"A Letter on Justice and Open Debate"

[David Pielingtonburygrot]

From someone on Facebook.

'you not only have a performative contradiction'

Top marks to them for shoehorning "performative" in though.

[Funcrusher]

From someone on Facebook.

Hey, fuck Chomsky, here's someone on Facebook.

[Mister Six]

The Palestinian people and their lives being in a "constant state of suspension" (what an Orwellian way to put it btw) is due to the despicable and illegal Israeli occupation.  Not "liberalism". 

An occupation that is only sustainable because the US has been vetoing any action against Israel in the UN for decades. And the US has been doing that because its liberal wing is mostly either supportive or, at worst, more inclined to stroke it's chin than condemn the human rights abuses there.

[Funcrusher]

Liberals using spurious claims of antisemitism to silence opposition to the occupation and/or monster actual progressives is one of the worst examples of cancel culture.

[chveik]

that's hardly cancel culture, it's been going on for decades

[Barry Admin]

Hey, fuck Chomsky, here's someone on Facebook.

I found it to be an interesting read, and I think your post is very amusing.  Fuck Chomsky indeed... anyone can have a voice now, and evidently that is terrifying to some.

[Sin Agog]

that's hardly cancel culture, it's been going on for decades

Neolibs have seriously ratcheted up the co-opting of identity politics in the last few years, though.  Look at the way both Hilary Clinton and Warren, when found lacking in definite policies, never failed to mention the fact that they happen to be women (or, for a brief spell, a Cherokee).

[Funcrusher]

I found it to be an interesting read, and I think your post is very amusing.  Fuck Chomsky indeed... anyone can have a voice now, and evidently that is terrifying to some.

I doubt that at 91 Chomsky is particularly terrified that his long and distinguished record of activism, scholarship and critique of US empire will be much threatened by Someone On Facebook.

[chveik]

Neolibs have seriously ratcheted up the co-opting of identity politics in the last few years, though.  Look at the way both Hilary Clinton and Warren, when found lacking in definite policies, never failed to mention the fact that they happen to be a woman (or, for a brief spell, a Cherokee).

agreed but I meant specifically the weaponising of antisemitism. Finkelstein wrote a book about it in 2001.

[Crisps?]

Someone will have emailed Chomsky and said as a consistent advocate of free speech for views you disagree with, do you want to put your name to our letter to be published in Harper's? And he probably doesn't care who else signed, because it doesn't matter if the point of signing was in support of free speech.

Apparently anyone can try to waste his time by email. He answered some inane crap about baby Yoda a few months back. So if someone wants to know his thoughts on this before writing him off, just email him (politely, if you're genuinely interested, and understanding he's probably already getting a ton of questions about it).

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Apparently anyone can try to waste his time by email. He answered some inane crap about baby Yoda a few months back. So if someone wants to know his thoughts on this before writing him off, just email him (politely, if you're genuinely interested, and understanding he's probably already getting a ton of questions about it).

Think we could get him to vote in Wimblewrong next year?

[Barry Admin]

I doubt that at 91 Chomsky is particularly terrified that his long and distinguished record of activism, scholarship and critique of US empire will be much threatened by Someone On Facebook.

I don't necessarily mean him.

[Pdine]

Fuck Chomsky indeed... anyone can have a voice now, and evidently that is terrifying to some.

As Chomsky et al's point is that free speech should not be inhibited, I'm a bit confused by this post...

[JaDanketies]

I doubt Chomsky's even been on Twitter.

[Buelligan]

As Chomsky et al's point is that free speech should not be inhibited, I'm a bit confused by this post...

Don't say et al, matey.  Free speech or no, there are limits.  Nasty stuff.

[RenegadeScrew]

An occupation that is only sustainable because the US has been vetoing any action against Israel in the UN for decades. And the US has been doing that because its liberal wing is mostly either supportive or, at worst, more inclined to stroke it's chin than condemn the human rights abuses there.

Nope, sorry.  It's not a "liberal wing".  Is this code for something else you want to say?  You may want to be careful that the ADL don't wish to extrapolate meaning from your code.  It's worse to be supportive than it is to be Swiss and chin-stroking actually, but it's not really relevant as the US is fully supportive of Israel.

The US has been doing what it does in the UN because it can.  It does the same thing on a variety of other issues too.  It wants to because it is geopolitically convenient, it seems to me, since the 6 day war.

You could say that Israel maintain power through creating a climate of fear that falsely equates Israel with judaism, and with lobbying groups/etc that massively over-represent (in Europe at least) the number of people who are supposedly living in fear of antisemitism.   

It seems all these people on twitter who are changing the world haven't realised that professors are being forced out due to fake antisemitism.  Maybe we just aren't using the MASSIVE PLATFORM we've now got that apparently is the thing all the signatories fear so much.

In reality, the occupation will either end at the ballot box in the US, or by the introduction of one in Saudi.  Notwithstanding wordily facebook posts.

[RenegadeScrew]

As Chomsky et al's point is that free speech should not be inhibited, I'm a bit confused by this post...

