OK, so I have a smoking hot take and I guess now is the time to drop it if I ever will. This is not directly in reference to the situation with a certain heavy metal singer whose name references a serial killer, and that person can get f*cked, it's... more structural

So, I have to preface this, because if I don't it'll get retweeted and people who don't know me or people who think I'm scum for whatever reason will in good or in bad faith read this as some kind of Bari Weiss thing: obviously it's crucial to identify harmful creators of media.

And the recent trash bin of creators who have been deemed harmful has largely been filled with 1) people who absolutely deserved it and 2) people whose work at most gets reconsidered by the bulk of people *after* the *person* has been ostracized. That's all well and good.

In other words,I haven't seen anyone *currently* going in on Marilyn Manson's genre of music*as an artistic thing*other than critiquing the way in which he used it to cover for or turn into a joke allegations of evil things he was doing,and we should def be doing those critiques

I mean as a side note, I was never comfortable with the way musicians like Manson and that entire genre of heavy rock and metal dudes who were popular with the oldest Millenials and with Gen X used "ironic" crossdressing.

Like I get that for some queer people it was empowering at the time, it was certainly transgressive (I will come back to that word) at the time, but even without the horrible stuff we're learning now, it makes me a bit uncomfy in this day and age.

So, basically, the whole concern originates with something I alluded to yesterday (&immediately got jumped on, which is why I'm trying to take pains to be clear now):the realization that at least two right-wing moral panics of the 90s/00s are in fact correct for left-wing reasons

Specifically, I'm referring to Manson and Harry Potter.

Again, I have no investment left in Harry Potter and Manson is scum, I have no issue discarding the entire artistic corpus and I'd like to think I'd say that even if I liked the work involved.

But.

This is where I have to walk a very fine line between "sounding like B*ri W*iss" and "not sounding like B*ri W*iss," a line I never, ever really want to be on the "sound like" side of. I want to point out that this is an intentionally obfuscated, bad faith issue, by the way.

The moment the term "cancel culture" was introduced, I feel as if any discussion of the role of left/liberal culture in terms of how to balance advancing freedom and individuality versus policing truly bad moral transgressions became tainted

And the only side that it's currently "safe" to take is in fact the one in favor of policing moral transgression as a *primary goal of left-liberal politics*, and I don't love that

To be clear, true moral transgression should be stopped and there should be consequences

I don't think there's an issue here exactly with people facing disproportionate consequences or unfair"cancelling"or any of that,and we need to listen to sexual abuse victims &historically we've been bad about that

My issue is with what the overriding *goal* of left culture is

What I remember growing up was the extreme right began making some of the inroads that it has since taken great advantage of with crusades, usually smuggling some kind of other agenda along with them, against some part of popular culture they believed was corrupting.

And there was always a hidden agenda of some kind, and sometimes these moral panics were even traps. The right was still moral panicking over video games in 2009, a year into Obama's term, but by his second term they were rallying The Gamers to the cause of fascism

And that's one point where I saw a flip - GamerGate as a moment where people started to say things (and I'm guilty of this, it was cathartic after dealing with those people) like "nerds deserve to be bullied".

It was also when left video gamers started to really question game violence, and of course that's one of my bugbears. That was a moral panic. There was no good psychology behind the idea that video games cause violence. The Columbine shooters were motivated by racism, not gaming.

(was also a moral panic on the left and right at the time, but probably more the left bc of varying attitudes toward firearms,that The Matrix glorified shootings. Of course, it *did*, but there's no evidence it caused any. It did of course have *different* twistable messaging)

Something I want to note about these moral panics was that they almost always served a wider purpose for the Right, and were targeted at marginalized groups - mostly, if you dug deep enough, LGBT people. They were also abuse tools to keep Christian kids isolated from culture.

So, when I was in high school (2002-2006) and even college, the strong message of left-liberals was letting people (to various degrees, depending on how committed they were) be themselves, usually centered about gender and sexuality.

Today, the hard left calls that entirely in question and the regular left-liberal coalition does not, to me, seem very focused at all on social issues, and please do not interrupt me to tell me it's because of how bad the economy is now vs. then, bc 2008 is part of this time

Even though the left-liberal coalition has made strides in advancing trans rights in legal battles, it has failed to do so consistently, and has completely failed in many non-US countries. It isn't a priority. Gay rights is seen as "done."

So the part of leftism/liberalism that focuses on social issues seems to me to be beginning to show what *could* be a concerning pattern of viewing the removal of bad, problematic, harmful individuals and media as the end goal, the victory in itself.

Meanwhile of course abusive dynamics (like the compulsory politics anyone who comes out as trans on Twitter is basically forced to adopt, and the trans whisper/popularity/mean girls network) on the left are excused, as long as they serve hunting bad people

So like, we clearly needed to end Marilyn Manson's career and it should have happened back when he was doing most of the things that he's currently accused of, not just now. Obviously Wizard Book Lady needs to be marginalized for her enabling of bigotry. I'm all for all that.

But I worry that leftists and liberals are losing our focus on increasing individual freedom, and adopting the right wing mindset of my youth (and incidentally, ceding to confused people as well as the malicious the entire ideal of freedom), which should be the goal

Abusers are bad because they deprive their victims of freedom, among other things. When I see leftists and liberals dogpiling my friend for calling out parents for restricting their children's activities, when trans teenagers' right to bodily autonomy is under threat, that's bad

When the idea that "parents are inherently abusive" is seen as making someone "not serious," when the goal is to find rulebreakers and punish them for the sake of that punishment and not just because they broke a rule we need upheld, I get concerned. That's Christian Right stuff.

I'm not sure if the seeds of this were all planted when the Religious Right adopted false rhetorics of social freedom in contrast with their racist caricatures of the Muslim world post-9/11, or what. But I do know that it seems like people don't want *good* transgression anymore

For that matter the rhetoric is all "normalize this, normalize that." We don't encourage transgression at all, we just want to get a different list of things that are normal and become the authorities

And I'm not really down with that

So again, I want to reiterate: damn Manson, damn Wizard Book Lady. But do not damn video game violence - and that absolutely is a thing the left/liberal side is getting on board with. Don't do any other number of busybody things more appropriate to a HOA than liberalism.

I also want to say that the Right is better at this than us, and have successfully managed to reframe stuff like being an abuser and a bigot as "social freedom" bc we pivoted to their old position, which is why they push "cancel culture." Which isn't a real thing but obfuscates

Because we stopped valuing difference and individualism and increased our concern with the violation of taboos, we left a rhetorical opening for the Right to exploit

Sometimes, you gotta come down on people who break the rules. I'm all for that. But the point of liberalism should not be making new rules to enforce. Our society is oppressive and we should be encouraging the breaking of the many still existing old, bad rules

As it stands i feel like the dominant left/liberal aesthetic is the *ascetic*, if that makes sense

"Oh, I'm above needing good graphics in video games, that's a toxic male gamer thing"

"I accept that I must have the same politics as those who share my identity, precisely"