Some great points here about Substack, and really about the internet as a whole. As for pushing boundaries, I agree that all those boundaries have been pushed - sometimes pointlessly so. The most shocking thing now might be to write clear, concise, story-based humor material rather than something that's wordy, overblown, bombastic, and shocking for shock's sake.
As for National Lampoon, my first encounter with it was in 1992, when it seemed to be moving into a Spy-type knockoff. When I finally found back issues in a ratty used bookstore in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago a few years later, I was legitimately shocked on what I'd stumbled across. Being an impressionable teenager, however, I grabbed as many copies as I could.
What I learned after reading them was the best era was 1971 - 1973. The period after that got too shocking for the sake of shocking for me. I was especially creeped out by P.J. O'Rourke's pieces, and actually some of Tony Hendra's. The ones from 1970 I actually found a little boring. 1976 seemed to be the worst offender to me in terms of hatefulness.
It bugs me that there's great material in Lampoon, but it's buttressed by such pointlessly offensive stuff. It reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld's line, "...No! It offends me as a comedian!"
Jeff, Lampoon doesn't really gel until late 1970, when Michael Gross comes on board as Art Director. Those first five or so issues are, as you say, boring, and I think it's because the material and the art direction are pulling in different directions. Lampoon's big innovation was its titanically graphic quality, which was a whole new aspect in print humor magazines. SPY's approach was much more traditional, in that Isley's design was hugely distinctive and created a great sense of place—it was a visualization of SPY's relationship to the past—but that magazine could've been designed differently and still been what it was. Not so NatLamp; Gross and Kaestle and Kleinman were as much a part of its success as Kenney and Beard and O'Donoghue.
O'Rourke and Hendra's work also creeped me out. As I've written before, with PJ, there was some sense that he was grinding an ax, even when he was funny, and my feeling was that he was putting delicious frosting on an arsenic cookie.
With Hendra, there always seemed to be an elemental mean darkness that leached out of his work, though at this late date I can't separate my own feelings from the stories I was told by Sean Kelly. There is a type of Englishman who—very smart though they may be—uses humor primarily as a way to reinforce the hierarchy they've created in their head, and they like hanging out with Ivy Leaguers because it's the energy of America with the snobbiness of England.
I reached out to a lot of old NatLamp people but not to P.J. or Tony. While I respected them both, I didn't want what they brought to a magazine. I am a strong believer that a person's comedy is a fairly accurate reflection of who they are, and both of those guys struck me as a great way to restart all the old feuds at a magazine that needed to be no-drama if it was going to survive.
I think Lampoon was marred by its desire to shock, and the fact that this turned out to be its legacy is tragic, but predictable. Incidentally, the Nazi stuff in Lampoon only works because Nazism was, by the early 70s, quite clearly seen as really monstrous and really DUMB.
It's funny - in the late 90's, a lot of my peers didn't even know that National Lampoon was a magazine. They only knew it as a brand from the movies. When some friends of mine saw my 1976 run of National Lampoon, they immediately assumed they were porn magazines. And in retrospect, they were kind of right. There's a great line from a Simpsons episode set in the 'future', where Marge says something to the effect of, "Fox turned into a hardcore porn channel so gradually, you hardly noticed." The same kind of thing might be said for National Lampoon. It's almost as though once they opened the door, it gave the wrong people the excuse to use those same comedic tools for evil. Maybe that's the same point you're trying to make about Substack. This makes me wonder, is there a media that can't be corrupted that way?
I was just about to go to bed when your article turned up in my inbox, and I always love reading your stories, insights and perspectives on humor and writing. Also, for some reason, when I see "National Lampoon" in relation to anything other than awful movies, I have to click, and so I read, even though I'm exhausted. I doubt I have much to add and in my current nearly-flatlined state may make an ass out of myself; I did want to say that, not just in his humor but in his dealings with nearly every other human being with whom he came into contact, TH seems to have regularly engaged in cruelty for its own sake, like some really mediocre super-villain. (Sean Kelly told me about the incident that led to their falling out after years of friendship and co-authorship, and it seemed to be an utterly pointless act of either greed or dominance assertion. I always loved Sean's statement that Hendra slept with O'Donoghue's ex because it was the worst thing he could do short of killing her). I'm way too tired to weigh in on Substack publishing Nazis, other than to say, I'm against it. Look forward to re-reading this piece tomorrow when I'm fully awake.
I would love to get a dream visitation from Sean! Is he in good spirits?
I still cannot believe he's gone. I only met him about 3 times, and interviewed him at length in 1998. I always wished I could have gotten to know him better. The last time I saw him was in 2012 at a gig his son Mac's band, Big Neck Police, had in Williamsburg - he invited everyone in his Facebook feed, and when I was the only person who showed up, he said, "I invited my all colleagues from work, and no one came. Now I hate them". Anytime he liked (or, oh, happy Day!, 'laugh emoticon'd') something I wrote on that evil social network, I was good for the next few hours.
There will never be another like him - or, for that matter, Hendra and O'Rourke (but that's fine).
Yes, Sean seems to be in good spirits. He's telling me to talk to saints.
Oh, y'know, Tony and PJ were part of Life's Rich Pageant. I'm only discussing them as writers/editors. Neither of them ever did me a lick of harm (and I made sure of that by steering clear).
*platform fills with talented writers and civil discourse
*idiot colonists show up
Nice platform, we'll take it! Build your own, Nazis!
(edit: oh yeah, and let's not forget the endless debates over what does and doesn't count as a nazi, which ultimately expands to include the majority of the userbase...)
*repeat ad nauseam
How about you just go back to tumblr, blogspot, wordpress, etc. etc. etc. Or whatever bland aristocratic/corporate rag you used to write for, as applicable.
Two questions: Who is “We,” exactly? It’s certainly does not include ME. And why would anyone want to allow the FBI monitoring time in the first place, much less to make their jobs easier?
Justin Trudeau keeps seeing real Canadians doing real Canadian stuff and saying ‘That’s not who we are as Canadians’. Meanwhile he is PM with 30% of the vote and is now the most hated PM of all time. I doubt he is legitimately at 20%. But WE aren’t real Canadians.
Ah, so much for "Everybody's silo'd off from each other, so just let the 'alt-right' be!" that I was told by some Substack policy apologists. Clearly this is not the case if YOU are coming in here and trolling Michael Gerber's Substack.
I wonder how quickly you'd squeal to Substack for "moderation" if us "Socialists" were to come onto YOUR Substack and incessantly troll you and call you a "moronic Nazi jackass", which you and your friend Eugine Neir so clearly are?
Eugine, that’s like saying everyone who writes a letter to a newspaper should understand how a printing press works. The whole point of my piece was that substack is simply a publisher, and should be held—and more importantly hold itself—to long-established standards of behavior for publishers. It does so with porn, so why not with Nazism? It’s not a right/left issue, and framing it as such is obsfucating.
If your side hadn’t been calling everyone a Nazi for a decade I might take this piece seriously. I read a takedown of Katz. There were six Stacks only, not scores. And a number were ex extremists who had repented. So, they’re not allowed? Although one is a Biden supporter so he’s likely nuts. And only one or two of the six were monetized. So, no they aren’t making money off them. In addition, there are 100s of 1000s of Stacks. You find one questionable column SS might make a few hundred bucks a month on? That’s it. And you write about this? Get real. Meanwhile all the other platforms have massive amounts of genuinely distasteful stuff, harming children. But that doesn’t bother you. Real Naziism has no power. None. It is like the KKK. Any Nazi meeting or KKK meeting is one old lunatic, four mentally deficient white guys, 3 embedded journalists, and two FBI agents.
The far left has certainly expanded the definition of fascist. Antifa (anti-fascist) proudly includes copy, military veterans and their supporters as fascists. And if you look at the campus protesters, many of them clearly include anyone who identifies as conservative (even on a handful of issues) as in that camp. So I have zero confidence that a platform that starts off deplatforming Nazis will stop there.
