And why is this article tagged “Sexism” and “#MeToo”?
"The difference is that this approach [Slate's in Current Year] is now tempered by other, graver duties—the need, for instance, to avoid equivocation on matters of morality, fundamental policy, and human rights."
I find this puzzling, due to the realtive nature of morality. Morals are plastic and variable based on popular persuasion and general consensus. If "morals" are a pillar of intellectual identity, isn't this just a subtle way to say Slate will just go with the majority regardless of objective facts and subjective opinions of merit?
Obviously Slate can do as they wish, but to paint the other as inferior because they have a different outlook seems petty.
But, for a moment, what if all inquiry before 1970 (or go back to 1870) abided by "morality, fundamental policy, etc." we would not be where we are today.
When I see this debate I just have to think of Kissinger's remark on academic discourse: "Academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small".
I have serious trouble believing for a second that a group of liberal college professors, affluent middle-class inhabitants and million follower podcasts hosts is somehow seriously ostracised.
This has always existed and these back and forth knife fights about who has the right to speak with authority in small intellectual or academic circles is as old as history. What concerns me a little is to what degree people capitalise on this both financially (on say Patreon) or culturally by declaring the decline of Western civilisation, and how it is seeping into mainstream, who would in my opinion be better off ignoring all of it.
Sam Harris (or someone in a comparable spot) does not face legal discrimination or state violence. He just faces public and intellectual backlash. And that's perfectly okay.
If you're a radical LGBT activist you're likely not welcome in a conservative church. What do lgbt activists do? They don't go there. As a labour activist I'm not welcome at the local Ayn Rand memorial. What do I do? I don't go there.
It's a fact of free association that nobody is going to be welcome everywhere 100% of the time. The problem here isn't actual discrimination. It's that Pinker et al imagine themselves to be Enlightenment era Voltaires who preach wisdom to the masses who don't know any better, and mistake private controversy or at worst a middle finger for discrimination.
In short, they're not popular and ostracised in the way labour rights were historically, they're popular and ostracised in the way a modern day televangelist is.
But it's not violence or discrimination by the law, so not only is it OK, but they shouldn't even complain about it.