The Death of Neutrality When a Free Society Demands That Everyone Take a Side

What matters is when the expectation of alignment becomes pervasive enough that people begin policing one another's silence.

Luis Gonzalez | September 29, 2026

We all know what happened with Ed Sheeran and Macklemore. Macklemore brought his politics onto the stage, controversy followed, and the dispute eventually spilled beyond the concert itself. Sheeran, who had wanted his concerts to be about music, unity and humanity rather than politics, found himself addressing the Gaza conflict from the stage.

The details are everywhere. They aren't really the point.

One concertgoer, Hillary Steinberg, explained why she had returned her Ed Sheeran tickets and attended a protest instead. “I think all art is political, and all music is political,” she told the Associated Press. She went further, saying that Sheeran's decision not to take the political position she wanted him to take was itself a political choice.

What interests me is what happened to the space between taking a side and refusing to take one. That space is getting harder to occupy, and the consequences reach well beyond a concert tour.

We are increasingly being asked to declare ourselves. Political identity has seeped into entertainment, employment, universities, corporations, professional organizations, and ordinary social relationships. A person can find himself expected to explain his position on an issue he never intended to discuss, and silence itself can become an invitation for somebody else to assign him one.

This is where a free society begins to run into trouble.

“Silence is complicity” is a powerful moral accusation. But when it becomes a general rule, silence itself becomes evidence to interpret.

Your refusal to endorse something can be treated as opposition to it. Your refusal to condemn something can be treated as support for it. Saying that you don't know enough to have an opinion can be treated as an evasion.

The demand is no longer simply that you be free to speak. You........

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