These truly are interesting times. This week we witnessed one very public self-outing by a semi-major influencer / media-type as he admitted that he is, and has always been, an activist merely mimicking the mannerisms of an intellectual.¹ (Maybe I do overstate the extent of the admission, but I thought it overly rude to presume the level of spinelessness involved in the alternative explanation.) I am, of course, talking about the recent newsworthyness of Malcolm Gladwell:

Malcolm Gladwell Reaches His Tipping Point on Trans Athletes

A prominent author and writer admits that he hid his true perspective on athletes born male participating in sports, and that for years, he found the arguments of trans athletes “nuts.” …

It’s rather amazing what can be said out loud, into a microphone, once the political winds change. …

Earlier this week, Gladwell appeared on The Real Science of Sport podcast… [and] made the remarkable confession that when it comes to advocates of athletes born male participating in women’s sports, he found their arguments unconvincing for a long time — but only felt comfortable publicly saying so recently:

[Gladwell from transcript discussing a 2022 panel discussion he chaired featuring one of the above podcasters, a trans athlete, and a trans advocate]: “They stacked against you, Ross. … the reason I’m ashamed of my performance of that panel [is] because I share your position 100 percent, and I was cowed. The idea of saying anything on this issue — I was in I believe in retrospect — in a dishonest way. I was . . . I was objective in a dishonest way.”

“Objective in a dishonest way”? Whatever dude.

More…

[Gladwell:] “…the trans athlete on the panel … turned to you, Ross, and … said, ‘Ross, you have to let us win.’ And it was at that moment that I realized this position has gone, this argument has gone to the furthest extreme. What the trans movement is not asking for — they’re not asking for, you know, a place at the table. They’re not asking to be treated with respect and dignity. What they’re asking is for no one to question the considerable physical, physiological advantage they bring to the sport, and no one to question — if they’re gonna win these races by five seconds, suck it up! That’s what they were asking, …

[Emphasis added]

“At that moment”…in 2022? And Sir Malcolm bravely ran away.

It seems it took three years of contemplation and for Donald Trump to finally shatter the entire fragile world of Progressive Anti-Intellectualism before finding the comfort and opportunity to come clean. At this point, I think it is best to defer to Madam Rowling on the matter:

Gladwell’s career wouldn’t have been destroyed if he’d spoken out against the glaring unfairness, not to mention dangers, of allowing men to compete in women’s sport. He’d have faced loss of approval from the cultural elite and received activist blowback, and even that wouldn’t have come with the tsunami of death and rape threats women face when they speak.

Non-famous people, mostly women, girls and gay people, have genuinely had their careers and indeed lives destroyed for saying what Gladwell was too pusillanimous to say, and Gladwell didn’t lift a finger in their defence. Like many well-known liberals, he was happy to watch members of the great unwashed bullied, traduced and defamed, fine with the erosion of freedom of speech, comfortable with young women being robbed of sporting honours and facing serious injury, because he valued his own standing and security more highly than acting on the feeble promptings of his conscience.

A rash of condescending men will swarm my mentions when I post this to tell me I should be pleased about Gladwell’s cautious backtracking. No. He hasn’t changed. He’s merely sensed a shift in what it’s acceptable to say and feels safe to align himself with the new consensus, excuses for his previous behaviour to the fore. He isn’t an ally, he’s a weathervane.

Changing sides years late, and only after you’ve realised the non-elite opposition is winning, isn’t a mark of integrity but of arse-covering. Those whose overriding focus is remaining in good odour with the in crowd can never be trusted. Gender identity ideology has been the modern arts world’s McCarthyism, and all Gladwell’s done is reveal himself as a man who’d have named names, but felt a bit uncomfortable about it afterwards.

[Emphasis added]

I will only add my own twist on a favorite C. S. Lewis compilation from The Abolition of Man: “It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as [Journalists]. … It is not excess of [information and knowledge] but defect of [intellectual honesty] and [a spine] that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so. … We make [influencers] without chests and expect of them [integrity and curiosity]. We laugh at [objectivity] and are shocked to find [cowed pushers of only accepted narratives] in our midst.”

One wonders if there will be many more such self-outings to try to salvage a modicum of integrity now that this test trail across traffic on the new Trump political freeway has been boldly blazed by Mr. Gladwell.

___ ___ ___

END NOTES

[1] The title reference and italicized segment in the first paragraph are taken from text authored by Richard Epstein in the 2012 timeframe. I linked to it through Instapundit at that time, but that link does not appear to be active: http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/145468/.