Category Archives: Authoritarian Left

Pushback from Sean Carroll and others against the Harper’s letter promoting open discourse

July 8, 2020 – 9:30 am

UPDATE: In a New York Times article, Thomas Chatterton Williams, a Haper’s writer who helped organize the letter, got specific with some of the incidents that inspired its creation: He said there wasn’t one particular incident that provoked the letter. But he did cite several recent ones, including the resignation of more than half the board of […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in Authoritarian and Regressive Left, Cancel Culture, freedom of expression, freedom of speech | Comments (154)

Two more people take up the cudgels for Pinker

July 7, 2020 – 11:00 am

Although Steve Pinker is perfectly capable of defending himself against insane charges by the Woke, as instantiated in a letter asking the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) to remove him from the position as a Distinguished LSA Fellow and designated media expert, I figured that I’d save him the trouble. After all, I’m just a […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in Authoritarian and Regressive Left, Cancel Culture, wokeness | Comments (27)

Endangered Lincoln statue isn’t what it seems

June 29, 2020 – 11:00 am

I guess statue destruction is the topic du jour, but do read about this one, as it raises some conflicts for protestors. About ten days ago, I reported about a statue of Abraham Lincoln that might be pulled down or replaced. The original is The Emancipation Memorial (sculptor: Thomas Ball, erected in 1876) on Capitol […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in history, race | Comments (35)

Jefferson statue pulled down, Lincoln is next

June 18, 2020 – 10:30 am

I go back and forth on how we deal with famous people who had views that, while widespread in their time, would be rightly seen as odious were they expressed today. For example, there was hardly an Anglophone white man before the turn of the 20th century who wasn’t a racist or had some association […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in Authoritarian and Regressive Left, wokeness | Comments (255)

Jon Chait on Left-wing illiberalism, and why it needs to be called out

June 17, 2020 – 1:30 pm

In an increasingly woke New York Magazine, there are two breaths of fresh air: Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Chait. Chait, like me, calls himself a liberal but spends a not inconsiderable amount of time excoriating the excesses of the Left, an endeavor he extends and explains in this week’s column (click on screenshot to read […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in Authoritarian and Regressive Left, social media | Comments (19)

Andrew Sullivan on ideological groupthink and wrongthink

June 12, 2020 – 1:15 pm

Although we still don’t know whether Andrew Sullivan’s column was pulled from New York Magazine last week (I suspect it was, though I don’t have an inkling of what it said), he’s back today in spades with two pieces, the first one long and eloquent on “wokeness”—the increasing tendency of the Left to be authoritarian, […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in Authoritarian and Regressive Left, wokeness | Comments (31)

Marvel introduces two new woke superheroes: “Safespace” and “Snowflake”, and the names aren’t mockery

March 25, 2020 – 1:15 pm

Yes, this is from the Daily Fail, but it’s also verified by Marvel themselves in the video below. Yes, along with the rest of journalism, comic strips are getting woker and woker. And the new characters, twins called “Snowflake” and “Safespace”, aren’t mocking the outrage brigade, but are serious names of approbation (they also have […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in Authoritarian and Regressive Left, comics, wokeness | Comments (43)

Emory student paper urges Syracuse University to “rethink free speech policy”, says anything that doesn’t cause bodily harm should be “free speech”

March 4, 2020 – 1:15 pm

Chalk up Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, as another example of woke students making crazy arguments about free speech—and a cowardly administration at Syracuse University as an example of how not to deal with student-led disruption. As the editorial in the Emory student newspaper below—and an Associate Press article—report (click on screenshot), some students from […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in Authoritarian and Regressive Left, college students behaving badly, colleges and universities, freedom of expression, freedom of speech | Comments (7)

Tom Chivers has a theory about the latest Dawkins kerfuffle

February 19, 2020 – 1:00 pm

Tom Chivers is a journalist and science writer who, like me,  was taken aback by the negative reactions to Richard Dawkins’s recent tweet about eugenics. (Remember? Richard said eugenics would “work” in the sense of changing population means in humans, but immediately added that he was against it.) Now, at UnHerd, Chivers has proposed a […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in psychology, social media | Comments (87)

Stanford students walk out of talk about whether repealing DACA is legal

February 13, 2020 – 9:15 am

The episode I’ll discuss this morning doesn’t really constitute deplatforming, since the speaker got to speak. It’s not disinvitation, either, as the speaker spoke and his invitation wasn’t rescinded. Nor is it “censorship” in the formal sense because nobody prevented the speaker from speaking. So let’s call it “disruption of a talk”, which is nearly […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in Authoritarian and Regressive Left, censorship, college students behaving badly, deplatforming, freedom of expression, freedom of speech | Comments (52)