Posts Tagged ‘political correctness’

Cancel Culture

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/965815679/is-cancel-culture-the-future-of-the-gop

Six or seven years ago, the idea of “canceling” someone was largely used among younger people online, particularly on Black Twitter, as Vox’s Aja Romano has explained.

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more on cancel culture in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=cancel+culture

Harper’s Letter

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

July 7, 2020

https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/

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A Deeply Provincial View of Free Speech

Many prominent writers and thinkers seem invested in the notion that simply facing strong public criticism is a threat to free speech.

HANNAH GIORGIS

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/harpers-letter-free-speech/614080/

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The Harper’s Letter, Bari Weiss And Tucker Carlson: Why Are We Still Talking About ‘Cancel Culture?’

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2020/07/14/the-harpers-letter-bari-weiss-and-tucker-carlson-why-are-we-still-talking-about-cancel-culture/#70e071ac39ca

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Bari Weiss, Andrew Sullivan and the Harper’s letter: the case for open debate

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/17/opinions/harpers-letter-free-speech-bari-weiss-andrew-sullivan-avlon/index.html

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Public letter in Harper’s sparks furor

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/506846-public-letter-in-harpers-sparks-furor

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Cancel Culture

Illiberalism Isn’t to Blame for the Death of Good-Faith Debate

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/illiberalism-cancel-culture-free-speech-internet-ugh.html

Haas, L. (2019). ETTU?: Notes on Cancel Culture. The New Republic, 250(7-8), 40–. https://mnpals-scs.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01MNPALS_SCS/ppvqcp/cdi_gale_infotracacademiconefile_A594089998

GIL TROY. (2019). Cancel the “Cancel Culture” phenomenon with sincere self-scrutiny. In The Jerusalem Post (Online) (English ed.). The Jerusalem Post Ltd.

https://mnpals-scs.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01MNPALS_SCS/ppvqcp/cdi_proquest_miscellaneous_2299562101

Nya Bentley. (2020). Fresh Talk: Does cancel culture even work? In Hartford Courant (Online). Tribune Publishing Company, LLC.

https://mnpals-scs.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01MNPALS_SCS/ppvqcp/cdi_proquest_miscellaneous_2370756493

identity political correctness

‘Identity is a pain in the arse’: Zadie Smith on political correctness

At Hay Cartagena festival author questions role of social media in policing personal development

 Sat 2 Feb 2019 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/02/zadie-smith-political-correctness-hay-cartagena

The writer Zadie Smith laid into identity politics in a headline session at the 14th Hay Cartagena festival, insisting novelists had not only a right, but a duty to be free.

She conceded that the assertion of a collective identity was sometimes necessary “to demand rights”, but cited the dismay of her husband – the poet and novelist Nick Laird – at finding himself increasingly categorised. “He turned to me and said: ‘I used to be myself and I’m now white guy, white guy.’ I said: ‘Finally, you understand.’

She went on to question the role of social media in policing personal development.

to the issue of political correctness, she reflected on her debut novel White Teeth, which had depicted characters from many backgrounds but, she said, had been given an easy ride by the white critics because “[its characters] were mostly brown.

citing Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary as an example of the power of the reprobate imagination. “Women have felt very close to these fake, pretend women invented by men. It makes us feel uncomfortable in real life. This is not real life. It’s perverse, but it’s what’s possible in fiction. There’s no excuse for its irresponsibility, but fiction is fundamentally irresponsible.”

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more on social media in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=social+media

Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa: “Political correctness is the enemy of freedom”

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/02/27/inenglish/1519736544_699462.html

Besides writing prize-winning fiction, the Nobel Laureate has fought tirelessly for civil liberties. With his new book, ‘The Call of the Tribe,’ he promotes liberal thought and pays tribute to seven authors who embrace it. We talk to him about liberalism, intellectual blindness and the dangers facing democracy today

liberalism defends some basic ideas: freedom, individualism, the rejection of collectivism and nationalism – in other words, all the ideologies or doctrines that limit or annihilate freedom within society.

Nationalism is present, but my impression is that, as with Catalonia, it’s a minority and the strength of democratic institutions is going to gradually undermine it until it’s derailed.

I wanted to be a communist. I thought communism represented the antithesis of a military dictatorship, corruption and, above all, inequality.
But the communism in Latin America was pure Stalinism, with parties subject to the Comintern in Moscow.
Fidel invited myself and a dozen other intellectuals to speak to him. We spent the whole night, 12 hours, from eight in the afternoon to eight the next morning, basically listening to him speak. It was impressive, but not very convincing.

Blindly, intellectuals have always seen democracy as a mediocre system that lacked the beauty, perfection and coherence of the big ideologies. And this blindness is not incompatible with great intelligence. How could Heidegger, perhaps the greatest philosopher in recent times, for example, be a Nazi? The same happened with communism. It attracted writers and poets of great stature who applauded the Gulag. Sartre, the most intelligent French philosopher of the 20th century supported the Cultural Revolution in China.

In Latin America, if you weren’t a left-wing intellectual in the 1970s, you simply weren’t an intellectual. You were shut out. Culture was controlled by a left that was very clannish and dogmatic and that had a profound warping effect on cultural life

intelligence is not a guarantee of intellectual honesty.

In the case of misinformation and manipulation, communism was incredibly clever at distorting things, undermining honest people and masking lies with false truths that came to substitute reality.