The original claim was "the overwhelming majority of pressure to cancel books and academics is directed at the left by the right, regardless of what gets column inches and think-pieces."
Many would say that the overwhelming majority of the academy is left of center. This makes it intuitive that if there is censorship of academics, then the recipients of the censorship would be people left of center. But I do not think it follows that the censors are on the right.
I argue that most of the censorship on campus, be it people being uninvited or forced to resigned, comes from the academy itself. It is true that, quite possibly, the vast majority of the people being censored are on the left, but I think it is also true that the vast majority of the people censoring are also on the left.
The right simply occupies very little room in the academy. It mostly exists outside of the academy.
This is not to say that people on the right (mostly from outside of the academy) do not come in with censorious intentions... but my impression is that most universities are very well protected against external interventions. It is simply not the case that a business leader or a radio show host can easily censor a professor on campus.
So if we are thinking about, say, college professors, I would say that we are mostly dealing with a left-left censorship.
That is, the left is not this uniform block.
Kathleen Stock is a leftist:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-59084446
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Stock
Bret Weinstein is a leftist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Weinstein
Verushka Lieutenant-Duval is a leftist:
https://arts.uottawa.ca/visualarts/people/lieutenant-duval-v...
The people doing the cancelling were on the left.
Many would say that the overwhelming majority of the academy is left of center. This makes it intuitive that if there is censorship of academics, then the recipients of the censorship would be people left of center. But I do not think it follows that the censors are on the right.
I argue that most of the censorship on campus, be it people being uninvited or forced to resigned, comes from the academy itself. It is true that, quite possibly, the vast majority of the people being censored are on the left, but I think it is also true that the vast majority of the people censoring are also on the left.
The right simply occupies very little room in the academy. It mostly exists outside of the academy.
This is not to say that people on the right (mostly from outside of the academy) do not come in with censorious intentions... but my impression is that most universities are very well protected against external interventions. It is simply not the case that a business leader or a radio show host can easily censor a professor on campus.
So if we are thinking about, say, college professors, I would say that we are mostly dealing with a left-left censorship.
That is, the left is not this uniform block.
Kathleen Stock is a leftist: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-59084446 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Stock
Bret Weinstein is a leftist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Weinstein
Verushka Lieutenant-Duval is a leftist: https://arts.uottawa.ca/visualarts/people/lieutenant-duval-v...
The people doing the cancelling were on the left.