The #Metoo Generation Gap the #Metoo Generation
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THE OFHYPOCRISY THE NCAA RACHAEL LARIMORE MARCH 12, 2018 $5.99 The #MeToo Generation Gap BY ALICE B. LLOYD WEEKLYSTANDARD.COM Contents March 12, 2018 • Volume 23, Number 26 2 The Scrapbook Woke publishing, D.C. trolley folly, & more 5 Casual Christopher Caldwell’s long goodbye 6 Editorial The Steel Follies Redux 8 Comment Time to pay the players BY RAchAEL LARIMORE 5 All the news that’s fit for our readers’ sensitivities BY ANDREW FERGUSON Georgia’s gesture politics BY BARTON SWAIM Whose building is it anyway? BY PHILIP TERZIAN An ever-widening gyre BY WILLIAM KRISTOL Articles 16 The Seasoned Vet and the Young Lamb BY HALEY BYRD A special election in Pennsylvania draws national attention 6 18 When to Turn the Cameras Away BY CHRIS DEATON Yes, media self-restraint is possible 19 The Ultimate Crowded Field BY JAY COST Democrats may have an exceedingly difficult time choosing a candidate in 2020 21 Obliged to Kill BY WESLEY J. SMITH The assault on medical conscience 24 When Liberation Parties Govern BY JAMES H. BARNETT Judging the new leaders in South Africa and Ethiopia 26 Feature 26 A Woman’s World—If She Can Keep It BY ALICE B. LLOYD Minding the #MeToo generation gap Books & Arts 34 Scandal of the Self BY MARTYN WENDELL JONES The rise and fall (and rise again?) of televangelist Jim Bakker 40 Wilde Tamed? BY JOHN SIMON A revisionist account of the great wit’s post-prison life 41 Heaven Painter, Hell Painter BY FRANKLIN EINSPRUch Bryan Christie’s bodies transformed and undone 43 Not All Fun and Games BY JOHN PODHORETZ In Game Night, the writer rules—and we all win 44 Parody Mamet on Weinstein 34 COVER: GRAPHICAARTIS / GETTY THE SCRAPBOOK The Era of Woke Publishing ublishers have long sup- live in a complicated, messy But Soloway might want to take P ported specialty imprints world where every day we have a more hands-on (or rather, detail- that feature particular kinds to proactively re-center our own oriented) approach to her publishing of books: There are imprints experiences by challenging work than she has to her television that promote conservative privilege,” Soloway said in a productions. The home page of the books, such as Sentinel at statement described by the Topple production company’s web- Penguin Random House Hollywood Reporter. “With site features a lengthy statement that and Threshold at Simon Topple Books, we’re look- reads, in part: “We live in a coun- & Schuster, and imprints ing for those undeniably try and world where the systems of that promote genres like compelling essential power have operated in favor of men, romance (Flirt at Ran- voices so often not heard. and this is especially true in Hol- dom House) and cook- I can’t think of a more lywood. The egregious and heinous ing (Anthony Bourdain perfect collaborator than behavior of those who perform, per- Books at HarperCollins). petuate, or passively condone acts of But we have now harassment or assault is one of the officially entered the era At left, Jill Soloway at the worst manifestations of this patriar- of the “woke” imprint, 2017 Outfest Los Angeles chal system.” with news that Jill Solo- LGBT Film Festival. Below, If this sounds a wee bit defen- way, LGBTQ activist on the same day, Soloway sive, it’s because one of the recently and creator of the Ama- greeting then-collaborator accused perpetrators of this “egre- zon series Transparent, Jeffrey Tambor. gious and heinous” behavior is about the adventures of a Emmy-award-winning Transparent transgender man and his star Jeffrey Tambor, who was offi- family, has struck a deal cially fired from the show after some with Amazon Publish- women accused him of harassing ing. Bookforum’s website them on-set. announced the venture, complete Unlike many men caught up in the with politically correct, grammati- #MeToo moment, however, Tambor cally hideous pronoun use: “Jill Solo- did not go quietly; instead, he pro- way is starting their own imprint.” tested the lack of transparency about The imprint, Topple Books, bor- the accusations made against him rows its name from Soloway’s televi- and the witchhunt-like atmosphere of sion production company and likely Amazon’s response. “I am profoundly shares its worldview. First among the disappointed in Amazon’s handling “principles” listed on the production of these false accusations against company’s website: “Our revolution me,” he told Deadline Hollywood. “I must be intersectional.” (Other prin- am even more disappointed in Jill ciples include: “Be Chill,” “Promote Soloway’s unfair characterization good vibes,” and “Gather Often” for of me as someone who would ever something called “heart-connec- Amazon Publishing to make our cause harm to any of my fellow cast tion.”) The Topple company has also dream of a revolutionary publishing mates.” He also called out the “toxic published several “manifestos” that imprint come true.” politicized