Harpers Magazine

ON ESCAPING NEW YORK / Ethan Watters Hours of daylight in New York City in February 1988: 298 Hours of darkness: 374 I went to New York for a five-month internship at Harper’s magazine in the winter of 1988, bringing with me the misapprehension that charm and gumption were all…

The death of George Floyd at the hands of police sparked an era of revolution and reform. People throughout the world are protesting against a plethora of racial and social injustices, and its effects are permeating reforms in education, media coverage, and even legislation. …

Hot Takes James Pogue spent some time in the city of Kenosha, one of a few districts who turned to voting for Donald Trump after supporting Democrats for decades. The changeover, and what Democrats could do to win back those counties, was what Pogue went to discover. What he learned was surprising…

Like many others, I was shocked to find Noam Chomsky among the signatories of that open letter in Harper’s Magazine, speaking out against a (wholly imaginary, and completely justified) so-called “cancel culture”. Like every decent person on the left, i.e. every decent person, I have always regarded Prof. Chomsky as…

I’m not the elite, I’m not in a position of power, I’ve lived in poverty for the past decade but still acknowledge I’ve been privileged to not be homeless (well, not for too long) and receive an education better than most. So this piece scares me: A Deeply Provincial View of Free Speech Many prominent writers and thinkers seem invested in the notion that simply facing strong public criticism is a threat…www.theatlantic.com

1. Introduction The principle of free speech (FS, hereafter) is the fulcrum of a supposed culture war between the left and right. President Trump’s talk of a ‘left-wing fascism’ is a somewhat blunt form of what Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray, and many other ‘right’ commentators have presaged. The Harper’s open…

When Harper’s published a letter signed by over 100 writers and academics decrying attempts to stifle freedom of speech, I initially paid little attention. Usually, cries about censorship have come from the right wing, either attacking the American University system, or complaining that social media is somehow unfair to them…

Cancelling ‘Cancel-Culture’: ‘Traditional Liberalism’ and White Supremacy In its Letter on Justice and Open Debate, Harper’s magazine proves itself, with finality, to be mired in John MacArthur’s narrow definition of traditional liberalism. Stubbornly adhering to these dictates without interrogating the (biased) history of liberalism reproduces the same errors, essentially resulting in a ‘color blind’ defense which supports…

Gabrielle Bellot’s essay on “What the Harper’s Open Letter Gets Wrong” (Bellot, G. “Freedom Means Can Rather Than Should: What the Harper’s Open Letter Gets Wrong”. Literary Hub, 8 July 2020. https://lithub.com/freedom-means-can-rather-than-should-what-the-harpers-open-letter-gets-wrong/), …