We came across Pollitt’s necessary essay in Dissent, thanks to the Arts & Letters Daily newsletter. Check out the article at this link then come back and leave us a comment. We’d love to hear your take on it (though we’ll hardcore judge you if you don’t agree with us (but in the end we’ll be enlightened by your perspective (rewiring the inner moral compass is all the rave))).
The Left Needs Free Speech by Katha Pollitt
I don’t think the left is responsible for censoring freedom of speech. It’s mostly liberals who advocate for cancel culture and liberals are not leftists. I’m Canadian, so I laugh every time someone boils politics down to Democrats vs Republicans, though The Democratic Socialists of America are certainly to the left. However, are they really the ones censoring conservatives? I can’t imagine how a 90 000-member organization could possibly be responsible of any censorship happening in the US. Besides, leftists tend to disagree with cancel culture. We do; however, refuse to tolerate intolerance, as we believe in the theory of the paradox of tolerance, which states that if society is tolerant without limit, and allows hate speech to be broadcasted to the public, the tolerant will be overthrown by the intolerant. A good example of this is how in 2004, Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to Concordia University (in Montreal, Canada) to give a speech. The leftists and the pro-palestinians of the student body rioted outside of the university on the day he was supposed to visit, successfully forcing police to cancel the event. Although some students had concerns about the violation of freedom of speech, many felt that a war criminal should never be allowed to give a speech in a university, even one that is as diverse as Concordia and as accepting of various points of view. This is because freedom of speech does not cover hate speech. The only reservation I have is that this event set a precedence, and now, students may abuse this activism tactic and may decide to censor just about anyone they disagree with, creating an echo chamber. I mean, this event was nearly 20 years ago and we still talk about it.