Harpers Magazine publishes alt right hate speech treatise, falls on wrong side of history

Autoprax

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the "me too" movement, I remind my wife and daughter, treading carefully, is not about men, per se, it's not about identifying perpetrators. That would be a "you too" movement. Me Too empowers, and requests of women to say they've been harmed, sexually harmed. Me Too is saying "yes, Ive been sexually exploited, harmed, etc.. but I'm not going to be defined by it." Thus, the movement doesn't have victims. No man can accurately say they're a victim of the Me Too movement, because that's not what the movement is about.
I was in the office and there were 6 women in there and they were all making fun of me because I always make fun of them. But they were really going for it, using the group to pile it on. In this group was the Chair was a women and so was the Dean.

I just laughed.

Then after I said to the office manager who is a woman, could you imagine if 6 men (two of whom were the Chair and the Dean) did that to one of the women teachers here?

It would be such a different situation.
 

grapedrink

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Who did Jennifer Boylan Find so offensive? I really don't know, educate me.
JK Rowling is a signatory. There are probably others who have controversial views. It's not about the content of the letter, it's about not wanting to be associated with the signatories. Which basically proves the point of the letter.
 
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enframed

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JK Rowling is a signatory. There are probably others who have controversial views. It's not about the content of the letter, it's about not wanting to be associated with the signatories. Which basically proves the point of the letter.
Why the Rowling hatred? I don't know anything about her except that her books suck and she's super rich, oh, and IIRC she was homeless for a bit.

NM, it was easy enough to find. Goddamn, Twitter is fcuking dumb.
 

grapedrink

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Why the Rowling hatred? I don't know anything about her except that her books suck and she's super rich, oh, and IIRC she was homeless for a bit.
She's made some controversial comments regarding transgenders, mainly in regards to hormone therapy, puberty blockers, etc in transchildren.
 

Ifallalot

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Why the Rowling hatred? I don't know anything about her except that her books suck and she's super rich, oh, and IIRC she was homeless for a bit.

NM, it was easy enough to find. Goddamn, Twitter is fcuking dumb.
It really is, but for some reason the whole world takes it seriously
 
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Woke AF

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On July 7, Harper's published "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate," which was signed by a diverse body of writers and public intellectuals. Without actually using the term "cancel culture" the letter argues that "public shaming" and "ostracism" are leading to an environment in which the "free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted."

Mike Masnick of Techdirt says, "hogwash," in a piece titled "Harper's Gives Prestigious Platform To Famous Writers So They Can Whine About Being Silenced." Mike's essay is well worth reading in its entirety, but here are a couple of highlights:

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.
First off, hogwash. There are more places and ways to speak your mind than ever before, and the free exchange of information and ideas is more available and accessible to all sorts of voices than ever before in history. The idea that it's "more constricted" has no basis in reality. There are so many different ways to get ideas out there today, and that has actually enabled tons of previously suppressed voices to speak out loudly and clearly -- even if sometimes it's to point out that the supposed wisdom of others is anything but. There is no real evidence of any "constriction." There is evidence that many people are utilizing their newfound voices and ability to express themselves to show that the emperor has no clothes when it comes to some of the ideas presented by the old guard.
...
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.
...
First off, "public shaming" and "ostracism" are literally examples of counterspeech and open debate. In other words, this sentence appears to be complaining about the very thing the authors claim to be supporting: counterspeech. Public shaming and ostracism are the consequences of speech that a group feels is ridiculous, problematic, dangerous or otherwise not worth spreading widely. That's the opposite of being censorial. It is the opposite of shutting down speech. It is literally people speaking up to explain why those who hold odious views should be shamed for those views. It is a form of counterspeech and consequences from that counterspeech. On top of that it is an attempt to encourage bodies that host, promote, and elevate speech to think carefully about which speech deserves it.
 

kidfury

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Thanks for posting that. I like this letter from today's paper:

To the Editor:
Re “Met Museum Is Grappling With Protests” (front page, June 25):
It was very disturbing to read that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has become yet another victim of the censure culture.
Keith Christiansen, chairman of European paintings, posted a fair and timely question on his personal Instagram account recently asking, “How many great works of art have been lost to the desire to rid ourselves of a past of which we don’t approve.” And, to illustrate the point, he used an image of Alexandre Lenoir trying to save the royal tombs of Saint Denis during the French Revolution.
In light of the current propensity to topple statues and monuments, it seems a fair and timely question. However, it caused such an outcry among a vocal constituency of Met workers that Mr. Christiansen was asked to remove his post and apologize to the entire staff.
I was educated in a world where ideas and different points of view could be discussed freely and openly without causing a public outcry. Tragically, these days have vanished. We live in a society where the marketplace of ideas is ruled by censure and the endless desire to protect anyone who is offended by those who offer a different opinion or point of view. At this point, it appears that it’s not just individuals who are in “lockdown” but also our thoughts and ideas.
Janet Hershey
Scarsdale, N.Y.
 
