šGarden of Shadows: Soapbox Grifting, Forward Thinking, and the Substack Lore That Broke My Brain
3ļøā£ A Personal Essay from Hanlon's Reader
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šGarden of Shadows: Soapbox Grifting, Forward Thinking, and the Substack Lore That Broke My Brain
A Substack Personal Essay by James Hanlon - 1/8/23
1ļøā£ Dang It, I Didnāt See the Nazis at First
2ļøā£ ā¦Because America Has a Fascism Problem
3ļøā£ Garden of Shadows
Many people on Substack are pretending that there is no Nazi problem hereāor, if not so outright denying it, minimizing the extent. Itās a serious issue, and I donāt intend to minimize it myself with jokes and humor.
Humor builds empathy. Empathy builds trust. Trust allows understanding. I want to be understood. I also want to understand others.
You might wonder, why are you doing this? Whatās the big deal? I donāt even see any Nazis, so as long as theyāre not intruding on my space, or I can block them when they doāwhy is there all this uproar over like 17 Substacks out of 16,000?
Are private platforms like Substack, Facebook, and Twitter akin to public spaces on the internet? Should we really have private companies determining who can say what? Who makes that determination, and how do they define hate speech? Is there really a point at which hate speech becomes incitement to violence?
All valid concerns, worthy of consideration. I completely understand the importance of protecting free speech and freedom of expression. The government has already set lines in the sand regarding freedom of speech and hate speechā¦ or rather, it has excluded itself from drawing that line.
From Wikipedia: First Amendment to the United States Constitution
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
But Substack is not the federal government. They are a business, backed by a venture capital company called Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), they need to make money to be viable to their shareholders, and moderation at scale is a minefield as well as a cost sink. Think of how much money it would cost them to do the right thing!
No, seriously, think about it. Would it cost them money? Because the more I think about it, the more it doesnāt really make financial sense for Substack to publicly support American Nazis like Richard Spencer. To me, this means one of two things:
Substack leadership and/or Andreessen Horowitz board members think they will make more money from their staked āfree speech absolutismā position than by moderating Nazis.
Substack leadership and/or Andreessen Horowitz board members are not making a financial calculation, but a cultural oneāwhatever money they lose from the Nazi controversy is an investment in cultural change.
āAll of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.ā But only if we repeat the same mistakes. While trying to get my work out there, talk to people, and find answers, I keep getting accused of unconstitutional authoritarianism for wanting hate speech moderation.
And ironically, the āāāāāfree speech absolutistsāāāāā who care so much about the open exchange of ideas that they are willing to entertain debates with Nazis about the Final Solution are the first ones to tell me to shut up and go away.
The only response from any of the signers of The Elysianās letter I have gotten was from Moriarty āPhisto Sobaniiā who immediately jumped to insults and straight up refused to even look at what I had to say:
FREE SPEECH ABSOLUTISTS: why do you think itās okay to advocate for platforming (and monetizing!) Nazis so we can discuss their ideas and then not even care to engage in discussion with a regular-ass harmless person? Itās unreal.
What some are telling each other: the moderators are the real Nazis.
āI believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up:
that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived.ā
ā Ursula K. Le Guin ā
One reason Iām doing this is because I was one of the naive writers drawn to Substackās vibe more than anything else. I put something I love on this site, and I didnāt expect to regret that.
I love writing fiction because I think reading fiction books is where I learned to empathize most as a child. It requires putting yourself in someone elseās shoes, seeing the world from another perspective than your own. That child who read books to understand the world has survived and grown up.
We need to retain our empathy in order to understand why people do the things they do. We donāt need to dehumanize each otherāevil people are still people, even pieces of shit like Richard Spencer, who is a profoundly disgusting human being and has nothing of value to offer the world. But heās still human!
Weāre all still human, even if it can be comforting to think of people as monsters, demons, etc. But I wonāt pretend something canāt hurt me (or others) just because itās over there, not over here. It could happen here, it did happen here, and we are all watching it happen here again.
I found this from 3 months ago. They already have known about Clarenceās Nazi propaganda for a long time at this point, and they donāt care to do anything unless he very explicitly threatens someone with violence.
In a sane world where Americans didnāt have to argue about whether our insurrectionist former President did or did not directly quote Adolf Hitler regarding racist statements that immigrants are āpoisoning the blood of our country,ā I might agree with those of you concerned people are casually throwing āNaziā around.
From Tim Reed at Reuters, Trump: I have not read Hitler's āMein Kampfā
In 'Mein Kampf' (My Struggle), Hitler wrote in 1925: "All great cultures of the past perished only because the original creative race died out from blood poisoning."
