Well, yes, Greg, I do. Aside from my children being Asian-American, many of my friends, colleagues, and fellow Americans are Asian-American. I do take personally the assertion that they’re bad for America.
Don’t you? Seeing the assertion that they’re bad for America as some anodyne opinion like “I don’t like pistachio” strikes me as odd. Leaving that aside, is there something bad, or blameworthy, about finding that opinion repugnant, and saying so?
If taking it personally is bad, I am happy to be bad.
“ What I don’t agree with is that there is any affirmative duty to refuse to allow those views to be aired in a setting like FIRE’s online faculty webinar. The only “test” you’ve listed here is that, according to your moral compass, Wax’s views are so bold that treating her free speech rights as morally neutral is “unserious.” No slippery slope there.”
There’s a little bit of misdirection there. FIRE is making a choice about the use of its own TV show. FIRE chooses who it invites and what the topics will be. FIRE is not “refusing to allow those views to be aired” on somebody else’s show. FIRE is not saying Amy Wax shouldn’t be allowed to eat at Arby’s, FIRE is inviting her to dinner at FIRE’s house.
If I invite Nick Fuentes onto my podcast to talk about how Jews are the enemies of Western Civilization, is that morally neutral? I would say no.
“ Nowhere has FIRE asserted that Prof. Wax’s views are morally neutral. What they have asserted is that her right to speak them and defend them is. That they have “platformed” her is their absolute right, just as it is everyone else’s right to refuse to read or listen to it, to attempt to vilify it, to doxx it, etc. You can decide that their choice represents a moral failing of such magnitude that you’ll never give them another dime. By all means, call out the immorality! But it makes their framework “unserious” in your view only because they’ve chosen to treat her differently than you would. Frankly, I think their framework is more rigorous than your own: it does not depend on a definition of morality.”
I didn’t suggest that FIRE did call Amy Wax’s views morally neutral. Nor did I question FIRE”s right to platform her, obviously. I suggested FIRE treats inviting Amy Wax on her show and giving her a platform to broadcast her views to a wider audience - and lending its imprimatur to her in a way that defending her rights does not - is morally neutral, and that that’s unserious.
The war on Free Speech is occurring because the first thing a kidnapper does is gag the victim so that they cannot sound the alarm. Give up your free speech at your peril. Once they are able to silence you, the game is over. The loss of all of your other freedoms will fall like dominos after. Anyone that advocates to censor you, or to unmask your anonymity is your adversary. Treat them like one - no matter what else they say.
But why is it so vital and necessary for the combined monolithic apparatus of government, corporations, and NGOs, to brute force censor everyone while decimating the careers and reputations of the dissenters? Here is why:
The reason the First Amendment is prime directive order 1, is because it is the most important freedom we have for the same reason it is the first target an adversary subverts, disrupts, and destroys during a crime, a war, or a takeover—preventing a target from assembling, communicating, and organizing a response to an assault grants an enormous advantage to the aggressors.
"If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent will be led, like sheep to the slaughter." —George Washington
I'm new to your posts, so thanks for this thought-provoking article shared by JVL on the Bulwark. I just posted this on JVL's Triad, so I thought I'd repeat it here, because I think it illustrates what you are describing. Please let me know if I am off base!
JVL, thanks for the link to Ken White's UnPopulist article. His description of "Free Speech Culture" and "The First Speaker Problem" helped me make sense of something happening locally (Chicago suburban area). A local high school group called "Club America" (the school's chapter of Turning Point USA) has scheduled a program for tomorrow through "History Rocks!" which it turns out is organized by the Department of Education in conjunction with TPUSA. The conservative school superintendent shared a letter with students, parents, and staff in which he framed the program as, "grounded in two key pillars: our legal obligations (?) as a public institution and our pedagogical mission to prepare students for a diverse world." He said it is an "opportunity to demonstrate (said school) is a place where free speech is protected and exercised with responsibility." The fact that TPUSA (who is historically tied to bigotry and white nationalism) is being presented as a legitimate viewpoint under the auspices of diversity is pretty disturbing. There has been a lot of community pushback, so it might be cancelled. Tomorrow will tell.
Is it better or worse to have these viewpoints and their author exposed? I feel it is always better to have things out in the open. Suppressing free speech does NOTHING to advance understanding. On the contrary, the suppression of free speech retards the evolution of societies.
Good question. In this case, having it done under the auspices of the Board of Education gives it some kind of "legitimacy," even though many of us know that the current BOE is totally corrupt. So, it's not just being presented as some random person's viewpoint. I guess that's my main issue.
These situations are always interesting. I see the BOE supporting the 1st amendment and in so doing appearing to 'legitimize' the TPUSA program. But are they actually 'legitimizing' that entity? I would prefer to think that they are platforming a controversial viewpoint in the spirit of upholding the 1st amendment. Period. I personally believe it is better to hear speech we dislike and loathe so we can understand where it is coming from and why. You cannot engage in opposing a viewpoint you do not agree with if you don't know what that viewpoint is!
There are many proverbs to describe this situation and perhaps one that would fit TPUSA might be, "better the devil you know". 😉
“…part of “free speech culture” is presuming that our interlocutors are speaking and acting in good faith even if they are manifestly not. We are reaping the consequences of treating bad faith as good faith and hypocrisy as sincerity.”
We are also reaping the consequence of mistaking someone saying what he thinks, however wrongheaded or in bad faith, rather than speaking truthfully, as what passes for honesty.
Sure, it may be true that as you say, "We are reaping the consequences of treating bad faith as good faith and hypocrisy as sincerity.”
However, It is irrelevant what your perception of the speaker is. Good faith, bad faith, whatever. That is not the point. Freedom of speech means you are free to speak on a subject in bad faith just as legally as speaking in good faith. It is not the prerogative of the first amendment to ascertain whether someone is speaking in 'good faith' or not. That is precisely the point of 'free speech'. The listener get's to decide if a speaker is speaking in good or bad faith regardless of whether they can distinguish the difference or not.
Ultimately it is up to the 'masses' to sift through the speaker's communications and to decide what is relevant and important to the greater society.
I’m generally a big Ken White fan, and I agree with the bulk of this essay, but I have never cared for his “first speaker” framework; it struck me as both too cumbersome and too convenient when I first read it, and it still does. Even so, I agree with the baseline view that we need to avoid the trap of protecting anyone’s expression at the expense of someone else’s, especially when there is a clear imbalance of “speech power.” But he really lost me here:
“Or take Amy Wax, a loathsome bigot who thinks America would be better if my children—born in Asia, American citizens since we adopted them as infants—weren’t here. FIRE believes—correctly—that when Wax’s university seeks to discipline her for speech, it must obey its own rules and carefully consider the values of academic freedom and due process. FIRE also says, again correctly, that as far as it is concerned, ‘her viewpoint is beside the point.’ But then it goes further and offers her a platform to promote her views. That’s a ‘free speech culture’ ethos move.
“‘Free speech culture’ becomes bad and unserious when it starts telling us that speech is morally neutral, that we should not make value judgments against it, and that there is no moral component to promoting it. I am committed to the defense of the legal right to speak, but the defense of speech does not require us to refrain from speaking frankly about moral truths. Giving Wax a platform to be a bigot is morally distinguishable from saying she should be free to be a bigot. ‘The only immoral thing you can say is that someone else’s speech is immoral’ is not an ethos worthy of respect.”
I think you’ve overstated and villainized FIRE’s decision to “platform”—a term I despise because it tends to carry its own payload of coded messaging—Prof. Wax and her “loathsome” views (which you quite clearly take personally). In your view, Wax must be condemned and should be identified as immoral by anyone who is not the government or is bound by the First Amendment. Sorry, but the problem with that viewpoint is that it itself is just another version of the “free speech culture ethos.” In your case, you’ve decided her views are bad, and that it’s immoral to hold them. I tend to agree with you, but not entirely. What I don’t agree with is that there is any affirmative duty to refuse to allow those views to be aired in a setting like FIRE’s online faculty webinar. The only “test” you’ve listed here is that, according to your moral compass, Wax’s views are so bold that treating her free speech rights as morally neutral is “unserious.” No slippery slope there.
