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Resignation Letter

bariweiss.com

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Re: Resignation Letter

#91

Post by larrywright »

asdf21 wrote: post #43
CJefferson wrote: post #15

Speaking as someone who absorbs American media externally, there does seem to be a disconnect looking in. About 40% of the America seems to still support Donald Trump, under most polls. It certainly isn't true that 40% of the media supports Donald Trump. As an external viewer, it's easy to imagine no-one was ever going to vote for Donald Trump, no-one ever supported him, and no-one supports him today, but that's clea…

Exactly right. Something like 97% of news coverage is critical towards Trump. I'm not sure what that number should be, but 97% seems like there is a deeper and systemic issue.

I don’t think so. Most mainstream media (I’ve come to hate that term) skews a bit towards the left politically, but not nearly as much as the far right thinks they do. President Bush got better coverage - certainly not 50/50, but not 97% against either. The difference here is that Trump, by virtually any measure, is just that awful.

Re: Resignation Letter

#92

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

minikites wrote: post #55
mikece wrote: post #39

"And so self-censorship has become the norm." This might be the most ironic and most dangerous effect of this "right think" regime: that the free expression and exchange of ideas is thwarted in advance because one doesn't want to deal with drama, fight, or insults that come with saying something not in lock-step with the prevailing group-think. This blunts the curiosity of the intellect and silences all true disciple…

You're assuming "both sides" have an equally valid point of view. Tom Cotton's racist op-ed and COVID denialism are two current examples where one side is definitely wrong. Bari believes there shouldn't be consequences for saying dangerously wrong things.

> "both sides"

There's more than two sides here. Classical liberals and centrists who question or disagree with aspects of progressive beliefs are also being threatened with "consequences". That is a problem and it's time for the silent majority to start imposing some "consequences" of their own.

Re: Resignation Letter

#93

Post by ideals »

Barrin92 wrote: post #62
gfodor wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious that the top comment exemplifies the problem. It seems few today are still able to engage with ideas directly, always trying to filter them through some, any, lens to discredit the ones they don’t like. Sometimes it’s attacking the speaker, sometimes their associations, sometimes the tweets they have “liked.” If all else fails, seek out language in the text itself for unfalsifiable “dog whistles” that allow…

In this particular case the author argues from her particular experience in her workplace without providing any evidence, so I think it's pretty relevant to take such things into account because she might be exaggerating. I'm not exactly inclined to take someone's purely personal criticisms at face value if they have engaged in the same behaviour. For all we know she might be leaving on bad terms and is taking it out…

Right, the parents complaint is essentially Spiderman_pointing_at_Spiderman.jpg

If the original complaint is a "dog whistle" then people will also respond the same way.

Otherwise know as debating

Re: Resignation Letter

#94

Post by jeffbee »

ngngngng wrote: post #47
jgwil2 wrote: post #14

> Americans still hunger for news that is accurate, opinions that are vital, and debate that is sincere. The market would suggest otherwise.

Completely disagree. And I think Joe Rogan's podcast is the perfect example of how the market is suggesting exactly what you replied to. "Normal Americans" don't read the NYT anymore, or WSJ, or the Post, they listen to Joe Rogan on Spotify and Youtube. There's virtually no limit to who Joe will have on his show, and while he's not a remarkable interviewer, he brings the often vital opinions of his guests on all side…

https://www.statista.com/statistics/315041/new-york-times-co...

Re: Resignation Letter

#95

Post by BrickWayne »

alecb wrote: post #4

There's several layers of irony here, chief of which Bari Weiss headed a very vocal campaign to fire anyone at Colombia who didn't exist on the far-right on Israel/Palestine - and of course, falsely painted several professors as racist and anti-Semitic: https://theintercept.com/2018/03/08/the-nyts-bari-weiss-fals...