My values lean heavily in the direction of free speech as a matter of cultural norms and not just legal principle, but I'm with you on this one Mike - that doesn't extend to Nazis on Substack. And here "Nazis" doesn't mean "everyone right of centre", it clearly means "people proudly displaying swastikas who stoke fears about coordinated plots to overthrow white people".
When people talk about airing all views so that the best ones can win, that ignores the fact that Substack isn't a campus, it's a newsletter site where people naturally gather into silos. Lefty Substack publications aren't "debating" Nazi ones, and even if they were I doubt they'd do much good. (Hearts and minds can be changed, yes, sometimes, but in the case of deep-seated bigotry the changing entails lots and lots of in-depth in-person interactions, not a snappy comeback on an Internet forum. People's worldviews derive more from their personalities and needs than dispassionate logic, and always will.)
So here you have a situation where Nazi propaganda, far from being aired and debated in an open forum, is being piped directly into the inboxes of people who are already open to it. It's not even Hyde Park, it's an exclusive book club. Which results in a genuine online community, which results in better organising, which results in more in-person gatherings, which...well, let's just kick 'em out.
I too am a passionate defender of free speech, which is why I feel Nazism should be considered beyond the bounds of appropriate discourse—as it was between 1945-2016. These philosophies have been tested, and found to be utterly lethal to everyone involved; and they cannot be defeated “in the marketplace of ideas,” because fundamental to them is transformation into action, policy, violence. Nationalism, grievance, conspiracy, fantasies of racial superiority, the reification of murder—these are deadly to people and societies, especially in combination, and anybody who says otherwise is either ignorant of the 20th century or lying with intent.
The problem is, since 2016, everyone right of centre HAS been deemed a Nazi. Before that, really, but since The Escalator, its really ramped up.
Ordinary, everyday opinions such as Have a coherent border policy, Don't let fully intact guys on girls sport teams, Lock up violent criminals, are now used as examples of nasty far right bigotry.
Nobody believes the Nazi banners will stop at banning Nazis - there's ample evidence they won't.
I'm one of the ones willing to tolerate a few swastikas - and I do mean a few, there's only like a dozen of them underneath the rock - in return for being able to actually discuss things that matter. I'm the same with the hammer and sickle. If you went full McCarthy you'd ban legitimate concerns about corporate power , workers rights and economic inequality. The same goes for right-ish legitimate concerns about governmental power, individual freedoms and the rest.
Anyone can spread their message, others can counter it. Everything has a price, and putting up with stupid opinions is the price of being able to express considered, thoughtful points of view. Even if wrong, but good faith wrong, with a grain of truth that may lead to solutions.
As for the cam girls, someone should set up a site for them, Merely Admirers or something like that would be a good name. And we could collectively agree that those who prefer political discussions can leave them in peace and go elsewhere.
Forest, I think we're arguing two things here. I think what you're saying that the label "Fascist" has been debased by overuse, especially online, and that there is a danger of moderation being weaponized to silence legitimate discourse. I think these are reasonable ideas, but I'm saying something different.
I'm saying, "Anything that's obviously Nazi"—and I think that even in today's fractious climate, that could be clearly and fairly defined--"should be booted by Substack." Some guy calling some post (or some publication) "fascist" isn't the point; it's Substack both having a zero-tolerance policy for porn and SW, while also refusing to moderate Nazism. I think that's hypocritical, self-serving, and echoes the horribly dangerous ideas that "they can control Fascism" or "it won't hurt people like them." Both ideas were held by many people in Germany in the late 20s and early 30s, especially the wealthy elites who considered Hitler a buffoon and the Nazis a useful bulwark against Communism. To have our own press barons (because that's what Hamish and ilk are) act cavalierly towards contemporary Nazi ideas cannot help but alarm anybody who's read the history.
Substack is already moderating content in pursuit of its commercial goals--what I'd call "acting as a publisher"--but calling itself a platform (whatever that is), in order to avoid the centuries of cultural and intellectual custom that publishers labor under. I also believe that Substack is functioning as a "general interest" publisher, and denying those additional obligations as well.
There's nothing new about Nazi stuff. Nazi publications, and every other type of extreme of information, have been available for my entire life (once again, I'm 54). But meatspace commerce placed barriers on them, external and also simply practical, which throttled down on their negative effects. Because there is so much less friction in digital creation, manufacture, and distribution, and so much more ease of spread through vast network effects, ideas online tend to grow not on merit, but simply based on whether they appeal to the limbic brain--whether it's Nazism or hardcore porn, if it scratches an itch, it spreads online. Fast. This, too, seems not to factor into Substack's decisions.
Before the internet, getting ahold of Nazi books or magazines was essentially the same difficulty as getting ahold of hardcore porn, and these restrictions seemed to function passably well. You could not, for example, check out "Mein Kampf" at your local public library, but you could, with effort, obtain a copy. You could not easily obtain photos of outre sex practices, but you could, with effort, obtain them. This "metering" did not stifle these ideas or make them unknown. They were, however, treated with caution and respect, and in the case of Nazi stuff, always with historical context. There were not homemade remixes of "The World at War" floating around, where the Nazis were the good guys.
From 1946 to 1995 the Nazis were endlessly debated, but always within the context of the patently obvious, widely agreed upon catastrophe that they caused. Yes, the restriction made them a bit "naughty"--but the idea that Mein Kampf had a right to be as accessible as the latest bestseller would've been dismissed as preposterous, and more than a little psychologically unwell. That we are seriously discussing this suggests a kind of "forgetting"--intentional or not--that I find appalling. Just because there's nobody around who got beat up by Nazi thugs in 1928, we shouldn't pretend that Nazi ideas don't lead to what we know they lead to.
To me, anybody who thinks hardcore porn should be sequestered is making a great argument for the same being done for Nazi material. Can it be identified distinctly from the run of mainstream political thought? Yes. Should it be? Yes. Did the barriers sequestering Nazi thought in the past harm society, the free-flow of ideas, or right-wing politics in general? Not so anybody back then could tell. Should people be thrown in jail for publishing Nazi stuff, as they were for porn, pre-Chatterly? No. But there should be some commonsense restrictions upon who can access the stuff, and how. Publishers have always exercised this type of restraint on certain types of material, and societies have always insisted that they do so. Arguing that this should NOT continue, as Substack seems to be doing, is the very antithesis of conservatism, and arguing that it should not continue specifically in the case of Nazism, suggests that the people at Substack aren't really aware of what they're playing with. That's bad news.
Thank you, this is actually the best argument for banning that I've come across since all this started up. It's a lot to think about.
But, as you say, the context of the times changes things. And - imo - its undeniable that in the last decade certain topics, certain fairly widely held viewpoints have been vilified and rendered unspeakable. All across the Western world, there's been egregious examples. To continue the porn/politics metaphor, its akin to a picture of a girl in a mini skirt being treated like a hard-core video.
If I believed that once Substack had agreed to banning actual real Nazis, they'd stop there, I'd approve. But it's obvious it won't stop there, there will always be more activist demands. This has played out before. Strangely, no one is talking of banning Communist blogs, though numbers wise they have even bloodier hands than Nazis. That to me is evidence of a particular mindset, not based on principle and fairness, but a deeply partisan set of tactics.
I'd prefer to hold my nose and acknowledge a few horrible people exist and counter them; rather than ban them, giving them the glamour of transgression, fueling conspiracy theories, and most importantly chilling the exchange of good faith ideas.
No solutions, only trade offs is where I'm coming from with this, I suppose.
@Forest, I'm glad my thoughts made some sense; I'm just applying old-style publishing thinking. It's really not so different.
I haven't found that really ANY idea has become unspeakable over the last decade; quite the opposite in fact. Anything and everything is spoken about online, driven by the fact that outrage breeds engagement, and engagement leads to money. So I think all these platforms encourage argument spiraling hotter and hotter. I think people online are really really shitty to each other, and hurl invective, and everybody walks around feeling stung. I know I do.