But there Trump is. And there Republicans are, defending Trump again over rhetoric that has clearly crossed the line intoāthere is really no overstating thisātrue Nazi hate speech. And Iām sure more than one person is going to take me to task in the comments over it with some excuse or another to reject this reality.
There is no excuse for taking no action against open hate speech, just because itās going to be hard and complicated and expensive. Hate speech starts with hate and inevitably leads to violence: you canāt be neutral on a moving train, and this one has long since left the station.
For example, Richard Hananiaās post here is very on-brand right-wing extremism:
āI had never seen a pronoun pin before, and decided to take this one as a souvenir. ā¦ The pronoun pin represented everything I hated about leftists, āexperts,ā and intellectuals, and I keep it around where I work for motivation. Iām looking at it as I write this.
Of course, this is deranged.ā
š³āš Richard Hanania, extremely normal person from the extremely normal Substack post titled āWhy I Hate Pronouns More Than I Hate Genocideā directly promoted by Hamish š³āš
Hereās a few quotes from what
wrote about Richard Hanania on Active Voice:āa distinctive new voice in American politics discourseā
āa streak of contrarianismā
āmanaged to win fans and challenge readers from across the political spectrumā
Hamish, my dude, you might as well be writing blurbs for Richardās book jacket. This is not an objective assessment of what he represents. Youāre fawning over this guy.
From my previous essay āā¦Because America Has A Fascism Problemā:
š„ Indirect Extremism: Richard Hanania uses indirect rhetoric to avoid pulling too much aggro, simmering the hate on a smooth, low boilāpresenting his views in a more subtle, less overt manner by using the cover of academic, intellectual, and seemingly moderate ideas to cloak or conceal the most extreme ideas.
Very rarely can we actually connect hate to crime in direct, measurable ways like the Unite the Right Rally co-organized by Richard Spencer and ā17 other white nationalist leaders and groups,ā which led to Heather Heyerās murder by James Alex Fields.
Or January 6, 2021 when Trump incited a mob to attack the US Capitol and disrupt the counting of the electoral votes in an effort to retain power despite losing the election.
Unite the Right, January 6ā¦ right-wing events like these are the end result of hate manufactured on the scale weāre seeing. Stochastic terrorism is real. The more of these misguided lunatics there are out there like the MAGA Bomber Cesar Sayoc or James Alex Fields, the more likely it is people get hurt or killed. We already went though this during the Civil Rights era when segregationist bigots enacted terror bombing campaigns against their enemies, stoked by this exact kind of language.
Which brings us to our esteemed friend Joshua at The Storytellerās Corner, who just canāt find any Nazis! Theyāre such good hiders!
You pretty much get the point after the first sentence. I laughed out loud when I finished his piece, got to the comments, and found Clarence waiting for me again! This is the second time Iāve just been reading random Substacks and found this particular Nazi. To Joshuaās credit, he responded very quickly by deleting the comments after I reported them:
Howeverā¦ Josh was NOT amused when, after I reported Clarenceās comments, I invited him and his readers to engage in a free and open exchange of ideas at my publication Hanlonās Reader. Others like
had already done this in support of Joshās piece, so I thought it was okay. Josh threatened immediately to remove me and my free speech from his page and even went so far as to lecture me on āconsistency,ā but in his defenseāI did try to get cute with him:
The term āsoapboxā often has a negative connotation. When we say, āGet off your soapbox, already!ā, what we mean is that someone is expressing their opinion, and we donāt want to hear it anymore.
ā Sterling Jaquith ā
Free speech absolutism is a fantasy, itās not here on Substack because they already moderate porn and other content. Anyone pushing this or self-describing as a āfree speech absolutistā is a soapbox grifter trying to convince you theyāre valiantly defending your rights.
If someone who calls themselves a āfree speech absolutistā considers the right to post Nazi propaganda sacrosanct, but porn should be censored, they are nothing but an absolute hypocrite, a grifter in the public square standing atop their soapbox convincing you and others to buy into their scam. Now they have painted themselves into a swastika-shaped corner and they canāt get out.
So let me tell you about this goofy goober Matt Taibbi, his original Substack TK News, and the bit of archaic Substack lore that just made me stop and stare off into space in absolute slack-jawed disbelief. Do you guys know who Jonathan M. Katz of The Racket actually is?
To me, after a bit of clicking around and reading, heās a genuine real-live journalist. The kind that actually goes out into the world and investigates. Worked for AP News most of his career. Not some hyper-connected supervillain out to take down Substack because he hates freedom.
