Now this is silly😅

“I can't imagine (thank God) how psychologically toxic it must be to compulsively divide your worldview into black vs white. Viewing the world in this simplistic, zero-sum way absolutely forces you to obfuscate people's humanity. Do you really feel as if this benefits you, the fight against racism, or society in general?”

There is nothing zero-sum about accountability. Accountability is the flow of responsibility from your actions. To suggest it is “zero-sum” is to deny that the accused actions has had negative, deleterious impact on others.

“And no, the root of cancel culture isn't accountability. It's the sheer hubris that allows people to believe they have a right to demand ‘accountability’ from total strangers because they dare to have a different point of view or said something ignorant a decade ago.’ It's the intellectual cowardice that tempts people to rely on intimidation instead of reason to change people's minds. It's the emotional immaturity that allows people to dehumanise everybody who disagrees with them so they can justify their utterly disproportionate cruelty.”

Rogan is no stranger. He chose that for himself. He has broadcasted himself into American eyes and ears since he was the host of Fear Factor. He has worked to make himself and his views familiar. He thus can no longer lean on your argument of “total strangers” not demanding accountability since he is in the business of converting those strangers to listeners and subscribers. The only “sheer hubris” that can arise from his work is thinking he can invite racists, make racist statements, and misled people on COVID and not eventually be held to account. His words, and the words of the guests he allows, has real impact.

Your argument on intimidation and dehumanization also are silly. TIME reports as of 2/11/2022 that Spotify removed 70 of Rogan’s episodes due to offensive content (https://time.com/6147548/spotify-joe-rogan-controversy-isnt-over/#:~:text=Rogan%20The%20Cash%20Cow,aligns%20with%20Spotify's%20target%20customer.). That is not an act of intellectual cowardice and intimidation as you believe, but of intellectual rigor on race in America and pandemic science finally catching up to the man. It is not “emotional immaturity” or “utterly disproportionate cruelty” to resist one’s attempts to dehumanize your people and to make sure they never get the opportunity to try again. In 2015, Rogan had a guest on his show who claimed Black people have a genetic predisposition to violence (https://twitter.com/Green_Footballs/status/1490140017619914756). It is not cruel to hold him accountable for giving such a guest a platform.

I agree, Goldberg shouldn't have been suspended. It's ridiculous that she was. That's actually the point I'm making in this silly little article. It would also have been ridiculous (and utterly meaningless, Rogan lost subscribers when he went exclusive with Spotify) if Rogan had been kicked off Spotify. Would you really have felt as if you'd won if he'd kept his millions, continued podcasting to an even bigger audience, and also became a martyr for the "never apologise" crowd? Especially as he did apologise? And has obviously evolved in the past 9 years. What’s the endgame here?

The TIME article I linked above says he still has 11 million subscribers, which shows the value of using recent evidence in formulating arguments. Furthermore, the NY Times reported yesterday the full value of Spotify’s deal with Rogan is closer to $200 million (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/arts/music/spotify-joe-rogan-misinformation.html). If he is deplatformed, he still gets to keep that money and has thus profited from the racial and scientific muck he promoted. But the deplatforming—the canceling—shows to those who are coming after him that Black personhood won’t tolerate such views and that we have the right to defend our humanity.

Nobody care, or should care, if he becomes part of the “never apologize” crowd because cancel culture is not about moral suasion or transforming the moral universe of the aggressor. It is about power, and stripping them of their platforms that allow them to spread such views. The endgame is accountability—that the people who are coming up behind Rogan know they cannot build their brand the way he did and then when the jig is up, issue a soggy apologize and go away with their millions.