Nowhere has FIRE asserted that Prof. Wax’s views are morally neutral. What they have asserted is that her right to speak them and defend them is. That they have “platformed” her is their absolute right, just as it is everyone else’s right to refuse to read or listen to it, to attempt to vilify it, to doxx it, etc. You can decide that their choice represents a moral failing of such magnitude that you’ll never give them another dime. By all means, call out the immorality! But it makes their framework “unserious” in your view only because they’ve chosen to treat her differently than you would. Frankly, I think their framework is more rigorous than your own: it does not depend on a definition of morality.
If this is the reason that “young people” think the First Amendment is a bad deal, then we have taught them poorly indeed. Morality, and its relative seriousness, will change over time. Free speech should not.
I don't think anyone has an active duty to ban certain speech from their platforms, but barring groups that are legally required to allow literally everyone to speak - mostly governments - it is reasonable to draw inferences from who's allowed to speak where. FIRE's website is not a Free Speech Zone like I've seen at some government-owned property, where you have the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Sovereign Citizens, and the people ranting about alien invasions all next to each other. In that context, yes, hosting someone is completely neutral, because the "host" doesn't have the ability to reject anyone. With the power to reject people (because you disagree on the facts, or you find their claims offensive, or you're just sick of hearing about the alien invasion thing) comes the responsibility of being judged for who you choose to include and to reject.
Boy, is that confused. FIRE claims that they are morally neutral, not that Wax is. The leap from FIRE having an absolute right to platform Wax to “they’ve chosen to treat her differently” blurs categories, and intrinsically establishes relativism as the norm. Wax is just wrong. Platforming someone as bizarre as Wax is just bad manners.
It's interesting how your framework denies that anyone could ever actually be a loathsome bigot, since it's apparently just an insult and not a description to you.
Glau Hansen -- Character assassination is character assassination. Debased discourse is debased discourse.
I'm sure there's also someone in this world who considers you "loathesome." FWIW, I wouldn't consider that a legitimate critique of your politics, either.
Leave that sort of crap to the likes of Donald Trump.
It is not "debased discourse" to speak of a person's character. If someone is bigot, it is perfectly material to the discourse to point that out AND if it is the kind of bigotry that rises to a particularly hateful level (as opposed to just having picked up some stereotypes around the way) saying loathsome bigot is appropriate.
Or too put it another way, there are some opinions/beliefs that are appropriately unacceptable. Would you call referring to Jeffery Epstein as a loathsome pedophile in discussing whether he should debate at a girls' school, inappropriate character assisination?
We can have debates on why racism or pedophilia is bad but outside of said debate, it is not untoward to oppose said beliefs when referring to those speakers.
Please see my exchange with Glau Hansen (within this very discussion), and -- notwithstanding one's views on "trans" identity -- tell me how legitimate (or decent) it is to characterize an Andrew Sullivan or a JK Rowling as a "loathesome bigot."
Is such descripttion merely a matter of stating the obvious -- a question of "character"?
So simply not fair to throw in the trans-debate, it's like throwing a 20 sided die to the question is it black or white.
I mean Andrew Sullivan and JK Rowling don't even agree with each other as I recall and frankly, JK Rowling has gotten much more hardcore in the past few years than she used to be, in some way in response to death threats. So would be hard pressed to feel I could accurately pin down her true feelings on the subject. She's pretty clear that trans people do get to live their lives and that people get to have their own thoughts about it that don't agree with hers.
On the other hand, Asian people harm America or Blacks are stupider than whites is pretty clear bigotry. This is not a "controversy". It is loathsome to say. While it is getting distressingly less taboo to perpetuate these ideas, they remain loathsome. Embracing them says something about character.
And if you really must stick with the Trans issue, I'll say I lean more to early Rowling on it--and nevertheless have definitely found room to call some on my side, (lefties no less) loathsome bigots, or words to that effect. I've also used words to that effect on the other side for a few while entering into civil conversation with others who simply had sincere beliefs I disagreed with.
But in who is the real haters? Yeah, when you use the kind of language this discussion was started on, you are definitely the hater....
...though this term "hate" keeps being thrown about when what we mean is respect, control and exploitation. You don't need to hate someone to feel falsely superior to them. You don't have to hate them to use them. And you can be manipulated by others to feel a disgust without a single hateful thought in your mind previously.
Not hard to find someone who considers me loathsome. I'm trans. I guess that just means I've gotten a better sense of when it's being used as a slur and when it's being used as a descriptor.
So? They believe it 100%. I know it's fake. They aren't going to stop believing it because someone argues it might not be true. So I have no idea why you think that line of argument is going to work anywhere else.
Rights like free speech come with responsibilities, and I think these need to be emphasized a little bit more when we teach about constitutional and human rights. Rights don’t (or at least shouldn’t) free one from consequences. I also think that with the rise of influencer culture or what have you, people are confusing the right to free speech with the “right to be platformed somewhere,” which isn’t a right. If speech goes against community standards/guidelines, it doesn’t have a right to be there.
This entire piece can be boiled down to "liberals have (or used to have until five minutes ago) massive cultural power and leverage over private institutions that can wield censorious power (universities, newspapers, social media). However, sometimes they lose elections. Therefore we need to figure out a framework that conveniently justifies any censorship from institutions we control but not institutions our enemies control."
I know we are winding things down here but wanted to clarify that saying gay people seem to thrive etc. isn't about sending anyone into any queer ghetto or otherwise expounding on Queer theory (though I'd happily smash the patriarchy). I lack 'gaydar' and rarely speculate. You will never catch me using the word Queer even if I have to memorize an entire alphabet as an alternative reference (except in reference to other people using it obv). I'm 59, it was a terrible slur. But because I'm 59, it means I became an adult in the AIDS crisis. and in times that were quite different. I won't be tedious and list all the gay people I've scattered across my timeline but I couldn't draw a single personality conclusion about them, but that all too many of them couldn't treat their love life as just a normal fact. That's what I meant.
Or to put it another way. I'm epileptic, been so since I was 8. It is not a deal to me. It is normal (even if by definition my brainwaves are abnormal). That doesn't mean other people share this view. I'm not talking medical issues here. (Gay folks and epileptics usually ride the same eugenics lists.) So there's a tension between how one feels about oneself and how one has to navigate others. Dealing with others, seeking support, that's what I meant.
Also, I'm not a lefty per se, just strong in civil rights convictions. Never an anarchist, certainly not a vegan or vegetarian (My parents raised pure bred beef cattle for 30 years) and drive a car (though I try to avoid highways I can't easily pull over on, epilepsy not environmentalism). A two state solution gal because I do think Israel matters, chalk that up to my grandmother. I'm not used to people agreeing with me, to the point that if I find myself in a situation where everyone does, I start to question my own stand.
We see the world differently even as much we share. I do agree only very stupid people assume everyone from a certain group thinks the same, often people react opposite precisely because it is a popular opinion. One type of person, that's never what I mean to convey.
Thanks for the recommendations sadly I soured on Phillip Roth early, but not on Fiddler or any of the writer's stories. And Bob Dylan is always beautiful. I hope your weekend is also beautiful.
I agree that hypocritical use of free speech arguments to advance partisan interests undermines faith that anyone really believes in free speech as a universal principle. That has always been a problem b/c free speech is more beneficial strategically to those who lack power. It's enticing for right-wing activists who complained about the suppression of speech when Biden was president to use their newfound power to suppress their opponents' speech now that Trump is president. That's always been the way to a lesser or greater extent (consider Lenin's abandonment of freedom of the press after the Russian Revolution, for example).
About-faces by former free-speech warriors generate cynicism. But I think you are barking up the wrong tree when you blame "free speech culture" versus "free speech law" for hypocrisy. The ideal of a free speech culture gets at something important. Mill knew that 167 years ago when he argued in "On Liberty" that:
"Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannising are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself."
Yeah, "free speech culture" is harder to define and delimit than "free speech law", and ambiguities in the definition and application of the idea may make hypocrisy easier, but we lose too much if the very ideal is tossed out with the bathwater.
I’ve always had this uneasiness in my mind about these free speech controversies and I could never put my finger on what I felt was wrong. I knew something wasn’t right about it. But I couldn’t grasp the argument. Thank you for grasping the argument.
