O n this—and much else—Bowles would get no argument from Katherine Brodsky, who cites The Free Press several times and moves in similar ideological (if not necessarily social) circles. No Apolo- gies is simpler in format and ambitions than Morning After : an array of short profiles of cancelled individuals, people ostracized in their literary or knitting or academic communities for saying, or being accused of doing, the wrong thing. Unlike Bowles, Brodsky has a personal cancellation story as her point of de-
profiles—Kat Rosenfield among them —have that sensibility. Brodsky herself comes across as righteous in a defense of free expression as she understands it, but not particularly amused by the stories she’s telling, nor by the absurdities of left-wing excesses. Mainly this is a difference in writing styles, but it’s also that, while both books are from 2024, Brodsky writes from within the reckoning, while Bowles looks at it with the detachment that comes with a (slight) remove. Jewishness figures more prominently here
the United States,” originally from Ukraine, is as much a part of her own origin story as her Facebook mobbing. “Like many Jewish families, we fled with just about nothing in the midst of the ongoing Cold War, and even though I was just a child, the lessons of that period left a strong imprint on me, especially those related to the chilling ef- fects of silencing and the damage that can be inflicted on groups and individuals in the name of some greater good.” Brodsky does not present herself as partisan, noting, “the intolerant right is no
less of an ‘enemy’ to free speech and unity than the intolerant left.” Like Bowles, she is a disillusioned liberal, but not prepared to join up with the right. “I have increas- ingly found myself as the ‘token liberal’ in conservative-dominat- ed spaces and have thus been attacked by both the left and the right,” she explains. Her book was excerpted in the National Post . D uring the 2020 reckoning, media entities began to spring up with titles announcing that heterodox, problematic ideas are forthcoming. There’s Meghan Daum’s The Unspeak- able podcast (on which I have been a guest) and Thomas Chatterton Williams’s Wrongthi- nk . There are books, salons, publications. This hodgepodge of interesting (and less inter- esting) thinkers coalesced into its own industry. The whole enterprise can start to have a beating-a-dead-horse feel, even to those of us within it. Maybe it’s that there’s too much of a
parture. She was shunned after posting on a Facebook networking page that she thought it was fine for her group to promote a job open- ing at Fox News. She turned this experience into a 2021 Newsweek article, The Rise of Righteous Online Bullies , and now this book. Lemons into lemonade and all that. Brodsky’s subjects are main- ly established professionals. One exception is a University of British Columbia undergradu- ate, though even his case (ostracized by classmates for heterodox views) had garnered previous media coverage. The sources of cancellation range from outspokenness about unpopular beliefs (that it is helpful to speak directly to avowed racists as a way of changing their views, or that reporting is needed on people who transition gender and later regret having done so) to false accusations—arguably two separate phenomena,
Katherine Brodsky
given that one is about free expression, and the other more broadly about justice. The chapters end with links to the subject’ pro- fessional pages and social media. Brodsky is not merely documenting a phenomenon, but an activist of sorts, helping un-cancel where she can. Progressive hypersensitivity is an easy target for satire, and Bowles leans into this. Recalling brands’ 2020-era social justice awakening, she writes, “Seventh Genera- tion, which makes my favorite toilet paper, posted: ‘We support defunding the police.’” Brodsky, however, goes with more of a ser- ious register. Some of the people Brodsky
than in Morning After , with several Jewish subjects highlighting this fact about them- selves and its significance to their stories. The evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein cites his own Jewish background as his reason for speaking up when necessary. Meteorologist Cliff Mass tells Brodsky his outspoken climate change quasi-skepticism is rooted in “tikkun olam.” British musician Winston Marshall pushed back against de- tractors calling him a “fascist” by pointing out that he is “the progeny of Holocaust survivors.” Brodsky’s own biography, that of “a Can- adian citizen who has spent a lot of time in
market for ‘silenced’ ideas for them to seem as taboo as they had. Or maybe it’s war-war making culture wars seem like small potatoes. But the legacy lives on. My local Toronto coffee shop has added pro-Palestinian window displays alongside its pre-existing flyers in support of Black and trans lives. The independent bookstore a block over has done the bookstore equivalent of the same. In context, these are not indicators of an imminent revolution, let alone a com- pleted one, but genteel accompaniments to a street that recently welcomed an upscale womenswear boutique. n
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