Where I’ve Landed—For Now

One of the kindest things my husband Chris does is walk around the house, quietly turning off the lights that I meant to turn off but accidentally switched on because I’m distracted by my own thoughts. 

I’m not just bad with lights—I’m terrible at a lot of things. Some of my weaknesses don’t bother me. My inability to recall trivia, for example. I’ve learned to explain to people on trivia nights: I’m wildly enthusiastic but not good at remembering things. I figure they can decide if they want me on their team. 

Other things I’m bad at I do care about: singing, foreign languages, cartwheels. You do not have enough time to hear about my lifelong struggles on these fronts. I will move on. 

Most things that simply need doing—cooking, driving, math—I’m just okay at. I get by, but no one is making a ‘competency porn’ TV show about my skills in these areas. 

There is really only one thing I do exceptionally well: discerning what other people are good at and imagining how they might collaborate. That’s it. It’s a very short list. 

Why am I telling you this? Because I want you to understand that I take messages like the one below very, very seriously. I never assume I’m getting something right, or that someone else doesn’t have something to teach me. Never.

[Screenshot of anonymized social media post removed by request. The post asked me, with regard to Substack, why I am on a "nazi platform."]

This person is not an internet troll. She is a friend I care about and whose views I respect. But, for now anyway, we have arrived at a point of profound—and painful—disagreement. She believes there is no good reason for a writer to stay on Substack. I believe there is. I will explain after acknowledging three important points:

1. I understand that Substack is opposed to content moderation and that it not only hosts, but makes money from, writers spewing hate.

2. I agree that it’s wrong to think of Substack as a neutral utility, the pat defense of naive users (including me back in January). While the platform welcomes all comers, regardless of ideology, Substack also plays a content curation role, actively recruiting high-profile writers—many of whom are conservatives—and in some cases offering them six-figure advances. 

3. Another strike against the “neutral utility” argument: Substack doesn’t just curate; it amplifies. A horrifying case in point: late last month, in what it called “a serious error,” Substack sent some users a push alert promoting a white nationalist newsletter, complete with a swastika logo.

As I’ve learned more about Substack’s business practices—and as I’ve been told that leaving the platform would be a meaningful act of allyship to some people in vulnerable communities—I have agonized over what to do. But for now anyway, I’m staying, and here’s why: 

I could see leaving Substack as a writer; for several months now, I’ve been mirroring my posts over on (non-profit, content-moderating, extremist-free) Ghost.org. However, I cannot yet envision leaving Substack as a reader: if I did, I would lose a community of pro-democracy thinkers I follow, a group that has come to feel like a lifeline. 

I started this piece by explaining how inept I am in so many areas—and I meant every word. Politics and policy are two more areas in which I’m a total novice; my whole career has been in business. The way I’m learning is by reading and engaging with other people. Substack is not my only source of content and connection, but especially as I’ve grappled with how to move from the private sector to public service, it’s been uniquely useful. It’s helped me figure out how to plug into the pro-democracy movement, and—very important from an endurance standpoint—it’s connected me to a large and diverse community of fellow citizens, despite living on a literal island. 

This may just sound like a convenience argument (“I don’t want my reading habits disrupted”), not a moral position, but here’s the thing: I don’t think I’m unusual in my ignorance and my blind spots. I think we all live on metaphoricalislands, limited by the constraints of our own experience. I want to keep growing. I want to better understand the world and how to improve things. I aspire to be an ally, but especially at this juncture, I don’t think making my world smaller is the best path towards that aim.

Does that make sense to you, or are there other ways you'd urge me to think about this? 

Thanks for reading, 
Kate