From Wikipedia:
Katz was the only full-time American correspondent in Haiti when the 2010 Haiti earthquake struck on January 12, 2010. Katz, then 29, was on the second floor of his rented house in the PĆ©tion-Ville neighborhood when the swaying started at approximately 4:45Ā p.m. He rushed outside barefoot as his house collapsed, borrowed a cell phone on the street, and became the first to report the earthquake; the alert he sent out hit the newswire at the same time as the U.S. Geological Survey's initial report of the quake.
Just listen to the guy! You can tell a lot about a person just by listening to the way they talk about something they care about. Like the way Matt Taibbi talks about Elon Musk!
You know, Matt Taibbi of the now-rebranded Racket News, not to be confused with The Racket, which already existed on Substack for 2 years prior to Taibbiās name change. Given how many people heās got working with him, there is no chance Taibbi didnāt know about this. For some reason, this specific pathetic and weird wrinkle on the whole story completely short-circuited my brain.
Anyway back to Substack! The way I see things, right now on Substack there are 3 basic groups related to the Nazi issue:
Cool people doing cool stuff
People who might otherwise be cool except theyāre cool with platforming Nazis
People who support the platforming & monetization of Nazis
Iām using the word ācoolā here very intentionally, believe it or not (and not just to plug an excellent podcast). Itās because coolness is something nearly indefinable, which shifts and changes with each generation, adapting to new environments effortlessly as people experiment and determine what works in the moment.
Coolness is just like fascism! We can outline the broad strokes, but itās not always going to look exactly the same as what came before because people respond differently to the pressures of history. When we say Nazi weāre obviously not literally referring to members of the National Socialist German Workersā Party of the 20th century. Instead, today a Nazi perpetuates Nazi ideology, which is a disturbingly pervasive rot, and they donāt wear the uniforms anymore (usually).
Thatās why Iāve tried to be very clear with who I describe using this word āNazi.ā My audience is all of you. I want everyone to read my work and tell me what they think, knowing in advance I wonāt agree with everyone, and that some people are going to argue in bad faith without any intent to change their minds on anything.
For example:
Not Quite A Nazi: Richard Hanania in his disgusting and deeply weird essay āWhy I Hate Pronouns More Than I Hate Genocideā
Nazi: Richard Spencer in his private in-group, other Nazis
Nazi: Clarence Wilhelm Spangle inā¦ everywhere seemingly
Thereās a line between these two, which is open hate speech advocating for violence. Richard Hanania (Not Quite A Nazi) is different from Richard Spencer (Nazi) because Hanania is smart enough not to cross that lineābut heās getting as close to it as possible in order to push some very bigoted views. And because he doesnāt go full Nazi by calling for violence, heās able to gain public acceptance through his fancy dog-whistle institute and cozy up to morally void tech companies who further amplify him.
Cool people doing cool stuff
People who might otherwise be cool except theyāre cool with platforming Nazis
People who support the platforming & monetization of Nazis
I think most people are in Group 1 or 2, and weād all rather not be having this debate over defending Nazis at all. Youāre here to enjoy the place, why else would you be here? My goal is to persuade those in Group 2 who have been convinced by Group 3 that we should be cool with Nazis on Substack, to join us in Group 1 as we extend a warm welcome to everyone except the Nazis.
Group 3 includes, but is not limited to, well-meaning people, free speech absolutists, and the Nazis. Regular people of Group 3, no one is forcing you to do stand with the Nazis.
I think a lot of people siding with the absolutists and Nazis have just been persuaded with bad arguments, and I aim to persuade them otherwise. The ābanality of evilā suggests that normal people who arenāt ideologically-driven will justā¦ go along with this shit without thinking too hard about it. Or make excuses for it. I want to make them think about it.
Most of Group 3 is unpersuadable, but in my brief experience here at least some are thinking about what I say. Sometimes all it takes is planting a seed. The vast majority of these conversations are not to actually convince the person Iām speaking withāitās to convince people reading. Always keep your audience in mind.
āIt is difficult to get a man to understand something,
when his salary depends on his not understanding it.ā
ā Upton Sinclair ā
So uh speaking of failed bids for the Governor of California, I have been looking into several of the signers of The Elysianās anti-moderation letter. Near the end of December I was pretty active in going around hawking my first essay to anyone talking about the whole Substackers Against Nazis effort. I spoke to plenty of people in the comments. And in my research, I found some genuinely weird stuff.
