Bari, for me your NYT resignation letter is perhaps the most important piece of writing of 2020. It was like a fire bell in the night. I've read too much about deadly revolutions to not be afraid for our time. Keep up the good fight--I'll be reading and persuading others.
Your interview with Megyn sparked me to subscribe to Substack. You are a brave and thoughtful person and I admire your courage to speak the truth about the insanity in our world. I believe that there are millions of Americans who love America agree with you.
This is an incredible piece. I haven’t been this excited reading an essay like this in some time; it gives me hope that there are enough sane people out there to make a difference.
I read your resignation letter from the New York Times. That set the hook. You possess the confidence and integrity to leave a "prestigious" platform with likely generous compensation and job security at a time where the people around you blindly joined the "their team" rather than show the courage you possess. I don't always agree with what you write, but you hold my attention, admiration and respect nonetheless, I hope that's worth something. I am excited to read more Bari Weiss pieces.
Thank you for your consistently insightful comments. I agree, Team Blue and Team Red seem unable to discuss much. The "team" approach does not seem to work now. I have friends who very much want me to join their team...and cannot understand me not joining. I cannot. For now, I continue to try to learn, without leaning (too much). Thank you for helping with this process.
I just subscribed in a heartbeat Bari! I’m so glad you’re doing Substack where you can write anything you like. I read your book and listened to the audiobook and I am looking forward to your next book.
The media covered up and explained away leftist riots and other forms of violence last year, implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) endorsing it. What we saw on the 6th was the right-wing mirror image of that, only this time it was all over the media on full display. And the elite technocrats have been using it as an excuse to clamp down on types of free speech they dislike and even de platform an entire Social Media platform, Parler.
They are clearly threatened by the competition and used the typical demographic that uses Parler as an EXCUSE to pull it from the internet with their monopolistic powers. It’s like the 21st century equivalent to preventing a train company from using your train tracks. Whatever they were accusing Parler of facilitating, FB and Twitter have been used in similar ways for a long long time.
Best of luck with your Substack. I’m so excited to read what you write next. Be well.
Yes, I am scared too but I think (hope?) it’s not as bad as you say. Polls have consistently said that the Blues are only really 20% and the Reds perhaps 25%. We No Colors are the plurality at around 40%. Of course the Reds and Blues control the nomination process so we are confronted with one bad choice after another.
Hi Bari, thank you for saying what has been needed to be said for a long time. Full disclosure. I am a conservative urbanist practicing Roman Catholic who is 66 years old. I was a member of the US Air Force for 26 years, retiring as an E-8 Senior Master Sergeant. What a great article! While I'm sure that we would have our ideological differences, I agree that it's time for us to sit down and put our differences out on the table, and then find how we can compromise and make things work. There have been basically two things that have brought us to this point: the condescension of many on the left; when I taught, I had to endure constant personal attacks on my beliefs from most of the other faculty, and this was in one of those private schools where the tuition was over $40,000 per year. In order to keep my job, I kept my mouth shut! The other thing is the angry rhetoric that comes out of a lot of conservative talk radio. Not all talk radio is like that. WMAL's Mornings On The Mall and WMAL's Larry O'Connor Show come to mind. However, there are other shows that are nothing but snark and anger. I know people that will only listen to that snark and anger, and claim that the other shows are too soft in their approach. In my opinion, it was the condescending contempt for the working class that brought us Donald Trump, which was the middle finger back to the condescending college educated liberal elites. In our article in the German paper you mentioned that there were Confederate flags at the Capitol riot. I was there. Yes, there was one Confederate flag that I could see in a crowd of about a million people. who looked at the guy with the Confederate flag and said to ourselves and to the people around us, "What an asshole." He got into the Capitol with that flag, and it was splashed on every newspaper that covered the event as, "The Face Of The Donald Trump Movement." I can assure you that 99.999% of us don't think that way. Most of us around me knew that that was going to happen. What we should have done was taken that flag and shoved it in his "left ear," and you know which "left ear" I'm referring to. I arrived at the Capitol just before things started to get ugly. When I saw people climbing on the scaffolding and scaling the walls of the building, I said to the folks I was with, "I think it's time to go." That's when the cops came out in riot gear and the tear gas and flash grenades started going off. We walked from there to Union Station and caught the Metro back to the suburbs, where we had parked our cars. I didn't know that the Capitol had been breached until I got home, got on the computer, and checked my news feeds. All of this is a symptom of a society that is on the verge of collapse. Trump, despite his faults, was able to rip the lid off the trash can, and show us just how corrupt everything has become. This has been building for years; at least since I was in college back in the 1970s. I do think that we can fix this country, and I don't think that Biden or Harris are going to be able to do it. We, the Little People, are the ones that are going to have to do it. Let's start that dialog with like minded people, and see what we can come up with. This wonderful country of ours needs to change some things. There is talk about a Great Reset. Let's make that a REAL Great Reset that doesn't include our tech overlords as our sovereign emperors.