The key question for me is whether you are operating in a discourse mode that functions well as a marketplace of ideas, where statements are judged on their merits and the best ideas rise to the top. Shunning, insults, and abuse (hence: S/I/A) work about as well for good ideas as bad ideas. They don't help us differentiate between good and bad ideas as a society.
If a person primarily advances their viewpoint via S/I/A, I take that as a sign that their ideas are weak. If their ideas were strong, they would be able to argue for those ideas on their merits and bring others around to their viewpoint. S/I/A are the last resort of someone who knows their own position poorly, and their opponent’s even less. By declaring S/I/A out-of-bounds in ordinary circumstances, we foster a civil society where the best ideas tend to win.
Here's an anecdote of how things are *supposed* to work, from my perspective, with regard to "second speakers" in e.g. a campus speaker context: https://qr.ae/pYCVXO
Furthermore, I don't even think S/I/A are particularly effective at suppressing ideas. Questions about gender ideology have only grown since these tactics have become normalized. We turned up the heat without achieving much of anything.
But, if we *must* engage in S/I/A, we'd first want a good-faith discussion to achieve consensus on what speech is sufficiently antisocial to deserve such punishment. Back in the early 2000s, for example, we did in fact have a consensus that saying the N word is bad and this behavior might in some cases get you kicked out of polite society. The problem is, "second speaker" type folks didn't give reasoned arguments for expanding this consensus. They didn’t explain why we need to kick people out of polite society more aggressively. Instead, they simply defined more and more stuff as e.g. "racism", until we got to the point where if you say anything about race which isn't on their short list of "acceptable statements about race", they declare you a racist. Little explicit justification or persuasive argument has been offered for this new, expanded punitive speech regime. It was a unilateral step taken by a few loud voices, about 8% of the population according to this survey: https://hiddentribes.us/ See also: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/02/be-nice-at-least-until-you-can-coordinate-meanness/
Here is my advice for second speakers who want to push back on e.g. arguments against "gender ideology":
* Focus primarily on explaining why the arguments are wrong. Assume good faith.
* If you must punish, before engaging in shunning/insults/abuse, first seek to establish that this is, in fact, where the line should be drawn. Before engaging in norm enforcement, explain the norm and give others the opportunity to argue against its establishment. Explain why this is a norm we should enforce consistently and impartially which will make society as a whole better off. Before attempting to enforce the norm, give the person who violated it the opportunity to walk back their comments etc. with minimal loss of face (*especially* if it is a relatively new norm they may be unaware of or skeptical of).
* Explicitly justify your proposed punishment, and explain why it's not excessive and it "fits the crime". Too often, a group of second speakers gets whipped into a mob. The resulting size of the mob is fairly random due to chaotic social dynamics, but there is a tendency for larger mobs to deliver larger punishments. The trouble is, in some cases, larger mobs may be even more likely to arise in relatively marginal cases where punishments should probably be milder, see the "PETA principle" in this essay: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ This means that punishments often do not fit the crime, which undermines the enforcement regime and leads to justified backlash.
* If a person apologizes, actually accept the apology instead of continuing the attack. Be very hesitant to scrutinize their apology or condemn it for being "not good enough". Apologizing is already plenty difficult as it is. We should accept apologies by default, otherwise people are liable to simply stop apologizing. And, if you see others continue to attack someone after they've apologized, tell them to stop it and accept the apology.
* Don't attack people who defend the person you are attacking. Even criminals deserve public defenders in a court of law. If I speak up in defense of a person who argued against "gender ideology", you should be able to respond to my points. You shouldn't ignore what I say and simply impugn my character. These kinds of reflexive ad hominem attacks turn everything into a struggle session and make our marketplace of ideas less functional. If you were truly justified in your attacks on the first speaker, you ought to be able to defend your choice on its merits by explaining why the norm you're trying to enforce is vital, appropriate, and applicable. You should welcome pushback, as it gives you an opportunity to explain the reasoning behind your S/I/A and persuade others to join you in your S/I/A against similar "first speakers" in the future.
Well, don't come running to me when Trump and his friends engage in shaming, insults, and abuse. These are the speech norms you advocated for. From my perspective, progressives sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
I won’t come running to you, because I won’t be surprised, because that’s how they’ve always acted, and how they will always act, and because I haven’t accepted your fatuous demand to treat them as if they’re acting in good faith.
We went from Romney to Trump in 4 years because of left-wing shaming, insults, and abuse. The GOP hasn't "always acted" this way. It used to be the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower.
I really couldn't finish your post. People absolutely did explain why this and that was racist or sexism ,homophobia etc. often in boring and tedious detail. Sadly, lack of detail or explanation wasn't the problem. Sometimes it was misinformed, sometimes it was misguided, often people didn't agree (though that had little relation to the truth of what was said).
Also, while I'm pro charitable interpretations, you can't demand people accept an apology at its face if you won't accept their accusation/on its face. Not just the sincerity of their views, but the chance that unlike you they've been through some stuff to inform that opinion. People who have traditionally been in power expect a grace they are not willing to give others. That's a problem.
And all too many in the "free speech club" expect us to be fools or debase ourselves.
I do not think a school should invitee as a speaker anyone who suggests that the students who go there are inferior to other students, especially if in the past, those students were kept from it with state power. The school has no duty to air views that attack its students.
I frankly saw no reason the KKK should have been given leave too march in that particular neighborhood. They could march. They didn't need to march there. Marching there was an act of terrorism.
I'm the daughter of an outspoken and always "out" atheist. Out in the deepest, evangelical South. I support the overall right to freedom of and from religion. Neither I more my father, who has provocative streak, would think it appropriate to go into church and launch into an atheist testament of disbelief, let alone some of his other commentary.
Freedom of speech isn't unlimited right to take control of the room everywhere and in every venue. What went on previously, is about saying who counts and who doesn't, who must tolerate insult and who gets to insult.
"People absolutely did explain why this and that was racist or sexism ,homophobia etc. often in boring and tedious detail."
No, they said "it's not my job to educate you".
"you can't demand people accept an apology at its face if you won't accept their accusation/on its face."
An accusation attempts to the status of the accuser relative to the accused. By its nature, that is an antagonistic social play. An apology is a conciliatory social play, which accepts a status loss for the person who offers the apology. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." If someone is trying to be nice, meet them halfway. That's basic manners.
"I do not think a school should invitee as a speaker anyone who suggests that the students who go there are inferior to other students, especially if in the past, those students were kept from it with state power. The school has no duty to air views that attack its students."
We can distinguish between factual claims, which may be true (or false) whether we like it or not, and insults. Progressives want us to avoid whitewashing the past, and speak plainly about the fact that Christopher Columbus was a villain. But then they try to whitewash the *present*, and prevent people from speaking about the fact that e.g. black people have lower SAT scores. It is just factually true that Christopher Columbus did some bad stuff. It's not an insult to say that. And it's just factually true that black people have lower SAT scores. Also not an insult.
Don't accuse others of whitewashing their sacred cows, and then proceed to whitewash your own. There are grim facts about reality which are true whether we like it or not. As Eugene Gendline said: "What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it." Progressives understand this principle for Columbus. It also applies to racial gaps in SAT scores.
If you disagree with a factual claim, then explain why you believe it is false instead of sputtering that people shouldn't be allowed to say that. For example, if I believe that Columbus was not a villain, I should argue for that on factual grounds. I shouldn't sputter and say: "You can't insult Columbus! He's a beloved hero!" Similarly, if you believe that a specific, factual claim about "inferiority" is false, then argue for your beliefs on factual grounds. Don't sputter or whitewash.
The "its not my job to educate" you usually came after an explanation and was by an large NOT the most common response.
I disagree with how you parse the antagonistic/apology social order and thus who gets to be believed. Contrary to belief, conflict is not uncivil. It is perfectly civil and polite to be in conflict with another. That's not woke, that comes straight from Miss Manners. Manners just want you to state it in way that doesn't cause bloodshed or less resolvable conflict. So do folks like therapists, social scientists etc. Requiring people of whom harm has been done to be silent, is in fact the first step to aggressive conflict, counter to what you say. The antagonism has actually already been done.
