I'm not sure what the resonance is, Erin, but it seems to me that Goldstein doesn't understand the concept of censorship. If people think you use poor judgment, and tell you they don't want to be associated with you, they are censoring you, they are censuring you. None of Goldstein's freedoms have been abridged in any way; he's just outraged that someone disagrees with him sufficiently to want to be dissociated from him, and calls that an attempt to "silence" him. The right to free speech is not the right to be applauded for your free speech.

Alan -- I don't see where Goldstein says he thinks he's being censored. I see him disputing his former professor's apparent belief that he ought to not to have posted certain things, and should have effectively censored himself--but that's quite different. I think he's writing about attitudes, hypocrisy and cowardice as it manifests among certain intellectuals who should know better than to think the road to anything good lies in suppressing the legitimate expression of ideas. I think he's reacting to the appalling spectacle of a former professor--someone he clearly admired and modeled himself upon at one point--taking a position that is anathema to who Goldstein thought he was and to the principles Goldstein assumed, wrongly, that he could take for granted in that individual. What this post is about is not whining about being censored, but astonishment and indignation to have glimpsed such an appalling truth about a mentor.

The post is very emotional--and here I question the wisdom of it as a post, because I think outpourings of that sort on the web tend to come across as self-indulgent, and typically get you more grief than support--but the nature of the emotionalism has to do with having been caught flatfooted at the moment of ostracism by someone Goldstein clearly respected and admired.

I've been where I think Goldstein is now, so perhaps I projecteth too much. But I think Goldstein is reacting to being cast out and rejected for his beliefs by a respected mentor and colleague who he thought knew him and respected him back enough not to do something like that.

Erin, I don't blame Goldstein for being upset, for the very reasons you mention. Such shunning is clearly painful. But look at these statements:

"here we have an example of a novelist — a person trafficking in the most personal of ideas and expressions — demanding a form of political censorship. . ."

"I mean, if a novelist is so bothered by pointed speech that he’d support political censorship. . ."

"at least I don’t pretend to champion creative expression and individuality of thought, then turn around and agitate for the silencing of speech I don’t like."

All this is complete and absolute nonsense. What Whitely wrote was "Would you mind taking my name off your 'about' page on Proteinwisdom? . . . But I am more and more alarmed by the writings in this website of yours, and I do not want to be associated with it." I'm sure that was hurtful, but you know, making a request doesn't quite amount to "political censorship" or "silencing."

Alan -- I took those quotes to be comments that arose in reference to the phone conversation Goldstein had with his professor about what constitutes acceptable speech. I did not read them as descriptions of the original email. I still think Goldstein is reacting not to any attempt to censor him--but to a recognition that, in the abstract anyhow, his professor appears to support the suppression of ideas he regards as hateful, and appears to think someone like Goldstein has a duty to self-suppress in order not to feed the crazies out there who can't cope with controversial discourse.

I agree with Alan that this isn't the best example of actual censorship, but I'm still struck by the weirdness of it. The guy's former teacher has received tens of thousands of dollars in writing grants, he's published several books, and he now runs a creative writing program. One would assume he's at the top of his profession. So why is he so troubled that a former student with different political opinions simply mentions his name? Is his personal empire so shaky that he spends all day looking for troubling references to himself on the Internet? Does he think so little of his colleagues that he believes they'll see a blog by a former student and assume that a brief mention of his name indicates wholesale agreement? David Lodge couldn't make this stuff up.

Actually, Whitely telling Goldstein to remove his name from Goldstein's blog is censorship. It's a very small act of censorship, and possibly defensible, but that's what it is.

Goldstein went out of his way to clarify the exchange here:
“For all those visiting progressives who can’t seem to locate the thesis of this post (hint: it isn’t about the First Amendment), allow me to help:
“Me, I’m increasingly alarmed by the number of academics — in particular, those who teach writing — who find speech alarming. But then I guess I’m old fashioned that way."
What he is getting as is the attitude of so many academics, who so often are thin-skinned, haughty and easily offended by the wrong kind of “provocativeness” – the kind that doesn’t conform to their politics.
Earlier in the post, Goldstein wrote about what bugged him and it was not that he was being censored:
“It is an Orwellian world in which we live when fucking novelists want to distance themselves from those who criticize the government. Were Kiteley’s disgust over the comic purely aesthetic, I could at least entertain his point. But that isn’t the case: instead, Kiteley objects to the content, and sees Darleen’s cartoon as the online equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded movie theater.”
I don’t think, by a long shot, that I’m alone in having had the experience of being called, at the very least, insensitive for having mildly (though bluntly) expressed opinions that some people in my department and on campus find deeply offensive. These include the views, that, say, there is no free speech as we understand it in places like Cuba and China, that many bilingual education programs guarantee that students will become bilingually illiterate, or that Israel is a much better country (for Jews and Muslims) than any other in the Mideast. At one department get-together some years ago, my opinion on bilingual ed. caused a nice older Chicana professor to cry out and almost burst into tears. During a farewell party for a popular dean I know, a senior faculty member glared at me for several minutes and actually bared her teeth at me (apparently because I wrote a pro-Israel letter to the editor in that day’s campus rag).

I’m sure more will be written about it at this site in the future, but I’ll just put it out there now for readers to chew on. Beware so-called hate speech and hate crime laws. Even though they are often promoted by well-meaning people, they will do much mischief with respect to our rights and freedoms. I think some form of this idea was in the back of Goldstein’s mind when he posted.

Seems like those who should consider careers in academia, as it now stands, fall into two categories:

1)Extreme conformists: those who place a high value on fitting in with the group and are willing to constantly mold and re-mold their own belief structure in order to accomplish this.

2)Intellectual warriors: those who are so psychologically strong that they enjoy defending nonconforming opinions against the group and against those who hold significant power over them.

Those who are not conformists but do not thrive on conflict against heavy odds should probably consider other career paths.