But buried beneath the bilious response to the Harper’s joint statement is a worthwhile argument about freedom of association.
by Matt Welch
Reason.com
On Tuesday morning, Harper’s Magazine published a joint letter from 153 prominent writers, academics, and entertainers, ranging from Noam Chomsky to David Brooks, J.K. Rowling to Wynton Marsalis, Salman Rushdie to Gloria Steinem, expressing concern that “the free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.”
The 532-word document is a direct response to the remarkable past six weeks or so at American media and cultural institutions, which have experienced a wave of firings, resignations, and castigations over purportedly harmful words, deeds, and sometimes costumes.