I think it is your observation that those who say “We are all Rushdie” while enabling, essentially, the environment that permitted his near murder, is the most chilling.
It reminds me of the New York Times article on Samual Paty, in which the journalist Adam Nossiter said what a terrible thing Paty’s death was, before blaming him for “inciting violence among Muslims”.
Articles like Nossiter’s lay bare the cowardice the author refers to. Any honest account of Paty’s death would have acknowledged that it was Islamists who had provoked Paty into defending freedom of speech, and not Paty who had provoked Islamists into cutting his head off. In Nossiter’s cowardly morally-inverted world it is the murderers who are the victims, and the victims who are the murderers.
This is the level of narcissism and Orwellian doublethink that we are now in: people within this self anointed intellectual class imagine themselves to possess the virtue of defending Rushdie, while simultaneously congratulating themselves for dismantling the system that protected him.
They are convinced of their moral fibre by mere virtue of professing the correct emotions and thoughts on the matter.
This disjuncture between their imagined intentions, versus their actual intentions as manifested by their behaviour reveals the clinically significant absence of self awareness and a horrid level of malice.
Whether or not Paty instigated the incident that took his life, never is it acceptable to use violence to counteract an opinion you don’t like.
See every leftist movement ever.
J Bryant
1 year ago
Sometimes Unherd’s moderation system creates strange effects. I recently posted a simple comment congratulating the author on this article. There was nothing remotely inappropriate about my comment, nonetheless it instantly went to moderation.
I’m not suggesting an exact parallel between the action of a mindless piece of software and the fate of Rushdie and other authors who express ideas inconsistent with the prevailing narrative. Still, Unherd’s inept software does neatly show the power of censorship possessed by those who control technology.
The key concept, for me, in this article is what happens when people in democracies refuse to stand up for freedom of expression. I’m interested to see the fate of the UK’s Online Harms Bill. That seems to have the potential to make sites like Unherd, dedicated to a diversity of ideas, impossible to maintain.
I was just flagged for a very boring comment. I think whenever there is any discussion of trans issues in the comments the auto moderator goes into overdrive.
But interestingly,the censorship imposed by sites like Facebook and Twitter have led to a good number of new platforms that will damage their revenue if the censorship gets too oppressive. Lots of influential figures are making themselves heard that way. Publishers too will suffer if their censorship makes reading unappealing.
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
It’s probably not a good idea to depend on Tarquin and Annabelle at Penguin Books for any robust defence of traditional liberal values. Maybe in the days of Peter Mayer, but not now.
J Bryant
1 year ago
A very fine article. Kudos to the author.
Ian Johnston
1 year ago
Bravo.
Simply magnificent.
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago
The publishing industry is heavily populated by women and as Lionel Shriver has said, some of them need to grow balls.
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
“Periodically, articles will wonder why fewer and fewer people are reading.”
Reading books you mean. You may consider the social media activity as merely “performative” but sources to read, including fiction, are exploding in websites, podcasts and blogs etc with relatively little censorship and these are extremely popular – albeit a reinforcement of echo chambers since that’s the preference of most people, to get comfort that they are not ‘alone’ in their views of life.
But we’ve always had echo chambers, and up until the recent past these were virtually impossible to escape without risking your life. At least now we can escape our echo chambers, if we choose to, and hear from people we’d never normally meet. This great benefit of formal publishing has now been superseded by technology.
Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Stewart
Aaron James
1 year ago
yea, well…what are you going to do? Plenty of laws exist to make this stabbing and stalking illegal. 340,000,000 people in USA. the law cannot protect everyone, it is tragic, but stabbing and attempted murder is a major crime by the law already. That the laws are barely enforced by the Democrats is an issue though.
But I suppose you talk of the Social Media, Tech, MSM, education industry, ‘Health’ and Bio-Pharma industry, entertainment industry, corporate structures and Printing industry et al……. censoring out of fear of retribution, or more, censoring to maintain the ONE Agenda.
Well, you can do one thing – Vote in two weeks for any MAGA, Ultra MAGA, Trump Endorsed candidate. That is your One chance. Because a vote for the Party of Biden/Davos and the Globalist, Post Modern, Agenda is going to give you nothing but more and more, and tighter and crazier, Thought Crime Laws – till you Have a Social Credit Number – and everything you do or wish to do will be allowed or forbidden on that; and it remains for Life – then best not ever, ever, say the wrong thing ever again.(as they know in China)
Sad, but you Brits are scre*ed – you have the uniparty of Davos; the Blairite Tories and the Nu-Blairite Labour, and no one of those is going to reverse this Agenda censoring insanity, as you know by 12 years of Torys making the censoring worse by far.
Want freedom and less crime and education without social programing in USA? Vote for it – vote Republican, because that is a vote for the Constitution now the Rhinos are being challenged.
Who is the target audience for that Biden interview – that is what puzzles me. Do they really believe one undecided voter is going to switch their vote to Biden because of this event? That is what puzzles / scares me – it is like they don’t really care what voters think.
