UNHERD
So much for the bravery of the Harper’s letter
by Douglas Murray
July 10, 2020

Earlier this week a group of 150 writers appended their names to an open letter published in Harper’s Magazine…The contents were, as at least one signatory admitted, fairly anodyne. The letter spoke of “the free exchange of information and ideas” and of how this constituted “the lifeblood of a liberal society”. It went on to criticise the current vogue for ‘cancelling’ people because of their expressed opinion, stating that “As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk-taking, and even mistakes”…From the moment that the letter was published its critics were inadvertantly revealing why it needed to be written in the first place. READ MORE

Read the “controversial” Harper’s letter in defense of free speech, signers included a fairly diverse group: Martin Amis, Malcolm Gladwell, Salman Rushdie, J.K. Rowling, Fareed Zakaria, Matthew Yglesias, Noam Chomsky and Jonathan Haidt.