atmosphere” on the set of advise readers to do things such as The life of the activist-TV-cre- Transparent, which doesn’t seem like “identify unused real estate in your ator-publisher is busy, however (the hyperbole. As one of Soloway’s writ- area or neighborhood” and use it to Topple production company says ers and fellow producers, Our Lady “dig mass graves” for guns, and go both a store of Topple merchandise J, posted on Instagram after Tambor to Jerusalem and “stand there, at the and a virtual reality component are was let go from the show, “We cannot borders forever, holding hands to Coming Soon!), so Soloway will let trans content be taken down by a protect that space. We declare a new serve as “editor-at-large,” which, single cis man.” inevitable of peace [sic] in which the according to BusinessWire, means Which gives us an idea for Soloway’s Female Face of God will show.” helping existing Amazon Publishing first Topple Books product: a reissue of Revolution appears to be the guid- editors “select books for publication Franz Kafka’s The Trial, with an intro- ing force behind the imprint. “We and pen introductions.” duction by Jeffrey Tambor. ♦ DIAZ / WIREIMAGE GETTY BOTTOM: ARAYA RODIN ECKENROTH / FILMMAGIC GETTY. TOP: 2 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD MARCH 12, 2018 Curricular Diversity t shouldn’t be either newsworthy or I controversial to discover that college students are learning about the work of Aristophanes, studying the Pelo- ponnesian War, or analyzing Aristo- telian notions of happiness. But this is 2018, when college administrators often seem more focused on the sub- tle colonialism of the cafeteria’s Taco Tuesday than on the necessity of a well-rounded curriculum. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the New York Times reports (or rather, tries to incite) controversy over some new course offerings in Arizona, where the state legislature recently approved $7 million for a School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leader- ship at Arizona State University. The ostensible goal of the school is to offer classes that encourage undergraduates to engage with original texts “from the ancient Greeks to the Founding Fathers,” as the Times described. The initial course offerings appear innocuous enough and are hardly lack- ing in diversity: A course on capital- ism explores the work of John Locke, Montesquieu, and Adam Smith, for example, but also Marx and Keynes. A class called “Women in Political Thought and Leadership” includes Catherine the Great and Golda Meir as well as Hillary Clinton. As Paul Car- rese, the director of the school, told the Times, “The program is not pursuing a party line or dogma. It’s making space for debate.” new professors with intellectually ASU has long been replete with Such efforts at curricular hetero- conservative pedigrees.” classes guaranteed to satisfy even the geneity have not fooled some people, The portrait drawn by the Times most avidly liberal activist-in-train- however. As the Times notes, “Many suggests that ASU is at risk of becom- ing. It has a School of Social Trans- liberal professors view these efforts ing a hotbed of right-wing indoctrina- formation that offers undergraduate as reviving an antiquated Euro- tion. But like most college campuses, and graduate degrees in social justice centric view of history,” and some and in women’s and gender stud- people derisively refer to ASU and ies, for example, and which another recently funded depart- lists dozens of courses such ment of political economy and as “Mapping Intersections of moral science at the Univer- Gender,” described as teach- sity of Arizona as “Freedom ing “theoretical concepts, Schools” (freedom being a metaphors, and frameworks suspect thing on college cam- employed by feminist schol- puses these days). Worse, evi- ars to understand the way dently, is the fact that some gender articulates with other of the money approved by the categories of difference,” as ARISTOPHANES: LEEMAGE / UIG GETTY state legislature pays for “six well as a class on “Transgender MARCH 12, 2018 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 3 and Intersex Literature and Film,” attempt to offer classes where stu- among others. Undergraduates in dents can engage with and debate these programs complete internships classical texts rather than be spoon- with a wide range of liberal activ- fed fashionable academic theories ist organizations and unions such as about those texts. But it should be www.weeklystandard.com Arizona’s AFL-CIO. Are a handful unnerving to liberal readers of the Stephen F. Hayes, Editor in Chief of classes that study the work of dead Times to learn that on today’s college Richard Starr, Editor Fred Barnes, Robert Messenger, Executive Editors white men really such a threat? campuses, you don’t need to wear a Christine Rosen, Managing Editor As many colleges eviscerate Great MAGA hat to be denounced as a rep- Peter J.