As to the worldwide turn to Fascism (ye gods), if I had to guess at what's going on, it's that humanity is waking up to the idea that climate change is hitting, and because no one wishes to decarbonize, we are looking at a scramble for resources and--once again, I'm talking of the fear--a mass die-off of some big scale, like 50% in the next 50 years. Everybody wants it to be the other guy. So people are retreating into their tribes, looking to strong men to save them, turning away from globalism, towards fundamentalism, et cetera.
Having been around for the Cold War, I can assure anybody reading that there is no--zero--zilch--nada--authentic appetite for Communist revolution in what used to be called "the First World," except for the growing sense that the oligarchs are going to let us all burn. That may well cause an uprising against the 1%, and the Big Guys are certainly acting like they expect one. But with the USSR, Cuba, and Mao's China as the primary examples of what Communism can provide, I don't think anyone has to worry about that philosophy taking hold.
As a boy in St. Louis, in the 1970s I saw many, many older people with numbers tattooed on their arms (it's a German town, or was then). And I also read about Stalin's and Mao's famines, and the horrors of Pol Pot as they happened. All of those outrageous authoritarian philosophies must be cast away, in favor of a truer, deeper conservatism--a conservation of people's worth, potential, and dignity, and the planet we require to express these things. Nazism is a bankrupt ideology that the unscrupulous use to prey on the desperate. It should have no place in America, because we should take better care of each other; that's what worked in the 1930s, and I think it could work again. The world is crying out for new philosophies and improved old ones; Nazism wastes time we need for The Next Thing.
This is both a fine piece of writing (no surprise there though as you have such a fluent style) and a clarion warning as to our current national experiment in "let's play with these matches and see what happens." Somehow we have, without the slightest application of intellectual rigor, convinced ourselves that we are simply letting good ideas see the light of day and letting those same sunbeams expose the bad and dangerous ones. Ah, but if it were only that simple.
I particularly like your argument that we know how this process works and how it ends. The milestones on the "via fascism" are well placed and easy to read. There are no surprises, just the well-worn path ahead that has been ground down by so many preceding footfalls.
Well...I guess for me there is one surprise in all this and that is the absolute smugness of the tech bros in pretending that their "marketplace" of ideas is just and only that. Hey, all we are doing is providing an electronic Speaker's Corner. If only... Frankly I can understand that they are in it for a buck, but they do not even pretend to cobble together a convincing argument. Heck, in the old days at least you would hire a top-flight PR shop to massage the message a bit and prep you for the difficult questions. Now they don't even bother with that as they know that so many of us (collectively) are merely waiting in line for our turn in lighting the next match.
Keep up the excellent work. I encourage my friends to also support what you are doing.
How does "this process work"? Your delusional fantasies of the imminent fascist takeover are turning you into very real fascists. In all the years of right wing ascendancy I, a lefty, never once felt the violation of my bodily autonomy, right to free speech or right to vote for my preferred candidate violated as I do under the current liberal supremacy.
I get it. Trump is a fascist and thus any and all efforts are justified to stop him including gearing up every institution of the state, financial system and media to stop him. And it never occurs to you that wrecking every law and institution in pursuit of your perceived devil is the very thing that conjures him into existence in the first place; that once these institutions have grabbed total, unrestrained power they will never give it up. And that the CIA and FBI don't give a shit about "trans rights" or woke or any of this shit - they like power and the extension of their own. You have all ushered in a true police state in your certainty that you had identified a potential police state in the offing. You will regret what you've done, whether the response comes from the "right" or "left" at this point is immaterial. You've laid out the ground rules for 21st century political battle and the only rule is there are no rules.
For all the elite education the one idea you all failed to appreciate is equality under the law:
“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”
― Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts
A publisher is an entity which owns the content it produces. Does Substack own all of the content produced on Substack? No.
The New York Times is a publisher. The New York Times owns all of the content its staff produces in the course of their work, and is responsible for that content.
If a New York Times reporter libels someone in a story published in the pages the New York Times, the New York Times can be held legally liable for that content.
A platform is a place that allows other people to publish content that they own.
The Comedy Cellar is a platform. The Comedy Cellar does not own the acts of the comedians that get up on stage at the Comedy Cellar and perform their acts. The Comedy Cellar cannot be held legally liable for the content performed (published) on its stage.
If in the course of performing his act at the Comedy Cellar, a comedian creates an incitement to violence which leaves several people injured, the Comedy Cellar cannot be charged with incitement to violence—only the comedian whose act, which he owns, can be held liable.
And in case you’re thinking “Bu-bu-bu-but, porn!” No. The distinction between publisher and platform does not mean platforms have to platform anyone. It only means they don’t own, and therefore aren’t liable for, the content published on them. They can still make decisions about what they do and don’t platform.
“Why then would they platform Nazis?” you might ask. And the answer is: For all the reasons we’ve already told you.
We live in a pluralistic democracy. That means that people have the right to be wrong. And we accept some amount of people holding abhorrent views to exist in our society because the alternative is giving up our freedom and living under authoritarianism.
If you don’t like it—leave. There are plenty of authoritarian platforms (and countries, for that matter) that you can go be a part of. But you’re not going to mess up our free space by turning it into the authoritarian shit-hole you so desperately crave.
The only thing I'd add is that The Cato Institute and Bill’s Replacement Theory Book Club share a dating Discord called "Sloppy Seconds." On there, 'pulling a train' is called "The John Galt Line," or so I've heard.
See you in camp, doubtless, the way things are headed.
Oh as a disabled satirist I'm sure I'll be FINE, @Richard. About as fine as a tech bro who owns a social media platform that the Leader wants to expropriate.
See, that's what's so insane-making about all this stuff; don't do it because I'm telling you. Do it because, historically, you'll be the first ones they go after.
I will never raise a gun to another American, but I'm under no illusions about what's at stake here. We gotta stop fooling around with these guys; Nazism, neo-Confederacy, all that stuff -- it's got to be absolutely shunned. Homo sapiens is simply too susceptible to such stories.
Not that it counts for much, @Michael, but I'm a philosopher. I used to teach philosophy and ethics -- and an editorial writer in a newspaper during the Bush Years. I went to town for years opposing and showing WHY anything that opens the doors to these right-wing extremists is morally intolerable, thus intolerable for a peaceful civil society and the rights one gains living in such, and why a liberal democracy can only legally tolerate such positions to a very limited degree -- because the aim is to break all the limits and beat everyone who disagrees to death with the rubble.
If you're among the first to go, I'll be second. I'm also of the wrong religious persuasion and have a diagnostic code, so there's that, and they can't have me teaching kids to think for themselves. I'm a sort of poison... in the blood of the nation.
Frank, this is kinda my point. Nazi stuff was available in the past, but it wasn't shared like athlete's foot. These technologies are all about sharing, with no thought to the kind of common sense brakes on sharing that existed in earlier forms of publishing. People could and did read Fascist material in the 1970s, 80s and 90s--there was a publisher here in LA called AMOK Books which offered all sorts of crazy stuff--but the IRL nature of it all tended to tamp down spread of ideas that were deleterious to society. Not so modern digital sharing, which selects solely for dopamine, and makes people into mobs. Of all political stripes.
Well, are Ukrainians allowed to post here, considering their long history of neo-nazism? I don’t get where to snap the chalk line. To me, if it isn’t illegal, it can be posted and discussed. Similarly,if a private forum wants to prohibit a thing, they’re free to do so and folks can either subscribe or not...
Terrific piece, Michael! Just as the proliferation of sexually explicit content in NatLamp eventually led people to think of it as pornography, I’m worried the proliferation of Nazi content will lead folks to think of Substack as MailChimp for Nazis.