As to apologies being repairs, only when they are meant to be repairs. Many are meant simply to avoid consequences. There is a difference. I can know I did not intend something that way, it came out wrong, for example, but apologize because I meant no harm. That's intended to repair, even without agreement even. It's worded one way, we do it all the time on all sorts of subjects. But there is the sorry if you were offended which is meant differently. That is not meant to repair and that has been wildly more common. But neither signify that the person has turned over a new leaf and will to use an old-fashioned phrase sin no more. Yet the person who spoke up is expected to pretend all of that. Indeed, they are expected to presume that every white person isn't racist, every man isn't sexist, every straight isn't homophobic etc. etc. Never mind this is a bad strategy for their welfare, and decidedly untrue. It is not on the white person, the man, the straight, the christian etc. to offer up signals they are not these things. That is about who is a proper citizen in this society and who is not. It is about what is considered social harm and what isn't.
As for your arguing the facts, even in it, you pretended that context is never added. Nobody protests a speaker simply for saying on the macro level Black people tend to have lower SAT scores than white and Asian counterparts. They protest because someone says Blacks score lower on SAT so therefore the Blacks on this campus must have inferior scores and don't belong here, it's all DUI, never mind there are already fewer people of African descent than the national average. And they are taking spaces from white people (who have by the way lower scores from Asians but nobody seems to be troubled by the seat they take from Asians). Similarly, nobody talks about how male INFERIORITY in high school doesn't translate into acceptance rates at college where they have a higher chance of getting in than women.
Because that's the sly thing you did there, not only did you ignore the larger context of what is being objected to, you claimed something was "just a fact" but then inserted phrases that clearly convey opinion. Taking the populace indicator out of it, takes it from a, on average statement to a every one statement. Inserting the word inferiority to describe the situation, puts in the judgement and since that word is repeatedly used against them as race, the insult. Oh sure, you can claim plausible deniability but everyone knows what you are doing. Language isn't a secret.
Blacks score less than whites on SATs, one can't deny the inferiority of their scores... is a very different statement than "By group, African-Americans score less than Asian Americans and White Americans. This effects their acceptance to elite universities."
Pretending that there is no difference is just disingenuous AF. And it changes the openness one of that group has to hearing what comes next.
What is also disingenuous about your example is pretending as if there have not been, and are as we speak, full throated discussions about the intelligence and equality of Black people. And also, that those discussions have not and do not know effect their lives. But Black people are supposed to hear those discussions and say, oh well, they are just talking facts here.
>The "its not my job to educate" you usually came after an explanation and was by an large NOT the most common response.
I never saw a good explanation of why it was good to expand the definition of "racism" so much. I was never persuaded it was a good idea. Since you believe there are so many explanations of why this was a good idea, why don't you go ahead and link three of them?
>Contrary to belief, conflict is not uncivil.
If a statement like "My parents had bulls that spread less BS" counts as civility, the term has lost all meaning.
>Requiring people of whom harm has been done to be silent, is in fact the first step to aggressive conflict, counter to what you say. The antagonism has actually already been done.
Civility requires rules which are easy to evaluate and come to consensus on. Since "how much harm has been done" is a highly subjective evaluation, it can't be a foundation for civility. I can always claim that you have harmed me a terrific amount for some bogus reason--and since you have supposedly harmed me a terrific amount, I am justified in an aggressive response.
For example, Donald Trump complains that the media spreads "fake news" and acts as the "enemy of the people," using these claims of harm to justify aggressive attacks like calling for license revocations, filing multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuits against outlets like CBS and ABC, and pressuring federal agencies to investigate them.
Do you see the potential problem with allowing self-identified "victims" to write themselves a blank check to engage in antagonistic activity in response to their supposed victimization?
In our court system, you need to convince a judge that the person who supposedly did harm to you needs to be punished. The legal system knows that an individual's perception of how much harm has been done to them, and what an appropriate response would be, is not reliable.
>I can know I did not intend something that way, it came out wrong, for example, but apologize because I meant no harm.
It's rather ironic to me that you are making this distinction, given that progressive leftists would always say "it doesn't matter if you didn't intend to be racist". Are you willing to acknowledge that they were wrong on this particular point?
>Nobody protests a speaker simply for saying on the macro level Black people tend to have lower SAT scores than white and Asian counterparts.
Suppose I claim that black people have lower scores because they have fewer intelligence genes. This is a factual claim. Shouldn't it be possible to argue on factual grounds instead of cancelling the person who said it, the way Charles Murray got cancelled?
>Because that's the sly thing you did there, not only did you ignore the larger context of what is being objected to, you claimed something was "just a fact" but then inserted phrases that clearly convey opinion.
I didn't do that, you did that. You wrote a paragraph or two caricaturing my view in your head, attributing opinions to me that I don't necessarily hold.
>Oh sure, you can claim plausible deniability but everyone knows what you are doing.
>But Black people are supposed to hear those discussions and say, oh well, they are just talking facts here.
How would you feel if Italian-Americans played the victim card whenever we said that Columbus did bad things? It seems that the feelings of some groups matter more than others. This isn't equality.
Well no, it is not particularly civil to say, but then the people you are talking about did not say that did they? I did. You are making them responsible for something I said later, calling into question what you call facts. Though I think it is a little much to be all snowf-flakey about calling your lack of facts BS. It's not debating club language, obviously, but it was hardly less uncivil than constantly calling people playing the victim. Indeed, much less, since you could presumably prove what you said was true, and how can someone whose a victim, prove it.
I mean dude.
Also, what do you mean "expanding the definition of racism"? Its definition has been fairly steady for a while now. And the term structural racism (not new) which must be what you are talking about, is both observable true and useful, because it talks differentiates between people who initiate racism and those who do it because they are part of structural system, they pick it up in the air. They don't think about what they say, how it harms but do it nonetheless. It is different layers off culpability.
When my 90 year old parents (Ok late 80 at the time) asked me what critical race theory was, I explained it. Then they said, but why is that a problem? Because of course, racism is part of the structure of this country. They were old enough to know it.
And really, intent matters with levels of apology. That's why I used that example-which we use anytime we might be misunderstood. But also, we all live in this country, we are well aware of the social parameters of race until suddenly someone calls someone on it and then suddenly, amnesia.
Plus,I mean Italian Americans DO cry victim about Columbus, so that's a silly question. They get kinda insane about it. They also complain, fairly, about many of the stereotypes people have. How people associate themselves with crime etc. One doesn't have to imagine.
I take them seriously but also, since they played the Columbus card they haven't been lynched. They were never enslaved. Or segregated etc.etc.
I'm not sure why you don't understand that phrases, words etc. that have done more damage, both materially and to the dignity of a people will get more concern. There is no word commensurate to the N word. As a word it is nothing and yet it has absorbed the hate and abuse of 400 years. It is not the same as other words, even those of abuse. Why is this difficult for you to understand? Everyone understands that both those who use it and those who don't.
It isn't people's feelings mattering more but the meanings are in fact different.
You say I attribute views you don't believe, ok, but I don't do that out of nowhere. Your language is as careless and pointed as one who does. More to the point, your defense and obsession with the IQ question and Charles Murray in particular. Charles Murray was not a man of facts. He was a man who elided facts to propel his racist views. He neglected to properly define what IQ test as about and its limitations. He neglected to explain what genetic actually means. He neglected to consider how environmental factors affect it. And as someone pointed out too me once, in comparing white and black people, and environment/genetics, he considered white/blacks being equal but environment mattering, and whites being smarter but he never took as a possibility that Black people could be smarter and environment really mattering.
Murray's not a scientist. He's not about facts. He is about selling the well-trod idea that Black people are inferior.
If you don't abide by these views, then stop claiming amnesia about what's going on here. I mean Trump demanded to see Obama's SAT scores after he was president! As if in admitting him, his schools had admitted an inferior applicant.
These are not "neutral" subjects. And insisting that the people who point this out are the antagonists is not a neutral stance.
Its not complicated. You have the legal right to say anything on any subject. Conversely, you ALSO have the legal right to protest loudly against the speaker who is saying anything. What you do NOT have the legal right to do is to PREVENT that speaker from speaking regardless of how vile or distasteful the WORDS from the speaker are to you personally.