Most confusing is that the signatories signed the letter because they fear the massive voice anyone can now have, while they are simultaneously attacked for having massive voices talking down to those without a voice.

[Buelligan]

It's not that confusing, is it?  One group have their every word picked up and amplified by people like the BBC, they have blue ticks, honorary fellowships and publicity engines.  The others rely on their numbers.  One on one, there's no equality at all.

[Sebastian Cobb]

ennifer Finney Boylan
@JennyBoylan

I did not know who else had signed that letter. I thought I was endorsing a well meaning, if vague, message against internet shaming. I did know Chomsky, Steinem, and Atwood were in, and I thought, good company. The consequences are mine to bear. I am so sorry.




Malcolm Gladwell
@Gladwell

I signed the Harpers letter because there were lots of people who also signed the Harpers letter whose views I disagreed with. I thought that was the point of the Harpers letter.



John Levenstein
@johnlevenstein

This is why I write my own letters.

[Petey Pate]

I doubt Chomsky's even been on Twitter.

I can't find a link, but someone emailed him a "virgin Chomsky vs chad Parenti" meme, and he replied saying that he doesn't bother with Twitter because of such 'infantile performances'.

[JaDanketies]

I can't find a link, but someone emailed him a "virgin Chomsky vs chad Parenti" meme, and he replied saying that he doesn't bother with Twitter because of such 'infantile performances'.

jeez, loosen up Chommy!

[Smeraldina Rima]

I am reminded of Derrida's amusing disdain for Seinfeld: Derrida on Seinfeld

[Barry Admin]

As Chomsky et al's point is that free speech should not be inhibited, I'm a bit confused by this post...

Free speech includes the right to boycott and protest. It includes the right to tell a wizard woman that she's a massive transphobic piece of shit, and that her books will look great roaring away in a big fucking fire. And that you won't be giving her any more of your money or support.

[chveik]

from the JKR thread, thought it was interesting

Counterpoint: "Free Speech" is Stupid

Dear Noam Chomsky, Bari Weiss, Margaret Atwood, and Candace Owens,

The letter you wrote to us out here in society is pitiful. It is also bad and short enough that it merits a classic line-by-line rebuttal that was in vogue in 1997 when people on primitive webforums were first putting your ideas down like so many tumor-stuffed dogs. However, I will spend a couple moments posting a more general response to the overall thrust of your letter before I get to that.

The concept of free speech is one of those redundancies that belies a hidden purpose. By redundancies I mean, "free speech" is something that exists before it is ever codified or defined as a "right" "guaranteed" to "citizens." If you didn't have a formalized notion of free speech, you would still be able to say or write anything that you can say now. When you say "free exchange of information and ideas is the lifeblood of liberal society" it's not much different than saying, "free exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the lungs is the lifeblood of liberal society." The point you're making is not that the free exchange of ideas is important to liberal society, but that not-liberal society restricts the flow of information. And of course, that's just a dumb point for you to make. To understand why it's a dumb point, try considering intellectual property laws, which are very strong in Amerika but not so strong in a place many of you despise, China. The reason Amerikan tech companies and fast food franchises can't succeed in China is because intellectual property laws are not obstacles to recreating a successful business in China the way they are in Amerika. In Amerika, McDonald's includes in its asset portfolio the actual methodology of frying hundreds of millions of suffering animal parts; in China, these ideas are freely exchanged to anyone who wants to open a fast food restaurant. How many of your co-signatories will agree with me that China is therefore a more liberal society than Amerika?

Free speech is a redundant concept; you can say anything already, without knowing that you have free speech, and if someone tries to restrict your speech, they are already committing a recognizable crime. If someone physically restricts your speech they are assaulting or murdering you. If someone uses threats to restrict it, you're being blackmailed, extorted, or harassed, and in many Amerikan jurisdictions a threat itself is thought of as assault. If someone steals your words or unfairly represents them, it's plagiarism, or libel, or slander. These are old concepts because free speech has existed for about as long as independent human thought. None of the average people that I know needs anything like "freedom of speech" to protect them from having their voices suppressed.

Who are the people who most need to have their voices heard in this country? Of course, the millions of people currently dying in the vast Amerikan gulag system. Prisoners have been teleported to another dimension where their voices cannot be heard by the media. Is it fair to say that their "right to free speech is being suppressed"? I think we should say, they are being denied access to family, friends, and lawyers, and these are already crimes; their mail is delayed or lost or confiscated and this is already a crime; they are threatened, harassed, attacked, malnourished, isolated, exposed to COVID-19, baked, frozen, extorted, enslaved, and more in retaliation for speaking against their conditions or the carceral state in general, and these are already crimes. Journalists will report on prison issues without ever talking to a prisoner - when prisoners should be crowding out the careerist wardens and lobbyists in your columns - and you, who arrogantly wrote society a letter about free speech in the year 2020, believe this is not a crime, because the profession of journalism is not capable of self-regulation.