This thread really took off in a lot of different directions. I'll say this: my grandmother was born in Russian in the aftermath of the communist revolution. My grandfather fought in the Polish cavalry in September, 1939. They met when they were both in forced labor after having been captured by the Nazis. They didn't have a lot of fond affection for Nazi-related humor, even if it was anti-Nazi (Hogan's Heroes, The Producers, etc.). When I was younger, I spent a lot of time thinking how amazingly edgy I was for liking dark comedy. I was especially ripe for the picking for stuff like Lampoon, and who knows what I would have been into if today's internet existed then. However, the older I get, the more I can appreciate my grandparents' point of view, knowing that they lived through much of the worst of what the 20th century had to offer the Western world. It's a tough line to straddle trying to write relevant comedy and deal with a lot of the uninformed material flying around the web.
Did your grandparents demand censorship of views they didn't like?
The defining characteristic of the liberal class is its complete certainty in its own righteousness and brilliance, including its determination that the rest of us can't be trusted to think for ourselves. It's a convenient belief that is, ironically, shared with nazis, communists and all authoritarians throughout history.
They didn't demand censorship. They were happy to be in a place where all views could be expressed. Often, letters from overseas would come heavily censored by the communists. My grandmother had been denied an education as a youth and, once in the U.S., was a voracious reader of all things, even things she didn't agree with. Realizing what they'd been through, and my place of privilege for not having to be forced to live through it, I just became more thoughtful about what they would find funny.
@Jeff, I will say too that I tend to raise an eyebrow when these conversations start talking about "censorship." Modern digital networks make old-fashioned censorship impossible, and that's generally a good thing. Whether or not Substack hosts Nazi content, it will be available online a million places for those people who like it, to consume it. All types of outrageous material is available online.
My issue is that having it on Substack--a newsletter publisher that is both used by the mainstream, and markets itself as such--normalizes Nazi ideas, and gives the impression that they are worthy of mainstream examination. Which, given the history of the 20th Century, they really aren't.
Good point. It's funny that somehow amidst all the partisan vitriol online, both sides seemed to find a way to call each other Nazis. Once we get past that, we may just find a way to bring people together.
Not to blow smoke up your butt, but if you wrote a history of humor, I’d buy it. I’m a little younger than the young men you describe in this piece. The Lampoon didn’t really appeal to me by the time I started reading humor in the late 80s / early 90s. Honestly, I’m not even sure if it was around by then. But the Lampoon vibe has loomed large throughout my career. Early on, I tried to imitate it, but that didn’t really work, and I felt really weird about my humor. For the past ten years, I’ve just been writing more personal stuff. I found the heart, as my earliest mentors urged me to do. But reading pieces like this really help me understand the comedy world I, and so many others, inherited, as well as my reaction to it.
OK, you got me. I signed the letter because I have been fired for having the wrong opinions, and I didn't like it. I don't want Substack or anybody else censoring me, personally.
But I also agree with most of what you said here. And as a mini-publisher of my own stuff, I have zero time or tolerance for fascist bullshit on my own site. So yes, I'd be fine with banning Nazis, if I had any confidence that it would stop there. Or, to be honest, if the house was burning down, which it might just be.
Weird transition, I know, but I was watching 'THE GREAT FIRE, In Real Time', a doc that showed how healthy structures with intact clay-tile roofs and wattle-and-daub walls were very fire resistant, but that poorly maintained ones with cracks and holes exposed the wood to wind-blown embers and allowed fire to spread with incredible speed, leading to the loss of much of the city of London in 1666. Replace "structures" with "culture" or "institutions" and drastic measures, early in the emergency, seem not only logical but necessary and morally right. Maintenance and prevention are too slow during a fire.
Randall, I'm sorry you got fired for having the wrong opinions. I think -- as in the 1960s -- we're in a period where the culture is changing, and -- unlike the 1960s -- both the forces for change and the forces for reaction are amplified and distorted and spread by the internet. And I think mores are changing so much FASTER, and well-meaning people are caught up in this.
I think the most sensible way to proceed is to cautiously, and try to learn from the past. Defining Substack as a "platform" makes it into a new thing, which is great for it--they get to declare whatever rules they want--but the cultural tradition of "publishing" gives us lots of models to draw upon.
In well-functioning and "free" societies, most information is shared without restriction; some is shared with some restriction; and a small amount is difficult to find. (Not suppressed, but not available in two clicks.)
I think Substack's relationship vis-a-vis porn suggests that they're well aware that not everything should be accessible to everyone--if you're going to define yourself as a general-interest distributor of info, which they do. But applying that kind of restriction to porn, while not applying it to Nazism seems...chillingly like late Weimar, where middle-class discomfort over perceived sexual license in big cities like Berlin was leveraged by authoritarians to gain power.
I am all for free speech--my livelihood depends upon it--but this specific anti-sex, anti-woman (80% of sex workers are women), and pro-Nazi policy of Substack is simply too close to late Weimar elite attitudes for me to not say something.
It is perhaps relevant that Katz's article was, bluntly, full of horseshit: he did not in fact find any Nazis that Substack is monetizing. The writeup has been debunked thoroughly and in detail. All of his listed examples were false, and in response to that being pointed out he has responded with nothing but smears of the debunkers. (All of which is of course straight out of the playbook of...Nazis.)
I liked the Lampoon back when I was in college. Even then, I skipped over things I found objectionable and still found some incredible and incredibly funny writing, but I also recall that I only read it for a couple of years, because I did notice that the quality of the content, from my perspective, declined. I still recognize its contribution to the world of comedy, though.
What is remembered about Lampoon today is its commitment to boundary-pushing—the portion of its DNA which came from the underground press (and there were really two features of the underground press: sexual license, and a real disdain for authoritarianism). That's prevalent in the early Lampoon.
But there are at least two other strains in classic NatLamp, which is 1) the college humor magazine tradition; and 2) top-quality general interest magazines of the time, like Esquire (which was coming off perhaps the greatest 5-7 year run in the history of US magazines). Both of those strains worked to counterbalance Lampoon's sexual license, for a time. But after the founders left in 1975, the dynamics changed and more and more it relied upon smut. IOW, you gotta have the close parodies of Fitzgerald AND the nudity AND the ironic shock humor, for it to work.
Imagine that - skipping over the parts you don't like. Instead, this guy and the entire liberal cohort pretend that everything they don't like is extremely dangerous and will inevitably lead us all to a fascist dystopia if left uncensored.
I’m a boomer and the early 70’s Lampoon was very funny. Nineteen years old is a perfect age for something like that. And yes indeed, we are facing the problems of too little privacy and too much fascism. That’s complicated and frightening.
Fond memories of Lampoon, for all the reasons you cite. Thanks for an honest, cogent analysis of the situation and a clear ask of Substack (demand?). Happy New Year!
Some great points here about Substack, and really about the internet as a whole. As for pushing boundaries, I agree that all those boundaries have been pushed - sometimes pointlessly so. The most shocking thing now might be to write clear, concise, story-based humor material rather than something that's wordy, overblown, bombastic, and shocking for shock's sake.
As for National Lampoon, my first encounter with it was in 1992, when it seemed to be moving into a Spy-type knockoff. When I finally found back issues in a ratty used bookstore in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago a few years later, I was legitimately shocked on what I'd stumbled across. Being an impressionable teenager, however, I grabbed as many copies as I could.
What I learned after reading them was the best era was 1971 - 1973. The period after that got too shocking for the sake of shocking for me. I was especially creeped out by P.J. O'Rourke's pieces, and actually some of Tony Hendra's. The ones from 1970 I actually found a little boring. 1976 seemed to be the worst offender to me in terms of hatefulness.
It bugs me that there's great material in Lampoon, but it's buttressed by such pointlessly offensive stuff. It reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld's line, "...No! It offends me as a comedian!"
