Thread: a few thoughts on the infamous Harper's letter that broke Twitter.

TLDR: The letter was poorly written & vague enough to undermine its own cause. At the same time, if progressives are sifting through signatories to uncover its "true" meaning, they've missed the point.

The biggest problem with the letter ( https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/) is that beneath its grandiose claims it advances big empirical claims that it doesn't defend.

"The free exchange of information and ideas ... is daily becoming more constricted." How is this being measured? /2

It does give some types of examples, but there is no attempt to quantify instances/trends, provide links, name names, give some sense of the scope here or report out how these incidents "steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said." /3

The other issue is it fails to more clearly catalogue the specific threats to speech that come from "repressive government" or "the radical right." And how about corporate censorship through advertising pressure (Chomsky was asked to sign!) or alt-right friendly algorithms? /4

Perhaps most strikingly, esp since Harper's is supposed to be left: no mention of Israel-Palestine, where there's been a bipartisan national effort to actually render some anti-Zionist activism *illegal.*

@joshualeifer has good background on this: https://twitter.com/joshualeifer/status/1280557909177446403 /5

Why does this matter? SPECIFICITY would protect the letter from claims of hysteria or exaggeration, and contextualize the new sources of pressure/censorship within a broader milieu that has never been extremely free in the first place. /6

*Specificity* would also allow for a more granular analysis and clear distinctions between different things too often grouped together: a shouty culture; swift institutional realignments based on new salience of antiracism; & full-fledged punishment by digital mob & censorship./7

That all being said, the way some progressive critics have approached this letter has been odd and ironically reinforces some of the very points in the letter.

Critics pan the letter for including insufferable right-wingers. But the letter would have *no meaning* otherwise. /8

No paen to open debate could possibly be compelling unless it included a diverse set of signers, both in terms of identity and ideology. And to its credit, the letter really did achieve that.

While many liberals have focused on signers with retrograde political beliefs .../9

... on issues ranging from racism to Israel to trans identity, I am not convinced those people represent the "true" meaning when there are plenty of legit progressive scholars and deeply left-wing people on there who themselves are stridently opposed to those views. /10

In fact, it's extremely unlikely that Chomsky or a Jacobin writer on there had many or any of the same incidents in mind as Bari Weiss. (Again that's why specificity matters.)

Also, some signers didn't know who else would be on there. for example: /11 https://twitter.com/JennyBoylan/status/1280646004136697863

Some critics say that the right-wingers on the letter are insincere and aren't concerned with free speech as much as using a persecution narrative to maximize the reach of their reactionary views. I think in some cases that's definitely true.

Some critics also say that ...

/12

the right-wingers there are defenders of violence and a kind of structural-bureaucratic cancel culture that far outweighs the concerns they outline in the letter. Definitely true.

But ultimately it is a dead end for the left to concede this issue to the right. Here's why... /13

The left must be a staunch defender of open debate norms both on principle and because it is in the long run the greatest beneficiary such of norms.

Conservatives trying to appropriate the issue should be criticized, not allowed to *expropriate* it. /14

To make that more tangible, criticize the right for hypocrisy, don't downplay the real instances of troubling cases of people being fired. /15

Anyway you're probably unlikely to be persuaded by my argument if you're a person who argues "cancel culture doesn't exist in any form, and everyone worried is a crybaby or has misplaced priorities." I reject that argument. /16

It is, in fact, possible to be concerned about multiple things at the same time, to decry discrete sources of dampening of free expression. We don't have to view everything as a proxy battle for something else. /17

To give one example, I think the reason @jonathanchait's reporting on @davidshor's dismissal from Civis Analytics was truly worrying is because it really does seem to naturally follow the logic of a kind of cultural policing that's emerged. /18 https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/case-for-liberalism-tom-cotton-new-york-times-james-bennet.html

I suppose I should wrap this up. The Harper's letter lacked sophistication, perhaps by design. But the impulse among critics to downplay troubling cultural trends or even say free speech is a pure vehicle for status quo interests is a dangerous one, in my opinion. /19

Yes, perhaps I've waved this point away too casually. I suppose with a different document a different set of signers would have agreed to sign on. I don't follow Weiss specifically closely enough to know what she would have rejected signing. /20 https://twitter.com/NussbaumAbigail/status/1280911892656128001

I guess a lot of this comes down to process. If a leftist well-versed in all the ways open debate can be compromised spearheaded this effort and placed it at a leftie journal that seems less enigmatic than Harper's does these days, the signers would've looked different. /21