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E-Pluribus | February 17, 2022

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E-Pluribus | February 17, 2022

What does the Ukraine and Russia standoff tell us about the West and liberal ideals, jail for being wrong and a jerk, and Columbia University's core is rotting.

Jeryl Bier
Feb 17, 2022
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E-Pluribus | February 17, 2022

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A round up of the latest and best writing and musings on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Cathy Young: Russia, Ukraine, and the West's Crisis of Liberal Faith

There are plenty of indications right here at home that classical liberalism is under assault, but Cathy Young at Arc Digital says the current standoff between Ukraine and Russia and Western governments, the responses from politicians and pundits are telling as well.

Carlson’s and Hanania’s stance isn’t simply a case of “If Biden’s for it, I’m against it”; it’s a more fundamental hostility to the Western liberal order, which Ukraine’s pro-NATO, pro-European integration leadership seeks to join and to which Putin’s Russia stands in opposition. Hanania is an exponent of the view that liberals hate Putin’s Russia because its conservatism on cultural issues like gay rights and feminism makes it “the Great Satan” of progressives. (This is a slightly more sophisticated version of right-wing Twitter rantings about how the libs hate Putin because he’s a patriot and an anti-globalist, or even because Russia is Christian, unwoke and white.)

Carlson enthusiastically embraces this position; before the 2020 election, he pushed the theory that the Democrats were trying to oust Trump via a “Color Revolution”—thus endorsing the Kremlin propaganda trope in which the “Color Revolutions” that ousted pro-Moscow regimes in several former Soviet republics including Ukraine in the 2000s were products of insidious Western subversion.

[ . . . ]

But to anti-liberal American conservatives like Sohrab Ahmari and Patrick Deneen, Ukrainian integration into the EU and NATO is not about freedom at all; those institutions represent a godless, barren, depraved, multicultural, politically correct “liberal empire.”

Of course, the left has its own problems when it comes to defending the liberal order, which progressives—a key part of the liberal coalition today—spend so much time denouncing as a cover for white supremacist patriarchy. (And that’s not to mention that the “liberal order” privileges advanced, democratic industrial nations—most of them majority-white—as a special zone where peace is assumed to be the norm and war is especially shocking.)

Read the whole thing.

Charles C. W. Cooke: Britain Sends Woman to Jail for Eleven Months for Writing Ugly Posts on Facebook

The concept of “I disagree with what you say but I will fight to the death for your right to say it” seems almost quaint in light of a recent jail term handed down to an obnoxious woman in the country of Charles C. W. Cooke’s nativity. While clearly considering her a “bit of a loon”, National Review’s Cooke decries the very idea that someone’s bad, misinformed, or even blatantly untrue opinions should merit retribution from any government, let alone prison.

Britain is supposed to be a free country, and in free countries, free people are allowed to say stupid and terrible things without being sent to jail for eleven months.

During the trial at the Old Bailey, Britain’s most famous courtroom, the prosecutor, Hugh French

told jurors that two of her posts “crossed the line as to what is acceptable in a liberal society,” The Independent reported.

Can French not hear himself? This is exactly the sort of thing that is “acceptable in a liberal society.” That’s what “liberal society” means. To add a “but” or a “however” after such sentiments is to dissolve them completely.

It is also to admit caprice. Where, precisely, is Hugh French’s “crossed line”? Why was Ahmed treated differently than the thousands (millions?) of others in Britain who post ugly things on social media each day? Is her bile different, somehow, because it was related to a fire? Or is this just what a particular jury happened to believe on a particular day?

Read it all.

David Acevedo: Columbia’s Crumbling Core

Over a century ago, Columbia University introduced a class called “Contemporary Civilization in the West” that became the cornerstone of its Core Curriculum. But David Acevedo writes at First Things that recent changes to the program, specifically the Great Books offerings, leave much to be desired.

[T]he Columbia Core is crumbling—and quickly. Students who flock to Columbia today to experience the Core will be sorely disappointed.

The Core course Literature Humanities (LitHum), marketed as the most important course any Columbia student takes, serves as a good case study for the issues plaguing the Core at large. Before an incoming freshman steps on campus, he’s given his first reading assignment: Books I–VI of The Iliad. So far, so good. But look at the rest of the reading list. Some recent additions—and deletions—are alarming.

[ . . . ]

The truth is that the campus activists Columbia administrators are trying to pacify don’t care all that much about diversity, equity, or inclusion—in no small part because these three concepts have come to mean the opposite of what their names would imply. “Diversity” means a complete rejection of intellectual diversity for the sake of immutable and unearned census categories; “equity” means unfairly handicapping the so-called privileged in favor of the so-called oppressed; “inclusion” means excluding all perspectives that do not fit neatly within a far-left worldview.