The Pod with Megyn was spot on. Thank you for giving sanity a voice!! I feel fortunate to have you as a resource as I raise grounded children in these increasingly odd times. Thank you and much thanks to Substack for providing a space for free thinking.
The US has a very sophisticated system that marries government and private corporations in a uniquely US way. This system allows for legal corruption, and it allows for the government to bypass the bill of rights by allowing and encouraging private companies censor and spy on the citizens.
Our system allows companies to make laws. These laws are called “Terms of Service” agreements. So the customer of the company must comply with the TOS agreements, just as if it is a law.
This is how the US will implement the authoritarian techniques of China. Through private companies. With the idea that private companies can do what they want, because they are a private company. But when there is no alternative, because the company is a monopoly, or the oligarchs cooperate in a manner that makes them a virtual monopoly as what we just saw with Parler….then what.
It is useful to think of the TOS agreement as a law. A law created by unelected people inside a corporation.
Interesting essay. Coming out of the classical liberal tradition, much in what you say resonates. Heine was not the only important 19th century German author to have a pretty good sense of what the death of Christianity as a vital force in Western - and especially German - culture would be. I strongly urge you to read Nietzsche carefully, and without the prejudices most Americans have (at least the ones who haven’t read Walter Kaufmann or H. L. Mencken on Nietzsche). Particularly apt in the context of your essay is Aphorism 125 from The Gay Science (Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft): Der Tolle Mensch. This is one of the most famous, at least in the German-speaking world. In it the “mad man” runs into the market place and cries out that he seeks God. Everyone makes fun of him, and he goes off saying (most elegantly - some of the best German prose of the 19th century comes from Nietzsche’s pen) that he comes too soon, the deed is done, but hasn’t arrived yet... that the highest and best thing created by man has been killed by man - very sketchy and incomplete summary. Read it in the Kaufmann translation if you don’t have enough German.
It is astonishing how few - only within a century after the end of the First World War, the rise to totalitarian communism and faschism, the Second World War and its attendant horrors - have even the slightest clue how thin the verneer of civilization is. But, then, most American know little or no history. It was true when I was a grad student in European history in the ‘70s (a couple of friends and I survey about a hundred undergraduates at a University of California campus and only 3 could correctly identity Judas Iscariot) and it is even more true today as the universities and high schools have been teaching largely Marxist drivel for the past 35 years and more.
Thanks for bringing up Chu. For him to type those comments, and gleefully so, is difficult to come to terms with. However, he is merely a small mind reflecting a much larger problem within the shadow side of humanity. The side that exists but people would rather not discuss. Human history can tell us that hate will never subside. Never. It will always be part of the human story. But we do know that when good men and women rise up, people like Chu must retreat back into the shadow side of humanity, and keep their hate hidden, at least until they receive permission to bring it back out again. LC
Bari, for me your NYT resignation letter is perhaps the most important piece of writing of 2020. It was like a fire bell in the night. I've read too much about deadly revolutions to not be afraid for our time. Keep up the good fight--I'll be reading and persuading others.
