Since Neil Young announced that he would remove his music from Spotify, in a protest against the fact that Joe Rogan has a podcast on the platform, personalities favorable to the singer were busy looking for synonyms for “good”. So far, Young’s decision has been described as “moral,” “empowered,” courageous,” “ethical,” “inspiring,” and even “imperative.”
I have one word to add: intolerant.
Neil Young doesn’t like the Joe Rogan podcast. And? Now does that mean that if Neil Young doesn’t like what another person says publicly, he will refuse to be around that person? What does Young believe will happen if his songs are on the same platform that houses works by people he doesn’t like? Does he fear that the binary codes will clog the cables and contaminate the purity of his art?
Or does he believe that a coincidence of domains and IP address means he is complicit in something? If so, one wonders how long he’ll be searching for digital purity before that search turns out to be blatantly absurd. Does he intend to have his own data center? What about your ISPs and cell towers? In the past, tolerance meant sharing the same physical spaces with people whose ideas you disagreed with and even repudiated. Now these people can’t even share the same Internet.
Critics of Rogan is told that he lies and allows others to lie. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that this is true. One wonders at what point did this become an exception in our culture that guarantees freedom of expression? Neil Young himself recorded an entire album based on lies about GM foods. Should the band REO Speedwagon boycott Spotify as a reaction to this?
)Epic Records signed the band Rage Against the Machine and promised never to interfere with their work. Should the band’s labelmates like ABBA rip up their contracts in reaction to this? The question is serious: to what extent do we want to impose ideological segregation? Should it make it to the newspaper opinion pages? To the comments section, perhaps? To the service that hosts the newspapers website?
Should I boycott Farmers’ Insurance if the guy in the company’s commercials lies on Twitter? Should I refuse to fly Delta when I see a passenger I don’t like on the plane? I’ve been on TV with progressive Joy Reid, my God! Should I have left the studio as soon as she told the first lie?
Where is the limit? For consumers who are following Neil Young’s lead, the option seems to be Apple, a more acceptable platform because… well, by that even
is she more acceptable? Yes, Apple does not have the Joe Rogan podcast. But it distributes practically every podcast in the world, including podcasts presented by personalities that progressives managed to cancel on other platforms. Is it really to be believed that Apple — which directly and indirectly facilitates the monetization of speech — is a less dangerous “vector” for fake news than Spotify? What about Apple’s association with slave labor? What about the company’s lobbying against legislation that would force it to improve its business practices? Unlike some, I don’t think anyone who uses a MacBook Pro is complicit in Apple’s sins. Unlike some others, I do not associate my consumer choices with the supposed purity of the suppliers.
One of the problems with Neil Young’s stance, saying he is incapable of working with Spotify, is the idea that all those Neil Young works with are acceptable or, at the very least, “less bad”. Does this hold up? Is Apple less morally culpable for using Uighur Muslim workers than Spotify for hosting Rogan’s podcast?
Spotify, Apple, Joe Rogan and Neil Young are all private entities and can do as they please. This is the basics of liberalism and I wouldn’t even want to change it if I could. But there are other elements of liberalism that are equally important to our political order. I could, of course, decline Random House’s offer to publish my book because I find the other authors in the house intolerable. But if I did that, I’d be a stupid bigot. It is also my right to refuse to participate in any public debate with anyone who is being paid to disagree with me. But then again, that would just make me a stupid bigot.
No there is nothing liberal about seeing artistic platforms or distribution mechanisms as political creatures worthy of condemnation. On the contrary, this is a totalitarian gesture. Over the course of the week, I’ve been asked if I’m on the side of Joe Rogan or Neil Young, and my answer was that I’m not on the side of either. I prefer to live in a world where I can subscribe to a music streaming service without getting involved with controversy, hysteria, stupidity and neopuritanism.
Charles CW Cooke is Senior Writer for National Review.
©2022 National Review. Published with permission. Original in English
