Disingenuous. The Old Guard is no more dedicated to free speech, they just have a different set of priorities when determining which views are too uncomfortable and out of bounds. They refuse to acknowledge this, insisting those limitations are just the nature of things.
Also can we boggle at how for Bari, "free speech" is when Le Paper du Record gives space for a sitting senator to expand on his Twitter rants, while the people she dubs safetyists concerned with comfort are actually against using tanks on protesters?
Anyways, definitely for sure super fire Bari Weiss. Not because her opinions are "wrong" but because her disdain for others' opinions is toxic and her rank dishonesty is corrosive to the public trust.
The more I think about this... it's obscene. Labeling people who ask questions YOU don't like about what's an appropriate use of a platform "safetyists" as though you're not prioritizing your own comfort, when they're talking about physical repercussions of actions?
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing us that Political Correctness is a power somehow wielded by people who don't hold the political power. Bari Weiss's Old Guard are the ones with their hands on the control. They OF COURSE keep topics and questions off-limits.
But the topics and voices that are excluded from the Times because people like @JBennet and @BariWeiss find them uncomfortable and beyond the pale of consideration don't spark public conversations this way, so the status quo skirts by as just being the status quo, not a decision.
And for all that they talk about the value of debate, people like Bari Weiss and James Bennet will absolutely not engage with these criticisms. They'll stick to comfortably defeatable strawmen, like pretending their critics are saying it's dangerous *to know* Cotton's views.
If we're going to be honest, Bari Weiss is not working in journalism. She's a marketer. What she does is position things to sell them, and other than her own personal interests, she doesn't much care what they are if they'll sell. That's her job: figure out what will sell.
And that's what makes this "his views are newsworthy, we must inform the public" dodge they're pulling so infuriating from her. His views ARE worth knowing! A lot of us learned them from Twitter. The times could have reported on them.
But that would have lacked "sexiness".
But that would have lacked "sexiness".
ANYBODY could have reported on his tweets. ANYBODY could have reported on his Fox appearance. ANYBODY could have told their readers what he thinks.
What the NYT wanted was a way to scoop a story that had already broken. So they made it an opinion piece.
What the NYT wanted was a way to scoop a story that had already broken. So they made it an opinion piece.
The opinion page of the New York Times did this deliberately to get the controversy. They did this because they wanted the criticism. It was clickbait! The Gray Lady's clickbait!
And it worked, and now they're pretending to be very disappointed.
And it worked, and now they're pretending to be very disappointed.
And as I say this, you might think "Well then you fell for it. You're still talking about it." Right, because the decision they made was an irresponsible use of their platform and it's dangerous and will have harmful repercussions. That's worth engaging with...
...even if in the short-term it rewards their bad-faith tactics. There's just no getting around that. The harm of elevating fascism in the op-ed page is going to be greater if we don't speak up against it.
Seriously, though. For years, for years, the right-wing has "worked the refs" by crying that any speech that is counter to their speech is censorship and declining to host their speech is, too.
And Weiss and Bennet now happily echo that, even while calling for debate...
And Weiss and Bennet now happily echo that, even while calling for debate...
...and, more perversely, while defending an op-ed about using military power to abrogate the first amendment right to assembly and speech.
How is it that we're censorious for using speech to talk about how the NYT elevates speech, but "send in the troops" re: protests isn't?
How is it that we're censorious for using speech to talk about how the NYT elevates speech, but "send in the troops" re: protests isn't?
Somebody explain it to me. If I were to say - and I do not say this but if I were to say it - that my opinion is the NYT should be physically attacked until it falls in line, would that be LESS censorious than when I suggest, with words, that they might examine their priorities?
us: You shouldn't have done this, for this reason and this reason.
them: But we believe in debate! We think the answer to speech is more speech! We want to listen to things we disagree with.
us: We disagree with some of that. Here are the reasons we think so.
them: CENSORSHIP!
them: But we believe in debate! We think the answer to speech is more speech! We want to listen to things we disagree with.
us: We disagree with some of that. Here are the reasons we think so.
them: CENSORSHIP!
Bari Weiss's whole entire Old Guard is united by nothing so strongly as they are united by the idea that criticism they don't want to listen to = censorship but somehow THEY are the champions of free speech and debate? Make it make sense.
If Weiss or Bennet or Sullivan or any of the other politically correct, censorious hacks of the Old Guard would simply say, "Well, there are some principles so fundamental to our worldview that obviously debating them is impossible without abandoning our worldview first", fine.
I would accept that! That's what we call an axiom. No debate can go back further than first principles. You have to find a place to stand, to start with.
But they won't do this. They won't acknowledge they have axioms they don't see as debateable.
But they won't do this. They won't acknowledge they have axioms they don't see as debateable.
And while they pretend that their views on free speech leaves *everything* open to debate, while they pretend that they do not rely on any axioms that are to them inarguable... we are open about this. We are honest and self-aware that we see some things as not topics for debate.
But because the professed values of the Free Speech Old Guard is that everything is up for debate, the fact that we speak to this thing that they deny means that we're the ones refusing debate.
Can we talk about it?
No.
Because disagreeing with them on this is censoring them.
Can we talk about it?
No.
Because disagreeing with them on this is censoring them.
I mean. I know I'm ranting, and I've been ranting for about a day solid. But they say they want more speech, right? Here's more speech. I will drown them in speech.
It's downright pernicious to have a worldview where you claim to love debate but label anyone who argues a censor.
It's downright pernicious to have a worldview where you claim to love debate but label anyone who argues a censor.
