A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

[Mark Kohut]

It is.

Like all those political purity tests I read about in the "bad' movements
of history, LOL.



On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 7:15 AM Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I know that one of the signers taking her name off is a trans advocate,
> for whom the presence of JKRowling and Jesse Signal probably represent a
> bridge too far (causing her to demand that her name be removed AND beg her
> Twitter followers to please forgive her for the incalculable damage that
> affixing her name to such a diabolical document has no doubt already
> wrought upon The CommunityTM.
>
> It's all just so ridiculously lunatic.
>
> Jerky
>
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2020, 7:06 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>
>>