Dissenting Ideas And Those Who Have Them Should Not Be Subject To Witch Hunts
Stephen L. Carter writes at Bloomberg "We Can Fight for Racial Justice While Tolerating Dissent: We cannot allow the present moment -- one of such potential importance -- to deteriorate into a McCarthy-like hunt for wrong-thinkers."
Item: HBO Max has temporarily removed "Gone With the Wind" from its catalog, citing its racist stereotypes and glorification of Southern slavery, until the film can be reinserted with what the company considers appropriate "context."Item: Critics are demanding the resignation of a distinguished economist who co-edits the Journal of Political Economy because of his strongly expressed criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Item: A political science lecturer at UCLA has been condemned by his own department and is under further investigation after reading aloud to his students Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," one of the great documents of U.S. history, which includes what we're nowadays supposed to call "the n-word."
I question neither the pain nor the sincerity of those who are angry, fearful or frustrated. I feel the emotional impact of the moment myself. So I'm not prepared to agree with critics who say that what we're seeing is an outbreak of an ideology they call "safetyism."
But for the sake of our democratic future, we have to find a way past the difficult place where we currently find ourselves, a place where the expression of views that are hurtful and infuriating is viewed as out of bounds. Democracy rests crucially on the battle of ideas, and on the old-fashioned notion that the cure for bad speech is better speech.
It's part of my job as an academic to resist the urge to judge an argument by whether I agree with it, or even whether I'm wounded by it. But professional training aside, it's also part of my job as a citizen to allow others to make arguments that pain or frighten me -- even when on the searing issue of race.
Back in law school, I worked my way through James J. Kilpatrick's controversial volume "The Southern Case for School Segregation." The book wasn't assigned for a course. I sought it out. Kilpatrick didn't persuade me, but he did make me think. I was taught that the vitality of intellectual life rests upon reading not only those who are right but also those who are wrong in an interesting way.
In 1959, the Harvard Law Review published a piece by the great constitutional theorist Herbert Wechsler titled "Toward Neutral Principles of Constitutional Law." In it he criticized, among other things, the Supreme Court's legal analysis in Brown v. Board of Education. No petitions called for Wechsler's removal. No students staged a walkout. Instead, legal scholars penned a series of powerful and tightly reasoned responses. Wechsler's article forced those who disagreed with him to strengthen their own arguments. That, more than half a century later, "Neutral Principles" remains one of the most-cited law review articles of all time tells us that scholars are arguing with it still.
That's how the battle of ideas is supposed to work. I've long been of the view that the measure of the health of a democracy is its tolerance for dissent, particularly on matters it holds dear. The same question should be asked of social and political and religious movements: Are they able to tolerate disagreement or not? When they're not, we should worry.
My tweet from the other day on the lust to ruin people, to forever keep them from being able to earn a living because of (often supposed) wrong they've thought or done:
Former Sci-Am blogs editor Bora Zivkovic was one of the first ruined. Lost his career & social world when accused of "sexual harassment" he was not actually guilty of. Yet, credulous sci writers *salivatingly* piled on on social media. I cover this here: https://t.co/wbi5gFYveP https://t.co/m67nmkwupx
— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) June 12, 2020
More:
So, so terrible. Also, it often affects a spouse or partner and children who rely on the person's income. So much cascading awfulness can come from "we disagree with you, therefore we'll do everything we can to make you unemployable."
— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) June 12, 2020
Gone With the Wind? Really.
Y'know, the faster you get rid of these AWFUL PERSONAL REMINDERS, the sooner history can repeat them.
The USA just took longer to go the way of the USSR, Germany, etc. ... it's not like we're different, a big pile of meat seeking power over others looks like every other one.
Every putz crying today does so because they cannot imagine anything else. All they know is that someone is either being mean to them or holding money that is rightfully theirs. The TV and race hustlers say so.
Radwaste at June 13, 2020 8:15 AM
The cruel power of personal destruction via social mob is bad, Amy, and not getting any better. It's not even confined to the person themselves--our family has a somewhat unusual last name and because of that, I worry that things I posted years ago might come up when our young adult kids apply for jobs and a social media search is conducted. I don't think that's being paranoid.
RigelDog at June 13, 2020 8:26 AM
Unfortunately, at Bloomberg, clicking on the comments doesn't work.
Lenona at June 13, 2020 8:29 AM
More fun leftist cancel culture.
https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/trump-and-the-media-both-destroying-themselves
gcmortal at June 13, 2020 9:25 AM
Why do people say "coward" when they mean "asshole"?
Taking to the streets is terrible behaviour. But it isn't cowardly.
NicoleK at June 13, 2020 10:39 AM
Taking to the streets is terrible behaviour. But it isn't cowardly. ~ NicoleK at June 13, 2020 10:39 AM
It's not exactly the definition of courage either. These folks are not actually confronting anything or anyone in person. And throwing rocks through windows when the owner is not around won't get one a bravery medal.
