From the same publications that led with would-be cop killer Renee Good’s beach-and-sky pregnancy photo, here’s People magazine’s obituary for Scott Adams.
Victoria Edel penned it. She triggered a firestorm. People magazine apparently just changed the authorship of the obit from Edel to “People Staff.” Edel has locked her X account. People are rightly upset at her. Adams meant a lot to a lot of people.
To be sure, Edel wrote these words, but it was People magazine who signed off on the obit. They’ve not taken it down (yet). So this is how People magazine wants you to remember Adams: the “disgraced Dilbert creator.”
From a universe of good and useful deeds, the magazine took a few minutes of Adams openly and honestly expressing shock at the fact that, in the context of surging black-on-white crime under the Biden regime, nearly half of all blacks surveyed by Rasmussen said that it was not okay or were not sure whether it was okay to be white, and made that the headline. Adams was connecting action with opinion, inferring that white people are not as safe as they might have felt they were. The public isn’t supposed to make connections like that, so Adams must be forever remembered as “disgraced.”
That’s not the only reason the establishment cancelled Adams, of course. The establishment used Adams’ remarks that day as an excuse to punish him for supporting Donald Trump—the same way they used a tweet by Roseanne Barr to cancel her show (see Canceling Roseanne Barr; see also Democrats’ Closing Argument: Comedians We Don’t Like are Racists). Had Adam’s occasional deviations from official narratives mattered, they would have cancelled him for asking how the Holocaust narrative settled on the number it did. Even emphasizing that he didn’t doubt the Holocaust happened, asking about the number is usually enough to get a person tossed out of polite society. At least one woke scold rushed to the comment section, encouraging readers to look into Adams’ alleged “Holocaust denialism.”
Progressives still insist that cancelling is not a real thing. But Scott Adams was literally cancelled. His Dilbert cartoons were pulled from syndication for his sin of political incorrectness. Roseanne Barr was literally cancelled because she was politically incorrect. They not only deplatformed Barr on Twitter (this was before Elon Musk saved free speech by purchasing the platform), but also cancelled her television show. The establishment disgraced them both (and many others) because they had opinions that ran afoul of the elite-appointed commissars.
If the public didn’t like Adams’ observation, they didn’t have to read Dilbert. If the public didn’t like Barr’s tweets, they didn’t have to watch her show. But we know that they would have continued reading Adams and watching Barr because the majority not only like a good laugh (which is why late-night television is moribund and surely going away soon), but also because they share Adams and Barr’s sentiments, even if they are afraid to say them out loud, their speech constrained by the woke scolds surrounding them. Figures like Adams and Barr spoke for those who are afraid to speak for themselves in public (Barr still does, but on a much smaller platform).
Adams and Barr’s sin is that they expanded the scope of mutual knowledge. And for that, corporate power is prepared to give up millions of dollars in revenue in the same way they’re prepared to lose money on the hack comedians they put before the public of late-night TV (Kimmel, Fallon, Colbert). Censor the voice of the people; amplify the voice of the establishment—that’s the formula of hegemony. Thankfully, it’s losing efficacy, in part because people like Scott Adams and Elon Musk have made themselves useful.
Scott Adams left the world with parting words, which I share below. Some will find his conversion to Christianity to be the most significant. For me, his charge to “be useful” is the takeaway. Usefulness is not just about helping other people. Since I decided to be useful, I’ve been much happier. Adams sacrificed a great deal to be useful. You can tell that he believed it was worth it. It was for me; Adams was an inspiration. I appreciate that he changed his mind last summer and decided to hang on for a while longer. I will miss his coffee talks. I will miss him.
freedom and reason 