#MeToo and today's McCarthyism

Article here. Excerpt:

'Which is more scrupulous, the #MeToo movement or McCarthyism?

The original McCarthyism, I mean — that of the blacklist and the Hollywood Ten, of which the junior senator from Wisconsin was only ever a small part. The anti-Communists whose banner he picked up were, on the whole, more serious and conscientious than Joseph McCarthy himself. For all the publicity and energy he brought to their cause, it was ultimately their misfortune to have become entangled with a namesake whose tactics were not always befitting the seriousness of the threat against which they fought.

The #MeToo movement has become entangled with its own toxic form of hysteria, in its case the tactics of the online mob. The so-called Shitty Media Men List is a good example. In October 2017, a writer in her early 20s named Moira Donegan created a spreadsheet for women to list men working in media who were guilty of sexual misconduct and invited her friends to add to it. The spreadsheet was shared around New York and Washington, eventually listing 70 names. The accusations ranged in seriousness from rape to “creepy DMs.” All were anonymous. Several of the men lost their jobs after the list was leaked on social media, including such pillars of elite journalism as Leon Wieseltier and Paris Review editor Lorin Stein.'