Monday, July 27, 2020

Hmm …

… Harper's Letter: The Left Attacks Defense of Free Inquiry & Debate | National Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

 One could not avoid noticing that in addition to the specific objections to the Harper’s letter, its critics were animated by an unusually strong, almost personal, animus to the letter-writers. They constantly brought up the fact that they were wealthy, popular, liberal, and non-minority — even when they weren’t. Much of it was ideological hostility, of course, but it seemed also to be allied to a kind of class hatred, and perhaps to a sense of inferiority of some kind too. There’s a long and impressive tradition of rhetorical viciousness on the Left; Marx himself had a real talent for invective, and Brecht too. And eventually I thought I sensed what they were saying behind the formal arguments:

The more talented they are, the more they deserve to be silenced.

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