The rise of Classical Liberals against attacks on free speech

This past week has seen the publication of the New York Times' deplatforming piece against Scott Alexander of the late lamented Slate Star Codex, once a platform of intelligent essays and free-ranging, high quality discussion among very bright people.

A year ago the NYT started threatening to publish an expose of Scott Alexander.  Alexander was a pseudonym adopted by the website author given that he was a practicing psychiatrist.  The NYT expressed the intention to dox Alexander, thus destroying his capacity to practice medicine as he had done.

The motive for the NYTs' animosity was never clear.

Anticipating the NYT attack, Alexander shutdown Slate Star Codex, ending with an explanation of what was happening and why.  Fortunately the archive of his earlier pieces is still in place.  Classical Liberals, Libertarians, Independent Thinkers and everyone devoted to freedom of speech was outraged but with not much to do as the NYT had yet to print their expose.  

And then everything went quiet for about a year.

Finally, this past week, the NYT got around to publishing their anemic attack which comes across as a mean-girl screed rather than a journalistic piece by a sentient person, Silicon Valley’s Safe Space by Cade Metz.  As a long time reader of Slate Star Codex, there is little linkage between its reality and the descriptions ascribed to it by Cade Metz.  

It does not warrant fisking, though many others have done so since the NYT came out of the closet with this politics-of-personal destruction attack on an individual.  Examples are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.  And there are many more.  

Scott Alexander's response is Statement on New York Times Article.

There is a remaining perplexity.  It is clear that the NYT and Metz don't understand what they are writing about and it is clear that there was some purpose in mind when they launched this crusade against a free speech community committed to intellectual debate.  But what was that intent?  

Quillette probably puts it best.  

The true significance of Scott Alexander is less in what he writes, than in his whole approach to writing—and not (or at least not only) because Alexander has a particular gift, but because he has chosen to wield that gift in furtherance of Truth. To notice the specifically weird things Alexander or other Rationalists sometimes say is to miss the underlying message that in their company, the Overton window is open. Speech is free. Respectful, authentic pursuit of the truth is permitted no matter where it leads, and no one will be punished for being wrong. Bad thinking will be corrected, if possible, not with ridicule or other rhetorical pressure to conform, but with good thinking. Rationalists, in short, are a group of people who picked up the liberal, academic, philosophical traditions of Western civilization when institutions like the New York Times decided to abandon them.