But.... and here's the thing that will not be discussed in civilized company.... Everything has 'real world consequences' and THAT is what keeps the balance of the will of the Majority. For example, a speaker MAY espouse that the Holocaust was a hoax, and that the world would be better off if Hitler had exterminated all the Jews - and I support the legal right of the speaker to say so. However, that doesn't mean the speaker is not going to get a baseball bat to the head in some dark alley. As Woody Allen famously said through the character of Isaac Davis in the film Manhattan," Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey? You know, I read this in the newspaper. We should go down there, get some guys together. You know, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them."
Just to be clear, I am not advocating violence as a remedy for correcting a social injustice that is perceived by the majority to be harmful for society at large. That being said, you may say what you like legally, but like it or not, there are always going to be 'real world consequences'.
A less violent consequence is people not wanting their school to use their school fees to have you speaker, and to express too their school that doing so would be a mistake--or if they did so, will be.
That's fine. They dont need to 'approve' and furthermore have no right to prevent protests - that is protests that are held legally. If they dont wish protests to be conducted so as they interupt a scheduled speaker, they can and should be allowed to eject protestors who are trying to drown out the words and message of the guest speaker. Protests held with the intention of drowning out or 'cancelling' a speakers message in a Private forum is contrary to the 1st amendment and probably illegal in several ways, including trespassing.
However, students can and will protest anyway. Perhaps outside the venue or anywhere other than in that private place.
That's how free speech works, or at least how it SHOULD work and there's always going to be those pesky 'real world consequences' which dont always follow the rules.
I don’t know that private/public is actually a distinction in the first amendment, unless one is talking about ones home. I think a social compromise could be the drown out caveat but protesting the speaker itself, I think is fair game with some limitations. I attended a graduation in which there was a protest. They limited the vocal part to a board member’s speech, (the one everyone was least interested in) you could hear what he was saying if you wished, but they did chant. then at the end, then they sat down. It seemed appropriate. The speaker being a board member wasn’t too ruffled, he knew what college he went to.
Drowning out things like classes etc. strikes me as different. Some of the disruptions that happened at Columbia crossed a line, but some also justt pissed off those who disagreed. (And with that issue of course, legitimate issues always get expressed through a bad lense)
“ which you quite clearly take personally”
Well, yes, Greg, I do. Aside from my children being Asian-American, many of my friends, colleagues, and fellow Americans are Asian-American. I do take personally the assertion that they’re bad for America.
Don’t you? Seeing the assertion that they’re bad for America as some anodyne opinion like “I don’t like pistachio” strikes me as odd. Leaving that aside, is there something bad, or blameworthy, about finding that opinion repugnant, and saying so?
If taking it personally is bad, I am happy to be bad.
“ What I don’t agree with is that there is any affirmative duty to refuse to allow those views to be aired in a setting like FIRE’s online faculty webinar. The only “test” you’ve listed here is that, according to your moral compass, Wax’s views are so bold that treating her free speech rights as morally neutral is “unserious.” No slippery slope there.”
There’s a little bit of misdirection there. FIRE is making a choice about the use of its own TV show. FIRE chooses who it invites and what the topics will be. FIRE is not “refusing to allow those views to be aired” on somebody else’s show. FIRE is not saying Amy Wax shouldn’t be allowed to eat at Arby’s, FIRE is inviting her to dinner at FIRE’s house.
If I invite Nick Fuentes onto my podcast to talk about how Jews are the enemies of Western Civilization, is that morally neutral? I would say no.
“ Nowhere has FIRE asserted that Prof. Wax’s views are morally neutral. What they have asserted is that her right to speak them and defend them is. That they have “platformed” her is their absolute right, just as it is everyone else’s right to refuse to read or listen to it, to attempt to vilify it, to doxx it, etc. You can decide that their choice represents a moral failing of such magnitude that you’ll never give them another dime. By all means, call out the immorality! But it makes their framework “unserious” in your view only because they’ve chosen to treat her differently than you would. Frankly, I think their framework is more rigorous than your own: it does not depend on a definition of morality.”
I didn’t suggest that FIRE did call Amy Wax’s views morally neutral. Nor did I question FIRE”s right to platform her, obviously. I suggested FIRE treats inviting Amy Wax on her show and giving her a platform to broadcast her views to a wider audience - and lending its imprimatur to her in a way that defending her rights does not - is morally neutral, and that that’s unserious.
Wax's comments were racist abuse. Court upheld Penn's decision too.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/penn-imposes-major-sanctions-controversial-law-professor-amy/story?id=113955753
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-freedom/2024/09/24/penns-amy-wax-punished-statements-wont-lose-job
https://legalnewsfeed.com/2025/08/29/court-upholds-university-of-pennsylvanias-right-to-suspend-professor-over-racist-remarks-clarifying-limits-of-academic-freedom/
The war on Free Speech is occurring because the first thing a kidnapper does is gag the victim so that they cannot sound the alarm. Give up your free speech at your peril. Once they are able to silence you, the game is over. The loss of all of your other freedoms will fall like dominos after. Anyone that advocates to censor you, or to unmask your anonymity is your adversary. Treat them like one - no matter what else they say.
But why is it so vital and necessary for the combined monolithic apparatus of government, corporations, and NGOs, to brute force censor everyone while decimating the careers and reputations of the dissenters? Here is why:
The reason the First Amendment is prime directive order 1, is because it is the most important freedom we have for the same reason it is the first target an adversary subverts, disrupts, and destroys during a crime, a war, or a takeover—preventing a target from assembling, communicating, and organizing a response to an assault grants an enormous advantage to the aggressors.
"If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent will be led, like sheep to the slaughter." —George Washington
Exactly.
I'm new to your posts, so thanks for this thought-provoking article shared by JVL on the Bulwark. I just posted this on JVL's Triad, so I thought I'd repeat it here, because I think it illustrates what you are describing. Please let me know if I am off base!
JVL, thanks for the link to Ken White's UnPopulist article. His description of "Free Speech Culture" and "The First Speaker Problem" helped me make sense of something happening locally (Chicago suburban area). A local high school group called "Club America" (the school's chapter of Turning Point USA) has scheduled a program for tomorrow through "History Rocks!" which it turns out is organized by the Department of Education in conjunction with TPUSA. The conservative school superintendent shared a letter with students, parents, and staff in which he framed the program as, "grounded in two key pillars: our legal obligations (?) as a public institution and our pedagogical mission to prepare students for a diverse world." He said it is an "opportunity to demonstrate (said school) is a place where free speech is protected and exercised with responsibility." The fact that TPUSA (who is historically tied to bigotry and white nationalism) is being presented as a legitimate viewpoint under the auspices of diversity is pretty disturbing. There has been a lot of community pushback, so it might be cancelled. Tomorrow will tell.
Is it better or worse to have these viewpoints and their author exposed? I feel it is always better to have things out in the open. Suppressing free speech does NOTHING to advance understanding. On the contrary, the suppression of free speech retards the evolution of societies.
Good question. In this case, having it done under the auspices of the Board of Education gives it some kind of "legitimacy," even though many of us know that the current BOE is totally corrupt. So, it's not just being presented as some random person's viewpoint. I guess that's my main issue.
These situations are always interesting. I see the BOE supporting the 1st amendment and in so doing appearing to 'legitimize' the TPUSA program. But are they actually 'legitimizing' that entity? I would prefer to think that they are platforming a controversial viewpoint in the spirit of upholding the 1st amendment. Period. I personally believe it is better to hear speech we dislike and loathe so we can understand where it is coming from and why. You cannot engage in opposing a viewpoint you do not agree with if you don't know what that viewpoint is!
There are many proverbs to describe this situation and perhaps one that would fit TPUSA might be, "better the devil you know". 😉
“…part of “free speech culture” is presuming that our interlocutors are speaking and acting in good faith even if they are manifestly not. We are reaping the consequences of treating bad faith as good faith and hypocrisy as sincerity.”
We are also reaping the consequence of mistaking someone saying what he thinks, however wrongheaded or in bad faith, rather than speaking truthfully, as what passes for honesty.
Sure, it may be true that as you say, "We are reaping the consequences of treating bad faith as good faith and hypocrisy as sincerity.”
