“Fortune can take away your friends and your property. It can rob you of your health and leave you soaked in slander. But nothing that happens to us can make us less virtuous, or just, or temperate, or kind—not unless we allow ourselves to be changed for the worse. Nothing can deprive us of our inner freedom, or stop us from setting honest deeds against dishonest words. No matter the extremes of persecution that leave you feeling rootless and without a home in the world, take it as a reminder that there is a world elsewhere—an abiding home to which you can always return, as long as you seek it. And if your suffering should seem long, or if you’ve failed sometimes to meet it with courage and equanimity, be glad: you still have time to shore up for yourself the incorruptible spiritual treasures, which will endure.”
When the Mob Came
Is “cancel culture” a real thing? Are public shaming and de-platforming campaigns justified as a way of advancing social justice and holding the powerful to account, or are they evidence of a creeping proto-totalitarianism? What happens when these tools are weaponized for personal or political advantage, and how does a person rebuild after public cancellation?
In this, my third and (I hope) last feature documentary film, I try to answer these questions by turning the lens on my own life and experience of cancellation. This is a story of media credulity, political calculation, betrayal, and obsession. It’s about the failure and the triumph of friendship, the spiritual struggle to believe in things unseen, and the need to make meaning out of suffering. It’s also a re-litigation of Plato’s Gorgias dialogue, and a test of Socrates’ claim that “to do injustice is more to be avoided than to suffer injustice, and that the reality and not the appearance of virtue is to be followed above all things.”
About Me
I am a documentary filmmaker, writer, researcher, charter school founder, and a former political candidate. I’m interested in the problem of political and philosophical evil, and most of my work is animated by a desire to help people recover their roots in reality and their orientation toward the divine.
I was born in Calgary, Canada, and earned a Bachelor’s degree (Hons.) in Chinese history at the University of Calgary. From there I obtained a Master’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and worked on and off as a senior policy advisor for Canada’s foreign ministry for about ten years. Between the birth of my two children I earned another Master’s in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford. If ever I can afford a life of leisure, I hope to return and do a real degree studying comparative eschatology.
A very large part of my life has been spent working, volunteering and consulting in the international human rights field, including by increasing access to anti-surveillance and censorship tools in Iran, China, Myanmar, and elsewhere; working with civil rights lawyers representing political dissidents; supporting refugee and asylum claimants; and conducting and publishing original research on the repression of religious minorities in China (I’ve also published on this topic for more popular audiences). It’s a country that I love, but only in the abstract; I was blacklisted at 16 and cannot obtain a visa. I’ve also written and co-produced two feature documentary films on the themes of religious and political persecution, censorship, forced labour, scapegoating, and mass persuasion under totalitarian regimes.
A few of these topics recur in my most recent documentary, which focuses on my experience of ‘cancel culture’ following a catastrophic bid for political office in 2019 (read my contemporaneous account of events here). Relatedly, I’m the plaintiff in an ongoing $7 million defamation claim against several Canadian media and political institutions, and my case has so far resulted in the recognition of a new tort of civil harassment in Alberta. You can read about or support my litigation efforts by clicking here.
In 2022 I founded Canada’s first tuition-free classical charter school, Calgary Classical Academy. Having drawn more capable people to the project than myself, we now have three campuses, including one in Edmonton. This is a short video introduction to our work and how we aim to promote knowledge of things that are true, good, and enduring.
Sometimes I also write and speak about arts and culture, biopolitics, education, family and childcare policy, post-liberalism, and whatever else seems interesting. But mostly I prefer to spend time reading or meditating in silent contemplation of the Dao.