On February 21, after six years of research and writing by author Tim Urban, What’s Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies was released.
While there are some fantastic concepts explored in the book, what I want to focus on here is Urban’s critique of Critical Race Theory and, in his telling, it’s infiltration of some of our most powerful institutions to the overall detriment of society.
“Another internet person bitching about CRT, who cares?!”
I hear you. If I hadn’t already been familiar with Urban’s work, I’d feel the same way.
But this feels much different than other critiques.
As described by Urban, the message from CRT adherents when faced with criticism from white people is to “stay in your lane.”
About half-way through “What’s Our Problem?”, not only does Urban leave his lane, he swerves across six more lanes, pulls a u-turn on the highway at 100 mph, and puts the pedal to the metal into a topic many would argue he has no right to talk about.
As white dude’s who identify as white dudes might say – he’s got some balls.
Urban’s been left-leaning. This isn’t Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, or another right-wing fanatic loosing his mind over some nonsense. This is a Harvard-educated, New York City-living, FreshDirect-subscribing, intellectual blogger, who calls out bad actions on the left and the right.
He presents an honest, neutral, wholistic examination of the issues facing society that is severely lacking in this hyper-polarized media landscape.
Traditionally, the US has celebrated anyone who speaks their mind, particularly when it’s easier to stay silent.
But we don’t live in traditional times anymore.
I’m afraid Tim’s courage will be punished by the ever-present woke mob that polices the culture, ready to pounce on any and all transgressions.
So that’s the question I’m exploring, will Tim Urban be cancelled?
So, Will Tim Urban Be Cancelled?
It’s hard to say – the internet is fickle. Reactions come quickly. One thing he does have going for him is that he hasn’t been afraid of the controversy his book is likely to stir up. Clearly, he knows what hes getting into.
In an interlude talking to the reader, he previews his CRT talk to explain “we’ll take a Tim’s-career-tanking deep dive into America’s social justice movement.”
From his research, he’s seen first hand the career-ending damage that can result from going against CRT thought.
Understanding that his viability as a blogger is on the line, he asks readers to bear with him, you can picture him surrounded by scowls pleading “now hear me out”
“Here’s my plea: Make this an exercise in open-mindedness. Read the rest of this book in Idea Lab mode, asking yourself, “What if I’m wrong about some of what I think?” Hopefully, this process can help open some closed doors in your mind and leave you a little more clearheaded than you were before. Writing this book has certainly done that for me.”
From a CRT point of view, Urban’s a straight white dude, so his opinion doesn’t matter. But as a slightly influential internet person (he does have a blue check mark on Twitter), he is dangerous.
It’s a weird position he’s put himself in.
- If he is cancelled, it proves his point. Honest, good-faith dialogue is not allowed.
If he’s not cancelled, maybe the power of SJF is not as all-powerful as he believes (or there’s been a bit of a correction).
Lets explore both possibilities:
Why Tim Urban Will Get Cancelled
Given how reasonably his argument is, you’d think at least some of the lower-level CRT opperatives would “punch up” to signal their devotion. But will they? And is that enough to rise to a full on cancellaniton?
If cancelling is a thing and the CRT mob has the power to ruin lives, I think there is no doubt Urban’s done enough to cause a strong counterpunch.
If Tim is going to get cancelled, there’s a few reasons why that will happen:
He threatens their power
If the first signs are indicative, many people are reading, or at least buying, the book. The day the book was released, it was the top non-fiction best-seller, impressively out-selling Prince Harry. Not bad for a blogger without a publisher.
In his book he presents the SJF are more or less everywhere, acting as thought police that shut down any and all attempts to talk about issues rationally.
If he’s right, a cogent, reasonable assault on SJF’s M.O. surely threatens their power. If, as Urban argues, SJF has co-opted the highest levels of academia, corporate culture, the Democratic party, and many other powerful institutions, any persuasive critique presents a threat to that control.
If a significant number of people are being exposed to ideas critical of CRT, the Social Justice Fundamentalist “Golem” has no choice but to defend itself. An echo chamber cannot tolerate its members seeing ideas that are at odds with the fundamental ideas of the group.
Any threats must be dealt with by any means necessary.
The company he keeps
In addition to the ideas in the book, there’s also the people Urban’s associated with.
Worth reading https://t.co/SsB6lOHoHT
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 21, 2023
Which leads to people with Pepe the frog avatars to say things like:
Chapter on woke movement is 🤌
— 2016 Meme War Vet (@obie_by_obie) February 22, 2023
He already has covorted with Elon Musk, hero-turned villian of the left.
And to plug his book he appeared on the podcast of Lex Friedman, who most recently gained attention for having Kanye Ye West on his show AFTER the whole “going defcon five on the Jews thing” right around the time he was deplatformed by getting kicked off Twitter.
He enjoys white privileged
If white priviledge exists, he’s clearly benefited – If SJF need a poster boy for “white privedge,” they could do worse than Tim.
- He’s white, straight, grew up in an upper-class suberb of Boston, and attended Harvard.
- He had the means to travel the world, which he wrote about in a series called “Odd Things in Odd Places”
With posts names like Traveling To The Third World Is Great And Also It Sucks which feartures contentn like “Misery is a government requirement when you visit a country like Tanzania or India or Peru and your body is totally unaccustomed to the ecosystem”… or … “(There’s a chance that the terms First World and Third World are offensive. I’m not sure. I googled around about this, and my impression is that there are like two more years before the terms become officially offensive—so I plan to get my fill while I can, because the terms Developed World and Developing World are far less amusing.)”
