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So we just had an emergency lab meeting about the Charlie Kirk situation. Someone screenshotted an instagram story from one of my fellow lab members and sent in anonymous email to my PI (professor/supervisor). The instagram story said basically that Charlie Kirk's death was a good thing, actually. PI didn't name names, and it was also unclear what exactly the anonymous emailer wanted, but did caution us that this is a dangerous environment to be posting this kind of thing. EDIT: He also said that he STRONGLY disagrees with this position, but he's very in favor of free speech and would defend unnamed individual from the university/public if push came to shove, despite disagreeing with their politics.
I have a couple thoughts about this. Firstly, it's legitimately pretty scary that internet posting is now important enough to warrant an emergency lab meeting. It feels like we rapidly are descending into an authoritarian anti-free speech environment (not that universities were bastions of this to begin with). My own social media and blog are extremely clean, but it's trivially easy to link this account with my real name, and I've posted some not kosher things here before.
Secondly, universities/leftists have kind of done this to themselves. This is the old Cory Doctrow/ Freddie DeBoer stick. Trigger warnings, anti-racism and cancel culture have all led to this kind of environment where speech can be policed in this way by the state and doesn't look hypocritical.
Thirdly, and I hate to say this, but whichever one of my colleagues posted this is a fucking idiot, along with most of the left in my generation. I still think of myself as a socialist, perhaps less so recently, and I want to shake this person and ask what good this kind of statement actually does for our cause. Do you want more vigilante killings? The right is going to come up on top with that one, as most lefties in this country are strangely anti-gun. Do you want to win elections? Advocating for murder isn't very popular with most of the electorate. Do you want continued science funding so you can have a job and accomplish the things that you think are so important you dedicated 8-12 hours of your day to, every day? Then stop tarnishing the reputation of universities and science in general with your crazy politics: our stipends come from taxpayer money. As I've written on earlier, scientists are woefully naive about politics. This is not how you win political victories, which makes me think that the goal isn't actually political victory, but some kind of LARP/ in-group signaling game.
A couple things came to mind while I was reading this.
First: on a purely limbic/affective level, I am quite unfazed by the fact that leftists who are getting fired over their Kirk posts are now getting to experience a small taste of what they have visited upon rightists for the last decade. I'd be lying if I said I didn't derive some satisfaction from it. The fact that all your PI could muster up was "this is a dangerous environment to be posting this kind of thing" shows that he didn't particularly disapprove of the post in question, nor did he nor the lab member in question feel any particular remorse over the post, and the totality of these facts does absolutely nothing to endear me to their cause.
Nonetheless. I am in fact capable of distinguishing my own personal emotional biases from my higher order propositional beliefs. I know that my own emotional instincts are in fact not a reliable guide to what is virtuous and just. I actually believe in freedom of expression as a principle, unlike my enemies. And so, if it were in my power to do so, I would ensure that no one is fired for statements that mock Charlie Kirk or celebrate his death, and I would immediately reinstate the positions of anyone who has been fired for making such statements. You should be free to say whatever you want about Charlie Kirk; and freedom of speech actually does mean freedom from consequences.
Someone will inevitably reply to this comment and say, "well it's nice that you think that, but what about all the other rightists who don't think that?" And you're right. I have nothing to say about what other people think or do. I can only speak for myself. Take it or leave it, do with it what you will.
I would implore you to reflect on the fact that this is how rightists have felt for the last 10 years.
Re your last point: oh I know. I've always been an anti-idpol leftist, and the past 12 years have been frustrating to say the least.
Also see my second point. Leftists did this to themselves.
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