Cancelled For Being Against Arson
The stories of people being "cancelled" -- ruined, unable to work again or work again as they would have (without huge obstacles) -- are getting crazier and crazier.

I think this one is the craziest and most outrageous I've read. Robby Soave writes at Reason, "A Composer Condemned Arson. Now No One Will Hire Him." Really.

Until last year, Daniel Elder--a 34-year-old musician who lives in Nashville, Tennessee--had a promising career ahead of him. The theme of the prize-winning composer's work, truth through emotion, is evident across his catalogue of choral music, including his debut commercial album, The Heart's Reflection.

Elder isn't composing very much these days. And even if he were, no one in the industry is willing to buy his work. His publisher has blackballed him. Local choral directors refuse to program his music for fear of provoking a backlash. They won't even let him sing in the choir.

"My artistic wellspring is capped," says Elder. "I think it will come back, but things have remained in quite a rough place after all this happened."

What happened? Elder made a short statement on Instagram that went viral during the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020.

Somebody set the Nashville courthouse on fire.

The destruction spooked Elder, who lived nearby and was thus under a city-wide curfew. He also found himself increasingly unnerved by the large number of emotional social media posts coming across his feeds that seemed to justify radicalism and groupthink.

"I saw a mob mentality around my own friends, and I worried that was what was happening on the outside, too," says Elder.

Dismayed, disenchanted, and unable to sleep, Elder decided to delete his Instagram account. He penned one last farewell message, which was cross-posted to his Twitter and professional Facebook page: "Enjoy burning it all down, you well-intentioned, blind people. I'm done."

The post was unambiguous: Elder was criticizing the activists who had set the courthouse on fire. He did not malign their cause or their ethnicity (and in fact, the perpetrator was white). He did not attack the Black Lives Matter movement or criminal justice reform. He implied that the militants had good motives ("well-intentioned") but were oblivious ("blind") when it came to the self-defeating nature of their tactics.

...One might not have expected Elder's mild declaration to attract much attention. But when he woke up the next morning, critics were spamming his Facebook and YouTube pages with comments accusing him of being a racist and a "white supremacist piece of garbage." He began to receive nasty emails as well. Some were anonymously authored, expletive-laden, and ugly from start to finish. Others confessed a previous appreciation for Elder's music but noted that they could never listen to him again.

"I've relatively recently become aware of your work and have enjoyed your compositions for their sensitivity and artistry," wrote one former fan. "However, after learning of your insensitive comments on social media, however perceived as misunderstood, I've decided to unsubscribe from your [YouTube] channel and will no longer recommend your compositions to colleagues."

"It's really a shame," wrote another. "Such beautiful music and I feel like I can't do any of it now."

"I am a choir director and department head for the music department for a private school in Ohio," declared another. "I want to inform you that your rhetoric surrounding the recent protests is unacceptable and my school will not be programming your music unless and until a public apology is issued."

His music publisher denounced him and told him to post a prepared apology they'd written for him.

I love this man. He refused. His publisher -- THE publisher of religious content and a major source of his income -- dropped him.

Disgusting.

The publisher, like so many, was quick to join the mob against one of its own in the wake of accusations of racism against Elder that just don't hold up, vis a vis what he actually posted.

This is just vile:

The toll on Elder's mental well-being has been equally catastrophic: losing countless friends, colleagues, and fans is no small matter for an artist. He has seen a therapist and a psychiatrist, and he says he has needed to be "talked off the ledge" several times. Needless to say, he has struggled to compose new music since everything fell apart.

And the upshot:

Nevertheless, the experience has positively impacted Elder in one way, he tells me: It has made him less ideologically narrow-minded.

"Because I was exiled, I started listening to voices on the right and the center, especially these classical liberals who have been exiled from the leftist movement," he says. "The strange silver lining is this shook me out of my prejudices a little bit."