Justice and Open Debate on City of Man Podcast

Harper’s made a splash at the beginning of the month with the publication of “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” an open letter about the assault on free speech in the name of justice and inclusion. The letter attracted a surprising variety of big-name signatories like Noam Chomsky, David Brooks, Malcolm Gladwell, Steven Pinker, Margaret Atwood, Martin Amis, John McWhorter, Garry Wills, and, the biggest of them all, JK Rowling. The letter immediately provoked controversy, both for what it said and for who signed it.

In the interests of accuracy, let me make a slight emendation: For “splash” and “controversy” above read “Twitter poo typhoon.”

Last week The City of Man Podcast’s Coyle Neal invited Nathan Gilmour of The Christian Humanist Podcast, former Maryland state representative Sam Arora, and me on to the show to discuss the Harper’s letter. Tune in as we recap some of the background to the controversy, especially the role played by Rowling in all of this; talk about which signatories stood out to us and why; and finally dig into what the letter is saying and whether it says it well. This was a good talk about an important topic and I was glad to be a part of it.

You can listen to this episode of The City of Man Podcast via iTunes, Stitcher, and other fine podcasting platforms, or by clicking on the player embedded in this post.

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Thanks for listening!