Because you can never have too many double standards in politics, I submit for your consideration the demand that Penguin Random House decline to publish a forthcoming book by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Amy Coney Barrett. No doubt you can guess why.
The demand, in the form of an open letter titled “We Dissent,” is signed by some 640 “publishing professionals” who describe the planned publication of Justice Barrett’s book as “a case where a corporation has privately funded the destruction of human rights with obscene profits.” But not to worry! The signatories are certainly not advocating for censorship. On the contrary, they “care deeply about freedom of speech” while recognizing “that harm is done to a democracy not only in the form of censorship, but also in the form of assault on inalienable human rights.” So that’s all right.
Caring deeply about freedom of speech while seeking to suppress speech of which one disapproves may seem contradictory, indeed dishonest, but “We Dissent” opens with this rationale:
Now there will be those who will argue that this could all too easily drift into a form of censorship, albeit self-censorship, but I don't buy that argument. It has to be possible to balance freedom of expression with wider moral and social responsibilities.
This from a TED Talk, “Does the media have a duty of care?” by Lord David Puttnam. Though his question is rhetorical, the answer is no. For in practice, Lord Puttnam’s “duty of care” could only be a mandate for political activism based on a specific set of political preferences and definitions. In the case of “We Dissent,” that preference is for abortion as an “inalienable” human right.
Having listened to Lord Puttnam’s talk, I must note in fairness that he makes a good point about the damage that can be done by irresponsible journalism—examples of which are so abounding and well known as to require no discussion here. And I suspect that he might not agree with the “We Dissent” signatories in their demand for the suppression of Justice Barrett’s book. But as this incident shows, the “duty of care” he proposes is subjective and malleable, dangerously so.
The “publishing professionals” who signed “We Dissent” have not read Justice Barrett’s book, which is still being written and won’t be published by Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin Random House, until 2024. Their problem is not with the book, but with its author. The signatories generously concede that “Coney Barrett is free to say as she wishes,” but the none-too-subtle subtext of their letter is that she’s a bad person, indeed an evildoer, to whom ordinary standards of consideration and tolerance are inapplicable. “Though shalt not suffer a witch to live”—that’s their attitude, conveyed via the usual po-mo progressive blather.
“We Dissent” was written and subscribed to by people who obviously believe that the pro-life movement in America is a sinister cabal like the Sons of Jacob in a book of which I’m sure they heartily approve, The Handmaid’s Tale. They assert that the killing of her unborn child is a woman’s inalienable human right—an arguable point, to put it no more forcefully. But they want no argument. They demand, in effect, that the pro-life position be suppressed, hounded out of the public square, on the specious grounds that it represents an attempt to impose upon Americans the beliefs of a religious minority.
“We Dissent” is the more offensive given that progressives never hesitate to hurl charges of censorship at Republicans and conservatives. But excluding highly sexualized content or tendentious narratives masquerading as history from school reading lists is not at all in the same class with suppression of a book by an individual of whom some people disapprove. The former is, so to speak, the exercise of a duty of care; the latter is censorship, plain and simple. Thus when the “We Dissent” signatories assert that “we are not calling for censorship,” they’re gaslighting us all.
To its credit, Penguin Random House has summarily rejected the demand embodied in “We Dissent.” According to Adrian Zackheim, publisher of Sentinel, “We remain fully committed to publishing authors who, like Justice Barrett, substantively shape today’s most important conversations.” He added that Sentinel “publishes books so that people can read them, and evaluate them on their own.” That’s a notion that seems alien, indeed objectionable, to the 640 “publishing professionals” who signed “We Dissent.”