Jeff, Lampoon doesn't really gel until late 1970, when Michael Gross comes on board as Art Director. Those first five or so issues are, as you say, boring, and I think it's because the material and the art direction are pulling in different directions. Lampoon's big innovation was its titanically graphic quality, which was a whole new aspect in print humor magazines. SPY's approach was much more traditional, in that Isley's design was hugely distinctive and created a great sense of place—it was a visualization of SPY's relationship to the past—but that magazine could've been designed differently and still been what it was. Not so NatLamp; Gross and Kaestle and Kleinman were as much a part of its success as Kenney and Beard and O'Donoghue.
O'Rourke and Hendra's work also creeped me out. As I've written before, with PJ, there was some sense that he was grinding an ax, even when he was funny, and my feeling was that he was putting delicious frosting on an arsenic cookie.
With Hendra, there always seemed to be an elemental mean darkness that leached out of his work, though at this late date I can't separate my own feelings from the stories I was told by Sean Kelly. There is a type of Englishman who—very smart though they may be—uses humor primarily as a way to reinforce the hierarchy they've created in their head, and they like hanging out with Ivy Leaguers because it's the energy of America with the snobbiness of England.
I reached out to a lot of old NatLamp people but not to P.J. or Tony. While I respected them both, I didn't want what they brought to a magazine. I am a strong believer that a person's comedy is a fairly accurate reflection of who they are, and both of those guys struck me as a great way to restart all the old feuds at a magazine that needed to be no-drama if it was going to survive.
I think Lampoon was marred by its desire to shock, and the fact that this turned out to be its legacy is tragic, but predictable. Incidentally, the Nazi stuff in Lampoon only works because Nazism was, by the early 70s, quite clearly seen as really monstrous and really DUMB.
It's funny - in the late 90's, a lot of my peers didn't even know that National Lampoon was a magazine. They only knew it as a brand from the movies. When some friends of mine saw my 1976 run of National Lampoon, they immediately assumed they were porn magazines. And in retrospect, they were kind of right. There's a great line from a Simpsons episode set in the 'future', where Marge says something to the effect of, "Fox turned into a hardcore porn channel so gradually, you hardly noticed." The same kind of thing might be said for National Lampoon. It's almost as though once they opened the door, it gave the wrong people the excuse to use those same comedic tools for evil. Maybe that's the same point you're trying to make about Substack. This makes me wonder, is there a media that can't be corrupted that way?
I was just about to go to bed when your article turned up in my inbox, and I always love reading your stories, insights and perspectives on humor and writing. Also, for some reason, when I see "National Lampoon" in relation to anything other than awful movies, I have to click, and so I read, even though I'm exhausted. I doubt I have much to add and in my current nearly-flatlined state may make an ass out of myself; I did want to say that, not just in his humor but in his dealings with nearly every other human being with whom he came into contact, TH seems to have regularly engaged in cruelty for its own sake, like some really mediocre super-villain. (Sean Kelly told me about the incident that led to their falling out after years of friendship and co-authorship, and it seemed to be an utterly pointless act of either greed or dominance assertion. I always loved Sean's statement that Hendra slept with O'Donoghue's ex because it was the worst thing he could do short of killing her). I'm way too tired to weigh in on Substack publishing Nazis, other than to say, I'm against it. Look forward to re-reading this piece tomorrow when I'm fully awake.
Sean always told me, "As a former Catholic monk, The Bone regularly needed to prove the existence of evil. Personally, if necessary."
I've been missing Sean lately. He's been visiting me in dreams.
I would love to get a dream visitation from Sean! Is he in good spirits?
I still cannot believe he's gone. I only met him about 3 times, and interviewed him at length in 1998. I always wished I could have gotten to know him better. The last time I saw him was in 2012 at a gig his son Mac's band, Big Neck Police, had in Williamsburg - he invited everyone in his Facebook feed, and when I was the only person who showed up, he said, "I invited my all colleagues from work, and no one came. Now I hate them". Anytime he liked (or, oh, happy Day!, 'laugh emoticon'd') something I wrote on that evil social network, I was good for the next few hours.
There will never be another like him - or, for that matter, Hendra and O'Rourke (but that's fine).
Yes, Sean seems to be in good spirits. He's telling me to talk to saints.
Oh, y'know, Tony and PJ were part of Life's Rich Pageant. I'm only discussing them as writers/editors. Neither of them ever did me a lick of harm (and I made sure of that by steering clear).
"Move fast and break things" was Zuckerberg's motto. Obvious result: a lot of broken shit and tech bros fleeing to Turks & Caicos with their lucre.
We need to force the Nazis and neo-confederates off this site so they need to build their own platform. Save the FBI some monitoring time.
Build your own platform, “Nazis”!
*builds own platform
*platform fills with talented writers and civil discourse
*idiot colonists show up
Nice platform, we'll take it! Build your own, Nazis!
(edit: oh yeah, and let's not forget the endless debates over what does and doesn't count as a nazi, which ultimately expands to include the majority of the userbase...)
*repeat ad nauseam
How about you just go back to tumblr, blogspot, wordpress, etc. etc. etc. Or whatever bland aristocratic/corporate rag you used to write for, as applicable.
Why on earth would you want to give the FBI free labor?
Two questions: Who is “We,” exactly? It’s certainly does not include ME. And why would anyone want to allow the FBI monitoring time in the first place, much less to make their jobs easier?
They always assume they belong to the majority. It’s their moral right cause they are right so the rest of you obey!
I'm descended from generations of rebels and adventurers, curmudgeons and stubborn farmers. Obedience has never come naturally to me.
Justin Trudeau keeps seeing real Canadians doing real Canadian stuff and saying ‘That’s not who we are as Canadians’. Meanwhile he is PM with 30% of the vote and is now the most hated PM of all time. I doubt he is legitimately at 20%. But WE aren’t real Canadians.
Translation: we demand Substack be under State control like Google and Meta.
Thank you for the “block me” prompt.
Ah, so much for "Everybody's silo'd off from each other, so just let the 'alt-right' be!" that I was told by some Substack policy apologists. Clearly this is not the case if YOU are coming in here and trolling Michael Gerber's Substack.
I wonder how quickly you'd squeal to Substack for "moderation" if us "Socialists" were to come onto YOUR Substack and incessantly troll you and call you a "moronic Nazi jackass", which you and your friend Eugine Neir so clearly are?
Eugine, that’s like saying everyone who writes a letter to a newspaper should understand how a printing press works. The whole point of my piece was that substack is simply a publisher, and should be held—and more importantly hold itself—to long-established standards of behavior for publishers. It does so with porn, so why not with Nazism? It’s not a right/left issue, and framing it as such is obsfucating.
If your side hadn’t been calling everyone a Nazi for a decade I might take this piece seriously. I read a takedown of Katz. There were six Stacks only, not scores. And a number were ex extremists who had repented. So, they’re not allowed? Although one is a Biden supporter so he’s likely nuts. And only one or two of the six were monetized. So, no they aren’t making money off them. In addition, there are 100s of 1000s of Stacks. You find one questionable column SS might make a few hundred bucks a month on? That’s it. And you write about this? Get real. Meanwhile all the other platforms have massive amounts of genuinely distasteful stuff, harming children. But that doesn’t bother you. Real Naziism has no power. None. It is like the KKK. Any Nazi meeting or KKK meeting is one old lunatic, four mentally deficient white guys, 3 embedded journalists, and two FBI agents.
The only KKK left is the Ku Katz Klan.
The far left has certainly expanded the definition of fascist. Antifa (anti-fascist) proudly includes copy, military veterans and their supporters as fascists. And if you look at the campus protesters, many of them clearly include anyone who identifies as conservative (even on a handful of issues) as in that camp. So I have zero confidence that a platform that starts off deplatforming Nazis will stop there.
Well James’s comment just showed a completely lack of understanding of even the business side of things.
My values lean heavily in the direction of free speech as a matter of cultural norms and not just legal principle, but I'm with you on this one Mike - that doesn't extend to Nazis on Substack. And here "Nazis" doesn't mean "everyone right of centre", it clearly means "people proudly displaying swastikas who stoke fears about coordinated plots to overthrow white people".
