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Resignation Letter

bariweiss.com

511–520 of 716 posts

Re: Resignation Letter

#511

Purely anecdotal, but knowing a couple people who work at the NYTimes, there is definitely a right way to operate there. You can cruise by taking the same stances and retweeting the same tweets. Bari Weiss never seemed very principled in her stances though, so I don't think she's a good counterpoint.

There is a bit of signals and signifiers conundrum here. That said, her points are still valid even though she is not the perfect victim of mob mentality group think orthodoxy.

So who is?

Re: Resignation Letter

#512
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tom Cotton is a sitting US Senator. Denying him op–ed space is in no way tantamount to "silencing" him.

Also they didn't deny him anything. His idiotic vomit ran above the fold online. The Times admitted the opinion editor didn't even read the piece, they just ran it automatically out of deference to the senator.

There are 100 Senators, chosen by the same types of processes that put Donald Trump in the White House, why is being a Senator an automatic qualification for publishing in the NYT? Such a famous newspaper should be more exclusive than that.

Re: Resignation Letter

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't take them too seriously until I see an alternative that does the work of collective discovery. There is an alternative. It is you and I. The citizen journalist will become the arbiter of truth tomorrow. And that arbitration will be decided on rationality. There will be no more credentialism and gatekeeping. That is why the traditional media companies are scared shitless.

Aha! Yes!! The most obvious first step is to form a leadership group to manage coordination. Different people to be in charge of printing/hosting and distribution, payroll, HR, research, etc, etc.

No, we don't need any of that.

If someone wants to publish news, they don't need those things. Just publish it.

Re: Resignation Letter

#514
post #73

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.

Maybe not racist per se, but Cotton specifically blamed antifa which was a deliberate and calculated lie intended to blame imaginary radical leftists on activities that were mostly being our by garden variety robbers unassociated with any political group. I also think that public sentiment was swayed by cable news coverage that made the looting seem far worse than it was.

Re: Resignation Letter

#515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Can't anyone there see past the current insanity and think? "To be inclusive, we have to get rid of her"? Don't they even hear the words coming out of their own mouths? This confuses a lot of people, but the explanation is simple: it is the Paradox of Tolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Namely, not tolerating someone, who themselves espouse intolerant views and give voice to intolerant ex…

There are plenty of us who think that the "Paradox of Tolerance" is mistaken, rather than truth. It may sound reasonable, but it is used in practice to define ideas we don't like as intolerant, and then exclude those who hold those ideas. If you look around, those on the left aren't showing themselves to be paragons of tolerance. They are nearly as narrow-minded as the right, just with different in-groups and out-gro…

I agree with all of this, but I will pick a nit here:

> There are plenty of us who think that the "Paradox of Tolerance" is mistaken, rather than truth. It may sound reasonable, but it is used in practice to define ideas we don't like as intolerant, and then exclude those who hold those ideas.

If they've changed the definition of "tolerance" to proxy their ingroup, are they actually talking about the Paradox of Tolerance? Or are they observing a new "paradox": 'progressives don't tolerate who they don't tolerate'? I ask because the distinction seems interesting to me; not trying to be pedantic.

Re: Resignation Letter

#516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see this directly on Reddit, or even here, thanks to the downvote button. It doesn't matter how right you may be, how many sources you may have, if it angers a sufficient people to lead to your post being downvoted, no one will be able to read it. And though the points are made up, it's always annoying to look at a post you spent half an hour typing and researching just to have it get down to -6 with no furth…

So you're against people expressing their opinions in response to your own?

I think the OP argued pretty explicitly that a well researched comment, that violates the orthodoxy, is down-voted until it is removed from public discussion.

I'm not sure how you can come to the conclusion that he's "against others expressing their opinions".

Re: Resignation Letter

#517
post #3

"Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at [the New York Times]: that truth isn't a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else." This is a very key point, and what are the consequences of "informing everyone of a truth" that doesn't accurately reflect -- of even contradicts! -- reality? Harm to the reput…

They have 1,600 journalists last year that were sent to 150 countries [1]. What other organization is doing anything like that effort to gather facts around the world? Who is doing more collective discovery (and making it accessible to the public at a price an average person can afford)? I can only think of a handful of organizations that are serious candidates (Reuters? The BBC? Wikipedia?). Weird puff pieces, drama…

It's not just about number of journalists, but more about the culture of NYT. NYT made a garage handle much larger than it actually was by using telescope camera on the article on so-called noose. And is this truth-finding? NYT published opinions like "Yes, we literally mean abolish police". They published articles like "Are protests unsafe? What experts say may depend on who's protesting what". Of course they didn't lie. They just publish one side of the sotry. Oh, and that 4000 opinions that the orange man is evil? Great, I guess, and what policies and executive orders did the orange man signs and pushes? What are the motivations behind the controversial policies based on facts and data? Where are the debates of the implications of the policies? No no no, those are wrong questions. All I need to know is that the orange man is evil, right? That's the truth ,right? Or am I a bigot, a racist, an evil person, a xenophobia just because I'm curious about the details of what the orange man did in his presidency?

Re: Resignation Letter

#518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see this directly on Reddit, or even here, thanks to the downvote button. It doesn't matter how right you may be, how many sources you may have, if it angers a sufficient people to lead to your post being downvoted, no one will be able to read it. And though the points are made up, it's always annoying to look at a post you spent half an hour typing and researching just to have it get down to -6 with no furth…

So you're against people expressing their opinions in response to your own?

The poster stated nothing of the sort.

You're conflating "expressing opinions" (by clicking a button) with: making it less likely for the poster's expression to ever be seen.

Re: Resignation Letter

#519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of us who think that the "Paradox of Tolerance" is mistaken, rather than truth. It may sound reasonable, but it is used in practice to define ideas we don't like as intolerant, and then exclude those who hold those ideas. If you look around, those on the left aren't showing themselves to be paragons of tolerance. They are nearly as narrow-minded as the right, just with different in-groups and out-gro…

[flagged]

> Sure, you can find some on the left whose speech

It is not just some though. It is a whole lot of people.

Or, at least, this is what it is in online discourse. The overwhelmingly loud voices of the intolerant drown out anyone who is even attempting to be nuanced.

But perhaps that says more about online discourse than it does about any left vs right debate.

Re: Resignation Letter

#520
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> And it defines that Judaism is a race by birthright and not a religion

That is factually incorrect. Conversions apply, in both directions.

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