October 05, 2017

Define Your Left Beyond This Point

An unwillingness to engage with conservative thought, an aversion to debate, and a weakened committment to free speech are among the failures of the left.

Jill Lepore, "Inquietude" The New Yorker, October 9, 2017

I hold Jill Lepore in high esteem, but this is just twaddle. There is no conceivable "the left" that's ever shied away from arguing endlessly, with or without conservatives.

And should an argument be closed off, finished, done with, resolved, the left will satisfy its arguing elsewhere on other subject matter: every subject deserves its argument, to the left.

Oh, but the left will with bad grace revisit arguments it's done with. True, the left will rail, not argue, against bringing up Nazi talk, but Nazi talk is no longer subject to the rules of reasoned argument. There is no longer cause for debate. That's over, resolved in word and deed. It's a settled thing. Response to Nazi talk must not come in the form of an argument. That would be redundant to the left.

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