight. She’s not satisified with what she learned in school. She loves the podcast. Thinks all health care providers should listen to it.
Elizabelle
Maybe they can host a pity party sendoff for Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos shyster. Who has been canceled right into having to report to a jail cell very soon. She gets serious points for being canceled.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: Holy fuck, before I clicked on the link, I said to myself, “I bet he is wearing a leather jacket.”
eclare
Truly grievances of the privileged. Spare me. I used to (key word used) have a friend like that, upper middle class, White, straight male. Could not let go of grievances over changing names of buildings named after Confederate generals, etc.
craigie
@Anne Laurie:
He may exist as a person, but the politics of libertarianism are situational, ie, meaningless. Ipso facto, there are no such things as libertarians.
dmsilev
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think I’ll try that the next time some referee recommends rejecting an article I’ve written because it’s “not sufficiently interesting to warrant publication in this journal”, I’m going to write to the editor and complain about cancellation culture in the selection of articles on quantum magnetism. If that doesn’t work, maybe I’ll get someone to write an NYT Op-Ed piece on the intrinsic unfairness of it all.
I’ll report back and let everyone know how well it works.
dmsilev
@Omnes Omnibus: At one point, he had the nickname “The Fonzie of Freedom.”
eclare
@SpaceUnit:
Hahaha…
Sure Lurkalot
@Hungry Joe: I will also give a shoutout to Michael Hobbes’ podcasts. All 3 shows do have a similar format but they are informative, thought provoking and often (as you say) hilarious.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@dmsilev: Go you!
Roger Moore
So the dude is a professor who has repeatedly slept with his students, and he’s whining about getting cancelled. Sorry, dude, but professional ethics 101 includes something about not sleeping with your students. Being held to clearly stated professional ethics does not constitute cancellation.
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: Ah, I had forgotten that.
FWIW, I also have a leather jacket. I just don’t use it as a personality substitute.
Phylllis
@zhena gogolia: We just resubscribed after letting it go about three years ago. I used to read it on Sundays, cover to cover. Now I find myself thinking ‘who cares’ about almost 90% of the content in any given issue. Cartoons are still mostly funny, tho.
mrmoshpotato
I see some people are too good to hear Trump trash bitch and moan in a Midwest diner. Fuck the authors of this whiny asshole articles, and fuck the rich trash they’re writing about.
MomSense
@Hungry Joe:
I listen to all the Michael Hobbes and Aubrey Gordon podcasts. Maintenance Phase is so good. My cousin’s daughter, who is a journalist in the UK, got me started on it and it’s a must listen. My youngest son’s GF has been using it as a reference for her nutrition classes.
Sure Lurkalot
Talk about cancel culture…in the last few years, I’ve canceled the FTFNYT, the New Yorker, the New York Magazine and the Atlantic. Select days I come very close to canceling WAPO and if they don’t renew it for $20/year or less, I’m probably gone girl there too.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I think the allegedly liberal media people going along with the “cancel culture” nonsense are showing their true colors. Yeah, they say they care about liberal ideals, but they care a lot more about class loyalty.
Sure Lurkalot
@MomSense: @Kay:
So awesome that Maintenance Phase is used by professsional health care providers! They really provide good insight and debunk a ton of junk science.
NotoriousJRT
@zhena gogolia: Thank you. I was trying to recall where/when I read n eerily similar story on Gold (and Katz). At that time I deemed them boring whiners who somehow were grabbing 15 seconds of sorta fame. Since I’m such a damn prol, I could not for the life of me figure out why Gold was worth writing about. Still can’t. I shan’t be tempted to read Emma’s report beyond the excerpts in AL’s post. Our “elite” have the capacity to find new ways to be execrable.
Roger Moore
@Ripley:
Ding! Ding! Ding! This is exactly the problem. They’re too important to suffer consequences for their actions. The media figures who constantly amplify their complaints are worried the same thing could happen to them.
NotoriousJRT
@different-church-lady: agree!
different-church-lady
I haven’t read the New Yorker in quite a few years, but they do have a time-honored tradition of writing about ridiculous people in ways that are ostensibly neutral but actually invite the reader to understand the absurdity. Lillian Ross was the master of this. Isaac Chotiner is carrying it on.
Without reading the piece in question I don’t know if it qualifies, but I can imagine it might. Or perhaps is a failed attempt at such.
Roger Moore
@craigie:
There are actual, honest to goodness libertarians out there. Radley Balko is probably the #1 example. He actually cares about abuse of state power in the form of police and prisons, and has written about it extensively. He’s definitely the exception rather than the rule, though.
mary s
Are these people cancelled? Seems to me that they’re just wrong about most things. It’s hilarious that they think people secretly agree with them but aren’t brave enough to say so.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
I read that the author had the same approach covering evangelicals for the Atlantic – she just regurgitated everything they said as fact.
