Bari Weiss and Curtis Yarvin, two successful windbags

As I blogged about a few months back, CBS News’ new top boss, Bari Weiss, “built her brand as the advocate of edgy free speech and repressed ideas, never mind that she’s a textbook example of what Franks is talking about: Weiss’ support for free speech invariably sides with the status quo. She’s had zero sympathy for free speech when anyone takes the side of Palestinians, for instance.”

This was her shtick for years: the edgy supporter of edgy speech that’s actually completely conventional (see here, here and here for a couple of examples). Her ideas of thought-policing invariably focus on right-wingers, whereas she had no qualms about demanding penalties for people she thought too pro-Palestinian.

When she left the New York Times to launch the (unaccredited) University of Austin, she kept at it: the University was such a champion of free speech, they welcomed faculty who were not free speech supporters (see my post on the paradox of tolerance)! Given some of my examples of Weiss’s views go back to the Felon of the United States’ first term, it seemed pretty obvious UATX wouldn’t be a shining vessel of support for robust free speech. Nevertheless, Ellie Avishai, who became affiliated with UATX a couple of years back, was genuinely stunned to learn the university and its donors have rigid thou shalt nots in what views are allowed; Avishai’s LinkedIn post suggesting DEI had merits brought down their wrath upon her.

Apparently that’s why Weiss has a successful career: her shtick works. People bought it and they’re genuinely shocked UATX doesn’t walk the walk. She’s been so successful she’s now CBS news head honcho and even more willing to submit to the powerful. That’s why she’s there. It’s not her resumé: she’s never run a newsroom before, let alone one the size of CBS’ operation. I’m sure right-winger David Ellison, who now owns the network, is okay with sinking news ratings as long as it conforms to right-wing orthodoxy. Or is he? Perhaps The Nation, in a scathing look at Weiss’ career, will prove right: “I’m not sure who or what will bring her down, but being talent-free seldom ends well.” We can hope. At the moment, though, she’s riding high and telling anyone who’s not down with her remolding the network to be more supportive of the Necrotic Toddler should pack their bags.

As we’re discussing bullshit artists, how about Curtis Yarvin? A right-winger who wants a right-wing dictatorship but pretends he wants one that’s good for everybody. He’s an authoritarian who sniffs that fascism is too crude for him. And unsurprisingly he thinks life in Jane Austen novels shows women were happy when they had no political power. And while I don’t have a link handy, he also insists no freed slaves post-Civil War felt their lives had improved. And in blithe defiance of history, Yarvin insists no monarch would ever ruin his own country. Empty Wheel has an expanded look at his philosophy; it doesn’t get smarter in context.

As James Fallows points out, Yarvin also thinks China is a bastion of free speech. And the dictator of his dreams wouldn’t be able to become a bad tyrant because a secret council of airline pilots would appoint him, and have access to technology that would shut down all the weapons if he broke bad. Politics works a lot easier if you simply make up tech to meet your needs.

Yarvin has also weighed in on the Pretti murder. Unsurprisingly the dictator-loving Yarvin is cool with it.

Yarvin is an idiot’s idea of what an intellectual sounds like. But the idiots who listen to him are rich and powerful (JD Vance is a fan) which is enough for success in this world.