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The\\xa0New York Times\\xa0recently reported on various anti-PC thinkers as\\xa0\\u201cthe intellectual dark web\\u201d, sparking various annoying discussion.

The first talking point \\u2013 that the term is silly \\u2013 is surely true. So is the second point \\u2013 that it awkwardly combines careful and important thinkers like Eric Weinstein with awful demagogues like Ben Shapiro. So is the third \\u2013 that people have been complaining about political correctness for decades, so anything that portrays this as a sudden revolt is ahistorical. There are probably more good points buried within the chaff.

But I want to focus on one of the main arguments that\\u2019s been emphasized in pretty much every article: can a movement really claim it\\u2019s being silenced if it\\u2019s actually pretty popular?

\\u201cSilenced\\u201d is the term a lot of these articles use, and it\\u2019s a good one. \\u201cCensored\\u201d awkwardly suggests government involvement, which nobody is claiming. \\u201cSilenced\\u201d just suggests that there\\u2019s a lot of social pressure on its members to shut up. But shutting up is of course is the exact opposite of what the people involved are doing \\u2013 as the\\xa0Timespoints out, several IDW members have audiences in the millions, monthly Patreon revenue in the five to six figures, and (with a big enough security detail) regular college speaking engagements.

So, from\\xa0New Statesman,\\xa0If The \\u201cIntellectual Dark Web\\u201d Are Being Silenced, Why Do We Need To Keep Hearing About Them?:

The main problem with the whole profile is that it struggles because of a fundamental inherent contradiction in its premise, which is that this group of renegades has been shunned but are also incredibly popular. Either they are persecuted victims standing outside of society or they are not. Joe Rogan \\u201chosts one of the most popular podcasts in the country\\u201d, Ben Shapiro\\u2019s podcast \\u201cgets 15 million downloads a month\\u201d. Sam Harris \\u201cestimates that his Waking Up podcast gets one million listeners an episode\\u201d. Dave Rubin\\u2019s YouTube show has \\u201cmore than 700,000 subscribers\\u201d, Jordan Peterson\\u2019s latest book is a bestseller on Amazon [\\u2026]

On that basis alone, should this piece have been written at all? The marketplace of ideas that these folk are always banging on about is working. They have found their audience, and are not only popular but raking it in via Patreon accounts and book deals and tours to sold-out venues. Why are they not content with that? They are not content with that because they want everybody to listen, and they do not want to be challenged.

In the absence of that, they have made currency of the claim of being silenced, which is why we are in this ludicrous position where several people with columns in mainstream newspapers and publishing deals are going around with a loudhailer, bawling that we are not listening to them.

Reason\\u2018s article is better and makes a lot of good points, but it still emphasizes this same question, particularly in their subtitle: \\u201cThe leading figures of the \\u2018Intellectual Dark Web\\u2019 are incredibly popular. So why do they still feel so aggrieved?\\u201d. From the piece:

They can be found gracing high-profile cable-news shows, magazine opinion pages, and college speaking tours. They\\u2019ve racked up hundreds of thousands of followers. And yet the ragtag band of academics, journalists, and political pundits that make up the \\u201cIntellectual Dark Web\\u201d (IDW)\\u2014think of it as an Island of Misfit Ideologues\\u2014declare themselves, Trump-like, to be underdogs and outsiders. [\\u2026]

[I\\u2019m not convinced] they\\u2019re actually so taboo these days. As Weiss points out, this is a crowd that has built followings on new-media platforms like YouTube and Twitter rather than relying solely on legacy media, academic publishing, and other traditional routes to getting opinions heard. (There isn\\u2019t much that\\u2019s new about this except the media involved. Conservatives have long been building large audiences using outside-the-elite-media platforms such as talk radio, speaking tours, and blogs.) In doing so, they\\u2019ve amassed tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of followers. What they are saying might not be embraced, or even endured, by legacy media institutions or certain social media precincts, but it\\u2019s certainly not out of tune with or heretical to many Americans.

The bottom line is there\\u2019s no denying most of these people are very popular. Yet one of the few unifying threads among them is a feeling or posture of being marginalized, too taboo for liberal millennial snowflakes and the folks who cater to them.

The basic argument \\u2013 that you can\\u2019t be both silenced and popular at the same time \\u2013 sounds plausible. But I want to make a couple points that examine it in more detail.