Your interview with Megyn sparked me to subscribe to Substack. You are a brave and thoughtful person and I admire your courage to speak the truth about the insanity in our world. I believe that there are millions of Americans who love America agree with you.
This is an incredible piece. I haven’t been this excited reading an essay like this in some time; it gives me hope that there are enough sane people out there to make a difference.
I read your resignation letter from the New York Times. That set the hook. You possess the confidence and integrity to leave a "prestigious" platform with likely generous compensation and job security at a time where the people around you blindly joined the "their team" rather than show the courage you possess. I don't always agree with what you write, but you hold my attention, admiration and respect nonetheless, I hope that's worth something. I am excited to read more Bari Weiss pieces.
I believe Substack is a wonderful development, and I'm glad to benefit from and support independent thinkers and gifted writers like Bari Weiss.
Thank you for your consistently insightful comments. I agree, Team Blue and Team Red seem unable to discuss much. The "team" approach does not seem to work now. I have friends who very much want me to join their team...and cannot understand me not joining. I cannot. For now, I continue to try to learn, without leaning (too much). Thank you for helping with this process.
I just subscribed in a heartbeat Bari! I’m so glad you’re doing Substack where you can write anything you like. I read your book and listened to the audiobook and I am looking forward to your next book.
The media covered up and explained away leftist riots and other forms of violence last year, implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) endorsing it. What we saw on the 6th was the right-wing mirror image of that, only this time it was all over the media on full display. And the elite technocrats have been using it as an excuse to clamp down on types of free speech they dislike and even de platform an entire Social Media platform, Parler.
They are clearly threatened by the competition and used the typical demographic that uses Parler as an EXCUSE to pull it from the internet with their monopolistic powers. It’s like the 21st century equivalent to preventing a train company from using your train tracks. Whatever they were accusing Parler of facilitating, FB and Twitter have been used in similar ways for a long long time.
Best of luck with your Substack. I’m so excited to read what you write next. Be well.
congratulations to you and nellie!
Great essay. I couldn't agree more. P.S. Your resignation letter to the NY Times was very compelling. I can't wait to read more of your work!
Yes, I am scared too but I think (hope?) it’s not as bad as you say. Polls have consistently said that the Blues are only really 20% and the Reds perhaps 25%. We No Colors are the plurality at around 40%. Of course the Reds and Blues control the nomination process so we are confronted with one bad choice after another.
Hi Bari, thank you for saying what has been needed to be said for a long time. Full disclosure. I am a conservative urbanist practicing Roman Catholic who is 66 years old. I was a member of the US Air Force for 26 years, retiring as an E-8 Senior Master Sergeant. What a great article! While I'm sure that we would have our ideological differences, I agree that it's time for us to sit down and put our differences out on the table, and then find how we can compromise and make things work. There have been basically two things that have brought us to this point: the condescension of many on the left; when I taught, I had to endure constant personal attacks on my beliefs from most of the other faculty, and this was in one of those private schools where the tuition was over $40,000 per year. In order to keep my job, I kept my mouth shut! The other thing is the angry rhetoric that comes out of a lot of conservative talk radio. Not all talk radio is like that. WMAL's Mornings On The Mall and WMAL's Larry O'Connor Show come to mind. However, there are other shows that are nothing but snark and anger. I know people that will only listen to that snark and anger, and claim that the other shows are too soft in their approach. In my opinion, it was the condescending contempt for the working class that brought us Donald Trump, which was the middle finger back to the condescending college educated liberal elites. In our article in the German paper you mentioned that there were Confederate flags at the Capitol riot. I was there. Yes, there was one Confederate flag that I could see in a crowd of about a million people. who looked at the guy with the Confederate flag and said to ourselves and to the people around us, "What an asshole." He got into the Capitol with that flag, and it was splashed on every newspaper that covered the event as, "The Face Of The Donald Trump Movement." I can assure you that 99.999% of us don't think that way. Most of us around me knew that that was going to happen. What we should have done was taken that flag and shoved it in his "left ear," and you know which "left ear" I'm referring to. I arrived at the Capitol just before things started to get ugly. When I saw people climbing on the scaffolding and scaling the walls of the building, I said to the folks I was with, "I think it's time to go." That's when the cops came out in riot gear and the tear gas and flash grenades started going off. We walked from there to Union Station and caught the Metro back to the suburbs, where we had parked our cars. I didn't know that the Capitol had been breached until I got home, got on the computer, and checked my news feeds. All of this is a symptom of a society that is on the verge of collapse. Trump, despite his faults, was able to rip the lid off the trash can, and show us just how corrupt everything has become. This has been building for years; at least since I was in college back in the 1970s. I do think that we can fix this country, and I don't think that Biden or Harris are going to be able to do it. We, the Little People, are the ones that are going to have to do it. Let's start that dialog with like minded people, and see what we can come up with. This wonderful country of ours needs to change some things. There is talk about a Great Reset. Let's make that a REAL Great Reset that doesn't include our tech overlords as our sovereign emperors.
