Obviously, Bannon has no “right” to a New Yorker invitation, as the no-platformers like to say. And as Remnick noted, he would have been paid an honorarium and travel and lodging expenses, an idea many found repulsive. But organizers like Remnick have every right to stage whatever ideas and speakers they want without interference. If you value free expression the way I do, you recognize Remnick and the New Yorker Festival and not Steve Bannon as the injured parties here. As long as we’re counting the injured, let’s include the curious folks who wanted to buy a ticket to the Remnick-Bannon match but were denied.

Is Bannonism so contagious and corrosive that it must be suppressed? If you really fear Bannon’s thoughts, isn’t it better to allow a mind like Remnick’s to dissect and refute them rather than trying to no-platform them into oblivion? Talking to a monster is not necessarily an endorsement of a monster’s ideas. The whole episode is enough to make you wonder whether the celebrities who bailed from the festival even read the magazine, which routinely steers its way into conflict and controversy. As New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell put it in a tweet, “I would have thought that the point of a festival of ideas was to expose the audience to ideas. If you only invite your friends over, it’s called a dinner party.”