Bari Weiss has a wonderful interview with Winston Marshall, the musician who quit Mumford & Sons rather than feel unable to speak his mind. I was unable to determine whether Marshall is named after Winston Churchill, but he says that during a period of reflection he was reading Andrew Roberts’s Churchill biography.
Marshall, after praising the work of journalist Andy Ngo in exposing the ugliness of Antifa, became the center of one of those dreary social-media crapstorms, and issued a “Soviet” (Bill Maher’s word) apology for having offended Twitter.
Marshall is a Catholic, and felt bad about the apology, which he should not have issued because he did absolutely nothing wrong. However, his praise of Ngo led to a pile-on against his bandmates, and he felt he had become an ongoing distraction from its efforts. He resigned rather than being a drag on his mates.
It turns out that it was the apology itself that was tearing away at Marshall. Weiss points out that P.R. consultants tend to default to the advice of “Apologize, and this will all blow over.” What if that means simply abandoning all sense of yourself, though? “I feel like I got my integrity back,” Marshall says, mentioning that he spent the week before his decision “planted” in his local church considering what to do. “I feel like I got my soul back. I feel good now.”
Not Thomas More, perhaps, but deeply admirable all the same. Courage is such a rare quality these days. It ought to be highly praised when it appears. When you’re right, stick to your guns. Do not apologize, or your soul will suffer. Let the mob do as it will.
“If I can quote the great American theologian of all time, Kanye West,” Marshall says, “‘Fear God and you will fear nothing else.’”