Say What?

Say what, and to whom, and why?

Such are the questions being asked these days by those who want to say something. And those questioning what those wanting to say something mean to say.

Can you say anything you choose to say to people in a class in college? Or might what you say get you fired (if you’re a school President or even a teacher) or a bad grade having nothing to do with your course work if you’re a student)?

Can you say what you choose to say to a reporter? What if you believe reporters in general are unreliable?

Can you freely say something in writing (a form of speech)? Is writing your thoughts “protected” by the constitution so that anyone can advocate even horrific actions?

Such questions, normally discussed in law schools and philosophy classes, are now the stuff of TV sound bites, and newspaper articles. As well as daily commentaries.

Exempt from all those concerns is a new multi-million dollar industry targeted on, and practiced by, self-centered fanatics. They center their energies elsewhere.

They work on “motivation.” Their leader is a 55 year old former triathlete and music composer/performer, Jesse Itzler.

For a full portrait of Itzler, read “Peak Performer” by Tad Friend in the December 8 “New Yorker.”

Friend has spent a lot of time with Itzler and a handful of other motivationists . It would be comical to read about them in a work of satire, or investigation. But it isn’t funny to learn about how motivationoids gather in small groups, larger seminars and occasional huge stadium and arena spectaculars.

Itzler and others harangue each of those in attendance — and by extension each of US — about being motivated to climb high mountains, swim vast lakes, lift weights we can’t even move.

And find fulfillment in giving money not to help people, but to help ourselves. And, munificently, the self of Itzler.

A speech by him — one speech! — can bring half a million in dollars, not bitcoin or cryptocurrency, which he distrusts.

He and his ilk survive and thrive doing what they do, while M. Elizabeth Magil and her cohorts are in the headlines, pulled out of their “solos” by events far beyond them.

McGill was, until a few days ago, President of the University of Pennsylvania. She was forced to resign because, during a Congressional hearing, she refused to say she would discipline faculty or students or staff who didn’t share Congressional Committee optics about the Middle East.

What did those Congressmembers want?

Anyone at Penn, or Harvard, or anywhere, who doesn’t share the Congressmembers self-important outrage and dares to say so should be excluded from campuses.

This goes even beyond what Trump and DeSantis and their book-burning acolytes advocate . Ideas and the people who have them, not just books, would be no-nos too, if the Congressmembers had their way.

In fact, what Dr. McGill said took up thirty seconds in five hours of testimony. It was immediately denounced as anti-Semitism, a ludicrous charge given her career. Instances of real blatant anti-Semitism have gone without Congress being so stirred up for decades. (Can you say Richard Nixon or Henry Kissinger?)

Itzler will never have to worry about testifying to Congress because unlike McGill, his concerns are personal, not political. He, like his company, has lawyers but they work on contracts and finances. McGill has expensive lawyers too, but they now have to work as word police (the same law firm worked for Nixon!)

When speech becomes political, politics becomes speech.

Each is always the case, but any sense of balance is now gone.  The current battle, seemingly about words used in reference to the Middle East, is really about who gets to speak like Itzler.  

He’ll never testify to Congress. They don’t care about what he does, because that’s capitalism. if Congress decides to take more he’ll just make more by raising his prices. Victims of his hustle will never get money back from him because he can always say he didn’t promise riches  

And anyway didn’t all that money paid make them stronger?  

McGill can’t claim damages, either.  She’s not President of Penn any longer, but a full time law professor there, which she is, gets about $150,000 a year.  And also additional income for outside speeches, for which her lecture fees now may be the highest in the nation.  

So who can say what to whom, and why?  Yelling fire! In a crowded theater is usually considered to be a crime.  

Yelling theater!  at the scene of a crime is generally seen as deranged.  

The Israel-Palestine situation is not a subject for debate.  Real people are suffering death by the hundreds of thousands.  Who has agency and who is performative?  

(Larry Bensky welcomes questions and comments. Lbensky@igc.org)