4 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2022
    1. A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

      I read this letter with growing unease as it seems to be participating in the increasingly common rhetoric where otherwise well-meaning progressives get caught up in what I think is a "panic" manufactured by rightist propaganda. The panic about "cancel culture" and a progressive undermining of free speech seems like the evolution of the older rightist culture wars panic about "political correctness".

      A couple of other readings have helped me think about this more deeply. You can read and respond to my annotations on each at the following links:

  2. May 2021
    1. The absence of deliberation in chastising bad actors, misconstrued as the outcome of cancel culture, is a fault of the elites’ inability to adequately conceive of the impact social media connectivity has for shifting the power dynamics of the public sphere in the digital age.

      Wow. Clark takes the Harper's letter signatories to task for not understanding how public spheres work now with social media in the mix. Reminded of how nostalgia for "the way things used to be" (but never really existed) runs deep in all critiques like that letter...

      See my growing list of works I read to augment my thinking about the cancel culture moral panic and that letter in Harper's.

  3. Apr 2021
  4. Jan 2017
    1. Debating Wired Executive Editor Kevin Kelly in the May 1994 issue of Harper’s, literary critic Sven Birkerts implored readers to “refuse” the lure of “the electronic hive.” The new media, he warned, pose a dire threat to the search for “wisdom” and “depth”—“the struggle for which has for millennia been central to the very idea of culture.”2

      Full article available as PDF here:

      http://kk.org/writings/the-electronic-hive-embrace-it.php