October notebook
In this Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving edition:
PEN Canada Ken Filkow Prize for advancing freedom of expression in Canada would like you to know that your antiracism is wanting
I finally listen to Chappell Roan
Macbeth played by three goblins is good fun but forget about the 17 genders business
I am glad I am not reviewing Nabucco currently playing at the COC
Are you even nonbinary if there’s no one around to misgender you? This new play wrestles with the question
But first:
Janan Ganesh is being an offensively great columnist again
What I’ve been trying to articulate in several editions of this newsletter JG just wrote in an 800-word column the other week, namely, that liberals are not good at defending the foundations of liberalism. I’ve been trying to argue that the Great Awokening happened so fast thanks to the silent blob of decent centrists who don’t want to get involved in the “culture war issues” and expect the liberal outlook to win anyway so they might as well not wrestle with the pig. I likened some of the liberals that I know to a well dressed guy arriving at a pie throwing fight in progress, bringing with him this really good pie recipe. Ganesh put it more precisely: the ‘sensible centre’ contribution over the last few years was “to stroll up to the pub brawl and tut just as it was petering out”.