Kay
@mary s:
The unverifiable parts of their claims of cancelling just scream “bullshit” to me. The secret agreeing, the secret cancelling – it reminds me of the blog joke- “no one agrees with me in the comments but I get emails from fans”
They’re not actually confident in these opinions. If they were they wouldn’t have to create an imaginary crowd backing them up.
zhena gogolia
@Phylllis: I only read the cartoons
Roberto el oso
Not that I was actually expecting much, but talk about a letdown …. “[Paretsky] has spent most of her adult life among the intelligentsia” … and then the first name that comes up is … Bari Weiss?
And I was at least hoping there’d be a coy teaser or two regarding this pack of sad sacks shooting up in the restroom stalls at Olive Garden.
JML
The examples of the people in this “group” all sound like insufferable shitbags, horrible humans you think they are vastly superior to everyone else and bitter when they get called on their nonsense by basically anyone.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
“The lurkers support me in email” dates back at least to USENET days. Someone even wrote a song about it.
robmassing
There needs to be a name for the Cletus Safari to Learn the Views of Rich Fascists
JR
“Fart sniffers sniff each other’s farts”
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, I’d estimate that 10% of self described libertarians are principled.
Raoul Paste
@SpaceUnit: So perfect
YY_Sima Qian
Really disappointing coming from the New Yorker. I would have expected it from the NYT.
Redshift
Conservatives are so fond of saying “thoughts” are being criminalized when something they want to do isn’t allowed.
If you’re going to cite Orwell, assholes, give me one instance when you were subjected to interrogation or torture to extract some unspoken thought! No one is making rules about your thoughts. They’re not even talking about punishment, what they’re really saying is they should be allowed to say whatever offensive things they want without having to put up with people being offended.
Redshift
So if Pamela doesn’t like you, you’ll be… cancelled?
That’s really the whole story right there.
Citizen Alan
@craigie: I call shenanigans that these so-called Socialists exist. Rich white cosplay Marxists would lose their shit if the government raised their taxes to pay for improved social services.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
People still do it: “everyone is mad at you- I talk to all of them off this blog – some of the lurkers LEFT because of you”
Unverifiable!
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I had a custom made leather jacket once.
Made for protecting me if I fell off my motorcycle. Later I also had a full leather suit – for the same reason. I rode motorcycles for over 50 yrs.
Ruckus
@JML:
Bingo!
Kay
Here’s some other coddled, ridiculous snowflakes:
They’re all huffy and offended that the drug company is defending. How DARE he take an…adversarial position in a courtroom! Why is the lawyer so mean to them?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Omnes Omnibus:
Did you buy it in a foreign country for much more than it was worth?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mr. Bemused Senior: No, I think I got it at a Filene’s Basement.
Anne Laurie
IIRC, the NYTimes hook was that Gold had very wealthy influential-in-the-right-(NYTimes-reading)-circles parents, and also she was very blond and extremely fit, and — shocker! — she decided to marry the tenured Yale prof who was about to get ‘cancelled’ for treating his classes like a dating app.
Yale went on paying him, because tenure, and she had some kind of multi-generational trust fund to cushion her fall, but: So brave! that they chose to face down the ignominy and get married. Just like half the mid-level 1950s ‘lit’ry’ novels about a free-wheeling prof marrying one of his toothsome young students — a tradition, even, for the delection of certain upper-income New England masturbatory fantasies…
Baud
@Kay:
That is some major league BS. The language was not only wholly unremarkable, but it was in no way a personal assault. Right wing lawyers use stronger language all the time.
Splitting Image
Leaving aside the fact that all of these people are pretentious douchenozzles, what I love about this story is the fact that they are literally a “coastal elite”. They’ve recreated the Algonquin Round Table with a bunch of less interesting people, convening in New York at only the most fashionable gathering places where they can mingle with only the best society.
Tony G
@Kay: “cancelled cancellations”! I say that we must bravely forge ahead to cancel all cancellations of cancellations! By the way … now I can reveal that John Rudden said something mean to me on the playground in fourth grade. He cancelled me!
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
You have their number😂😂😂😂
waspuppet
I wonder how often the name Colin Kaepernick comes up in their discussions.
(I don’t really wonder.)
mary s
@Anne Laurie: I went to grad school with him — or at the same time as he did. So he did exist back in the early 90s. As far as I can remember, nobody cancelled him. I think people mostly just rolled their eyes. And, of course, he’s gotten much better at building his brand since then.