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the janitor

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On July 7, Harper's published "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate," which was signed by a diverse body of writers and public intellectuals. Without actually using the term "cancel culture" the letter argues that "public shaming" and "ostracism" are leading to an environment in which the "free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted."

Mike Masnick of Techdirt says, "hogwash," in a piece titled "Harper's Gives Prestigious Platform To Famous Writers So They Can Whine About Being Silenced." Mike's essay is well worth reading in its entirety, but here are a couple of highlights:

tldr for techdirt article: most of the carnage is happening to people and ideas I don't like so I see nothing wrong here
 
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afoaf

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that seems the opposite of my take...

my read was that the luxury of free speech comes part and parcel with the
notion of enduring uncomfortable ideas and conversations

I may not agree with what you say, but will fight to defend your right to say it


this is the critical miss of the folks who want to do away with speech they do
not like...that is the slurpperiest of slurps
 

GWS_2

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That Noam is SUCH a Nazi!!!

ahhahahahahahahaha!!! :ROFLMAO:

I wonder, when you eat your own, is it tasty?
 

Sharkbiscuit

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Holy hell so far this thing rocks.

Let's look at some right wing erBBer's getting kicked square in the dick:

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.
Okay so the police are the problem here. Harpers rules!

Let's move along

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.
I don't know if I would ilk grapedrink as a right wing demagogue the way Harpers did. I'm not even sure I'd accuse him of engaging in right wing demagoguery. It sounds kind of fun though; what say you, grapedemagogue?

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,
Harpers is just cracking skulls with this. Of course the it's expected on the radical right, which is such garbage it isn't worth addressing further, but it's a new thing on the radical left.

I agree; the right has been a much bigger problem for much longer!
 
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the janitor

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that seems the opposite of my take...

my read was that the luxury of free speech comes part and parcel with the
notion of enduring uncomfortable ideas and conversations

I may not agree with what you say, but will fight to defend your right to say it

this is the critical miss of the folks who want to do away with speech they do
not like...that is the slurpperiest of slurps

I agree, I was talking about the techdirt article

also, it'd taken me a week or two to figure out what your avatar was reminding me of, finally got it, that half brother baby giant of Hagrid's in one of those Harry Potter movies
 
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Sharkbiscuit

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That Noam is SUCH a Nazi!!!

ahhahahahahahahaha!!! :ROFLMAO:

I wonder, when you eat your own, is it tasty?
I don't know; group-sign an article with Zephyr Teachout, find out who Zephyr Teachout is, then tell us how you prepared your own prairie oysters and what they tasted like!!!

So far I like the TechDirt article as well.
 
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Ifallalot

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that seems the opposite of my take...

my read was that the luxury of free speech comes part and parcel with the
notion of enduring uncomfortable ideas and conversations

I may not agree with what you say, but will fight to defend your right to say it


this is the critical miss of the folks who want to do away with speech they do
not like...that is the slurpperiest of slurps
And you're 100% correct. To have truly free speech we must defend the most reprehensible speech

That's the opposite of our resident free speech hater here
 
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afoaf

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thank you for clarifying...I missed the techdirt bit

There are more places and ways to speak your mind than ever before
the issue is the silo'ing of idea(l)s....people have picked the corner that is most
comfortable and reassuring for them at the expense of opposing view points.

I think this is one of the reasons that the equal-time/fairness doctrines are so attractive
to me....they really force the consumer to expose themselves to opposing ideas at a
time when it is far too easy to shut oneself off from the other side of the debate

That's the opposite of our resident free speech hater here
objection: fecaliization

he has, over and over, said that free speech does not mean consequence free speech

he's not shutting it down...it's the exact same counter-speech argument techdirt makes
in their article

caballero blanco, afuera!
 

Sharkbiscuit

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Okay so the Tech Dirt article to me has one glaring flaw: It kind of downplays the public school angle. That IS the public sector.

The rest of it, Tech Dirt I think is spot-on. Private sector outfits sh!t-canning people because their speech sucks (eg Cotton's Op-Ed) or they suck at their job (NYT Op-Ed page editor) IS censuring, not censoring. These Harpers signatories are elites with literally no financial problems that aren't entirely of their own making.

They don't want there to be popular outrage/consequences for their own shitty speech. Of course if someone who doesn't hold DC-area cocktail parties to the right of THEM says something they disagree with; to Gab/Parler they go. Unless they have a good WHCD after party; then it's important their speech is consequence-free.
 

Sharkbiscuit

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And you're 100% correct. To have truly free speech we must defend the most reprehensible speech

That's the opposite of our resident free speech hater here
I'm not sure if this is nit picking or a fundamental tangible point of disagreement, but I don't think the reprehensible speech requires defending, rather, the right to say reprehensible things needs to be defended from the Government.
 
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