A group of journalists, authors, writers, entertainers and academics signed on to an open letter in Harper’s Magazine. The subject of the open letter is the signatories’ concern regarding cancel culture and open debate and discussion of “controversial” subjects. The letter is short and is benign. Read it for yourself at the link above. Here’s the gist of what they said.
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.
Harper’s Magazine
Here’s some of the response that harmless letter engendered among the cancel culturists.
Because the American left is basically a war zone at the moment—or online it is, at least—what happened next shouldn’t surprise anyone: A group of us posted the letter and celebrated it, while another much angrier group denounced it and held it up as proof of…well, whatever it is they hate about us and want to get us fired over (this crowd likes calling the manager). Now, it shouldn’t have surprised me—I have been through multiple rounds of this stuff—but I have to admit it did.
One such reaction came from Parker Molloy, a staffer at the left-leaning Media Matters, who insisted, of a letter that includes Rushdie and Kasparov, “not a single one of them have been censored anytime in recent history.” In the subsequent tweetstorm, she said of the signatories:
“They want you to sit down.
They want you to shut up.
They want you to do as you’re told.
By them. Specifically.”“They are totalitarians in the waiting,” she wrote. “They are bad people.”
Reason.com
The Millennial Generation once again showing that growing up being sheltered from anything that might harm them, mentally or physically, has made them quite sick. If you cannot handle arguing with people over different ideas what can you handle?