However, It is irrelevant what your perception of the speaker is. Good faith, bad faith, whatever. That is not the point. Freedom of speech means you are free to speak on a subject in bad faith just as legally as speaking in good faith. It is not the prerogative of the first amendment to ascertain whether someone is speaking in 'good faith' or not. That is precisely the point of 'free speech'. The listener get's to decide if a speaker is speaking in good or bad faith regardless of whether they can distinguish the difference or not.
Ultimately it is up to the 'masses' to sift through the speaker's communications and to decide what is relevant and important to the greater society.
By speaking, objecting, throwing the traditional tomato and generally callling them out. They only have to pull their punches not their snark.
That is the 'real world consequence' manifesting in a rotten tomato 😉
I’m generally a big Ken White fan, and I agree with the bulk of this essay, but I have never cared for his “first speaker” framework; it struck me as both too cumbersome and too convenient when I first read it, and it still does. Even so, I agree with the baseline view that we need to avoid the trap of protecting anyone’s expression at the expense of someone else’s, especially when there is a clear imbalance of “speech power.” But he really lost me here:
“Or take Amy Wax, a loathsome bigot who thinks America would be better if my children—born in Asia, American citizens since we adopted them as infants—weren’t here. FIRE believes—correctly—that when Wax’s university seeks to discipline her for speech, it must obey its own rules and carefully consider the values of academic freedom and due process. FIRE also says, again correctly, that as far as it is concerned, ‘her viewpoint is beside the point.’ But then it goes further and offers her a platform to promote her views. That’s a ‘free speech culture’ ethos move.
“‘Free speech culture’ becomes bad and unserious when it starts telling us that speech is morally neutral, that we should not make value judgments against it, and that there is no moral component to promoting it. I am committed to the defense of the legal right to speak, but the defense of speech does not require us to refrain from speaking frankly about moral truths. Giving Wax a platform to be a bigot is morally distinguishable from saying she should be free to be a bigot. ‘The only immoral thing you can say is that someone else’s speech is immoral’ is not an ethos worthy of respect.”
I think you’ve overstated and villainized FIRE’s decision to “platform”—a term I despise because it tends to carry its own payload of coded messaging—Prof. Wax and her “loathsome” views (which you quite clearly take personally). In your view, Wax must be condemned and should be identified as immoral by anyone who is not the government or is bound by the First Amendment. Sorry, but the problem with that viewpoint is that it itself is just another version of the “free speech culture ethos.” In your case, you’ve decided her views are bad, and that it’s immoral to hold them. I tend to agree with you, but not entirely. What I don’t agree with is that there is any affirmative duty to refuse to allow those views to be aired in a setting like FIRE’s online faculty webinar. The only “test” you’ve listed here is that, according to your moral compass, Wax’s views are so bold that treating her free speech rights as morally neutral is “unserious.” No slippery slope there.
Nowhere has FIRE asserted that Prof. Wax’s views are morally neutral. What they have asserted is that her right to speak them and defend them is. That they have “platformed” her is their absolute right, just as it is everyone else’s right to refuse to read or listen to it, to attempt to vilify it, to doxx it, etc. You can decide that their choice represents a moral failing of such magnitude that you’ll never give them another dime. By all means, call out the immorality! But it makes their framework “unserious” in your view only because they’ve chosen to treat her differently than you would. Frankly, I think their framework is more rigorous than your own: it does not depend on a definition of morality.
If this is the reason that “young people” think the First Amendment is a bad deal, then we have taught them poorly indeed. Morality, and its relative seriousness, will change over time. Free speech should not.
I don't think anyone has an active duty to ban certain speech from their platforms, but barring groups that are legally required to allow literally everyone to speak - mostly governments - it is reasonable to draw inferences from who's allowed to speak where. FIRE's website is not a Free Speech Zone like I've seen at some government-owned property, where you have the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Sovereign Citizens, and the people ranting about alien invasions all next to each other. In that context, yes, hosting someone is completely neutral, because the "host" doesn't have the ability to reject anyone. With the power to reject people (because you disagree on the facts, or you find their claims offensive, or you're just sick of hearing about the alien invasion thing) comes the responsibility of being judged for who you choose to include and to reject.
Boy, is that confused. FIRE claims that they are morally neutral, not that Wax is. The leap from FIRE having an absolute right to platform Wax to “they’ve chosen to treat her differently” blurs categories, and intrinsically establishes relativism as the norm. Wax is just wrong. Platforming someone as bizarre as Wax is just bad manners.
I could say more but the reality is just, you dumb.
"Loathesome bigot" is an ad hominem attack -- character assassination, plain and simple.
All the rest is legalistic claptrap (designed to camouflage the primary offense) -- and don't even THINK of lecturing anyone about "bad faith"!
It's interesting how your framework denies that anyone could ever actually be a loathsome bigot, since it's apparently just an insult and not a description to you.
Glau Hansen -- Character assassination is character assassination. Debased discourse is debased discourse.
I'm sure there's also someone in this world who considers you "loathesome." FWIW, I wouldn't consider that a legitimate critique of your politics, either.
Leave that sort of crap to the likes of Donald Trump.
It is not "debased discourse" to speak of a person's character. If someone is bigot, it is perfectly material to the discourse to point that out AND if it is the kind of bigotry that rises to a particularly hateful level (as opposed to just having picked up some stereotypes around the way) saying loathsome bigot is appropriate.
Or too put it another way, there are some opinions/beliefs that are appropriately unacceptable. Would you call referring to Jeffery Epstein as a loathsome pedophile in discussing whether he should debate at a girls' school, inappropriate character assisination?
We can have debates on why racism or pedophilia is bad but outside of said debate, it is not untoward to oppose said beliefs when referring to those speakers.
Please see my exchange with Glau Hansen (within this very discussion), and -- notwithstanding one's views on "trans" identity -- tell me how legitimate (or decent) it is to characterize an Andrew Sullivan or a JK Rowling as a "loathesome bigot."
Is such descripttion merely a matter of stating the obvious -- a question of "character"?
(Meanwhile. who's actually expressing hate?)
Debased discourse is debased discourse.
So simply not fair to throw in the trans-debate, it's like throwing a 20 sided die to the question is it black or white.
I mean Andrew Sullivan and JK Rowling don't even agree with each other as I recall and frankly, JK Rowling has gotten much more hardcore in the past few years than she used to be, in some way in response to death threats. So would be hard pressed to feel I could accurately pin down her true feelings on the subject. She's pretty clear that trans people do get to live their lives and that people get to have their own thoughts about it that don't agree with hers.
On the other hand, Asian people harm America or Blacks are stupider than whites is pretty clear bigotry. This is not a "controversy". It is loathsome to say. While it is getting distressingly less taboo to perpetuate these ideas, they remain loathsome. Embracing them says something about character.
And if you really must stick with the Trans issue, I'll say I lean more to early Rowling on it--and nevertheless have definitely found room to call some on my side, (lefties no less) loathsome bigots, or words to that effect. I've also used words to that effect on the other side for a few while entering into civil conversation with others who simply had sincere beliefs I disagreed with.
But in who is the real haters? Yeah, when you use the kind of language this discussion was started on, you are definitely the hater....
...though this term "hate" keeps being thrown about when what we mean is respect, control and exploitation. You don't need to hate someone to feel falsely superior to them. You don't have to hate them to use them. And you can be manipulated by others to feel a disgust without a single hateful thought in your mind previously.
Tautologies are tautologies.
Not hard to find someone who considers me loathsome. I'm trans. I guess that just means I've gotten a better sense of when it's being used as a slur and when it's being used as a descriptor.
No, you merely have a (completely understandable) sense of when it's your own ox that's being gored.
So? They believe it 100%. I know it's fake. They aren't going to stop believing it because someone argues it might not be true. So I have no idea why you think that line of argument is going to work anywhere else.
Yeah I think it was intended to be an adhominem attack dude lol. Thanks for highlighting the point about the stylised rituals of debate though.
Rights like free speech come with responsibilities, and I think these need to be emphasized a little bit more when we teach about constitutional and human rights. Rights don’t (or at least shouldn’t) free one from consequences. I also think that with the rise of influencer culture or what have you, people are confusing the right to free speech with the “right to be platformed somewhere,” which isn’t a right. If speech goes against community standards/guidelines, it doesn’t have a right to be there.
