10:24 a.m.
150 författare och intellektuella har publicerat ett öppet brev i
Harpers's magazine där man uttrycker oro över att krav på
rättvisa leder till inskränkningar i yttrandefriheten.
Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests
for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police
reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across
our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and
the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral
attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open
debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.
Den fria debatten inskränks
The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal
society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect
this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in
our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming
and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a
blinding moral certainty.
Klipp
This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our
time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an
intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes
everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad
ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or
wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom,
which cannot exist without each other.
https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
Samma negativa tendenser ser vi även här.Det gör det viktigare att vi som
bibliotek håller debatten levande. Rättvisa får inte bli ett hinder för
friheten att ha andra åsikter.
Jan
--
Jan Szczepański
F.d Förste bibliotekarie och chef för f.d Avdelningen för humaniora,
vid f.d. Centralbiblioteket, Göteborgs universitetsbibliotek
E-post: Jan.Szczepanski63 at gmail.com