When people talk about airing all views so that the best ones can win, that ignores the fact that Substack isn't a campus, it's a newsletter site where people naturally gather into silos. Lefty Substack publications aren't "debating" Nazi ones, and even if they were I doubt they'd do much good. (Hearts and minds can be changed, yes, sometimes, but in the case of deep-seated bigotry the changing entails lots and lots of in-depth in-person interactions, not a snappy comeback on an Internet forum. People's worldviews derive more from their personalities and needs than dispassionate logic, and always will.)
So here you have a situation where Nazi propaganda, far from being aired and debated in an open forum, is being piped directly into the inboxes of people who are already open to it. It's not even Hyde Park, it's an exclusive book club. Which results in a genuine online community, which results in better organising, which results in more in-person gatherings, which...well, let's just kick 'em out.
I too am a passionate defender of free speech, which is why I feel Nazism should be considered beyond the bounds of appropriate discourse—as it was between 1945-2016. These philosophies have been tested, and found to be utterly lethal to everyone involved; and they cannot be defeated “in the marketplace of ideas,” because fundamental to them is transformation into action, policy, violence. Nationalism, grievance, conspiracy, fantasies of racial superiority, the reification of murder—these are deadly to people and societies, especially in combination, and anybody who says otherwise is either ignorant of the 20th century or lying with intent.
The problem is, since 2016, everyone right of centre HAS been deemed a Nazi. Before that, really, but since The Escalator, its really ramped up.
Ordinary, everyday opinions such as Have a coherent border policy, Don't let fully intact guys on girls sport teams, Lock up violent criminals, are now used as examples of nasty far right bigotry.
Nobody believes the Nazi banners will stop at banning Nazis - there's ample evidence they won't.
I'm one of the ones willing to tolerate a few swastikas - and I do mean a few, there's only like a dozen of them underneath the rock - in return for being able to actually discuss things that matter. I'm the same with the hammer and sickle. If you went full McCarthy you'd ban legitimate concerns about corporate power , workers rights and economic inequality. The same goes for right-ish legitimate concerns about governmental power, individual freedoms and the rest.
Anyone can spread their message, others can counter it. Everything has a price, and putting up with stupid opinions is the price of being able to express considered, thoughtful points of view. Even if wrong, but good faith wrong, with a grain of truth that may lead to solutions.
As for the cam girls, someone should set up a site for them, Merely Admirers or something like that would be a good name. And we could collectively agree that those who prefer political discussions can leave them in peace and go elsewhere.
Forest, I think we're arguing two things here. I think what you're saying that the label "Fascist" has been debased by overuse, especially online, and that there is a danger of moderation being weaponized to silence legitimate discourse. I think these are reasonable ideas, but I'm saying something different.
I'm saying, "Anything that's obviously Nazi"—and I think that even in today's fractious climate, that could be clearly and fairly defined--"should be booted by Substack." Some guy calling some post (or some publication) "fascist" isn't the point; it's Substack both having a zero-tolerance policy for porn and SW, while also refusing to moderate Nazism. I think that's hypocritical, self-serving, and echoes the horribly dangerous ideas that "they can control Fascism" or "it won't hurt people like them." Both ideas were held by many people in Germany in the late 20s and early 30s, especially the wealthy elites who considered Hitler a buffoon and the Nazis a useful bulwark against Communism. To have our own press barons (because that's what Hamish and ilk are) act cavalierly towards contemporary Nazi ideas cannot help but alarm anybody who's read the history.
Substack is already moderating content in pursuit of its commercial goals--what I'd call "acting as a publisher"--but calling itself a platform (whatever that is), in order to avoid the centuries of cultural and intellectual custom that publishers labor under. I also believe that Substack is functioning as a "general interest" publisher, and denying those additional obligations as well.
There's nothing new about Nazi stuff. Nazi publications, and every other type of extreme of information, have been available for my entire life (once again, I'm 54). But meatspace commerce placed barriers on them, external and also simply practical, which throttled down on their negative effects. Because there is so much less friction in digital creation, manufacture, and distribution, and so much more ease of spread through vast network effects, ideas online tend to grow not on merit, but simply based on whether they appeal to the limbic brain--whether it's Nazism or hardcore porn, if it scratches an itch, it spreads online. Fast. This, too, seems not to factor into Substack's decisions.
Before the internet, getting ahold of Nazi books or magazines was essentially the same difficulty as getting ahold of hardcore porn, and these restrictions seemed to function passably well. You could not, for example, check out "Mein Kampf" at your local public library, but you could, with effort, obtain a copy. You could not easily obtain photos of outre sex practices, but you could, with effort, obtain them. This "metering" did not stifle these ideas or make them unknown. They were, however, treated with caution and respect, and in the case of Nazi stuff, always with historical context. There were not homemade remixes of "The World at War" floating around, where the Nazis were the good guys.
From 1946 to 1995 the Nazis were endlessly debated, but always within the context of the patently obvious, widely agreed upon catastrophe that they caused. Yes, the restriction made them a bit "naughty"--but the idea that Mein Kampf had a right to be as accessible as the latest bestseller would've been dismissed as preposterous, and more than a little psychologically unwell. That we are seriously discussing this suggests a kind of "forgetting"--intentional or not--that I find appalling. Just because there's nobody around who got beat up by Nazi thugs in 1928, we shouldn't pretend that Nazi ideas don't lead to what we know they lead to.
To me, anybody who thinks hardcore porn should be sequestered is making a great argument for the same being done for Nazi material. Can it be identified distinctly from the run of mainstream political thought? Yes. Should it be? Yes. Did the barriers sequestering Nazi thought in the past harm society, the free-flow of ideas, or right-wing politics in general? Not so anybody back then could tell. Should people be thrown in jail for publishing Nazi stuff, as they were for porn, pre-Chatterly? No. But there should be some commonsense restrictions upon who can access the stuff, and how. Publishers have always exercised this type of restraint on certain types of material, and societies have always insisted that they do so. Arguing that this should NOT continue, as Substack seems to be doing, is the very antithesis of conservatism, and arguing that it should not continue specifically in the case of Nazism, suggests that the people at Substack aren't really aware of what they're playing with. That's bad news.
Thank you, this is actually the best argument for banning that I've come across since all this started up. It's a lot to think about.
But, as you say, the context of the times changes things. And - imo - its undeniable that in the last decade certain topics, certain fairly widely held viewpoints have been vilified and rendered unspeakable. All across the Western world, there's been egregious examples. To continue the porn/politics metaphor, its akin to a picture of a girl in a mini skirt being treated like a hard-core video.
If I believed that once Substack had agreed to banning actual real Nazis, they'd stop there, I'd approve. But it's obvious it won't stop there, there will always be more activist demands. This has played out before. Strangely, no one is talking of banning Communist blogs, though numbers wise they have even bloodier hands than Nazis. That to me is evidence of a particular mindset, not based on principle and fairness, but a deeply partisan set of tactics.
I'd prefer to hold my nose and acknowledge a few horrible people exist and counter them; rather than ban them, giving them the glamour of transgression, fueling conspiracy theories, and most importantly chilling the exchange of good faith ideas.
No solutions, only trade offs is where I'm coming from with this, I suppose.
@Forest, I'm glad my thoughts made some sense; I'm just applying old-style publishing thinking. It's really not so different.
I haven't found that really ANY idea has become unspeakable over the last decade; quite the opposite in fact. Anything and everything is spoken about online, driven by the fact that outrage breeds engagement, and engagement leads to money. So I think all these platforms encourage argument spiraling hotter and hotter. I think people online are really really shitty to each other, and hurl invective, and everybody walks around feeling stung. I know I do.