The Pod with Megyn was spot on. Thank you for giving sanity a voice!! I feel fortunate to have you as a resource as I raise grounded children in these increasingly odd times. Thank you and much thanks to Substack for providing a space for free thinking.
A great article.
The US has a very sophisticated system that marries government and private corporations in a uniquely US way. This system allows for legal corruption, and it allows for the government to bypass the bill of rights by allowing and encouraging private companies censor and spy on the citizens.
Our system allows companies to make laws. These laws are called “Terms of Service” agreements. So the customer of the company must comply with the TOS agreements, just as if it is a law.
This is how the US will implement the authoritarian techniques of China. Through private companies. With the idea that private companies can do what they want, because they are a private company. But when there is no alternative, because the company is a monopoly, or the oligarchs cooperate in a manner that makes them a virtual monopoly as what we just saw with Parler….then what.
It is useful to think of the TOS agreement as a law. A law created by unelected people inside a corporation.
Interesting essay. Coming out of the classical liberal tradition, much in what you say resonates. Heine was not the only important 19th century German author to have a pretty good sense of what the death of Christianity as a vital force in Western - and especially German - culture would be. I strongly urge you to read Nietzsche carefully, and without the prejudices most Americans have (at least the ones who haven’t read Walter Kaufmann or H. L. Mencken on Nietzsche). Particularly apt in the context of your essay is Aphorism 125 from The Gay Science (Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft): Der Tolle Mensch. This is one of the most famous, at least in the German-speaking world. In it the “mad man” runs into the market place and cries out that he seeks God. Everyone makes fun of him, and he goes off saying (most elegantly - some of the best German prose of the 19th century comes from Nietzsche’s pen) that he comes too soon, the deed is done, but hasn’t arrived yet... that the highest and best thing created by man has been killed by man - very sketchy and incomplete summary. Read it in the Kaufmann translation if you don’t have enough German.
It is astonishing how few - only within a century after the end of the First World War, the rise to totalitarian communism and faschism, the Second World War and its attendant horrors - have even the slightest clue how thin the verneer of civilization is. But, then, most American know little or no history. It was true when I was a grad student in European history in the ‘70s (a couple of friends and I survey about a hundred undergraduates at a University of California campus and only 3 could correctly identity Judas Iscariot) and it is even more true today as the universities and high schools have been teaching largely Marxist drivel for the past 35 years and more.
Well, let’s see where this goes
Thanks for bringing up Chu. For him to type those comments, and gleefully so, is difficult to come to terms with. However, he is merely a small mind reflecting a much larger problem within the shadow side of humanity. The side that exists but people would rather not discuss. Human history can tell us that hate will never subside. Never. It will always be part of the human story. But we do know that when good men and women rise up, people like Chu must retreat back into the shadow side of humanity, and keep their hate hidden, at least until they receive permission to bring it back out again. LC
A wonderful essay. I look forward to many more. Thank you for providing a pragmatic view on this - it’s refreshing.