RESTORING ORDER?? DOES THAT SOUND A LITTLE FAMILIAR TO YāALL??
Itās just a little rhetoric though. Right? No big deal that Michael Shellenberger and Patrick Casey of white supremacist organization Identity Evropa totally sound like theyād vibe together. Michael did not respond to my request for comments on my original essay. I also reached out to Elle Griffin from The Elysian a couple of times, but no dice there either. And obviously no response from the Big 3.
But thereās good news!!!
Well, in an unlikely turn of eventsā¦ it seems that Andkonās Reich Press was the first of Substackās Nazis exposed by the original āSubstack Has A Nazi Problemā article to be completely removed (likely due to threats of violence)!
We donāt know exactly what triggered this particular openly fascist Substack publication to be removed yet, but several people did report specific instances of threats and hate speech by using this skillfully obscured form:
https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=1900000051827
So it seems fair to say that as a result of all this collective organizing from Substackers Against Nazis, Substack leadership has actually changed course on their previous response of not doing anything about the Nazis.
Iām honestly kinda shocked. Itās still a little bit wishy-washy but this, to me, is the most significant way theyāve decided to address the Nazi problem:
In a statement, Substackās co-founders told Platformer:
If and when we become aware of other content that violates our guidelines, we will take appropriate action.Ā
Relatedly, weāve heard your feedback about Substackās content moderation approach, and we understand your concerns and those of some other writers on the platform. We sincerely regret how this controversy has affected writers on Substack.Ā
We appreciate the input from everyone. Writers are the backbone of Substack and we take this feedback very seriously. We are actively working on more reporting tools that can be used to flag content that potentially violates our guidelines, and we will continue working on tools for user moderation so Substack users can set and refine the terms of their own experience on the platform.Ā
As I continue researching and compiling resources, I am seeing the outlines of a movement of focused and committed people who are going to continue being a thorn in the side of leadership. Some have left already over this controversy (and I donāt blame them honestly) but damn it, I just got here! I had a plan and everything!
Iām here to stay, although Iāve already overhauled my site to route all donations through Tips with āBuy me a coffeeā at Ko-fi.com instead of using Substackās Paid Subscriptions. Over the coming months, weāll see how that goes!
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Substacker Nathan Davis Hunt from Toward Solidarity:
āIād like to weigh in with a couple brief tactical suggestions.āĀ
The tools of writing, journalism, academia, and digital activism are important but insufficient. I would like to see the leaders of this fight think more like organizers.
Do not relinquish collective action. Stay or leave, what matters is solidarity. Sustain relationships and tools for maintaining the ability to act together overtime. We cannot build the world we deserve alone or through individualized consumer choice. Dramatize your staying or leaving with others. How can either action be done in a way that builds toward the world we want?
Seize the whirlwind. Social movements have long quiet stretches punctuated by moments of mass participation and public attention. Weāre in one. You rarely get your win in these moments. Rather, itās the time to learn from the reaction to the action and recruit. (h/t Mark & Paul Engler)
Organize the organized. Participants (co-signers, reposters, essay writers, journalists, allies on and off this platform) need gathering and institutionalizing. How can collective action be sustained beyond a letter? Who emerged as leaders ā ie, people with followings + people willing to put in work? What forms of association are needed to sustain cohesion and coalition? What trainings do people need?
Figure out the next ask and the next action. You wrote a letter that asked questions. That was the action. Their response was the reaction. The next step is to formulate demands and make them within a context where itās extremely difficult to say no.Ā
Power map. Substackās founders are unlikely to change their minds due to short-term drops in generalized public opinion. Instead identify your target: which one of the tech bros can make a change happen? What can we learn about them? Who has that personās ear? Who is on Substackās board? Who are their investors? Who is on the board of those investors? Are any of the power players at that level Jewish? Whoās their rabbi? How can you get to that rabbi with the ADL so the rabbi goes and slaps the shit out of that board member until they threaten to pull funding if Substack doesnāt change its moderation policy? Just an example. The point is, do your homework and get sophisticated at building and deploying focused power.
Authorās Note 1/11/24: It is to my eternal shame and regret that I did not initially cite the wonderful at āEarnestness is Underratedā for these helpful resources:
Thanks for reading,
James Hanlon
1ļøā£ Dang It, I Didnāt See the Nazis at First
2ļøā£ ā¦Because America Has a Fascism Problem
3ļøā£ Garden of Shadows
You made it all the way down here?? Thanks!
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Spangle hasn't commented on my posts--yet--because I haven't put much up in the past few weeks. But I have seen him in the comments on others.