The Elite War on Free Thought
racket.news
racket.news
> One of the big themes of 1984 was the reduction of everything to simple binaries. He described a world where “all ambiguities and shades of meaning had been purged,”
> A political movement has long been afoot in America and other places to reduce every political question to simple binaries.
> This is straight out of Orwell. Instead of having “ambiguities” and “shades of meaning” on Covid-19, they reduced everything to a binary: vax and anti-vax. It was the same with someone who shared true research about the efficacy of natural immunity or suggested that the virus came from a lab. It all might be factual, but it was politically inconvenient, something they called “malinformation.”
> [Green Party candidate] Stein was put on a [Twitter] denylist called is_Russian because an algorithm determined she had too many beliefs that coincided with banned people, especially Russian banned people.
> We have been complaining about censorship, and it’s important to do that. But they are taking aim at people in a way that will make censorship unnecessary, by building communities of human beings with no memory and monochrome perception.
A big part of this is though "Karma" on forums such as this one. Why have a Govt agency enforce groupthink when you can have the people do it to themselves?
Which makes this line especially bizarre:
>> "It’s why people can’t read books anymore and why, when they see people like Russell who don’t fit into obvious categories, they don’t know what to do except point and shriek, like extras in Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
When you realize he's not talking about any of these real attacks on freedom.
I'm not surprised every submission under this domain appears to be hot garbage.
> spate of book bannings
In a public classroom, there are a variety of restrictions on subjects, attire, behavior, etc. beyond what you would expect from other settings. Maybe these restrictions are too harsh, but it's an argument with caveats.
> attacks on free expression by queer people
Again, AFAIK this is confined to primary education settings.
> attacks on people not suitably gender conforming in bathrooms
Not exactly a "free speech" issue.
> attacks on queer events
That's probably the best of your suggestions, though is that really "The Elite War on Free Thought"?
Public libraries, actually.
>> "Again, AFAIK this is confined to primary education settings."
No.
>> "Not exactly a "free speech" issue."
It sure is.
>> 'That's probably the best of your suggestions, though is that really "The Elite War on Free Thought"?'
Trying to define elite is fraught, but I think someone who gets their words syndicated in a massive paid newsletter is a strong contender. I'm not sure someone in the muck is the best judge of who's in and who's out, so I reject the framing outright.
No.
All or practically all "book bannings" are related to school libraries, or access to library materials by minors.
Adult romance novels aren't going away at public libraries.
It is not beyond the pail, that I would not want my 8 year old kid reading about Jesus. While people might object to removing references the that myth from my kids, I doubt anyone would consider it banning a book.
Why would it be up to me as a parent to determine what is presented to my child in those two cases, but not up to me in other cases. I am the parent, and that is where the argument stops. If I say books on topic X are not approved, then don't show my kid books on X.
You can still obtain these books at public libraries, book stores, online, or literally anywhere else one obtains books.
The author is an adult dissident journalist writing about world affairs; when he talks about an attack on freedom, he means his freedom to do his brand of journalism. Anything to do with school libraries and school bathrooms is utterly irrelevant to his daily life, and (from his point of view) not really worth discussing.
By contrast, for a queer school student (or a friend or parent of one), school library book bans and school bathroom gender laws are a blatant attack on freedom; while Twitter's censorship of dissident journalists at the behest of US three letter agencies is utterly irrelevant to their daily life, and (from their point of view) not really worth discussing.