That Harpers Open Letter

[_honorentheos]

I specifically said, on page 1, that I was not condemning any specific signatory. I described the letter as failing as a persuasive document because of the mixture of people that signed and their public records.

Let’s outline a few important features of rhextortion. One important thing is that the rhextortionist knows exactly what the target means. The potential misinterpretation is entirely in the hands of generally unnamed third parties who are not present. The rhextortionist then presents themselves to the target as doing them a favor. Here, for example, the target learns from the rhextortionist what the target themselves “wants.” How kind! They’re not the ones trying to control your language; they’re simply warning you that the misinterpretation is out there, somehow, without commenting on whether it’s justified.

Now, what’s the goal of the rhextortionist? Let’s just look at the facts. When someone prevents you from saying P on the grounds that someone else might interpret it as meaning Q, you haven’t been prevented from saying Q. You’ve been prevented from saying P. A realist has to assume that the goal, therefore, is to prevent people from saying P.

[_EAllusion]

I get your premise. Hence the comparison to the Reign of Terror. You want to bring the Twitter argument here? Meh. My point is the very premise of the Twitter argument is flawed on grounds reflected in the letter that have damning historical parallels. So, you gave a name. Educate on what makes him such a terrible person that his views are disqualifying for being an advocate for freedom of expression. You assert, but resist defending that assertion. That's meaningful. It should be concerning to people who take the argument there are authoritarian impulses involved.

So, to be clear, if the letter included Charlie Kirk you'd agree that would be bad because Charlie Kirk is known for bemoaning cancel culture on the one hand, and working very hard to censor and destroy the careers of liberals on the other? Or is it that you think a list of names included a bunch of Charlie Kirks would be fine because the literal content of the letter is fine?

If the former, the problem then seems to be that you have some sacred cows on the list and don't appreciate the view that they are known for being public advocates of prejudiced views that might use concerns about free speech for self-serving or hypocritical reasons. You're basically a mirror image of a Mormon message board circa early 2000's irate that anti-gay rights advocates were being described this way. If the latter, then your opinions about Bari Weiss and co. are not relevant.

Of course, if the former, it also means that what you think is basically the reign of terror is people finding opinions prejudiced that you think are fine. A Jessie Singal is basically a Rebecca Tuvel in your mind, and it's witchhunt all the way down.

Speaking of being a walking illustration of the point being made, that you view someone expressing, in words, that someone is a bad faith actor is basically the reign of terror waiting to happen is exactly the kind of anti-speech masquerading as free speech nonsense that someone like me worries muddles the case for free speech.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

EA, on page 1 wrote, “ Anyway, I think there's an important distinction between defending the KKK's right to march in the street as an abstract principle and signing onto a letter that the KKK is presenting expressing a concern for free expression given that a modestly informed public knows the KKK's does not hold that position in good faith. The former makes it seem like you are defending a idea that includes even distasteful examples while the latter makes it look like you're just interested in opening up the public space to more prejudice and are endorsing their bad faith arguments to make that possible. The context does, in fact, matter.

A lot has been written about this and it seems like some people signing it didn't know that this would be the context and are displeased, so this isn't meant to condemn any signatory. It's just recognizing time and place.”

So, they’re idiots, dupes, or collaborators. Jesus Christ. I’m starting to think EA is just jelly because his name doesn’t appear amongst the luminaries...

Next idiot on the list is Mia Bay, historian. History of what? PROBABLY THE CONFEDERACY. HUR HUR HUR. So, this big dumb idiot’s background is:

“American historian and currently the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Chair in American History at the University of Pennsylvania... Bay earned her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1993. She has taught at Rutgers University where she also served as co-director of the Black Atlantic Seminar at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis and is a member of the Organization of American Historians.“

So, this Ivy League type was clearly not smart enough to know what she was signing. Ms. bay is “... the author of The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas About White People 1830-1925 (2000) and To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells (2009). She is a coauthor, with Waldo E. Martin and Deborah Gray White, of Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans, With Documents (2012). Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, she taught and directed the Center for Race and Ethnicity at Rutgers University. She is currently completing a book on African American ideas about Thomas Jefferson and is researching a new project on the social history of segregated transportation.”

Clearly she’s too stupid to understand the implications of safeguarding the KKK’s right to free speech, or deplatforming presumable populists from Twitter or Facebook, too. Man. This list is full of guilty people who can’t grasp the dangers of their secret allegiances to American Conservative and racist organizations.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

I'm not describing them as "idiots, dupes, or collaborates." I'm describing them as people who signed a letter that meant one thing to them, but has a good likelihood of meaning another thing to others based on the people solicited to join them. In making this case, I quoted Ken White (i.e. Popehat) who is a noteworthy figure in free speech advocacy in the country. He is not a leftist and the very thought is laughable.

