The recent article in NY Times about the self-identifying fascist Tony Hovater has caused extreme backlash among American liberals including half my Twitter feed. Where I live, Hovater's views would see him in jail, but this post isn't about that.

Nobody is questioning whether the article is accurate or whether it's written to the highest journalistic standards. So I guess the position the readers are expressing is that truth must not be reported if it causes harm to society. And in their view, portraying fascists as anything but monsters through and through humanizes them and lessens the need to fight against extreme nationalism. Some go as far as saying that the journalist painted a rosy portrait of a family who want to wipe out other races, although this accusation isn't supported by the article.

I don't agree that trying to understand the enemy is harmful to the fight. I also don't support suppressing the truth for any reason except it causing direct and immediate harm to human beings, and I don't believe this is the case here. Shushing the media is a slippery slope, and it is far too easy for censorship to be abused.

For millennia people believed that it was their right to own other human beings (provided they had the money to buy them). Slavery was the norm, and slavers could be wonderful parents and upstanding members of community. People can be horrible to some groups and kind to others. It's nothing new, and I don't see how NY Times is at fault for reminding us of that. Moreover, good media reports facts in an impactful manner, and it doesn't condemn or endorse them. The article wasn't an opinion piece.

But we aren't the media. And we should try and make society better. What the article shows is that in the US today there is a climate that allows some perfectly normal families to embrace extremist views–there is nothing to steer them away. Perhaps something can be done so that a young man not quite satisfied with status quo wouldn't just drift toward fascism while half the people around him go "Meh, I kind of see his point."

But shooting the messenger is easier than doing something to fix the problem. It is safe, it is easy, and it makes us feel righteous without any risk to ourselves.

So yeah, NY Times, you suck. Leave my blindfold on and lock the door on your way out.