SPOTIFY, NEIL AND WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Many of you are following this story, but for those who aren’t: A few weeks ago, the venerable and beloved rock icon Neil Young left Spotify in protest of COVID-19 disinformation promoted by Spotify’s highly paid and enormously popular podcaster, Joe Rogan. (Fellow Canadian) Joni Mitchell soon joined Young, and since then, many others have joined this “movement” to hold the Spotify platform accountable for the damage it did by granting play to such damaging information.
Predictably, cries of “censorship!” and “cancel culture!” swelled from the right. On the left, there were glimmers of hope: What if Bruce and Bob joined? Might this “protest” actually accomplish something?
I was discussing this issue with my 30-year-old son, a wise soul with progressive cred, and at one point, he shook his head as he referenced this quote from Neil that you’ve probably read: “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.” My son lamented what he saw as Neil’s (and also my) naivete. “Joe Rogan has more listeners for a single average Spotify podcast than Neil Young has had for his most popular song,” he said, adding that it was a no brainer for Spotify to let Neil go, given the money involved, and that if Neil Young thought that Spotify was going to choose him over Joe Rogan, it mostly shows that he is out of touch.
It saddened me, for I love Neil. And I believed my kid, because he’s almost always right. And yet, this story continues to have legs. More people join the “protest” every day, including Crosby, Stills and Nash, India.Arie, and Nils Lofgren. Roxane Gay, who hosts a podcast called The Roxane Gay Agenda, recently published an op-ed in the New York Times, titled, “Why I’ve Decided to Take My Podcast Off Spotify.”
Ms. Gay states that “engaging with the world with intellectual honesty and integrity is rarely simple.” Most protests are “symbolic,” she says. “Living in the world requires moral compromise.... I’m not looking for purity, it doesn’t exist. Instead, I’m trying to do the best I can, and take a stand when I think I can have an impact.”
It’s hard to measure “impact.” Something that starts you thinking one way may have more impact than the thing which finally “breaks the camel’s back” and moves you to action, but how often can you pinpoint or even remember what first initiated a change? As a businessman, I advertise, but it’s almost impossible to measure its “impact.” Roxane Gay’s article in the Times will likely have more “impact” than her actual exit from Spotify.
And yet impact, or influence, is in fact something we all crave. We like to think that what we do matters. So here’s a question: How many of us who have been rooting for Neil have actually gone ahead and cancelled our subscription to Spotify?
I haven’t. Why? Partly because I’m intimidated by the technological hassle of “changing platforms” on my old computer. Partly that it would necessitate a decision on where else I should go. Fact is, I can’t remember whether I contracted for the year, or if I pay month to month... It will take time and energy for me to make that change, and what good will it do? Who am I? I’m nobody to them.
What is the effective symbolism of one anonymous man singly quitting in protest? It almost reminds you of voting, doesn’t it? And yet, we do vote. Most of you reading this paper DO vote. And we know that if enough people vote for a good cause, then the good cause wins. We have faith in that.
I highly recommend Ms. Gays’ article, for it makes several other points about Rogan and our culture. It also makes an excellent distinction between “censorship” and “curation.”
“When we are not free to express ourselves,” she says, “when we can be thrown in jail or even lose our lives for speaking freely, that is censorship. When we say, as a society, that bigotry and misinformation are unacceptable, and that people who espouse those ideas don’t deserve access to significant platforms, that’s curation.”
I ran this quote by my son, and he forwarded to me a podcast by the well-known humanist philosopher, Sam Harris, who himself has a podcast titled Making Sense. Mr. Harris, interestingly, strongly defended Joe Rogan, stating that, while Rogan would be wise to take more care vetting his guests, and also be more prepared to push back against misinformation, “Joe Rogan can in no honest way be considered a racist.” (If you want to listen to this, it’s episode #273, Joe Rogan and the Ethics of Apology. Totally fascinating.)
I have to admit, I was floored by Harris’s assertion, for by this time, I had swallowed the liberal talking points. So I listened to another podcast by another of my heroes, Jon Stewart, who essentially agreed with Harris. He also suggested that all this hullaballoo was making this more personal, more “about Joe Rogan,” than it should be. The goal should be honesty, he says.
So where does this leave us? How has this controversy affected us? I must admit, I love how much dialogue this story has created. And I do believe this: When we are honest and courageous, we learn from each other, and that is good.
My continuing evolution around this particular story is still not over, and yet I still believe this conclusion that I wrote in my first draft... That as a culture, we must take more action to reclaim the goodness that this country once stood for. It’s not lost on me that this protest was started by two Canadians. Taking action requires distinguishing between what is good and what is not good. We progressives have fallen into a moral relativism whereby we are afraid to judge lest we be called “judgmental.” It’s a set up. And it’s one we fall for over and over again when we fail to name wrongness on the right.
And yet, on the contrary, we judge ourselves relentlessly on the left. We progressives expect purity in our ranks, and we butcher our own for the slightest imperfections. We are, in fact, judgmental toward ourselves.
Final thought: Symbolism affects thinking, and thinking affects action and change. Don’t underestimate the power of a symbolic act.