This is not an accurate account of her actions. The tweet which Greenwald embeds in his article as evidence against her is here https://twitter.com/saeen90_/status/971562600315215872. Watch the video underneath where she explains what her problem was with Professor Massad. In class, Massad referred to the Jenin massacre, a student raised her hand and pointed out the UN had dismissed the claims that the Battle of Jenin was a massacre, the professor kicked her out of class. A left-wing student from Israel asked him a question at a lecture. Massad noticed the student's accent then asked him if he was Israeli then asked him if he served in the IDF. He then demanded the student tell the group how many Palestinians he had killed. This is a little different from getting anyone who "didn't exist on the far-right on Israel/Palestine" fired as you put it. This documents the professor's views on Israel/Palestine[0]. I don't think you can characterise anything other then these views as being far right.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Massad#On_Israel_and_Zi...

Re: Resignation Letter

#96

Post by roadbeats »

Interesting to see how the toxic usage of emojis at Slack is a part of the letter. In past, these sort of details in communication (reactions of others) would be instantaneous and people would not remember them. Now, the emojis stay there as a part of the written history.

Re: Resignation Letter

#97

Post by dimgl »

Redoubts wrote: post #63
dimgl wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's truly telling that the most upvoted comment is one working to discredit the writer, rather than taking what's being said at face value.

> rather than taking what's being said at face value Why should I be this credulous?

No one is asking you to be naive and all-accepting. Simply to not be dismissive.

Re: Resignation Letter

#98

Post by akhilcacharya »

LegitShady wrote: post #49
akhilcacharya wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The masthead lost all credibility with this article [0] days before the election. They did spend lots of time and effort understanding the rest of America (sure, that’s fine and good) with little understanding or reflection of their own impact. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-el...

The story seems accurate.

Literally the second paragraph

> And even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump.

Was contradicted weeks later [0] and again by the bipartisan senate intelligence committee [1] this year.

Stay for reporting on Stone, which also aged poorly though I can’t blame them for not predicting the future.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-cyber-russia...

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/21/senate-intel-report...

Re: Resignation Letter

#99

Post by majormajor »

gfodor wrote: post #46
alecb wrote: post #4

There's several layers of irony here, chief of which Bari Weiss headed a very vocal campaign to fire anyone at Colombia who didn't exist on the far-right on Israel/Palestine - and of course, falsely painted several professors as racist and anti-Semitic: https://theintercept.com/2018/03/08/the-nyts-bari-weiss-fals...

Hilarious that the top comment exemplifies the problem. It seems few today are still able to engage with ideas directly, always trying to filter them through some, any, lens to discredit the ones they don’t like. Sometimes it’s attacking the speaker, sometimes their associations, sometimes the tweets they have “liked.” If all else fails, seek out language in the text itself for unfalsifiable “dog whistles” that allow…

The people who have spent decades trying to keep the airwaves "clean," "family friendly," "anti-communist," etc, are suddenly shocked that they don't get to set the rules anymore, and that they're on the wrong side of some of them.

Context is everything for this discussion, because if you truly don't want there to be such censorship, you have to be aware of the motivations of the people pushing for change at the top now.

Otherwise you just get them running the show again, and you've just rolled back the clock a few decades to a world with a more violent state and a more cheerleading media.

Re: Resignation Letter

#100

Post by banads »

minikites wrote: post #55
mikece wrote: post #39

"And so self-censorship has become the norm." This might be the most ironic and most dangerous effect of this "right think" regime: that the free expression and exchange of ideas is thwarted in advance because one doesn't want to deal with drama, fight, or insults that come with saying something not in lock-step with the prevailing group-think. This blunts the curiosity of the intellect and silences all true disciple…

You're assuming "both sides" have an equally valid point of view. Tom Cotton's racist op-ed and COVID denialism are two current examples where one side is definitely wrong. Bari believes there shouldn't be consequences for saying dangerously wrong things.

You're assuming a false dichotomy in which one obscurely defined group is subjectively deemed to be marginally better than the other excuses the synergistic absurdity of both
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