Like the attack at Tsukuba (where I once worked!), the attack in Chautauqua was an act of war by Iran. We should have responded by sending one of our Ginsu-knife drones to assassinate one of the ayatollahs in Qom,
Stephen Walsh
1 year ago
To link the progressive censorship and “no platforming” to the post 9/11 War on Terror is laughably inaccurate. In truth 9/11 was a brief hiccup in the Progressive march through the institutions and society which are now in their ideological grip, with consequences for freedom of conscience which we can now see. There was an opening then to push back against that ideological tide, but it was squandered utterly.
Allison Barrows
1 year ago
Strange quote, and not at all deep, disturbing, or even true. We most certainly are not born alone, since our mothers are right there with us, along with doctors, nurses, and often dads and even grandparents. Nor do we live alone; if we did we’d be dead days if not hours after our birth. Dying alone depends on the circumstance.
Salman Rushdie is a literary superstar celebrity formerly married to an international beauty and targeted by fanatics because he is famous, public, visible. I’m trying to understand how, exactly, he is so “alone”. Is the author trying to say that the publishing industry abandoned him? How? This article is all over the place and I simply don’t know what the author is trying to say.
You make good points. Still though I thought it was a very good article, even if I’m not sure you can blame the Publishing Industry for the attack on Rushdie. (I can blame them for a lot of other stuff!)
The attack seems more like one looking for fame because of the profile of the victim: a la John Lennon etc.
Regarding being alone: is this really true? Isn’t it also true that we find ourselves in others?
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago
I support this article in its entirety. I do wonder however why journalists are so disinterested in fellow journalist Julian Assange who is waiting to be buried alive in an American prison. His crime? Telling the truth about war crimes committed by US troops. Few journalists even ask the obvious: how can an Australian citizen commit treason against the US?
We hanged ‘Lord Haw Haw, a US citizen for Treason in 1946, and we will soon condemn Soldier F in Belfast/Londonderry on very spurious grounds. In short the Law can do what it likes, always has done and always will do.
Consummatum est!
Charles, State-sponsored murder in Derry City. Fact. Would you like to expand on your ‘spurious’ claim or is it beyond committing your time and effort?
Sam Brown
1 year ago
And what of his attacker? Will he get the just punishment he so very deserves and be made an example of? Will the media provide broad coverage of the trial and sentencing? I doubt it.
This is a much needed piece, thank you.
I think it is your observation that those who say “We are all Rushdie” while enabling, essentially, the environment that permitted his near murder, is the most chilling.
It reminds me of the New York Times article on Samual Paty, in which the journalist Adam Nossiter said what a terrible thing Paty’s death was, before blaming him for “inciting violence among Muslims”.
Articles like Nossiter’s lay bare the cowardice the author refers to. Any honest account of Paty’s death would have acknowledged that it was Islamists who had provoked Paty into defending freedom of speech, and not Paty who had provoked Islamists into cutting his head off. In Nossiter’s cowardly morally-inverted world it is the murderers who are the victims, and the victims who are the murderers.
This is the level of narcissism and Orwellian doublethink that we are now in: people within this self anointed intellectual class imagine themselves to possess the virtue of defending Rushdie, while simultaneously congratulating themselves for dismantling the system that protected him.
They are convinced of their moral fibre by mere virtue of professing the correct emotions and thoughts on the matter.
This disjuncture between their imagined intentions, versus their actual intentions as manifested by their behaviour reveals the clinically significant absence of self awareness and a horrid level of malice.
Whether or not Paty instigated the incident that took his life, never is it acceptable to use violence to counteract an opinion you don’t like.
See every leftist movement ever.
Sometimes Unherd’s moderation system creates strange effects. I recently posted a simple comment congratulating the author on this article. There was nothing remotely inappropriate about my comment, nonetheless it instantly went to moderation.
I’m not suggesting an exact parallel between the action of a mindless piece of software and the fate of Rushdie and other authors who express ideas inconsistent with the prevailing narrative. Still, Unherd’s inept software does neatly show the power of censorship possessed by those who control technology.
The key concept, for me, in this article is what happens when people in democracies refuse to stand up for freedom of expression. I’m interested to see the fate of the UK’s Online Harms Bill. That seems to have the potential to make sites like Unherd, dedicated to a diversity of ideas, impossible to maintain.
Sometimes you have to click between, newest, oldest and most voted to find your comments. That’s what I’ve done and it seems to work.
I was just flagged for a very boring comment. I think whenever there is any discussion of trans issues in the comments the auto moderator goes into overdrive.
But interestingly,the censorship imposed by sites like Facebook and Twitter have led to a good number of new platforms that will damage their revenue if the censorship gets too oppressive. Lots of influential figures are making themselves heard that way. Publishers too will suffer if their censorship makes reading unappealing.
It’s probably not a good idea to depend on Tarquin and Annabelle at Penguin Books for any robust defence of traditional liberal values. Maybe in the days of Peter Mayer, but not now.
A very fine article. Kudos to the author.
Bravo.
Simply magnificent.