This entire piece can be boiled down to "liberals have (or used to have until five minutes ago) massive cultural power and leverage over private institutions that can wield censorious power (universities, newspapers, social media). However, sometimes they lose elections. Therefore we need to figure out a framework that conveniently justifies any censorship from institutions we control but not institutions our enemies control."
this is great thank you
I know we are winding things down here but wanted to clarify that saying gay people seem to thrive etc. isn't about sending anyone into any queer ghetto or otherwise expounding on Queer theory (though I'd happily smash the patriarchy). I lack 'gaydar' and rarely speculate. You will never catch me using the word Queer even if I have to memorize an entire alphabet as an alternative reference (except in reference to other people using it obv). I'm 59, it was a terrible slur. But because I'm 59, it means I became an adult in the AIDS crisis. and in times that were quite different. I won't be tedious and list all the gay people I've scattered across my timeline but I couldn't draw a single personality conclusion about them, but that all too many of them couldn't treat their love life as just a normal fact. That's what I meant.
Or to put it another way. I'm epileptic, been so since I was 8. It is not a deal to me. It is normal (even if by definition my brainwaves are abnormal). That doesn't mean other people share this view. I'm not talking medical issues here. (Gay folks and epileptics usually ride the same eugenics lists.) So there's a tension between how one feels about oneself and how one has to navigate others. Dealing with others, seeking support, that's what I meant.
Also, I'm not a lefty per se, just strong in civil rights convictions. Never an anarchist, certainly not a vegan or vegetarian (My parents raised pure bred beef cattle for 30 years) and drive a car (though I try to avoid highways I can't easily pull over on, epilepsy not environmentalism). A two state solution gal because I do think Israel matters, chalk that up to my grandmother. I'm not used to people agreeing with me, to the point that if I find myself in a situation where everyone does, I start to question my own stand.
We see the world differently even as much we share. I do agree only very stupid people assume everyone from a certain group thinks the same, often people react opposite precisely because it is a popular opinion. One type of person, that's never what I mean to convey.
Thanks for the recommendations sadly I soured on Phillip Roth early, but not on Fiddler or any of the writer's stories. And Bob Dylan is always beautiful. I hope your weekend is also beautiful.
I agree that hypocritical use of free speech arguments to advance partisan interests undermines faith that anyone really believes in free speech as a universal principle. That has always been a problem b/c free speech is more beneficial strategically to those who lack power. It's enticing for right-wing activists who complained about the suppression of speech when Biden was president to use their newfound power to suppress their opponents' speech now that Trump is president. That's always been the way to a lesser or greater extent (consider Lenin's abandonment of freedom of the press after the Russian Revolution, for example).
About-faces by former free-speech warriors generate cynicism. But I think you are barking up the wrong tree when you blame "free speech culture" versus "free speech law" for hypocrisy. The ideal of a free speech culture gets at something important. Mill knew that 167 years ago when he argued in "On Liberty" that:
"Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannising are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself."
Yeah, "free speech culture" is harder to define and delimit than "free speech law", and ambiguities in the definition and application of the idea may make hypocrisy easier, but we lose too much if the very ideal is tossed out with the bathwater.
"Free speech culture" is really "free speech for the highest bidder".
I’ve always had this uneasiness in my mind about these free speech controversies and I could never put my finger on what I felt was wrong. I knew something wasn’t right about it. But I couldn’t grasp the argument. Thank you for grasping the argument.
The key question for me is whether you are operating in a discourse mode that functions well as a marketplace of ideas, where statements are judged on their merits and the best ideas rise to the top. Shunning, insults, and abuse (hence: S/I/A) work about as well for good ideas as bad ideas. They don't help us differentiate between good and bad ideas as a society.
If a person primarily advances their viewpoint via S/I/A, I take that as a sign that their ideas are weak. If their ideas were strong, they would be able to argue for those ideas on their merits and bring others around to their viewpoint. S/I/A are the last resort of someone who knows their own position poorly, and their opponent’s even less. By declaring S/I/A out-of-bounds in ordinary circumstances, we foster a civil society where the best ideas tend to win.
Here's an anecdote of how things are *supposed* to work, from my perspective, with regard to "second speakers" in e.g. a campus speaker context: https://qr.ae/pYCVXO
Furthermore, I don't even think S/I/A are particularly effective at suppressing ideas. Questions about gender ideology have only grown since these tactics have become normalized. We turned up the heat without achieving much of anything.
But, if we *must* engage in S/I/A, we'd first want a good-faith discussion to achieve consensus on what speech is sufficiently antisocial to deserve such punishment. Back in the early 2000s, for example, we did in fact have a consensus that saying the N word is bad and this behavior might in some cases get you kicked out of polite society. The problem is, "second speaker" type folks didn't give reasoned arguments for expanding this consensus. They didn’t explain why we need to kick people out of polite society more aggressively. Instead, they simply defined more and more stuff as e.g. "racism", until we got to the point where if you say anything about race which isn't on their short list of "acceptable statements about race", they declare you a racist. Little explicit justification or persuasive argument has been offered for this new, expanded punitive speech regime. It was a unilateral step taken by a few loud voices, about 8% of the population according to this survey: https://hiddentribes.us/ See also: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/02/be-nice-at-least-until-you-can-coordinate-meanness/
Here is my advice for second speakers who want to push back on e.g. arguments against "gender ideology":
* Focus primarily on explaining why the arguments are wrong. Assume good faith.
* If you must punish, before engaging in shunning/insults/abuse, first seek to establish that this is, in fact, where the line should be drawn. Before engaging in norm enforcement, explain the norm and give others the opportunity to argue against its establishment. Explain why this is a norm we should enforce consistently and impartially which will make society as a whole better off. Before attempting to enforce the norm, give the person who violated it the opportunity to walk back their comments etc. with minimal loss of face (*especially* if it is a relatively new norm they may be unaware of or skeptical of).
* Explicitly justify your proposed punishment, and explain why it's not excessive and it "fits the crime". Too often, a group of second speakers gets whipped into a mob. The resulting size of the mob is fairly random due to chaotic social dynamics, but there is a tendency for larger mobs to deliver larger punishments. The trouble is, in some cases, larger mobs may be even more likely to arise in relatively marginal cases where punishments should probably be milder, see the "PETA principle" in this essay: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ This means that punishments often do not fit the crime, which undermines the enforcement regime and leads to justified backlash.
* If a person apologizes, actually accept the apology instead of continuing the attack. Be very hesitant to scrutinize their apology or condemn it for being "not good enough". Apologizing is already plenty difficult as it is. We should accept apologies by default, otherwise people are liable to simply stop apologizing. And, if you see others continue to attack someone after they've apologized, tell them to stop it and accept the apology.
* Don't attack people who defend the person you are attacking. Even criminals deserve public defenders in a court of law. If I speak up in defense of a person who argued against "gender ideology", you should be able to respond to my points. You shouldn't ignore what I say and simply impugn my character. These kinds of reflexive ad hominem attacks turn everything into a struggle session and make our marketplace of ideas less functional. If you were truly justified in your attacks on the first speaker, you ought to be able to defend your choice on its merits by explaining why the norm you're trying to enforce is vital, appropriate, and applicable. You should welcome pushback, as it gives you an opportunity to explain the reasoning behind your S/I/A and persuade others to join you in your S/I/A against similar "first speakers" in the future.
No.
Well, don't come running to me when Trump and his friends engage in shaming, insults, and abuse. These are the speech norms you advocated for. From my perspective, progressives sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
I won’t come running to you, because I won’t be surprised, because that’s how they’ve always acted, and how they will always act, and because I haven’t accepted your fatuous demand to treat them as if they’re acting in good faith.
We went from Romney to Trump in 4 years because of left-wing shaming, insults, and abuse. The GOP hasn't "always acted" this way. It used to be the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower.
I really couldn't finish your post. People absolutely did explain why this and that was racist or sexism ,homophobia etc. often in boring and tedious detail. Sadly, lack of detail or explanation wasn't the problem. Sometimes it was misinformed, sometimes it was misguided, often people didn't agree (though that had little relation to the truth of what was said).
Also, while I'm pro charitable interpretations, you can't demand people accept an apology at its face if you won't accept their accusation/on its face. Not just the sincerity of their views, but the chance that unlike you they've been through some stuff to inform that opinion. People who have traditionally been in power expect a grace they are not willing to give others. That's a problem.
