Harper's

Tuesday

Will Lloyd

Francis Fukuyama does not read your tweets

Francis Fukuyama never reads the comments. He is a benign presence on social media, whether it’s on Twitter, or Instagram. Now I know why. Unlike many public thinkers, Fukuyama is not that interested in joining the digital fray. He reckons that a third of comments on his posts ‘are going to be stupid references to The End of History — “this is not the end of history, is it” — so I’ve avoided the temptation to get into fights.’ I’ve called Dr Fukuyama — permanently assured of a place in the history of ideas since his essay “The End of History?” appeared in 1989 — to talk about his hobbies. Great minds need to rest. Socrates enjoyed dancing. Diogenes was a keen sunbather. Immanuel Kant was a dedicated pipe smoker.

francis fukuyama

Monday

Roger Kimball

The weaponization of whining

Bill Buckley used to observe that liberals always say they are in favor of entertaining opinions opposed to their own but are then surprised to discover that there are opinions opposed to their own. Bill died early in 2008 when the species homo liberalis was already under siege, his little squeaks for tolerance, at least in principle, drowned out by an inbred horde of professional victims, drunk on the cloying nectar of their own quivering sense of virtue. These days students arrive for their bright college years with plump mental bottoms swaddled in moist moral nappies, their mouths puckering for the grateful nipple of energizing pabulum about the horrors of racism and prejudice, their tiny minds soothed by reassuring nostrums caressing their unshakeable sense of election.

whining

Sunday

Toby Young

We’re all thought criminals now

I’m disappointed that Bari Weiss has resigned from the New York Times and not just because she was one of the few voices of reason on the paper. A while ago, I flew to New York at Bari’s request to be interviewed by her for a forthcoming profile of a group of maverick writers and intellectuals in what was billed as a follow-up to her famous piece on the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ — a kind of Junior College branch. Among those to be featured were the African American essayist Coleman Hughes; the Australian editor-in-chief of Quillette, Claire Lehmann; and the Swedish columnist Paulina Neuding. We spent an enjoyable afternoon together at the Times building on Eighth Avenue, having our photographs taken and being wined and dined by Weiss in the boardroom.

bari weiss anti-semitism

Tuesday

Conrad Black

The fatuousness of the Harper’s letter

The recent letter ‘on justice and open debate,’ published in Harper’s magazine on July 7 and signed by some 150 self-nominated intellectuals, will stand as one of the conspicuous fatuities of this intense American election year. The intellectuals begin with the portentous assertion that ‘our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial.’ It is then explained that forces that have all long demanded ‘police reform and greater equality and inclusion across our society,’ goals whose championship these signatories claim throughout for themselves, are now being threatened.

letter

Friday

Dominic Green

From letter to worse

It is a truth generally acknowledged that any statement of civil principles will now be met with pitchforks and personal attacks, insinuations of racism, sexism, classism and white privilege, not forgetting online guerrilla action by the army of the fashionably aggrieved, led by their crack troops, the transsexuals. Take this week’s letter to Harper’s magazine, ‘A Letter on Justice and Open Debate’.

letter
Kerri Greenidge, Photo: Twitter
Cockburn

Sister act: did Kerri Greenidge sign the Harper’s letter or not?

Have you met the Greenidge sisters — Kirsten, Kerri, and Kaitlyn? They are quite the trio. Kirsten, the eldest, is a playwright who teaches at Boston University; Kerri, the middle one, is a historian and the director of American Studies at Tufts University; and youngest Kaitlyn is the author of the award-winning We Love You, Charlie Freeman who also writes for the New York Times. Fancy that? Kerri has found herself in hot water this week after she signed the now notorious Harper’s letter in defense of free thought and free expression. She appears to have been stunned by the hostile reaction the letter received. Within hours of its publication she tweeted: ‘I do not endorse this @harpers letter. I am in contact with Harper’s about a retraction.

Thursday

Paul du Quenoy

Harping on Harper’s

Earlier this week, a motley assortment of about 150 sententious bourgeois liberals, joined by a couple of Chamberlain conservatives, diminished whatever public standing they had by choosing Harper’s magazine, your grandmother’s favorite periodical, to publish an ungainly group letter that, they would like us to believe, is an impassioned defense of free speech in these parlous times. On its merits, this should not be controversial or even necessary. Until about ten years ago, free speech was a sacrosanct element of the American Republic.

speech Protesters hold a banner reading ''Fund-raising for a guillotine'

Wednesday

Cockburn

Harper’s vs Vox — and the bonfire of the liberal values

Cockburn is long enough in the tooth to recall when it was uncontroversial to defend the 'free exchange of information and ideas.’ Not so many moons ago, it seemed obvious to the point of boring to say that 'the way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away.’ Not anymore. In 2020, that is edgy stuff, as the group of 150 writers who just wrote a joint letter to Harper’s have proved. Their letter, a defense of free expression, makes the perfectly clear and fair point that ‘as writers, we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences.

vox

Saturday

Freddy Gray

The snowflakes turn to ice

About a year ago, I went to see my friend John R. MacArthur, the publisher of Harper’s magazine, in his office in New York. When I reached him, he was in a state. One of his authors had used the word ‘tartly’ — the adverb, meaning sharply or sourly — and one of his junior editors had ruled that the word was problematic. The junior editor thought it might be connected to the word ‘tart’ — the noun, meaning prostitute — and therefore misogynistic. ‘See what I have to put up with?’ he asked. Rick was laughing but it wasn’t altogether a joke.

media

Saturday

Freddy Gray

The coddling of American journalism

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with John R. MacArthur, the publisher of Harper’s. We spoke about Ian Buruma’s departure as editor of New York Review of Books. Rick is a friend, I should say. I should also say that I believe he is a hero of free expression — and an increasingly lonely voice speaking up for authentic dissent in America. You can hear our podcast here. https://audioboom.com/posts/7016868-trial-by-twitter-is-ian-buruma-the-victim-of-a-new-mccarthyism Buruma, in case you haven’t heard, lost his job after he decided to publish an article by Jian Ghomeshi in the forthcoming edition of New York Review of Books.

john r. macarthur journalism snowflakes