What Happens When Doctors Can’t Tell the Truth?

R&I NV — I always thought that if you lived through a revolution it would be obvious to everyone. As it turns out, that’s not true. Revolutions can be bloodless, incremental and subtle. And they don’t require a strongman. They just require a sufficient number of well-positioned true believers and cowards, like those sitting in the C-suite of nearly every major institution in American life.

That’s one of the lessons I have learned over the past few years as the institutions that have upheld the liberal order  our publishing houses, our universities, our schools, our non-profits, our tech companies  have embraced a Manichean ideology that divides people by identity and punishes anyone that doesn’t adhere to every aspect of that orthodoxy.

This is wrong when it happens at a company Apple or Condé Nast. But there are sectors where the stakes of the ideological takeover are higher. Like K-12 education.

Readers of this newsletter know that I’ve been particularly focused on it. In part, this is because the legacy press is ignoring or lying about the story. In part it’s because the stakes feel so high.

But if any area is more urgent, it is the world of medicine, where the ability to speak truthfully is quite literally a matter of life and death. Without being able to discuss reality and take intellectual risks, it’s impossible to get to the truth. No truth, no medical progress.

For several months, I have been talking to a group of doctors who are alarmed at what they are witnessing in some of the top medical schools and hospitals in the country. It was clear that this was a story that deserved to be told. And Katie Herzog was the perfect person to pursue it.

Katie could have had a career as a stand-up, but for some reason she decided to become a journalist. And she is a fearless one. I first learned of her work when she was writing for The Stranger in Seattle, covering topics including detransition, the scandal at Evergreen State College, and the impact of what we now call cancel culture on some small businesses in the Pacific Northwest. She is now, along with Jesse Singal, the host of a podcast called Blocked and Reported

This story is the first in a series.

Continued . . .

Gellieman

Article URL : https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-doctors-cant-speak