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| Editor-in-chief | Claire Lehmann |
|---|---|
| Senior editor, London | Jamie Palmer |
| Canadian editor, Toronto | Jonathan Kay |
| Categories | |
| Founder | Claire Lehmann |
| Founded | 2015; 11 years ago (2015) |
| Country | Australia |
| Based in | Sydney |
| Language | English |
| Website | quillette |
| Part ofa series on |
| Conservatism in Australia |
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Quillette (/kwɪˈlɛt/) is an online magazine founded by Australian journalistClaire Lehmann. The magazine primarily focuses onscience,technology,news,culture, andpolitics.
Quillette was created in 2015 to focus on scientific topics, but has come to focus on coverage of political and cultural issues concerningfreedom of speech andidentity politics. It has been described aslibertarian-leaning;[2][3][4] theColumbia Journalism Review calledQuillette "theright wing's highly influential answer toSlate",[5] and it has been criticised as an "anti-PC soapbox"[6] and for being "reflexively contrarian".[7]
Quillette was founded in October 2015 inSydney, Australia, by Claire Lehmann.[8]
It is named after the French word "quillette" which means awithy cutting planted so that it takes root – used here as a metaphor for an essay.[9] Lehmann stated thatQuillette was created with the aim of "setting up a space where we could critique the blank slate orthodoxy" – a theory of human development which assumes individuals are largely products ofnurture, not nature – but that it "naturally evolved into a place where people critique other aspects of what they see asleft-wing orthodoxy".[2][10]
In August 2017,Quillette published an article in which five academics expressed support for James Damore, author of the "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber" memo. According toPolitico,Quillette's website crashed because of the popularity of the article. Lehmann was told by her tech staff the cause may have been aDDoS attack.[1][11] In its profile ofQuillette,Politico reported that Lehmann knew about thegrievance studies affair before it was first reported in October 2018. In response,Quillette again published comments from five like-minded academics.[1][12]
In May 2019,Quillette published an article that alleged connections betweenantifa activists and national-level reporters who cover thefar-right based on the accounts these reporters followed on Twitter.[13][14]Alexander Reid Ross and another journalist who were mentioned in the article said that they and other journalists received death threats after the claims were published.[14]
In August 2019,Quillette published a hoax article titled "DSA Is Doomed" submitted by an anonymous writer claiming to be a construction worker named Archie Carter who was critical of the organisationDemocratic Socialists of America.[15] The magazine retracted the article after the hoax was brought to its attention. According to socialist magazineJacobin, the hoax broughtQuillette's fact-checking and editorial standards into question.[16]
Quillette has published articles supporting the pseudoscientifichuman biodiversity movement (HBD), by writers such asBrian Boutwell andJohn Paul Wright, HBD being a euphemism foreugenics andscientific racism.[17]Quillette published articles supportingNoah Carl who "was excluded from a Cambridge Universityfellowship over his alleged links to far-right organisations, including collaboratingin writing projects with far-right activistEmil Kirkegaard, and for engaging inunethical and dishonest research supporting eugenicist views".[18][19][20]
In an article forThe Outline, writer Gaby Del Valle classifiesQuillette as "libertarian-leaning", "academia-focused" and "a hub forreactionary thought."[2] In the Seattle newspaperThe Stranger,Katie Herzog writes that it has won praise "from bothSteven Pinker andRichard Dawkins", adding that "most of the contributors are academics but the site reads more like a well researched opinion section than an academic journal".[21] In an opinion piece forUSA Today, columnistCathy Young describesQuillette as "libertarian-leaning".[3] An article inVice describedQuillette as a "libertarian magazine".[4]
PoliticoandVox reported thatQuillette has been associated with the "intellectual dark web", a term used, according toPolitico, to describe "a loose cadre of academics, journalists and tech entrepreneurs who view themselves as standing up to the knee-jerk left-leaning politics of academia and the media."[1][22] Writing forThe New York Times,Bari Weiss referred to Claire Lehmann as a figure in the "intellectual dark web".[1][23]
Writing forThe Guardian, Jason Wilson describesQuillette as "a website obsessed with the alleged war on free speech on campus".[24]Writing forThe Washington Post, Aaron Hanlon describesQuillette as a "magazine obsessed with the evils of 'critical theory' andpostmodernism".[25]
Writing forNew York magazine's columnThe Daily IntelligencerAndrew Sullivan describedQuillette as "refreshingly heterodox" in 2018.[26]
In a piece forSlate, Daniel Engber suggested that while some of its output was "excellent and interesting", the averageQuillette story "is dogmatic, repetitious, and a bore".[27] He wrote that it describes "even modest harms inflicted viagroupthink—e.g., dropped theater projects, flagging book sales, condemnatory tweets—as 'serious adversity'", arguing that various authors inQuillette engage in the samevictim mentality that they attempt to criticise.[27] In an article forThe Daily Beast, writer Alex Leo describedQuillette as "a site that fancies itself intellectually contrarian but mostly publishes right-wing talking points couched ingrievance politics".[28]
In an interview with Psychology Today last week, Claire Lehmann, the founder of the libertarian-leaning, academia-focused digital magazine Quillette, suggested that the website was a refuge from the political correctness and leftist bias that allegedly plague both academia and the mainstream media.
The author also used news articles from outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic and The New Yorker, as well as smaller publications like libertarian magazine Quillette.
In French, a synonym for quillette is bouture d'osier, which is a type of wood off-cutting used to grow new trees. An off-cutting planted in the ground that grows into a tree – this seemed to me a great metaphor for an essay.
Contributors often shared Lehmann's interest in debunking the "blank slate" theory of human development, which postulates that individuals are largely products of nurture, not nature. But, Lehmann told me, it quickly grew beyond that topic. In "setting up a space where we could critique the blank slate orthodoxy," she says, Quillette "has naturally evolved into a place where people critique other aspects of what they see as left-wing orthodoxy.
Most of the contributors are academics but the site reads more like a well researched opinion section than an academic journal.
Other figures in the I.D.W., like Claire Lehmann, the founder and editor of the online magazineQuillette, and Debra Soh, who has a Ph.D. in neuroscience, self-deported from the academic track, sensing that the spectrum of acceptable perspectives and even areas of research was narrowing.
Nevertheless, along with spreading the video, Ngo wrung from the evening an article forQuillette, a website obsessed with the alleged war on free speech on campus.
InQuillette — an online magazine obsessed with the evils of 'critical theory' and postmodernism — Matt McManus reflects on 'The Emergence and Rise of Postmodern Conservatism.'
As Claire Lehmann, the founding editor of the refreshingly heterodox new websiteQuillette has put it, 'the Woke Left has a moral hierarchy with white men at the bottom.'
