On the Trans-cendent Hypocrisy of Elon Musk

Admit it: you didn’t really want to see
a picture of that smug bastard, did you?

No one who was actually paying attention ever really believed Elon Musk’s palaver about being a “first amendment absolutist.” That sounded good at the time, and it was indeed was Twitter needed; it just wasn’t who Musk ever was or ever will be. 

A few days after Musk announced that he was purchasing Twitter, Curmie wrote: 

Musk, of course, fancies himself as a sort of Nietzschean übermensch, so superior to us mere mortals that he cannot be expected to abide by quotidian standards of integrity, much less compassion or empathy. Curmie, equally obviously, views him as just another wealthy and petulant narcissist with delusions of grandeur. Oh, and an asshole of the first order; mustn’t forget that. 

Establishing appropriate boundaries for free expression on a site like Twitter is, of course, a monumental undertaking, requiring considerable deftness of touch. Allow it to become a free-for-all, and the slur-shouters will ultimately chase away everyone else. Clamp down too hard, especially in ways that could be perceived as favoring one point of view over another, and we get Pravda rather than truth. (See what I did there?) 

Curmie isn’t sure anyone could simultaneously complete the trifecta of taking an absolutist stand on free expression, eliminating spam, and curtailing the use of defamatory language, as Musk initially promised. But even if it is indeed possible, it’s clear that Musk isn’t the guy to do it: he lacks the intelligence, the capacity for nuance, or especially the humility to negotiate that minefield. He is, as Curmie suggested over a year ago, just “another boring and hedonistic super-rich guy…. longer on braggadocio than on ideas.” His claims that people on Twitter could even disparage him without repercussions lasted about a week. 

The Super Bowl provided us with two lasting images that are relevant to this discussion. First, there was the whole business of sharing a luxury box with Rupert Murdoch, an act which did little for either his non-partisan or anti-media credentials. Then there was the threat to fire Twitter engineers because his Super Bowl tweet generated fewer engagements than Joe Biden’s. It may be remotely possible that someone somewhere might someday be as absurdly wealthy as Elon Musk without being an insufferable narcissist, but it’s pretty damned unlikely. 

So, Gentle Reader, where is all this scaffolding going? This: the self-proclaimed absolutist on free expression has decided unilaterally to forbid the use of certain slurs on Twitter. Reasonable enough, yes? Except that the “slurs” in question are “cisgender” and “cis,” which are simply objective descriptors of people whose self-perception of gender aligns with their biological sex at birth. The term has been around for decades, although it is far more prevalent in common parlance today than in yesteryear. But that’s sort of the point: everyone knows what it means, and that it isn’t a slur, although some folks would like to pretend to be offended. And here I was, thinking it was the liberals who were “snowflakes.” 

Curmie, like most people, is cis. Indeed, there are few demographic descriptors that fit him as accurately. “Old”? I’ll accept that, although is 67 really old? “White”? Sure, mostly, but there’s about 3% Native American in there. “Left-handed”? Yes, for one-handed things (writing, throwing) but not for two-handed things (swinging a baseball bat or an axe). But “cis”? Yes, unequivocally. 

Some people, though, including a number of folks very dear to me, aren’t cis. That’s why the term has meaning, because “X” is meaningless unless there is a concomitant “not-X.” Perhaps, as has been argued by some folks, Curmie’s friends and family members who are trans or gender-fluid have something wrong with them. I don’t believe that for an instant, but I do not seek to stifle the expression of arguments with which I disagree. 

This would differentiate Curmie from both Elon Musk and James Esses, who has, to quote The Hill’s Sarah Fortinsky, “repeatedly expressed views that widely would be considered anti-trans.” Those posts, and, for example, misgendering and dead-naming trans people, are, of course, just dandy in Muskistan. But calling a cis guy “cis”? Ooh… but he doesn’t like it. In the words of Curmie’s then eight-year-old cousin, tough noogies. And Curmie will countenance deadnaming when conservatives are forbidden from calling Kid Rock anything but Bobby Ritchie. 

So let’s drop the act, Elon. Like so many other hypocrites—the “parental rights” crowd, for example—you have no interest whatsoever in free speech. Indeed, you’re unwilling to even fight governmental censorship the way your predecessors at Twitter did. You want to claim that you’re a First Amendment advocate, but really you just want to control the discussion and maximize your profits. Your fervor for free expression withers when someone actually says something you disagree with, especially if they’re demonstrably right, which would make you other than infallible. You are simply another fragile rich boy who stomps his feet when he doesn’t get literally everything he wants. Worst of all, you’re boring. Please go away.