Substack writer Bari Weiss explained to CNN host Brian Stelter on Sunday how the mainstream media, like CNN, helps perpetuate the worst aspects of cancel culture.
Stelter asked why Weiss thinks the "world has gone mad."
“Well, you know, when you have the chief reporter on the beat of COVID for The New York Times talking about how questioning or pursuing the question of the lab leak is racist, the world has gone mad. When you’re not able to say out loud and in public that there are differences between men and women, the world has gone mad. When we’re not allowed to acknowledge that rioting is rioting, and it is bad, and that silence is not violence, but violence is violence, the world has gone mad," Weiss said.
"You say we’re not allowed, we’re not able. Who’s the people stopping the conversation? Who are they?" Stelter asked.
"People that work at networks, frankly, like the one I’m speaking on right now, who try and claim that you know, it was — it was racist to investigate the lab leak theory," Weiss replied.
"But I’m just saying though when you say allowed, I just think it’s a provocative thing you say —you say — you say we’re not allowed to talk about these things," Stelter said. "But they’re all over the Internet. I can Google them and I can find them everywhere. I’ve heard about every story you mentioned.”
Weiss noted many subjects have become "third rail" issues where even hinting at the notion of not believing what the vast majority believe can be detrimental to one's career or professional life. She used the example of Dorian Abbott, a geophysicist at the University of Chicago, who had a lecture canceled from MIT after an online mob voiced outrage over his argument "that people should be hired on the basis of their merit and their individual — you know, in their individuality, not based on their identity as a group."
"Now, you can say to me, 'Oh, that’s cherry-picking; oh, that’s a one-off.' What are the downstream effects of an example like that? Every other scientist, every other academic who’s watching that is saying, 'Wait, hold on. If he’s being canceled for that, what does that mean for me? I might as well shut up. I might as well practice double-think in the freest society in the history of the world,'" Weiss said.