The Obvious Thing Almost Everyone Is Missing
from Substack Notes
About This Post: as I am still acclimating to my challenging new job, I keep comments turned off during the workweek. I also stay off Substack Notes during the week, deleting my activity every Sunday night when I turn off comments and get ready for bed.
On Saturday morning, I posted something on Notes that went the Notes equivalent of viral. Several people have asked me to preserve it, so I’m publishing it here, ensuring it will continue to exist after I delete all my Notes tonight.
Comments will be open for paid subs until I go to bed tonight (Sunday, November 24) and then re-open on Wednesday, November 27 when the workweek ends and the long Thanksgiving weekend begins.
A Sam Harris clip is going around Twitter in which he makes a distinction between people like himself (and others he considers proper public intellectuals) and people like Elon Musk. One quote in particular stands out.
“Some of us have internalized the standards of academic and journalistic integrity that others haven’t.”
There is, it seems to me, something going on that is so obvious that only a Deeply Intellectual Enlightened Person like Sam Harris could miss it. And yet in all those conversations — I just spent 45 minutes reading Twitter over breakfast — I didn’t see anyone else say this, either, so I’m saying it.
Here is the entirely obvious thing that nobody is saying out loud.
The “standards of academic and journalistic integrity” are not violated when the institutions lie. They are being upheld when the institutions lie.
When the New York Times says that puberty blockers are fully reversible, that is not an error that they will eventually see and apologize for. It is a deliberate and conscious lie to uphold their ethical standards, which requires them to lie in support of the transgender agenda.
When the mainstream media reports that the Jacob Blake related riots are “fiery but mostly peaceful,” literally in front of a burning building, that is not an error in judgment made in deference to journalistic standards of fairness. It is a deliberate and conscious lie in deference to their journalistic standards, which requires them to lie in support of an anti-second-amendment agenda.
When the mainstream media more generally doesn’t report on how Europe has drastically changed their treatment of gender dysphoric youth, that is not an oversight they will eventually correct. It is a deliberate and conscious lie of omission to uphold their ethical standards, which requires them to lie in support of the transgender agenda.
When Harvard actively discriminates against qualified Asian students, that is not a violation of academic standards of meritocracy and fairness that they will eventually recognize and correct. It is a deliberate and conscious act of dishonesty and discrimination in deference to their ethical standards, which requires them to act that way in support of the BLM-style racial agenda.
I could go on and on, but you get the point. People who cling to trusting institutions do so out of an inability or refusal (probably some of each) to recognize what’s really going on, despite its obviousness.
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Yay Holly! I’m so tired of the lies that prop up these “truths.”
Great work Holly!. In a clear and concise analysis, you identified the reasoning and self-justification behind commentators’ lies of commission and omission. It’s a shame that such clearly educated and talented people prostitute themselves to parrot corrupt institutional narratives. But this is the media world in which we live.