That Harpers Open Letter

[_honorentheos]

https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice ... en-debate/

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

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 Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a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.

Signed, (a lot of people, some of whom you certainly know by name and their work)

[_Some Schmo]

This is all well and good, but none of this can happen until everyone agrees to respect facts.

The above assumes everyone is ready for football; meanwhile, a third of the country is obsessing over the coming Quidditch match.

[Guest]

I disagree. The argument isn't over facts but values. Swinging dicks in a dickathon over who is right is a never ending debate. Acknowledging that liberal values for safeguarding freedom of speech is something else is a different kind of shared space that still allows for differing views. Wanting everyone to agree so that everyone can then have freedom of speech is kinda missing the point.

[_Some Schmo]

I disagree. The argument isn't over facts but values.

And I'm saying it's impossible without valuing facts. There's no good faith debate without a submission to the facts. Otherwise, lying is fair game and there's simply no point.

For instance, if someone enters a debate saying something like, there's no evidence man-induced climate change is real... that's just my opinion, and everyone's entitled to their opinion...

There's nothing to debate. The person's already fu-cked and has to do some baseline homework before he's worth a discussion.

[_honorentheos]

I disagree. The argument isn't over facts but values.

And I'm saying it's impossible without valuing facts. There's no good faith debate without a submission to the facts. Otherwise, lying is fair game and there's simply no point.

For instance, if someone enters a debate saying something like, there's no evidence man-induced climate change is real... that's just my opinion, and everyone's entitled to their opinion...

There's nothing to debate. The person's already fu-cked and has to do some baseline homework before he's worth a discussion.

Like you right now arguing values are meaningless until people share your beliefs?

[_Some Schmo]

Like you right now arguing values are meaningless until people share your beliefs?

No honor. Read what I said, please.

[_honorentheos]

That is what you are saying, to be clear. Freedom of expression is pointless if people don't agree on all the facts. That's never going to happen. If, instead, we can agree the freedom to express views and debate facts is worth protecting and defending, that's one thing only. That's something the entire foundation of liberal western democracy relies on to exist. One thing. One vital, fundamental value.

[_honorentheos]

Like you right now arguing values are meaningless until people share your beliefs?

No honor. Read what I said, please.

I did read what you said. You use fact as a stand in for your position but otherwise I stated it as you presented it with a little more context for clarity to point out it's flaw. You want agreement on belief before you believe a person deserves freedom of expression. That's many steps down the road towards authoritarianism itself as you expressed it

[_Some Schmo]

I did read what you said. You use fact as a stand in for your position but otherwise I stated it as you presented it with a little more context for clarity to point out it's flaw.

Well, maybe you want to restate that for additional clarity.

[Guest]

You're entrenching deeper into your assumed belief regarding the need to agree on beliefs before we can agree to value the right to express difference in beliefs. What's incorrect here other than the assumption your views have more value than someone else's such that there is no need to debate them to demonstrate their assumed strength you assign them isn't an illusion? Using your own example of climate change denial - give me Res Ipsa laying down counter evidence and debunking sources anytime over simple dismissal.