Alan Dershowitz - Cancel Culture

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This book is dedicated to the students who are standing up, often at personal risk, to cancel culture, political correctness, identity politics, and other attacks on free speech, due process, meritocracy, and democratic values.

Copyright 2020 by Alan Dershowitz

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-6490-3

eBook: 978-1-5107-6491-0

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

C ancel culture is the new McCarthyism of the woke generation. As with the old McCarthyism, it ends careers, destroys legacies, breaks up families, and even causes suicideswith no semblance of due process or opportunity to disprove the often-false or exaggerated accusations. As with McCarthyism, even when the accusations are true, or partially true, they are generally about acts done, statements made, or positions taken many years earlier, when different values and attitudes prevailed. And, as with McCarthyism, the impact goes beyond the cancelled individual and affects other members of society, from audiences denied the right to hear cancelled performers, to students denied the right to learn from cancelled teachers, to citizens denied the right to vote for cancelled politicians.

I remember the original McCarthyism and the devastating impact it had on my generation of young people. We were warned by our parents never to speak out, sign petitions, join organizations, or attend concerts that were in any way associated with left-wingers, pinkos, or fellow travelers, lest we be labeled subversive and our future prospects cancelled. My parents, especially my mother, were terrified about lists and records. This was, after all, the age of blacklists, Red Channels, and other colored compilations that kept anyone on them from getting a job. They will put you on a list, my mother would warn. Or, It will go on your permanent record. When I was fourteen, I actually did something that may have gotten me on a list.

It was during the height of the McCarthy period, shortly after Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had been sentenced to death for allegedly spying for the Soviet Union. A Rosenberg relative was asking people to sign a petition to save the Rosenbergs lives. I read the petition and it made sense to me, so I signed it. A neighbor observed the transaction and duly reported it to my mother. She was convinced that my life was over, my career ruined, and my willingness to sign a Communist-inspired petition part of my permanent record. My mother decided that I had to be taught a lesson. She told my father the story. I could see that my father was proud of what I had done, but my mother told him to slap me. Ever obedient, he did, causing him, I suspect, more pain than me.

During the height of McCarthyism, we couldnt see movies, go to shows, or watch TV programs made by or acted in by blacklisted artists, because there were none. We couldnt be taught by blacklisted teachers, because they were fired. We couldnt be patients, clients, or voters for blacklisted doctors, lawyers, or politicians, because they were denied the ability to practice their professions.

Even more fundamentally, the old McCarthyism endangered our constitutional rights of free speech and due process, which are the core protectors of liberty and barriers against tyranny. The new McCarthyismcancel culturethreatens these rights as well.