If you watch the video, one thing I was trying to pin David down on was the individual ethics of each signer. He has a column in The Nation--I don't, and and I am not on social media. So what would he have ME do? I signed the Harper's Letter because it was sent to me, and it seemed true, so I was glad to put my name to it. Full stop. Either there is something wrong with that, or there isn't.
Nobody sent me an anti-Trump-ICE letter asking for my signature (I am not into signing pubic letters these days--I don't think they do much, and I have other critiques--but when a journalist called me to ask what I thought, I proudly went on the record). Also, the "big public stink" was Harper's printed the letter, then people went crazy. Nobody was buying ads for the letter, no p.r. firm was hired. It touched a nerve, as some things do.
Regarding points 11 and 12, it's a bit of an apple to oranges comparison, no? I am sure many of the Harper letter signatories are privately against the Trump administration deporting students for their speech. But when it came to left wing censoriousness, they made a huge stink about it. They made news. When it comes to Trump, they are not making a big public stink. Why not?
I have to think that one explanation is that for a lot of the signers, a primary motivator was the health of elite intellectual culture -- ie the space in which they operate, about which they care deeply. So an open letter could theoretically be an important intervention in that space, particularly if you bought the premise that there was an atmosphere of silence and fear internally.
The Trump administration's attacks on speech are of a different type. They're not an internal threat to the health of the culture and community, but rather an external one, and one that is already generating an enormous amount of explicit pushback from our culture and institutions. So the utility of the Harper's letter signers posting on social or writing op-eds doesn't seem as obvious, particularly the signers who are generally writing for left and liberal readers. What's the silence to be broken? Who needs to be persuaded or lent courage?
That said, it's worthwhile for folks like John McWhorter, who has an audience of conservative readers and listeners, to speak out, and I think in general he has been doing so. Bari Weiss could make a difference. I think some of the Jewish signers could potentially have an influence on Jewish readers when it comes to pro-Palestinian speech on campus that is being punished. etc.
Yes, but is elite intellectual culture not even more under threat now? Is there not an even greater risk of professors being fired or attacked for their views (in this case largely their pro Palestine views)? Is there not right now at this moment a culture, in these institutions, where pro Palestinian voices are being shut down preemptively by university administrations for fear that they will invite greater government intervention?
Just saying, it's actually not that different of a situation.
I hear you, but 1) Klion's article was attacking people for being indifferent (allegedly) to today's attacks; I object to the heuristic that anyone who once spoke out on a subject must then always speak out, else he is a hypocrite; we all have finite time and resources; people have other fish to fry, and the fact that a Harper's Letter signer is not a signatory to something else now, or has not tweeted about it, does not mean that he or she disagrees that elite culture is under threat now; 2) one major difference is that in, say, a humanities department today, a prof who got fired for being pro-Palestinian (say) would likely have the sympathy, and one hopes the solidarity, of their entire department, who most likely are uniform in their loathing of Trump—whereas the woke mob five years ago was /inside/ the department, turning on its own. The fact that the people under threat today would have the support of their guild makes a huge difference in how one talks about it. Not better or worse, but different. The Harper's Letter was, as Dan points out, people within the guild speaking out to defend the integrity of their own guild.
None of this means people should be fired for pro-Palestinian speech (or any speech). They shouldn't. I'll shout that from the rooftops. Just that the move that "how could you speak out then but be silent now" is not an obviously correct one. Especially because social media statements are not the test of whether one is "speaking out"!
Of course, as I said on Dan's last podcast episode, I don't believe that anybody is obligated to sign any given petition. It's not for any of us to tell other people what to talk about, publicly or otherwise. That's anti-freedom.
And all this is a distraction from my major question, which is why would anybody object to anybody signing a letter in favor of free speech? We should all re-read the Harper's Letter; it's a very basic defense of basic free speech principles. To object because one disagrees with some of the signatories--i.e., that it's a diverse group--or even loathes them is not, to me, a persuasive objection. As a philosopher would put it, the truth of an assertion has nothing to do with the person asserting it.
Many people made big incomes attacking left censoriousness. Now when it's time to attack right censoriousness the perception is there is real danger and no money in it, so people are quiet.
You want to know why there's anger against those signers, and that's why. If it was really just about the truth, then there is an equal truth that has to be spoken now. We are living under fascism, and many of our liberal institutions are complying with this fascist government because they are afraid of the consequences of disobeying.
Many of the people who are quiet today will claim in five years they were always on the right side--exactly the same as they did for wokeness--but the truth is that right now, at this moment, they are silent, because they are afraid. Which is fine, but these particular people made an identity out of _not_ being afraid of this kind of pressure, so their silence seems particularly notable.
