What of the anarchist dream, the Stateless state, the Commune, the autonomous zone with duration, a free society, a free culture? Are we to abandon that hope in return for some existentialist acte gratuit? The point is not to change consciousness but to change the world.  I accept this as a fair criticism. I’d make two rejoinders nevertheless; first, revolution has never yet resulted in achieving this dream . . .

— Hakim Bey, The Temporary Autonomous Zone, “Waiting for the Revolution”

I don’t dislike Margaret Atwood, her writing, or even her calculated political statements. I’m also no fan of naziism, fascism, totalitarianism, communism, a great amount of capitalism, and many other attendant economic, political, and social -isms that have historically resulted in murder, dread, and misery.  Let me foreground what I’m about to write with these declarations so that I am less likely to be assaulted by the more popular online usage of the term “fascist,” which generally means, “this is someone saying something I don’t like.”

Well, nobody likes an online Nazi.  Knowing this and apparently feeling like she needs to juice up her clout on the S.E.C.—if Hakim Bey has the T.A.Z., maybe we can also acronymize the Substack Echo Chamber of disenfranchised journalists, desperate content creators, thirsty influencers, publicist-operated celebrities, and unappreciated YA fiction writers—Atwood came out with “Substack’s Dilemma” two days after Christmas.

Goes like this in five easy steps: 

1. 1. Substack has terms of service that forbid accounts which incite violence.
   2. “What does ‘Nazi’ mean, or signify? Many things, but among them is ‘Kill all Jews.’”
   3. “Is Substack violating its own terms of service . . . by permitting Nazis to publish on it?  I’d say yes.”
   4. “You can’t have both the terms of service you have spelled out and a bunch of individual publishers who violate those terms of service. One or the other has got to go.”
   5. Ergo, the Denazification of Substack.

Seems utterly reasonable, right?  It doesn’t at all seem like a textbook false dilemma with a morally unimpeachable message offered by a midlist novelist, who got famous five years ago when her intersectional feminist dystopian novel got adapted by Hulu.  It doesn’t at all seem like she may be worried that her 15 minutes are up.  Denazification is, after all, a hot topic these days.

After reading Atwood’s syllogism, a cull seems very much justified, not just to hold Substack to account—since it was impossible to do that with Elon Musk, thereby offering a bit of emotional closure for all those who felt their blue checks on Twitter ceased to have meaning—but also for the common good.  And we shouldn’t blame the author of The Handmaid’s Tale for adding a little indirect thematic fan service at the end: “So, one or the other, dear Substack. Tell us which. I am sure you mean well, but you are young and inexperienced, and did not think this through. It’s not too late! You aren’t doomed to the dystopian nightmare!”  

Atwood would know.  She rose above the legion of other dystopian sci fi authors to be seen as the foremost dystopian nightmare expert, self-evident proof being that she’s now stinkin’ rich from the Hulu series.  She seems to be, in particular, an icon of self-published YA dystopian nightmare fiction writers who’ve migrated from Twitter, WordPress, and fan fiction sites to Substack.  And, wow, there really are a lot of them these days, creating beautiful, dangerous, misunderstood female protagonists with names like “Wicker Handbag” and  “Callindra of Region Fifteen,” who ride against the windmills of patriarchy.  

Of course, the slavering, yet incredibly zeitgeist-sensitive, hordes of Substackers, determined to add their voices to anything that promises engagement, have immediately reposted “Substack’s Dilemma” with all the usual Twitter-style sycophancy, bless them.  It’s all so brave, so right.  And it was truly something to see two days after Christmas.