The publishing industry is heavily populated by women and as Lionel Shriver has said, some of them need to grow balls.
“Periodically, articles will wonder why fewer and fewer people are reading.”
Reading books you mean. You may consider the social media activity as merely “performative” but sources to read, including fiction, are exploding in websites, podcasts and blogs etc with relatively little censorship and these are extremely popular – albeit a reinforcement of echo chambers since that’s the preference of most people, to get comfort that they are not ‘alone’ in their views of life.
But we’ve always had echo chambers, and up until the recent past these were virtually impossible to escape without risking your life. At least now we can escape our echo chambers, if we choose to, and hear from people we’d never normally meet. This great benefit of formal publishing has now been superseded by technology.
yea, well…what are you going to do? Plenty of laws exist to make this stabbing and stalking illegal. 340,000,000 people in USA. the law cannot protect everyone, it is tragic, but stabbing and attempted murder is a major crime by the law already. That the laws are barely enforced by the Democrats is an issue though.
But I suppose you talk of the Social Media, Tech, MSM, education industry, ‘Health’ and Bio-Pharma industry, entertainment industry, corporate structures and Printing industry et al……. censoring out of fear of retribution, or more, censoring to maintain the ONE Agenda.
Well, you can do one thing – Vote in two weeks for any MAGA, Ultra MAGA, Trump Endorsed candidate. That is your One chance. Because a vote for the Party of Biden/Davos and the Globalist, Post Modern, Agenda is going to give you nothing but more and more, and tighter and crazier, Thought Crime Laws – till you Have a Social Credit Number – and everything you do or wish to do will be allowed or forbidden on that; and it remains for Life – then best not ever, ever, say the wrong thing ever again.(as they know in China)
Sad, but you Brits are scre*ed – you have the uniparty of Davos; the Blairite Tories and the Nu-Blairite Labour, and no one of those is going to reverse this Agenda censoring insanity, as you know by 12 years of Torys making the censoring worse by far.
Want freedom and less crime and education without social programing in USA? Vote for it – vote Republican, because that is a vote for the Constitution now the Rhinos are being challenged.
Someone let the old man talk about trans issues with a trans person and the results were laughable, and scary – endorsing self affirmation and the consent of children to taking puberty blockers and mutilating their bodies, and condemning states that prohibit such behaviour.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11348505/Biden-slams-GOP-trying-ban-sex-changes-children-interview-trans-TikTok-activist.html
The paedophiles need to get in contact with him and no doubt he’ll agree that children can consent to sex with adults.
My goodness, what groomer down voted that simple piece of logic?
Who is the target audience for that Biden interview – that is what puzzles me. Do they really believe one undecided voter is going to switch their vote to Biden because of this event? That is what puzzles / scares me – it is like they don’t really care what voters think.
Like the attack at Tsukuba (where I once worked!), the attack in Chautauqua was an act of war by Iran. We should have responded by sending one of our Ginsu-knife drones to assassinate one of the ayatollahs in Qom,
To link the progressive censorship and “no platforming” to the post 9/11 War on Terror is laughably inaccurate. In truth 9/11 was a brief hiccup in the Progressive march through the institutions and society which are now in their ideological grip, with consequences for freedom of conscience which we can now see. There was an opening then to push back against that ideological tide, but it was squandered utterly.
Strange quote, and not at all deep, disturbing, or even true. We most certainly are not born alone, since our mothers are right there with us, along with doctors, nurses, and often dads and even grandparents. Nor do we live alone; if we did we’d be dead days if not hours after our birth. Dying alone depends on the circumstance.
Salman Rushdie is a literary superstar celebrity formerly married to an international beauty and targeted by fanatics because he is famous, public, visible. I’m trying to understand how, exactly, he is so “alone”. Is the author trying to say that the publishing industry abandoned him? How? This article is all over the place and I simply don’t know what the author is trying to say.
You make good points. Still though I thought it was a very good article, even if I’m not sure you can blame the Publishing Industry for the attack on Rushdie. (I can blame them for a lot of other stuff!)
The attack seems more like one looking for fame because of the profile of the victim: a la John Lennon etc.
Regarding being alone: is this really true? Isn’t it also true that we find ourselves in others?
I support this article in its entirety. I do wonder however why journalists are so disinterested in fellow journalist Julian Assange who is waiting to be buried alive in an American prison. His crime? Telling the truth about war crimes committed by US troops. Few journalists even ask the obvious: how can an Australian citizen commit treason against the US?
We hanged ‘Lord Haw Haw, a US citizen for Treason in 1946, and we will soon condemn Soldier F in Belfast/Londonderry on very spurious grounds. In short the Law can do what it likes, always has done and always will do.
Consummatum est!
Charles, State-sponsored murder in Derry City. Fact. Would you like to expand on your ‘spurious’ claim or is it beyond committing your time and effort?
And what of his attacker? Will he get the just punishment he so very deserves and be made an example of? Will the media provide broad coverage of the trial and sentencing? I doubt it.
Repeate post – removing