- NOT WOKE WORDS
He was randomly get picked by Elon Musk to come tour Tesla, got to pick the brain of arguably themost facinating person of the past few decades.
- He gets to blog for a living.
I’m not criticizing his life, clearly I’m very jealous of it. I think it’s great when pople live/create the life they want. He’s a thoughful and skilled writer and he deserves all the rewards he gets.
Reasons Why Tim Urban won’t be cancelled
Desptite the clear “Dems fighting words” responce Urban’s writing should elicit from CRT true believers, I’m not sure a full-fledged cancel-campaign is coming. Here are some of the reasens Tim Urban won’t be cancelled:
Closed Minds are Opened
The most optimistic posibility is that the “zealots” described in the book read his critique in the spirit in which it was intended, internalize it, and try to soften their approach going forward.
It’s possible that, after whatmany would call an unexpected uptick in initiatives to “level the playing field” in the business community and academia, the most vocal CRT proponents could take a step back, survey the changes they’ve instigated, and take an honest look at the unintended consequences of what, in theory, is a noble goal (helping disanvantageh groups have equal access to upward mobility / money / power).
But if CRT leaders are as resistance to honest debate as Urban paints them, the chances of that are slim.
Cancel Culture / CRT isn’t as big a deal as he makes it out to be
Throughout the book, Urban makes no bones about his belief that the SJF is one of the deep-seated, fundamental problems that is behind some of the many problems in the world. In a 2021 tweet, he predicted CRT will cost Democrats the White House.
But that’s just his opinion. Is CRT as big a deal as he thinks? Does it have the influnce Urban, Tucker Carlson, Ron DeSantis, Trump and the rest of the GOP portrays?
Or is the whole “CRT is destroynig our children” thing way overblown?
Is SJF a figment of Tim’s imagination?
Are adherents of CRT open to honest, good-faith dialogue?
The SJF are scared to repond
From my reading, Urban make a reasonable, fact-based, well-articulated, cogent arguments. He presents his point of view clearly and honestly, and defends it tenaciously. He isn’t out to slander or misrepresent anyone.
Outside of book sales, he doesn’t have an axe to grind. He’s not running for office, or pushing an agenda.
An honest, persuasive criticism of Urban’s critique might just not be something anyone can assemble.
So they’ll ignore it an carry on as usual.
Don’t want to give him more attention
The most realistic scenary for a full-pledged cancel-campaign never materializing is that he’s simply not famous enough to pick a fight with. It would only give him a bigger audience. That’s if the book even enters in their radar.
It’s also possible that the SJF woul read the book, have valid counter-argments, but decide it’s not worth responding to Urban to not respond.
Of course, the other possibility is that CRF is so powerful it doesn’t need to worry about criticism. Their power has grown so vast that they can let Twitter people and Podcasters talk without it interfering in their plan to control all the levers of power.
Can you even cancel someone that doesn’t really have a job?
Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Matt Taibbi, Glen Greenwald, you could argue they’ve all been “cancelled.” But if they still get to carry on, is that really cancellation?
I have no idea how Urban would feel about being lumped in with these guys, but I think they are all more or less trying to do the same thing.
Unlike the incredible abuses of the cancel culture crowd he highlights in his book, Urban doesn’t have an employer.
I might be going out on a limb here, but my guess the majority of Patreon’s users are left-leaning. Should the clammer for retribution rise to that level, in theory Patreon could freeze his account and
The same tihng with Amazon and his book sales. Or his web host. Even banks are able to sieze your assets if they think you are doing something dangerous (similar to what they did in Cananda during the trucker protests).
But these are extreme, and I think extremely unlikely scenarios.
So what would canceling look like?
In this case, I think a cancelling campaign would just be a lot of quasi-famouls people putting Tim in the basket with the other deplorables.
If it the CRT people get their way, he’ll be painted with the Intelectual Dark Web / Alt-Right brush:
- Elon Musk
- Matt Taibbi
- Glen Greenwasd
- Tulsi Gabbard
- Sam Harris
Lot’s of people coming at him with pitchforks, which would also put presure on his social and familial relationships.
If people are trully offended (or want to signal they are) there should be a drop in Twitter followers. Likewise, a corresponding drop in Patreon subscribers, directly affecting Urban’s ability to pay the bills, could result.
As mentioned above, there could be a campaign to ban him from Patreon. (Sam Harris pulled himself off the platform over what he thought was unfair deplatforming of Republicans on the platform).
Smeared articles with titles like “Pampered Harvard boy – “Racism doesn’t exist, ond if you belive in it you are a bad person””
Not that anyone will read this, but I’m a fan and don’t want to give would-be bashers any ideas.
I set up a Google Alerts and if I see anything I’ll point it out.
What do you think?
- Will Tim Urban get cancelled?
- Will CRT pick this fight?
Will anyone care?
Is the power of CRT overblown?
Or was it out of control but has somewhat sefl-corrected?
Chime in in the comments.
Either way, I know I’m very interested in seeing what (if anything) happens next.
Multiple thoughts:
1. CRT is the incorrect term, not the term you should use. SJF is the correct term for the movement Tim Urban’s talking about. When it comes to something as important as this, using the right word is paramount.
2. SJF definitely isn’t as big a deal as he said, and as a result, two months into release he hasn’t been cancelled. So he’s wrong (-ish, in the most “-ish” sort of way).