Not one of the recent cancellation attempts has been justified, and NR has stood on principle on every occasion.
National Review is what I have taken to calling a “full service” defender of free speech. Not only do we vigorously defend the legal right to speech that is contained within the First Amendment, we seek a broader American culture in which that right can be candidly used. As ever, your support is crucial to this effort — not only because your donations help to keep us afloat, but because every gift we receive makes us less dependent on the avenues that are targeted by the cancelers. How’s that for a twofer?
Simply put, National Review understands that the United States requires both legal and cultural protections of free speech, and that, ultimately, the two concepts will not be separated for long. A culture in which free speech is voluntarily cherished is a culture that will demand the construction of solid legal protections of free expression, just as a country with solid legal protections of free expression is a culture that will come voluntarily to cherish free speech. The addition of the First Amendment, James Madison argued when introducing the Bill of Rights, would not merely limit the power of the state but ensure that the ideals the provision sought to protect would remain “incorporated with the national sentiment” forever.
What is that “sentiment,” exactly? There is a parsimonious version of the defense of free speech that holds that the only thing that Americans should worry about is infringement by the state. And, certainly, it is important to draw such lines. As a purely legal matter, we understand that while the federal government cannot silence or bowdlerize Joe Rogan, Spotify may do so if it so wishes. But while it is true that private institutions may be as illiberal and censorious as they like, this does not mean that they should be, or that there exists no role for the citizenry in making its expectations clear. Our unashamed view at National Review is that argument is better than forbiddance, that sunlight is preferable to darkness, and that tolerance, not outrage and cancellation, ought to be our default mode. We have strong views on the nature of civil society, because civil society is where we do our living, and because self-censorship, fear, and damnification make that living worse.
Which is to say that it is entirely possible — indeed, it is imperative — to distinguish neatly between the role of the government and the role of the citizen while demanding open-mindedness, patience, and grace from both. As a purely practical matter, it does the average American little good to be inoculated from government superintendence if he must fear for his livelihood and reputation each time he opens his mouth. At National Review, we have those citizens’ backs — yes, even the ones we don’t like, don’t agree with, or don’t respect. When pushed to explain themselves, the architects of our metastasizing cancel culture like to raise wild hypotheticals in order to establish that there might be such thing as a line one ought not to cross. But one does not need to reject that claim out of hand in order to understand that we are so far away from that line being relevant as to render the observation banal. Not one of the recent cancellation attempts has been justified: Gina Carano’s was not. Donald McNeil’s was not. Alexi McCammond’s was not. Chris Harrison’s was not. Ilya Shapiro’s is not. Joe Rogan’s is not. Whoopi Goldberg’s is not. National Review stood against them all.
At the root of the desire for free and open speech is humility. To prefer freewheeling dialogue over cramped censoriousness is to understand that one might be wrong, in part or in full; to understand that times and tastes change, and that people need time to catch up with them; and, most important of all, to understand that if we are to live together in this vast continental nation of ours, our reflex ought to be toward charity. If you share these goals, please consider donating to our webathon. And if you don’t share them . . . well, then bring it on.