As to the worldwide turn to Fascism (ye gods), if I had to guess at what's going on, it's that humanity is waking up to the idea that climate change is hitting, and because no one wishes to decarbonize, we are looking at a scramble for resources and--once again, I'm talking of the fear--a mass die-off of some big scale, like 50% in the next 50 years. Everybody wants it to be the other guy. So people are retreating into their tribes, looking to strong men to save them, turning away from globalism, towards fundamentalism, et cetera.
Having been around for the Cold War, I can assure anybody reading that there is no--zero--zilch--nada--authentic appetite for Communist revolution in what used to be called "the First World," except for the growing sense that the oligarchs are going to let us all burn. That may well cause an uprising against the 1%, and the Big Guys are certainly acting like they expect one. But with the USSR, Cuba, and Mao's China as the primary examples of what Communism can provide, I don't think anyone has to worry about that philosophy taking hold.
As a boy in St. Louis, in the 1970s I saw many, many older people with numbers tattooed on their arms (it's a German town, or was then). And I also read about Stalin's and Mao's famines, and the horrors of Pol Pot as they happened. All of those outrageous authoritarian philosophies must be cast away, in favor of a truer, deeper conservatism--a conservation of people's worth, potential, and dignity, and the planet we require to express these things. Nazism is a bankrupt ideology that the unscrupulous use to prey on the desperate. It should have no place in America, because we should take better care of each other; that's what worked in the 1930s, and I think it could work again. The world is crying out for new philosophies and improved old ones; Nazism wastes time we need for The Next Thing.
Not sure I quite agree, but I appreciate your perspective.
Happy Christmas!
Michael,
This is both a fine piece of writing (no surprise there though as you have such a fluent style) and a clarion warning as to our current national experiment in "let's play with these matches and see what happens." Somehow we have, without the slightest application of intellectual rigor, convinced ourselves that we are simply letting good ideas see the light of day and letting those same sunbeams expose the bad and dangerous ones. Ah, but if it were only that simple.
I particularly like your argument that we know how this process works and how it ends. The milestones on the "via fascism" are well placed and easy to read. There are no surprises, just the well-worn path ahead that has been ground down by so many preceding footfalls.
Well...I guess for me there is one surprise in all this and that is the absolute smugness of the tech bros in pretending that their "marketplace" of ideas is just and only that. Hey, all we are doing is providing an electronic Speaker's Corner. If only... Frankly I can understand that they are in it for a buck, but they do not even pretend to cobble together a convincing argument. Heck, in the old days at least you would hire a top-flight PR shop to massage the message a bit and prep you for the difficult questions. Now they don't even bother with that as they know that so many of us (collectively) are merely waiting in line for our turn in lighting the next match.
Keep up the excellent work. I encourage my friends to also support what you are doing.
How does "this process work"? Your delusional fantasies of the imminent fascist takeover are turning you into very real fascists. In all the years of right wing ascendancy I, a lefty, never once felt the violation of my bodily autonomy, right to free speech or right to vote for my preferred candidate violated as I do under the current liberal supremacy.
I get it. Trump is a fascist and thus any and all efforts are justified to stop him including gearing up every institution of the state, financial system and media to stop him. And it never occurs to you that wrecking every law and institution in pursuit of your perceived devil is the very thing that conjures him into existence in the first place; that once these institutions have grabbed total, unrestrained power they will never give it up. And that the CIA and FBI don't give a shit about "trans rights" or woke or any of this shit - they like power and the extension of their own. You have all ushered in a true police state in your certainty that you had identified a potential police state in the offing. You will regret what you've done, whether the response comes from the "right" or "left" at this point is immaterial. You've laid out the ground rules for 21st century political battle and the only rule is there are no rules.
For all the elite education the one idea you all failed to appreciate is equality under the law:
“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”
― Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts
But Substack isn’t a publisher—it’s a platform.
A publisher is an entity which owns the content it produces. Does Substack own all of the content produced on Substack? No.
The New York Times is a publisher. The New York Times owns all of the content its staff produces in the course of their work, and is responsible for that content.
If a New York Times reporter libels someone in a story published in the pages the New York Times, the New York Times can be held legally liable for that content.
A platform is a place that allows other people to publish content that they own.
The Comedy Cellar is a platform. The Comedy Cellar does not own the acts of the comedians that get up on stage at the Comedy Cellar and perform their acts. The Comedy Cellar cannot be held legally liable for the content performed (published) on its stage.
If in the course of performing his act at the Comedy Cellar, a comedian creates an incitement to violence which leaves several people injured, the Comedy Cellar cannot be charged with incitement to violence—only the comedian whose act, which he owns, can be held liable.
And in case you’re thinking “Bu-bu-bu-but, porn!” No. The distinction between publisher and platform does not mean platforms have to platform anyone. It only means they don’t own, and therefore aren’t liable for, the content published on them. They can still make decisions about what they do and don’t platform.
“Why then would they platform Nazis?” you might ask. And the answer is: For all the reasons we’ve already told you.
We live in a pluralistic democracy. That means that people have the right to be wrong. And we accept some amount of people holding abhorrent views to exist in our society because the alternative is giving up our freedom and living under authoritarianism.
If you don’t like it—leave. There are plenty of authoritarian platforms (and countries, for that matter) that you can go be a part of. But you’re not going to mess up our free space by turning it into the authoritarian shit-hole you so desperately crave.
Bravo!
My point exactly.
Amen, and amen, Mr. Gerber.
The only thing I'd add is that The Cato Institute and Bill’s Replacement Theory Book Club share a dating Discord called "Sloppy Seconds." On there, 'pulling a train' is called "The John Galt Line," or so I've heard.
See you in camp, doubtless, the way things are headed.
Oh as a disabled satirist I'm sure I'll be FINE, @Richard. About as fine as a tech bro who owns a social media platform that the Leader wants to expropriate.
See, that's what's so insane-making about all this stuff; don't do it because I'm telling you. Do it because, historically, you'll be the first ones they go after.
I will never raise a gun to another American, but I'm under no illusions about what's at stake here. We gotta stop fooling around with these guys; Nazism, neo-Confederacy, all that stuff -- it's got to be absolutely shunned. Homo sapiens is simply too susceptible to such stories.
Not that it counts for much, @Michael, but I'm a philosopher. I used to teach philosophy and ethics -- and an editorial writer in a newspaper during the Bush Years. I went to town for years opposing and showing WHY anything that opens the doors to these right-wing extremists is morally intolerable, thus intolerable for a peaceful civil society and the rights one gains living in such, and why a liberal democracy can only legally tolerate such positions to a very limited degree -- because the aim is to break all the limits and beat everyone who disagrees to death with the rubble.
If you're among the first to go, I'll be second. I'm also of the wrong religious persuasion and have a diagnostic code, so there's that, and they can't have me teaching kids to think for themselves. I'm a sort of poison... in the blood of the nation.
You can get a nice new copy of Mein Kampf for thirteen bucks on Amazon…
Frank, this is kinda my point. Nazi stuff was available in the past, but it wasn't shared like athlete's foot. These technologies are all about sharing, with no thought to the kind of common sense brakes on sharing that existed in earlier forms of publishing. People could and did read Fascist material in the 1970s, 80s and 90s--there was a publisher here in LA called AMOK Books which offered all sorts of crazy stuff--but the IRL nature of it all tended to tamp down spread of ideas that were deleterious to society. Not so modern digital sharing, which selects solely for dopamine, and makes people into mobs. Of all political stripes.
Are you calling for Amazon to remove Mein Kampf? I doubt you are, and you be wrong to do so.
I am not, for the reasons I stated in my reply to you.
Well, are Ukrainians allowed to post here, considering their long history of neo-nazism? I don’t get where to snap the chalk line. To me, if it isn’t illegal, it can be posted and discussed. Similarly,if a private forum wants to prohibit a thing, they’re free to do so and folks can either subscribe or not...
Terrific piece, Michael! Just as the proliferation of sexually explicit content in NatLamp eventually led people to think of it as pornography, I’m worried the proliferation of Nazi content will lead folks to think of Substack as MailChimp for Nazis.
