While reviled by some as a “conservative,” Bari Weiss likes to refer to herself as a centrist, her definition being perfectly in line with my contention that rational “conservatism” is of the Center, its denunciation as a form of Fascism being the result of the insane Leftist bias of our era.
Interviewed by Brian Stelter on CNN in Oct., Weiss insisted that the world had gone mad. When asked to explain, she cited the widespread vilification of various opinions she found perfectly rational ….. i.e., suggest Covid 19 emerged from Communist China and prepare to be condemned as a Racist; suggest Men and Women are significantly different and prepare to be called a Misogynist, etc., etc. Stelter, smiling obsequiously as she spoke, subsequently asked how she could claim such opinions were being repressed when they were all over the internet. Her ironic rejoinder was that the opinions to which she was referring had been forced to flee to the internet precisely because of networks such as CNN, a platform from which “conservative” on-line posts are consistently reviled as nothing more than hateful, right-wing misinformation. Apparently unaware that his reference to the Freedom of Expression available through the Internet was in fact an indictment of the narrow-mindedness of his own very Network, Stelter continued to smile vacuously as Weiss expressed her views. His failure to confront the elephant in the room reminded me of Don Lemon’s equally stupid response to the complaints of Black Sheriff David Clarke who, as cited in an earlier blog, claimed media support for B.L.M. was inciting the murder of innocent cops, only to be shrugged aside by Lemon who astoundingly maintained Sheriff Clarke’s comments were not really relevant to the status of Police within contemporary America! Yes, so utterly devoid of ethics are most in the mainstream media, that when the facts don’t suit their narrative, they simply ignore them!
In July of 2020 Weiss left behind her position at the N.Y. Times. Her letter explaining the reasons for her resignation is available online and it is wonderful. The paper’s betrayal of what she considers a basic principle of Democracy is, she asserted, its seeming conviction “that Truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job it is to inform everyone else.” It is the absurd contradiction at the heart of “progressivism,” the ludicrous claim by our “intellectuals” that while no one can ever know the Truth with any degree of certainty, they know this to be a fact with Absolute Certainty! It is the Elitist principle at the heart of a world-view which claims to be disgusted by Elitism of any kind! In attempting to explain the basically anti-democratic perspective of the Times, Weiss wrote: “The paper of record is, more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people.” It is, she says, why the geniuses at the Times were utterly shocked by Trump’s victory in 2016, a victory which they, in their intellectual arrogance, could only ascribe to the utter stupidity of the majority of the American public.
I am not suggesting that some who voted for Trump were not prompted by the ugliest of motives. Such is the diversity of the species! But, according to Bari Weiss, several of her associates at The Times privately informed her that they were disgusted by their paper’s oppression of any point of view not consistent with its own. It is a complaint I have heard from a number of friends employed within the public arena here in Canada who are afraid to express their honest opinions on any number of subjects for fear of losing their jobs. It is a complaint born of the Left’s oppression of the Free Exchange of Ideas which used to be considered essential to every healthy, functioning Democracy.