Quoting that point,

If the Harper's Letter is meant as a statement of principles, fine. If it's meant to persuade, I'm not sure how effective it is out of the circles of people already persuaded. I respectfully question the chosen emphasis.

Here's the thing. First Amendment protections in America are at a historical strong point -- the LEGAL (not cultural) free speech position has been running the table at the Supreme Court for a generation. But things change. The 4th and 5th Amendments are in tatters compared to their high mark, victims of a successful conservative counter-revolution to the Warren Court. The pendulum can swing. What prevents that? Broad respect for the values underlying the First Amendment.

If respect for First Amendment values -- limits on government power to punish speech -- are sufficiently strong and universal, unlike our fatuous law-and-order culture that undermines the other amendments, the First stays strong. I know the signatories to the letter view themselves as protecting those First Amendment values, and intend to do so. But, as a cultural project, I think their approach misses the mark and generates more suspicion of First Amendment values than support.

That's because of the fundamental deal behind First Amendment values: you can't use the government to punish speech because the marketplace of ideas, the private sector, society's "more speech" is the best way to address "bad speech," not government action.

So. What if your emphasis in supporting First Amendment values is attacking "more speech" as illegitimate?
People: Censor this speech!
Defenders: No, counter it with more speech.
People: okay, [more speech]
Defenders: No, not like that.

I think this emphasis has the natural and probable effect of conveying to people that "the deal" is ____.

That's particularly true because the "cancel culture" narrative, even if a matter of good faith concern, is ALSO used relentlessly by people of manifestly bad faith. People who complain about cancel culture while demanding flag burning amendments and "loosening up" libel laws and laws protecting running over protesters and having Black Lives Matter declared terrorist are, to be plain, utterly full of ____. And they're legion.

That's exacerbated by the tendency -- including in the letter -- to be vague on the distinction between real "cancellation" (say, getting someone fired) and vigorous and even profane condemnation, shunning, etc. The appearance is that of a motte-and-bailey argument. The motte-and-bailey argument is, basically, using the very widespread feeling that people shouldn't get fired for (say) retweeting an academic paper and trying to apply it when someone calls out blatant overt yelling-at-strangers-in-a-restaurant racism. Which is a thing.

So, how to sell the deal better? How to get people to internalize the value of no-government-punishment-for-speech instead of letting it erode, as it inevitably will if not defended?

With respect, some discipline and proportion. First, proportion. In general, the people who bear the most weight of the First Amendment -- that is, who have to suck up the most "bad speech" and take it -- are not the victims of cancel culture. Are some of them wronged by "cancel culture," in terms of morals and decency? Hell yes. Are they the only ones? No. Is the person who says things offensive to the (occasionally freakishly irrational) political left the central tragic figures of the age? Nah bro. A bit more of reading the room -- particularly when there are, you know, white nationalists marching -- and a bit less self-focus. Maybe a bit more explicit recognition that the First Amendment requires people to endure horrible things.

Also. Since we're selling the deal -- how about distinguishing your product from the competitor's? How does your version of free speech differ from the version of people who are simultaneously crying "cancel culture" and calling for mass arrests of protesters? Selling people on the deal means pointing out how "the same rights protect us all" is more than a platitude -- it's real. It's pointing out how the forces you empower by allowing government punishment of speech are the bad guys -- not in the abstract, right here right now.

I mean, right now this is easy like selling cold beer at a party in July. You've got political and cultural forces that are explicitly, openly salivating over punishing left-leaning speech. So why not call that out? Why not point out how the deal protects people right now?

To sell the deal -- to protect not just "culture" but the actual First Amendment -- you've got to convince people that this isn't elaborate special pleading to protect some speech but not other speech from consequences. I respectfully submit this falls short of that.

My contribution is that metatextual awareness of who the signatories are helps convince people that this might just be a fig leaf argument for concern trolls and hypocrites invested in protecting the public space to express personal prejudices sans social consequences. That doesn't mean this is what Margaret Atwood is doing. It means that Margaret Atwood joined hands with people probably doing that and it's a mixed message.

