Source: Reason
by Musa al-Gharbi
“Many on the left view concerns about free speech and viewpoint diversity as bad-faith attempts by privileged people to protect their privilege. According to this line of critique, straight white men were fine with exclusion and censorship until it started to affect people like themselves. Now that they find themselves on the receiving end of the stick, they’re suddenly very righteous about open inquiry — at least insofar as it benefits them. … Let’s grant that this happens. Many people are inconsistent in their support for open inquiry: They’re not particularly concerned when views they oppose are censored but grow highly engaged when people and perspectives they support face suppression. Even if people aren’t concerned about a problem until it affects them, it’s still a problem when they are, eventually, affected.” (11/20/23)