Who are the people who least need to have their voices heard in this country? I thank you for compiling the list in advance. We can add anyone who said there were WMDs in Iraq, just for example. They should be sent back to school, and the class they should be forced to take is "What Happened in Fallujah and How You're Going to Spend the Next Ten Years in a Hazmat Suit Cleaning Up After That 101." Note that this is more than just "losing your career," which for a professional racist means finding a slightly smaller rock to slither under for a year. Cancel culture? People who get "canceled" for writing racist things in a newspaper in the year 2020 are being given an amazing opportunity that no previous revolutionary period in history would have dared afford them: the chance to autodidactically correct their evil beliefs and continue breathing air among non-bigots.

Once you're canceled - and thank you all again for volunteering to go first - you can still say anything you want, just like us normals. The only thing is, no matter what we say, nobody cares. It kind of sucks. But it allows us to see the hidden purpose of "freedom of speech." That is, it's the freedom of rich people to say openly how awesome it would be if they had slaves or if more poor people died. You will also find that "freedom of movement" is not about allowing you to go where you want (you need to be at your second job) but about allowing rich people to fly on exorbitant private jets to islands where they can do tons of pedophilia away from prying eyes. It's about maintaining the class comfort of rapid travel for a select couple million rich people, that most of us common people only use every couple of years when a family member dies of a preventable illness.

Anyway, I appreciate you all trying to discipline the stupid hordes, but we're going to keep canceling the shit out of bigots. Remember: real change comes from within!

I think it's fair to say that Chomsky has a non-critical view of free speech, and being in disagreement with him doesn't erase everything else of value he's done.

[RenegadeScrew]

It's not that confusing, is it?  One group have their every word picked up and amplified by people like the BBC, they have blue ticks, honorary fellowships and publicity engines.  The others rely on their numbers.  One on one, there's no equality at all.

Yeah one group are famous.  Like Raheem Sterling compared to an average British guy.  Is that changing soon?

If nothing has really changed people can stop stroking themselves over the massive voice that everyone doesn't have.

[Nobody Soup]

Just wow, really. How else can one defeat bad ideas? If not enough people are persuaded to vote against Trump he'll win again.

I'm not saying we should entirely suppress ideas we don't like to hear but if you want a good example of how exposure gone wrong look at UKIP, who, despite having no MPs and no real political representation anywhere were shoved in our faces for years and given prominent spots on debates, notably Question Time where Farage broke records for the number of appearances made by a guest. while the Greens and their environmental policies, who actually did have MPs and attracted significantly more votes in elections were treated as weird outsiders and given rate spots.

cut forward and UKIP eventually managed to make their cause credible to the wider public while green issues aren't given any consideration. 

[RenegadeScrew]

from the Glinner thread, thought it was interesting



I think it's fair to say that Chomsky has a non-critical view of free speech, and being in disagreement with him doesn't erase everything else of value he's done.

I think you can correctly be against Chomsky's very American view of free speech, as well as his stupid comments about sport/Bob Dylan/Faurrison/etc, but the only the thing interesting about the article is how preposterous it is.  It is almost like something from the Mises institute in terms of silliness.

To compare China favourably to the US based on the free exchange of ideas while making comment on the suffering of animal parts seems almost like parody.

Why doesn't the author bring up China when discussing freedom of movement?  Nor does the pro-Amerikan refer correctly to the People's Republic of China.  Seems a bit bigoted really to make an effort to spell Amerika a certain way throughout, but not even spend the two seconds to find out the correct name of the Asian country.  Maybe he's just trying to "cancel the shit" out of Mao so I suppose that's fair enough.

I look forward to seeing how "cancelling the shit out of bigots" will lead magically to an end to the US gulag system, prisoners columns in the newspapers, an end to the absurd patent protection system, reform of the US political system, a healthcare system, and closed borders like in good ol' China.

[chveik]

just thought it could be pertinent to post it here :(

[RenegadeScrew]

Don't worry I was just attacking the author who has a prominent media voice for not using it the way I liked.  And projecting bigoted views onto the author on the basis of things they didn't say.

[Big Mclargehuge]

Just wow, really. How else can one defeat bad ideas? If not enough people are persuaded to vote against Trump he'll win again.

Cant believe no one here bought up the utter shit show that was Corbyn V Johnson 2019 to disprove this. Johnson spent the whole election hiding and being purposefully vague. To the point where even right wing papers were questioning if he could be prime minister. Meanwhile Corbyn and his supporters were out there every day offering the best alternatives and opportunities to the people of the UK giving valid arguments based on indisputable evidence. and he got his arse handed to him because "Blonde fat man funny and he'll brexit"

Same with Corbyn V May...only that one was closer.

platforming neo Nazis, racists and homophobes was justifiable pre 21st century because there was no internet and people had lived through segregation and the literal Nazis so they *mostly* knew better than to be taken in. now everyone has access to the biggest possible platform in the world. we don't need to offer arseholes even MORE venues to spew hatred. leave them to there online burrows and never let them get an inch closer to the public than they can get themselves.