🎶 Tis the season to boot Nazis... 🎄
This thread really took off in a lot of different directions. I'll say this: my grandmother was born in Russian in the aftermath of the communist revolution. My grandfather fought in the Polish cavalry in September, 1939. They met when they were both in forced labor after having been captured by the Nazis. They didn't have a lot of fond affection for Nazi-related humor, even if it was anti-Nazi (Hogan's Heroes, The Producers, etc.). When I was younger, I spent a lot of time thinking how amazingly edgy I was for liking dark comedy. I was especially ripe for the picking for stuff like Lampoon, and who knows what I would have been into if today's internet existed then. However, the older I get, the more I can appreciate my grandparents' point of view, knowing that they lived through much of the worst of what the 20th century had to offer the Western world. It's a tough line to straddle trying to write relevant comedy and deal with a lot of the uninformed material flying around the web.
Did your grandparents demand censorship of views they didn't like?
The defining characteristic of the liberal class is its complete certainty in its own righteousness and brilliance, including its determination that the rest of us can't be trusted to think for ourselves. It's a convenient belief that is, ironically, shared with nazis, communists and all authoritarians throughout history.
They didn't demand censorship. They were happy to be in a place where all views could be expressed. Often, letters from overseas would come heavily censored by the communists. My grandmother had been denied an education as a youth and, once in the U.S., was a voracious reader of all things, even things she didn't agree with. Realizing what they'd been through, and my place of privilege for not having to be forced to live through it, I just became more thoughtful about what they would find funny.
@Jeff, I will say too that I tend to raise an eyebrow when these conversations start talking about "censorship." Modern digital networks make old-fashioned censorship impossible, and that's generally a good thing. Whether or not Substack hosts Nazi content, it will be available online a million places for those people who like it, to consume it. All types of outrageous material is available online.
My issue is that having it on Substack--a newsletter publisher that is both used by the mainstream, and markets itself as such--normalizes Nazi ideas, and gives the impression that they are worthy of mainstream examination. Which, given the history of the 20th Century, they really aren't.
Good point. It's funny that somehow amidst all the partisan vitriol online, both sides seemed to find a way to call each other Nazis. Once we get past that, we may just find a way to bring people together.
Thanks for this, Michael! I always learn something reading your work.
"Note to self: DON'T WRITE LIKE THIS" :-)
@Michael, you are generous and kind as ever. Thank you.
Not to blow smoke up your butt, but if you wrote a history of humor, I’d buy it. I’m a little younger than the young men you describe in this piece. The Lampoon didn’t really appeal to me by the time I started reading humor in the late 80s / early 90s. Honestly, I’m not even sure if it was around by then. But the Lampoon vibe has loomed large throughout my career. Early on, I tried to imitate it, but that didn’t really work, and I felt really weird about my humor. For the past ten years, I’ve just been writing more personal stuff. I found the heart, as my earliest mentors urged me to do. But reading pieces like this really help me understand the comedy world I, and so many others, inherited, as well as my reaction to it.
OK, you got me. I signed the letter because I have been fired for having the wrong opinions, and I didn't like it. I don't want Substack or anybody else censoring me, personally.
But I also agree with most of what you said here. And as a mini-publisher of my own stuff, I have zero time or tolerance for fascist bullshit on my own site. So yes, I'd be fine with banning Nazis, if I had any confidence that it would stop there. Or, to be honest, if the house was burning down, which it might just be.
Weird transition, I know, but I was watching 'THE GREAT FIRE, In Real Time', a doc that showed how healthy structures with intact clay-tile roofs and wattle-and-daub walls were very fire resistant, but that poorly maintained ones with cracks and holes exposed the wood to wind-blown embers and allowed fire to spread with incredible speed, leading to the loss of much of the city of London in 1666. Replace "structures" with "culture" or "institutions" and drastic measures, early in the emergency, seem not only logical but necessary and morally right. Maintenance and prevention are too slow during a fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5d4EoN8rWg
Are were there yet? I don't know, and I don't think anyone else does either.
Randall, I'm sorry you got fired for having the wrong opinions. I think -- as in the 1960s -- we're in a period where the culture is changing, and -- unlike the 1960s -- both the forces for change and the forces for reaction are amplified and distorted and spread by the internet. And I think mores are changing so much FASTER, and well-meaning people are caught up in this.
I think the most sensible way to proceed is to cautiously, and try to learn from the past. Defining Substack as a "platform" makes it into a new thing, which is great for it--they get to declare whatever rules they want--but the cultural tradition of "publishing" gives us lots of models to draw upon.
In well-functioning and "free" societies, most information is shared without restriction; some is shared with some restriction; and a small amount is difficult to find. (Not suppressed, but not available in two clicks.)
I think Substack's relationship vis-a-vis porn suggests that they're well aware that not everything should be accessible to everyone--if you're going to define yourself as a general-interest distributor of info, which they do. But applying that kind of restriction to porn, while not applying it to Nazism seems...chillingly like late Weimar, where middle-class discomfort over perceived sexual license in big cities like Berlin was leveraged by authoritarians to gain power.
I am all for free speech--my livelihood depends upon it--but this specific anti-sex, anti-woman (80% of sex workers are women), and pro-Nazi policy of Substack is simply too close to late Weimar elite attitudes for me to not say something.
Excellent perspective, and a fun trip down memory lane. That Lampoon cover was the absolute best.
Yes! Wonderful, boundary-pushing stuff, especially from 1970-75.
It is perhaps relevant that Katz's article was, bluntly, full of horseshit: he did not in fact find any Nazis that Substack is monetizing. The writeup has been debunked thoroughly and in detail. All of his listed examples were false, and in response to that being pointed out he has responded with nothing but smears of the debunkers. (All of which is of course straight out of the playbook of...Nazis.)
🔥🔥🔥
Well said!
I liked the Lampoon back when I was in college. Even then, I skipped over things I found objectionable and still found some incredible and incredibly funny writing, but I also recall that I only read it for a couple of years, because I did notice that the quality of the content, from my perspective, declined. I still recognize its contribution to the world of comedy, though.
Glad you liked, Jennifer.
What is remembered about Lampoon today is its commitment to boundary-pushing—the portion of its DNA which came from the underground press (and there were really two features of the underground press: sexual license, and a real disdain for authoritarianism). That's prevalent in the early Lampoon.
But there are at least two other strains in classic NatLamp, which is 1) the college humor magazine tradition; and 2) top-quality general interest magazines of the time, like Esquire (which was coming off perhaps the greatest 5-7 year run in the history of US magazines). Both of those strains worked to counterbalance Lampoon's sexual license, for a time. But after the founders left in 1975, the dynamics changed and more and more it relied upon smut. IOW, you gotta have the close parodies of Fitzgerald AND the nudity AND the ironic shock humor, for it to work.
I agree. And Lampoon certainly want the only comedy/humor I was consuming. The good stuff was really good. Even some of the smut was good for a time.
I got really into comedy later, when I was in my 20s, and I was watching more standup than anything else. I even tried standup for a time in my 40s!
I'll give your pub a look. Money's tight for me, but comedy is still one of my favorite things!
Jennifer, reach out through the website and I'll send you a PDF gratis.
And done! Saw the list of past contributors. Great stuff!
Thanks!
*wasn't the only
Imagine that - skipping over the parts you don't like. Instead, this guy and the entire liberal cohort pretend that everything they don't like is extremely dangerous and will inevitably lead us all to a fascist dystopia if left uncensored.
I’m a boomer and the early 70’s Lampoon was very funny. Nineteen years old is a perfect age for something like that. And yes indeed, we are facing the problems of too little privacy and too much fascism. That’s complicated and frightening.
Fond memories of Lampoon, for all the reasons you cite. Thanks for an honest, cogent analysis of the situation and a clear ask of Substack (demand?). Happy New Year!
Thank you Julie! Same to you.