At least own it and pay for it. "We may be barbarians, but we pay for our pillaging." ~ Niles Frasier
But yeah, it's more asshole than coward.
Conan the Grammarian at June 13, 2020 11:19 AM
They are witches. Burn them!
Jay R at June 13, 2020 12:23 PM
There are plenty of issues where one is not allowed to mention things that would actually improve the situation of blacks or women etc. For example, it is provably true that "helping" minorities get into a top college --above their ability--reduces their chances of finishing school compared to race-neutral admissions. The purpose should be to help not destroy lives but you can't even discuss it. Another: raising the min wage essentially makes young black men in particular unemployable. It also makes getting started in life very hard. Is a 20 yr old with an attitude worth $15/hr? No. Yet when confronted with stats on this a leftist will say do it anyway. If you point out that neighborhoods burned down in riots in Detroit and LA decades ago never recovered, it does not deter the rioters. If you point out that rioters burned down black-owned business and places their neighbors worked they still think they were resisting oppression. So many real problems might be solved if you could discuss them.
As further irony, the statues toppled recently included those of black freed slaves who fought for the Union. How liberating.
cc at June 13, 2020 2:05 PM
If people were actually taught the history of Africans in America, and if these disturbances were really about black lives mattering, the rioters wouldn't have defaced Boston's memorial to the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, an African-American infantry unit that fought for the Union in the American Civil War.
The movie, Glory was about the 54th and the bloody Fort Wagner assault where the unit suffered a 40% casualty rate. "Decades later, Sergeant William Harvey Carney was awarded the Medal of Honor for grabbing the US flag as the flag bearer fell, carrying the flag to the enemy ramparts and back, and singing 'Boys, the old flag never touched the ground!'"
Conan the Grammarian at June 13, 2020 2:32 PM
They defaced the 54th memorial??? Why???
NicoleK at June 13, 2020 11:54 PM
"They defaced the 54th memorial??? Why???"
Abject ignorance. New Orleans idiots pulled down Andrew Jackson's statue, the mob not caring one bit that he wasn't Stonewall Jackson.
They were told to be mad by race hustlers, and they act for what they can GET, nothing more.
Radwaste at June 14, 2020 12:14 AM
If you present yourself as an intellectual, but know, deep down, that you're really not and live in fear of one day being Found Out, destroying your rivals' reputations might make perfect sense.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at June 14, 2020 6:04 AM
Andrew Jackson was pretty racist, best known for his devastating policies towards the Native Americans. That might have been on purpose...
NicoleK at June 14, 2020 10:01 AM
Jackson was, like most people of that era, not a believer that blacks were equal to whites. However, he was, like most people, a more complex person that simple black-and-white descriptions can capture. The US was at war with the Native Americans at the time and Jackson, like Sherman and Sheridan later, was an early advocate of the concept of total war, that war need not be limited to the enemy's armed forces.
He is also known for insisting that freed men of color who joined his forces at the Battle of New Orleans be paid the same as white men, despite the officials of New Orleans insisting otherwise.
However, I've also read that he promised slaves who joined his forces at New Orleans would be freed and later reneged on that deal. To be fair, he may have had no choice in that - how much authority he had to take someone's slaves (considered legal property) and free them is questionable.
There were at least two units of freedmen fighting at the Chalmette Plantation alongside Jackson's pirates, Indians, smugglers, gamblers, frontiersmen, slaves, and army regulars. As motley and disparate a fighting force has probably never before or since been assembled to fight for this country.
Conan the Grammarian at June 14, 2020 11:34 AM
> Taking to the streets is
> terrible behaviour. But it
> isn't cowardly.
I'd say it is. I'd say it's very cowardly. In the most forgivable cases, they're afraid that they're too inarticulate to describe their problem persuasively. Their afraid that principled, comprehensible civil disobedience would be too painful.
Whatever this is, it ain't courageous. "Mommy gets angry when I break her crystal wine glasses from her wedding onto the sidewalk" is not courage.
Crid at June 14, 2020 8:47 PM
Righteous protest is about accepting pain.
Mobs are about inflicting pain.
Crid at June 14, 2020 8:55 PM
Anyone who risks great physical harm to themselves is not a coward.
Perhaps they are an idiot.
But not a coward.
Righteousness is not what we are discussing. We are discussing cowardice, that is, showing great fear or timidity.
"Timid" is not the word I would use to describe the rioters.
There are many negative words you could use to accurately describe them. Coward is not one.
NicoleK at June 14, 2020 9:53 PM
> Anyone who risks great physical
> harm to themselves is not a
> coward.
It's just not true. We've all known young adults who spent three years drinking beer and riding motorbikes. That ain't courage, and there are lot of people who are afraid of hard work or investment who are happy to risk some looting and vandalism.
Crid at June 20, 2020 6:09 PM
Leave a comment