Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Resignation Letter

bariweiss.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 716 posts

Re: Resignation Letter

#131

Post by hsitz »

majormajor wrote: post #99
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…

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…

That's an interesting thought that I don't think I've encountered before; I'll think about that.

Re: Resignation Letter

#132

Post by tomcam »

slg wrote: post #5

It always amazes me when the people who champion "the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society" will also turn around and say something like their political beliefs being mocking by coworkers is "unlawful discrimination". She doesn't want free speech. She wants consequence free speech. She wants her detractors silenced by the law. What a hypocrite.

> She doesn't want free speech. She wants consequence free speech. She wants her detractors silenced by the law

Not sure we read the same letter. Can you support these assertions based on the text?

Re: Resignation Letter

#133

Post by ebg13 »

deschutes wrote: post #85
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...

I'm not familiar with the controversy, so I went looking for actual views of said professors. Wikipedia states 'Massad has characterized Israel as "a racist Jewish state."' There might be more to this story than Glenn Greenwald frothing at the mouth.

Can you clarify whether (and if so why) you have a problem with that characterization?

> Wikipedia states 'Massad has characterized Israel as "a racist Jewish state."'

Israel's own definition of self calls itself a "Jewish state" and says that the right to exercise national self-determination there is "unique to the Jewish people", so that "Jewish state" part is correct by definition.

And it defines that Judaism is a race by birthright and not a religion, and it grants special privileges to jews that aren't granted to others and it metes special discriminations against its non-jewish resident minorities, so, without even getting into any discussion of the history of arab-israeli conflict, it's hard to argue seriously with the other part as well.

Re: Resignation Letter

#134

Post by jirdperson »

ashconnor wrote: post #106
alecb wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're digestion of her letter should not be informed in anyway by the fact that she routinely employed the tactics that she now claims she's a victim of? She's spent her career vilifying and seeking out personal retribution for people who she's disagreed with, I don't know how this doesn't factor into one's purview.

I think readers here think that you are engaging in an "Ad hominem" attack on Weiss but since she herself is the subject of discussion I don't see why you wouldn't include her historical contradictory actions in a response.

I certainly don’t think that. What “ideas” that Bari Weiss presents in this essay does your conversational counterpoint here fail to engage? And why is the context of her hypocrisy not relevant?

Re: Resignation Letter

#135

Post by csours »

banads wrote: post #52
csours wrote: post #11

2 quick comments: 1. Team-sports politics and Identity politics are a scourge and cancer used for fundraising, and I despise them. 2. Conservatives have been poisoning public discourse since at least the 1980's with hate and fear (see Rush Limbaugh), and I despise that tactic. I'm sure you can find instances where Liberals have done the same, but it would be VERY hard to convince me that they have done it at the same…

>it would be VERY hard to convince me that they have done it at the same level of concerted effort. What exactly would it take to convince you of that?

Examples of coordinated liberal messaging based on hate and fear that has had a large impact on social discourse.

Note: Safe spaces, affirmative action, etc do not apply for me personally. While they have at times gone off the rails, they are based on inclusiveness, not hate and fear.

Re: Resignation Letter

#136

Post by cs702 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #57
cs702 wrote: post #40

I hesitated before upvoting the OP, and even considered flagging it, given its controversial author (with whom I disagree) and its potential to fuel ideologically driven, opinionated arguments (in which no one wins and everyone loses). However, I decided to upvote the OP because I feel it is, in the end, about a topic that is of utmost interest of -- and widely considered important by -- most people on HN: free speec…

> widely considered important by -- everyone I'm not sure this is nearly as universal as you think, even on here.

Maybe you're right. I changed it to "most people."

Re: Resignation Letter

#137

Post by majormajor »

CJefferson wrote: post #90
majormajor wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 clearly not reality. You seem to be missing a substantial portion of American media. You just gotta know whe…

It is very possible (in fact, it would make sense), that the anti-Trump media, and the media that tries to reach outside of America to a worldwide audience, would have almost 100% overlap.

One of the problems Trump faces is that he's so outside the expected behavior boundaries that positives get much harder to find. The hard-conservative anti-Trumper is FAR more common than the hard-conservative anti-Busher was.

One of my historical barometers for what right-wing media is saying was talking to my parents and family, since they would try to convince me of the talking points they were hearing from Fox News and AM talk radio, and I'd try to convince them of what I was getting from the NYT or the New Yorker.

But they abandoned Fox News and most of the talk shows they listened to in 2017 because they can't stand Trump (but still yet cannot bring themselves to vote for a Democrat, because abortion). So now all I know is that those were still wildly conservative-leaning and pro-Trump 3 years ago. I'm sure they're still conservative-leaning, but I no longer have as direct a view into if they're pro-Trump.

Re: Resignation Letter

#138

Post by zzzeek »

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…

they absolutely do have a different story to tell and it has been told over and over again within the various twitter threads, in examples such as https://twitter.com/maxstrasser/status/1268636885989105665

Re: Resignation Letter

#139

Post by seppin »

eej71 wrote: post #73
minikites wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I read the Tom Cotton op-ed and didn't find any racist element to it. It would be interesting to have you highlight which paragraph was racist in your eyes.

He wanted the military unleashed on his fellow citizens, a move that would have escalated violence and perhaps led to a spiraling loss of control by both sides.

"Racist" was the least of the concerns.

Re: Resignation Letter

#140

Post by chiefalchemist »

> But the lessons that ought to have followed the election—lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned.

While some here are debating the credibility of the source (which is understandable), I read this idea in some form approx once a week. That is, it transcends sources.

I find it disturbing and disheartening that little has changed since 2016. One way or another we'll make it through the 2020 election. But 2024 has all the makings on a horror movie.

Heads remain pushed deep into the sand. Symptoms are passed off as root causes. Root cause - who whip up the blame-the-symptoms spin - continue to get a free pass. It's hard to imagine a healthy outcome anytime soon.

Post reply on HN