If you watch the video, one thing I was trying to pin David down on was the individual ethics of each signer. He has a column in The Nation--I don't, and and I am not on social media. So what would he have ME do? I signed the Harper's Letter because it was sent to me, and it seemed true, so I was glad to put my name to it. Full stop. Either there is something wrong with that, or there isn't.
Nobody sent me an anti-Trump-ICE letter asking for my signature (I am not into signing pubic letters these days--I don't think they do much, and I have other critiques--but when a journalist called me to ask what I thought, I proudly went on the record). Also, the "big public stink" was Harper's printed the letter, then people went crazy. Nobody was buying ads for the letter, no p.r. firm was hired. It touched a nerve, as some things do.
Regarding points 11 and 12, it's a bit of an apple to oranges comparison, no? I am sure many of the Harper letter signatories are privately against the Trump administration deporting students for their speech. But when it came to left wing censoriousness, they made a huge stink about it. They made news. When it comes to Trump, they are not making a big public stink. Why not?
I have to think that one explanation is that for a lot of the signers, a primary motivator was the health of elite intellectual culture -- ie the space in which they operate, about which they care deeply. So an open letter could theoretically be an important intervention in that space, particularly if you bought the premise that there was an atmosphere of silence and fear internally.
The Trump administration's attacks on speech are of a different type. They're not an internal threat to the health of the culture and community, but rather an external one, and one that is already generating an enormous amount of explicit pushback from our culture and institutions. So the utility of the Harper's letter signers posting on social or writing op-eds doesn't seem as obvious, particularly the signers who are generally writing for left and liberal readers. What's the silence to be broken? Who needs to be persuaded or lent courage?
That said, it's worthwhile for folks like John McWhorter, who has an audience of conservative readers and listeners, to speak out, and I think in general he has been doing so. Bari Weiss could make a difference. I think some of the Jewish signers could potentially have an influence on Jewish readers when it comes to pro-Palestinian speech on campus that is being punished. etc.
Yes, but is elite intellectual culture not even more under threat now? Is there not an even greater risk of professors being fired or attacked for their views (in this case largely their pro Palestine views)? Is there not right now at this moment a culture, in these institutions, where pro Palestinian voices are being shut down preemptively by university administrations for fear that they will invite greater government intervention?
Just saying, it's actually not that different of a situation.
I hear you, but 1) Klion's article was attacking people for being indifferent (allegedly) to today's attacks; I object to the heuristic that anyone who once spoke out on a subject must then always speak out, else he is a hypocrite; we all have finite time and resources; people have other fish to fry, and the fact that a Harper's Letter signer is not a signatory to something else now, or has not tweeted about it, does not mean that he or she disagrees that elite culture is under threat now; 2) one major difference is that in, say, a humanities department today, a prof who got fired for being pro-Palestinian (say) would likely have the sympathy, and one hopes the solidarity, of their entire department, who most likely are uniform in their loathing of Trump—whereas the woke mob five years ago was /inside/ the department, turning on its own. The fact that the people under threat today would have the support of their guild makes a huge difference in how one talks about it. Not better or worse, but different. The Harper's Letter was, as Dan points out, people within the guild speaking out to defend the integrity of their own guild.
None of this means people should be fired for pro-Palestinian speech (or any speech). They shouldn't. I'll shout that from the rooftops. Just that the move that "how could you speak out then but be silent now" is not an obviously correct one. Especially because social media statements are not the test of whether one is "speaking out"!
Of course, as I said on Dan's last podcast episode, I don't believe that anybody is obligated to sign any given petition. It's not for any of us to tell other people what to talk about, publicly or otherwise. That's anti-freedom.
And all this is a distraction from my major question, which is why would anybody object to anybody signing a letter in favor of free speech? We should all re-read the Harper's Letter; it's a very basic defense of basic free speech principles. To object because one disagrees with some of the signatories--i.e., that it's a diverse group--or even loathes them is not, to me, a persuasive objection. As a philosopher would put it, the truth of an assertion has nothing to do with the person asserting it.
Many people made big incomes attacking left censoriousness. Now when it's time to attack right censoriousness the perception is there is real danger and no money in it, so people are quiet.
You want to know why there's anger against those signers, and that's why. If it was really just about the truth, then there is an equal truth that has to be spoken now. We are living under fascism, and many of our liberal institutions are complying with this fascist government because they are afraid of the consequences of disobeying.
Many of the people who are quiet today will claim in five years they were always on the right side--exactly the same as they did for wokeness--but the truth is that right now, at this moment, they are silent, because they are afraid. Which is fine, but these particular people made an identity out of _not_ being afraid of this kind of pressure, so their silence seems particularly notable.