Indeed, the DEI charade is about nothing more than accruing power and crushing resistance. The movement’s more astute leaders realize this, while true DEI believers play the role of useful idiot. While I was at Columbia, many of my undergraduate peers were all too happy to serve as foot soldiers for the DEI militia, driving countless class discussions into the identity-politics ditch without batting an eye.

Read it all here.

Around Twitter

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on a “hate speech” trial in Finland:

Twitter avatar for @Ayaan
Ayaan Hirsi Ali @Ayaan
Paivi Rasanen: Finnish MP in Bible hate speech trial. Ponder this investigation and you see the absurdity of criminalizing so called hate speech. What is next? A banning of ALL holy books? Houses of worship? Maybe even religion itself?
bbc.co.ukPaivi Rasanen: Finnish MP in Bible hate speech trialFormer Interior Minister Paivi Rasanen says she is defending her religious freedoms over LGBT comments.
6:32 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
267Likes83Retweets

Interesting back and forth between Noah Smith and Wesley Yang on wokeness/super-wokeness and the San Francisco school board elections:

Twitter avatar for @Noahpinion
Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion
I think it's only slightly a backlash against woke bullshit, to be honest. The bigger problem was that the school board was grossly incompetent, and used woke bullshit as a smoke screen to cover that up. This isn't culture war -- it's about basic competence in government.
Twitter avatar for @lhfang
Lee Fang @lhfang
This volunteer says he collected over 12,000 signatures for the successful recall of San Francisco’s school board members. The backlash against woke bullshit in schools is a landslide. https://t.co/1x59roqeI4
10:00 AM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
981Likes60Retweets
Twitter avatar for @wesyang
Wesley Yang @wesyang
@Noahpinion Amazing cope
1:30 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
161Likes1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @Noahpinion
Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion
@wesyang It's an accurate assessment of the situation. San Francisco voters are not ideologically or culturally anti-woke. They just don't care about wokeness uber alles.
7:06 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
77Likes2Retweets
Twitter avatar for @wesyang
Wesley Yang @wesyang
@Noahpinion The cope is positing a wokeness divorced from incompetence. Wokeness excels at dominating institutions through struggle sessions and drama, but then prioritizes divisiveness as an end in itself. That always comes at the expense of competence...
7:09 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
67Likes3Retweets
Twitter avatar for @Noahpinion
Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion
@wesyang Not always. You just see it when it does. I know of California politicians who are super woke, and yet who get substantive things done because they don't let ideology eclipse everything else. They don't get the boot.
7:11 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
Twitter avatar for @wesyang
Wesley Yang @wesyang
@Noahpinion Yeah, if you aren't letting ideology eclipse everything else, you aren't super woke.
7:12 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
Twitter avatar for @Noahpinion
Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion
@wesyang Sort of a No True Scotsman argument there.
7:13 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
Twitter avatar for @wesyang
Wesley Yang @wesyang
@Noahpinion No it's definitional. Being able to be pragmatic and balancing ends and means you don't entertain fantasies like police abolition that are constitutive of wokeness.
7:16 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022

Give Charles Cooke a listen on Andrew Heaton’s podcast on free speech and Spotify:

Twitter avatar for @charlescwcooke
Charles C. W. Cooke @charlescwcooke
Speaking of, I joined @MightyHeaton on his podcast, “The Political Orphanage” to talk about free speech in a both a legal and cultural context. https://t.co/MdmwZ0jkfx
Twitter avatar for @MightyHeaton
Andrew Heaton 🎩 @MightyHeaton
If Spotify prunes back objectionable Rogan content, is it censorship or just a private company freely associating with who it wants? Great chat with @charlescwcooke of @NRO about freedom of speech and self censorship! https://t.co/5zDmXpNLco
6:18 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
8Likes1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @MightyHeaton
Andrew Heaton 🎩 @MightyHeaton
If Spotify prunes back objectionable Rogan content, is it censorship or just a private company freely associating with who it wants? Great chat with @charlescwcooke of @NRO about freedom of speech and self censorship!
podcasts.apple.com‎The Political Orphanage: Joe Rogan and the Authoritarians on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Political Orphanage, Ep Joe Rogan and the Authoritarians - Feb 15, 2022
4:17 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
17Likes3Retweets

Finally, just in case anyone was confused:

Twitter avatar for @TimJDillon
Tim Dillon @TimJDillon
Now to review: the government banning people on social media, freezing their bank accounts, getting their friends in the media to dox them, and convincing everyone this is for the good of society IS BAD.
2:53 AM ∙ Feb 17, 2022
28,726Likes4,851Retweets
2
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E-Pluribus | February 17, 2022

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