Anti-Pro-Life Censorship or Callous Extremist? 4 Views on The Atlantic Firing Kevin Williamson
Conor Friedersdorf
Conor Friedersdorf, staff writer at The Atlantic, offered a dissent to his publication's decision to fire Williamson, expressing concern that the firing and overall treatment of Williamson "were failures of tolerance."
Justice is best advanced, Friedersdorf wrote in a column published by Atlantic on Sunday, by tolerance and cross-ideological engagement.
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"I believe that justice is best advanced, that repressive outcomes are best avoided, and that vulnerable groups benefit disproportionately from a polity in which the public sphere is characterized by tolerance, forbearance, deliberate cross-ideological engagement within moderating institutions, and attempts at moral suasion rooted in love. At the group level, my sort of public sphere serves as a bulwark against the threat of authoritarianism that targets minorities; on an individual level, I believe engagement within it causes many to soften their most extreme views," he wrote.
Tolerance for opposing views doesn't require abandoning ones morality, he concluded.
"Individuals participating in the public sphere, and publications that aspire to cultivate a broad civic dialogue, ought never slip into indifference to injustice or abandon moral judgments. But neither should they mistake tolerance for moral collapse. Much can be worked out by objecting to the objectionable in ways that do not foreclose the possibility of all cooperation. As citizens, if not as employees of any particular company, we are inescapably bound. And it is incumbent on all of us, even in our inevitable moments of pained outrage, to model how to work together."
