A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

[Mark Kohut]

Agree, Hasty and virtually ad hoc..and FOR intellectuals in the PUBLIC
SPHERE--see Habermas---
and academic sphere mostly. I doubt if he was asked.

What is so unexpectedly infuriating is how contentious this has already
become, Matty
Yglesias has been complained to his mannagement about BY A COLLEAGUE....??

A couple other "liberals" are now regretting they signed because of some
non-liberals (it seems) who signed, which
is kinda self-refuting, no?

On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 6:37 AM Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
wrote:

> i dunno... the list of signatures is actually kind of small, in my opinion.
> Small enough that I don't consider the lack of Pynchon's name (or
> Delillo's, or Vollmann's, or Price's, all of whom have actually contributed
> pieces to Harper's in recent years) to be particularly noteworthy.
>
> For what it's worth, I agree with the general sentiment of the letter AND I
> wear antifa t-shirts tees (figuratively... I don't actually own any
> sloganwear),
>
> Cheers!
> yer old pal Jerky
>
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 6:24 AM Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > So many smart people signed this necessary letter, --- Pynchon didn't.
> > Was he just too lazy? Didn't they ask him? Or does he really wear
> > 'antifa'-t-shirts?
> >
> > + Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful
> > protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands
> > for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and
> > inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism,
> > philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also
> > intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that
> > tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in
> > favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we
> > also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are
> > gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald
> > Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must
> > not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which
> > right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion
> > we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant
> > climate that has set in on all sides.
> >
> > The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal
> > society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to
> > expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more
> > widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for
> > public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex
> > policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of
> > robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now
> > all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in
> > response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More
> > troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage
> > control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead
> > of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial
> > pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are
> > barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for
> > quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for
> > circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of
> > organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.
> > Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has
> > been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the
> > threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk
> > aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their
> > livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient
> > zeal in agreement.
> >
> > This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of
> > our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government
> > or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and
> > makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to
> > defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying
> > to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice
> > and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a
> > culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even
> > mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement
> > without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very
> > thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the
> > state to defend it for us. +
> >
> >
> > https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
> >
> >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>