NYT’s Revisionist History About Revisionist History
Andrew Sullivan didn't miss this NYT stealth retreat on the 1619 Project, a non-historical "history" of the U.S.:
The Problem with Stifled Dissent
Why should we care about suppressed and chilled speech on important issues of the day? Emily Elkins of the Cato Institute offers the statistics and a clear analysis in "Most Americans Are Scared Stiff to Talk Politics. Why?"
There are many reasons to resist this authoritarian urge to squash dissent. The first is that scientific progress, and by extension, the improvement of human well‐being generally, requires free thought and open discourse. As Jonathan Rauch explains in his book, “Kindly Inquisitors,” the scientific method breaks down when people become reluctant to ask questions, be creative, challenge each other, and seek out and understand evidence.
Further, as Thomas Chatteron Williams explained in a New Yorker interview, the culture of canceling signals to people what the boundaries of “acceptable” ideas are or else suffer severe economic and emotional punishment. Thus many “steer far clear of the boundary,” causing a “narrowing…stifling effect on not just speech but on thought,” he explained.
Yet silencing people and stifling free thought isn’t an effective long‐run strategy. It rarely changes minds. It just shuts down civil discourse and prevents people from having opportunities to modify their ideas in the face of new information. Instead, people hold onto their opinions, and just sweep them under the rug.
Political opponents’ disengagement doesn’t necessarily mean victory. Americans still vote. And their political views, silent or expressed, affect how they vote. Persuasion is necessary to change how people think and thus who and what they vote for. But persuasion is hard and requires open dialogue.
Social psychologists have found evidence that we aren’t very good at updating our opinions by ourselves. We need other people we respect to ask us to explain our views and then challenge us with new considerations. It’s typically through this back and forth process that we update our views when people we trust present us with new, compelling information.
But this only works when we feel comfortable to engage in a dialogue. Thus it is only with open dialogue that people’s opinions can be examined, understood, or reformed. Thereby, the best long‐term strategy is persuasion, not silencing. And persuasion requires open debate.
About Cultural Revolutions
Then . . .
And now. Click on the photo for the story of this woman dining in DC, who was approached by BLM protesters, not satisfied to invade her while in a restaurant but insisting on the alleged need for compelled speech.
The woman dining in the restaurant is bravely exhibiting the correct approach when someone threatens you to make you say something you don't believe. Here is a classic photo showing how to be brave. Click on the photo for the story of the man who refused to salute Hitler.
Private Thought, Public Talk
Tweet from Bo Winegard:
This public/private divide in honest communications is ubiquitous in the outside world too. If only we could force everyone to install devices on their heads that would, at random times throughout the day, broadcast their actual thoughts. We would take extra pains to make all people wear these devices in churches, political gatherings and wherever people feel pressure to please their in-groups. Doing this would be revolutionary in our hypocrisy-permeated world. Mind-blowingly revolutionary. If we made people wear these devices for even a month this would train us to say what we are actually thinking and to clearly admit when we don't actually know things.
OK, yes. It this would also cause serious chaos as our hidden romantic/sexual secrets are made public at inopportune random times. This thought experiment is a work in progress . . .
Purported Protesters Display Who They Are on the Streets of Portland Oregon
On Twitter, Andy Ngo is documenting the horrific conduct on the streets of Portland and Seattle, night after night. I forced myself to watch about 10 of these videos over the past week. The videos are graphic and highly disturbing, many involving beatings of non-violent people. Rampant morally reprehensible behavior, despite the claim that these are "protesters." Police almost entirely absent.
There has been no coverage for the past ten days from the New York Times or NPR. Based on these videos, another Twitter user recently posted: "Portland was a nice city last time I visited. Now it's ruled by violent mobs. #failedstate"