Althouse: What is the NYT doing now that in 50 years will look as bad as what the NYT did then?

April 21, 2016

What is the NYT doing now that in 50 years will look as bad as what the NYT did then?

A question I had, rereading that second post of the day.

23 comments:

Brando said...: Depends on whose perspective will see it as bad.; 4/21/16, 6:46 AM
campy said...: Cheerleading for democrats.; 4/21/16, 6:54 AM
The Godfather said...: Supporting abortion.

It may take less than 50 years.; 4/21/16, 7:05 AM
tim maguire said...: 50 years from now, the only people who will remember the New York Times are history majors who minor in the Archaeology of Journalism.

What the New York Times is printing now is part of the reason.; 4/21/16, 7:06 AM
Fritz said...: Can it look worse in 50 years?; 4/21/16, 7:08 AM
furious_a said...: It's still in business.; 4/21/16, 7:18 AM
furious_a said...: Displaying Walter Duranty's Pulitzer Prize in its trophy case.; 4/21/16, 7:20 AM
David Begley said...: Shilling for Hillary.

She is going to due untold damage. Finish Barack's work and go further. She's immune from impeachment and she knows it. There's something exhilarating about making millions and not getting jailed for felonies.; 4/21/16, 7:21 AM
cubanbob said...: Its a house organ then and still is one today. What changes is the Party's position on things.; 4/21/16, 7:21 AM
traditionalguy said...: Seriously, the war on Gays is over now. And most people cannot remember why they once supported it. There was no reason for it.

And then along comes Sharia Law.; 4/21/16, 7:23 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Shilling for the new theocracy and making fun of Kansas and Wyoming and Kentucky for resisting Sharia.; 4/21/16, 7:34 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: While this sort of thing can be fun if done humorously, I actually hate attempts to use it seriously. It is a form of appeal to authority: future generations will have a better perspective to look back on what is happening now. But we can't actually check with that authority, because it won't exist for fifty years. So we are just speculating what they would say. But since we don't have their perspective we have no reason to assume that we know what conclusion they will reach. Yet we always assume that they will agree with us.

I'll go the other route. I'll assume that in fifty years all of my beliefs will be considered abject bigotry of the worst kind. Of course, this is only due to the fact that Idiocracy is, at this point, a best-case scenario...; 4/21/16, 9:11 AM
Jim said...: Saluting the Syrian rapefugees will sting. But it won't take fifty years to be universally regarded as disastrous.; 4/21/16, 9:17 AM
Rick said...: Supporting FUD [Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt] propaganda in support sexual revenge on campus.

Latest outrage: Woman makes no complaint, when asked says entire encounter was consensual, man expelled anyway.

https://reason.com/blog/2016/04/19/female-student-said-im-fine-and-i-wasnt; 4/21/16, 9:35 AM
Wince said...: Here's how far we've regressed in the 50 years since the "sip-in".

Then: If the bartender joked after hearing they were homosexual "So, does that mean you want a Shirley Temple?" and got them a drink, everyone would think that was funny.

Now: It'd be a hate incident.; 4/21/16, 9:38 AM
Sebastian said...: 50 years from now people will look back with wry amusement at what Progs sounded like when they had to exercise some restraint, before they took over every institution they did not already control, while we still had a two-party system, a divided Supreme Court, and politicians called "Republicans" in Congress, when people still spoke of "America" in benighted jingoistic fashion.; 4/21/16, 9:39 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: "What is the NYT doing now that in 50 years will look as bad as what the NYT did then?"

I assume you're referring to the article:

“3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars.”

While I agree that “3 Deviants Invite Exclusion by Bars” would now be the preferred form, I don't find the original usage particularly egregious. And in 50 years standards of written English will have declined to the point that nothing will be called "bad", and copy editing will no longer even be a thing.; 4/21/16, 9:51 AM
YoungHegelian said...: 3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars

I thought the correct word at the time was Deviants, not Deviates. I guess the NYC wanted to make the headline "family friendly" so they didn't mention homosexuality by name.

Also, let's not whitewash the history of gay cruising too much, shall we? The cops weren't out there with the intent to hassle two gay men who got to know each other & then retired to one of their apartments. The cops were out to stop gay men from having sex in public places, as in the bathroom stalls at the bars in question. As someone who lives near a wooded park in close-in suburban Maryland, where gay men have been recently caught having public sex, the problem hasn't gone away.; 4/21/16, 10:08 AM
eric said...: In 50 years no one will know what you mean when you say the new York Times.; 4/21/16, 10:10 AM
Nonapod said...: As several people upthread have pointed out, it's all a matter of perspective. There's 3 perspectives to look at it from:

1) What you hope will happen
2) What you think may actually happen
3) What the worst case scenario could be

Depending on if you're an optimist or a pessimist either 1 and 2 will be the same or 2 and 3 will be the same.

In my case:

1) The NYT will no longer be in business. By and large people will look back negatively on it, fully recognizing that it was left-wing propaganda and a Dem party house organ, and knowing (with the benefit of hindsight) how destructive many of their positions really were.

3) Either a) The country will be under Sharia law so the Dhimmi may look back with a mix of anger and wistfulness at the NYT of 2016. or b) The world will be a Huxlyian dystopia with strictly defined social castes and most people will look back with disgust about how backward the NYT of 2016 was; 4/21/16, 10:11 AM
Greg Hlatky said...: 100 years ago if you thought that the races should be treated equally, you were considered a radical. 50 years ago you would be a moderate. Now you're a right-wing bigot.; 4/21/16, 10:14 AM
n.n said...: The New York Times was and remains liberal or unprincipled. Nothing has changed.

As for transgender spectrum dysfunction, it can be tolerated until its expression infringes upon other people's rights, or when it represents a progressive condition in a society, civilization, and humanity.

That said, transgender spectrum dysfunction is not equivalent to transhuman/abortionist or transhuman/cannibal, or even transsocial/pedophile.; 4/21/16, 1:05 PM
wildswan said...: I believe disregarding the world-wide birth-crash as a consequence of promoting contraception will seem worst. No matter what the regime fifty years from now, it will be suffering from the consequences of the birth crash. It will be seen that the consequences could have been mitigated if action had been taken now (2016) (on pensions and such) but that the NYT did not inform and hence there was no political will. Also International donors are continuing to force Africans into becoming contracepting societies and states when it is known that birth-rates crash under such regimes; thus us supported by the NYT and it will be seen as maximum colonialism-racism. The NYT is promoting below replacement fertility in Africa - aka, genocide. Everyone will see this for what it is - fifty years from now. Sooner, I hope, but they will see it then because then they'll have to handle the consequences.; 4/21/16, 7:10 PM