[Guest]

I get your premise. Hence the comparison to the Reign of Terror. You want to bring the Twitter argument here? Meh. My point is the very premise of the Twitter argument is flawed on grounds reflected in the letter that have damning historical parallels. So, you gave a name. Educate on what makes him such a terrible person that his views are disqualifying for being an advocate for freedom of expression. You assert, but resist defending that assertion. That's meaningful. It should be concerning to people who take the argument there are authoritarian impulses involved.

So, to be clear, if the letter included Charlie Kirk you'd agree that would be bad because Charlie Kirk is known for bemoaning cancel culture on the one hand, and working very hard to censor and destroy the careers of liberals on the other? Or is it that you think a list of names included a bunch of Charlie Kirks would be fine because the literal content of the letter is fine?

Frankly, this is just watered down KKK claims. When I read the letter and skimmed through the list of signatories the impression it made was it attracted a diverse and notable group. Maybe half or slightly more of names are unknown to me but on the whole this idea that eventually a person on the list would be "bad" enough at some point I'd have to agree the association is fatal to the letter is juvenile. That's about where I see your position is juvenile, immature views regarding ideological purity. A more probable inclusion of someone like Sam Harris signing on would have been contextualized in recognizing his history, good and bad, but I wouldn't think the project damned because of it. You know, because people are not sortable into pretty little Plutonic batches like that.

If the former, the problem then seems to be that you have some sacred cows on the list and don't appreciate the view that they are known for being public advocates of prejudiced views that might use concerns about free speech for self-serving or hypocritical reasons.

Since neither is close let's just say, wrong, and the issue is I apparently don't need to have my hand held when I go out in public but can deal with complexity without erecting guillotines to purge the world of people who don't fit neatly into my view of what ought to be.

But hey, just remind everyone again how you can't use evidence to make an argument but instead rely on people being afraid of being declared guilty of unorthodoxy in front of the jury of social safety that is your corner of the Twitterverse.

[_EAllusion]

Since the former is closest, let's just say, wrong, and the issue is I apparently don't need to have my hand held when I go out in public but can deal with complexity...

Lol. Yeah. That's what you're displaying.

without erecting guillotines to purge the world of people who don't fit neatly into my view of what ought to be.

Case in point.

[_honorentheos]

So...Jesse. let's see you defend a claim with evidence that makes clear why he's a person others on the list should have avoided association.

[_EAllusion]

Nah, man. I'll take your position as Jessie Signal is fine :) and the people others think are on the list due to their fame for advancing prejudiced and harmful opinions in the public sphere are actually all perfectly Ok and part of healthy discourse of opposing views. The hypothetical comparison to a Charlie Kirk is KKK-lite becuase, actually, unlike Charlie they're all fine. NYT op-ed page for life, man.

If that's your objection, enjoy that. My words are people who already disagree with that. If you were sincerely interested in what's wrong with Jesse Signal's career as writer on trans issues, it's not like this is in any way a unique opinion, and there's no shortage of explanation available to you. If you disagree, then disagree and await the inevitable revolution that will take your head for having bad opinions. After all the gay marriage opponents were killed, the guillotines' thirst needs to be slaked with blood. Meanwhile, my comments were addressing an internal debate about what it means to have the list of signatories be what it is. That's why such an otherwise harmless letter generated so much heat. My point is to reject the idea one must avoid bad associations in favor a more nuanced idea about the meaning and purpose of petitionary letters.

[_EAllusion]

Jesse Singal, incidentally, is one of those folks who has been commonly described as "cancelled" in the discourse on cancel culture but is still around not being cancelled doing things like signing this letter. He might not get future glossy magazine spreads, and as we all know, freedom of speech means unfettered access to publication in high circulation magazines. Katie Herzog, listed as a podcast host, shares a similar status for similar reasons. It is strange when you think about it that this totally random sample of famous writers includes so many people who are associated with facing backlash of criticism for writing that promotes prejudice towards trans people. It's not like that's a super common thing to have happen to you. It's almost as if the list isn't just some random sample of famous writers, but maybe there was a list of people to contact that didn't include the known universe of writers that was shaped by the editorial decisions of the people who solicited the signatures.

[Guest]

Meanwhile, my comments were addressing an internal debate about what it means to have the list of signatories be what it is. That's why such an otherwise harmless letter generated so much heat. My point is to reject the idea one must avoid bad associations in favor a more nuanced idea about the meaning and purpose of petitionary letters.

So your authority on the list should be sufficient to convict, assuming all share your view of the participants and their general unworthiness. Got it.

Your point here seems to be the signatories are collectively poison to the content and surficial purpose of the letter. Even to the point you then behave as if the signatories are collectively sanctioning institutional restrictions on speech by association.

Nice.