And all too many in the "free speech club" expect us to be fools or debase ourselves.
I do not think a school should invitee as a speaker anyone who suggests that the students who go there are inferior to other students, especially if in the past, those students were kept from it with state power. The school has no duty to air views that attack its students.
I frankly saw no reason the KKK should have been given leave too march in that particular neighborhood. They could march. They didn't need to march there. Marching there was an act of terrorism.
I'm the daughter of an outspoken and always "out" atheist. Out in the deepest, evangelical South. I support the overall right to freedom of and from religion. Neither I more my father, who has provocative streak, would think it appropriate to go into church and launch into an atheist testament of disbelief, let alone some of his other commentary.
Freedom of speech isn't unlimited right to take control of the room everywhere and in every venue. What went on previously, is about saying who counts and who doesn't, who must tolerate insult and who gets to insult.
"People absolutely did explain why this and that was racist or sexism ,homophobia etc. often in boring and tedious detail."
No, they said "it's not my job to educate you".
"you can't demand people accept an apology at its face if you won't accept their accusation/on its face."
An accusation attempts to the status of the accuser relative to the accused. By its nature, that is an antagonistic social play. An apology is a conciliatory social play, which accepts a status loss for the person who offers the apology. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." If someone is trying to be nice, meet them halfway. That's basic manners.
"I do not think a school should invitee as a speaker anyone who suggests that the students who go there are inferior to other students, especially if in the past, those students were kept from it with state power. The school has no duty to air views that attack its students."
We can distinguish between factual claims, which may be true (or false) whether we like it or not, and insults. Progressives want us to avoid whitewashing the past, and speak plainly about the fact that Christopher Columbus was a villain. But then they try to whitewash the *present*, and prevent people from speaking about the fact that e.g. black people have lower SAT scores. It is just factually true that Christopher Columbus did some bad stuff. It's not an insult to say that. And it's just factually true that black people have lower SAT scores. Also not an insult.
Don't accuse others of whitewashing their sacred cows, and then proceed to whitewash your own. There are grim facts about reality which are true whether we like it or not. As Eugene Gendline said: "What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it." Progressives understand this principle for Columbus. It also applies to racial gaps in SAT scores.
If you disagree with a factual claim, then explain why you believe it is false instead of sputtering that people shouldn't be allowed to say that. For example, if I believe that Columbus was not a villain, I should argue for that on factual grounds. I shouldn't sputter and say: "You can't insult Columbus! He's a beloved hero!" Similarly, if you believe that a specific, factual claim about "inferiority" is false, then argue for your beliefs on factual grounds. Don't sputter or whitewash.
The "its not my job to educate" you usually came after an explanation and was by an large NOT the most common response.
I disagree with how you parse the antagonistic/apology social order and thus who gets to be believed. Contrary to belief, conflict is not uncivil. It is perfectly civil and polite to be in conflict with another. That's not woke, that comes straight from Miss Manners. Manners just want you to state it in way that doesn't cause bloodshed or less resolvable conflict. So do folks like therapists, social scientists etc. Requiring people of whom harm has been done to be silent, is in fact the first step to aggressive conflict, counter to what you say. The antagonism has actually already been done.
As to apologies being repairs, only when they are meant to be repairs. Many are meant simply to avoid consequences. There is a difference. I can know I did not intend something that way, it came out wrong, for example, but apologize because I meant no harm. That's intended to repair, even without agreement even. It's worded one way, we do it all the time on all sorts of subjects. But there is the sorry if you were offended which is meant differently. That is not meant to repair and that has been wildly more common. But neither signify that the person has turned over a new leaf and will to use an old-fashioned phrase sin no more. Yet the person who spoke up is expected to pretend all of that. Indeed, they are expected to presume that every white person isn't racist, every man isn't sexist, every straight isn't homophobic etc. etc. Never mind this is a bad strategy for their welfare, and decidedly untrue. It is not on the white person, the man, the straight, the christian etc. to offer up signals they are not these things. That is about who is a proper citizen in this society and who is not. It is about what is considered social harm and what isn't.
As for your arguing the facts, even in it, you pretended that context is never added. Nobody protests a speaker simply for saying on the macro level Black people tend to have lower SAT scores than white and Asian counterparts. They protest because someone says Blacks score lower on SAT so therefore the Blacks on this campus must have inferior scores and don't belong here, it's all DUI, never mind there are already fewer people of African descent than the national average. And they are taking spaces from white people (who have by the way lower scores from Asians but nobody seems to be troubled by the seat they take from Asians). Similarly, nobody talks about how male INFERIORITY in high school doesn't translate into acceptance rates at college where they have a higher chance of getting in than women.
Because that's the sly thing you did there, not only did you ignore the larger context of what is being objected to, you claimed something was "just a fact" but then inserted phrases that clearly convey opinion. Taking the populace indicator out of it, takes it from a, on average statement to a every one statement. Inserting the word inferiority to describe the situation, puts in the judgement and since that word is repeatedly used against them as race, the insult. Oh sure, you can claim plausible deniability but everyone knows what you are doing. Language isn't a secret.
Blacks score less than whites on SATs, one can't deny the inferiority of their scores... is a very different statement than "By group, African-Americans score less than Asian Americans and White Americans. This effects their acceptance to elite universities."
Pretending that there is no difference is just disingenuous AF. And it changes the openness one of that group has to hearing what comes next.
What is also disingenuous about your example is pretending as if there have not been, and are as we speak, full throated discussions about the intelligence and equality of Black people. And also, that those discussions have not and do not know effect their lives. But Black people are supposed to hear those discussions and say, oh well, they are just talking facts here.
Dude. My parents had bulls that spread less BS.
>The "its not my job to educate" you usually came after an explanation and was by an large NOT the most common response.
I never saw a good explanation of why it was good to expand the definition of "racism" so much. I was never persuaded it was a good idea. Since you believe there are so many explanations of why this was a good idea, why don't you go ahead and link three of them?
>Contrary to belief, conflict is not uncivil.
If a statement like "My parents had bulls that spread less BS" counts as civility, the term has lost all meaning.
>Requiring people of whom harm has been done to be silent, is in fact the first step to aggressive conflict, counter to what you say. The antagonism has actually already been done.
Civility requires rules which are easy to evaluate and come to consensus on. Since "how much harm has been done" is a highly subjective evaluation, it can't be a foundation for civility. I can always claim that you have harmed me a terrific amount for some bogus reason--and since you have supposedly harmed me a terrific amount, I am justified in an aggressive response.
For example, Donald Trump complains that the media spreads "fake news" and acts as the "enemy of the people," using these claims of harm to justify aggressive attacks like calling for license revocations, filing multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuits against outlets like CBS and ABC, and pressuring federal agencies to investigate them.
Do you see the potential problem with allowing self-identified "victims" to write themselves a blank check to engage in antagonistic activity in response to their supposed victimization?
In our court system, you need to convince a judge that the person who supposedly did harm to you needs to be punished. The legal system knows that an individual's perception of how much harm has been done to them, and what an appropriate response would be, is not reliable.
>I can know I did not intend something that way, it came out wrong, for example, but apologize because I meant no harm.
It's rather ironic to me that you are making this distinction, given that progressive leftists would always say "it doesn't matter if you didn't intend to be racist". Are you willing to acknowledge that they were wrong on this particular point?
>Nobody protests a speaker simply for saying on the macro level Black people tend to have lower SAT scores than white and Asian counterparts.
Suppose I claim that black people have lower scores because they have fewer intelligence genes. This is a factual claim. Shouldn't it be possible to argue on factual grounds instead of cancelling the person who said it, the way Charles Murray got cancelled?
>Because that's the sly thing you did there, not only did you ignore the larger context of what is being objected to, you claimed something was "just a fact" but then inserted phrases that clearly convey opinion.
I didn't do that, you did that. You wrote a paragraph or two caricaturing my view in your head, attributing opinions to me that I don't necessarily hold.
>Oh sure, you can claim plausible deniability but everyone knows what you are doing.
See https://cogbtherapy.com/cbt-blog/common-cognitive-distortions-mind-reading
>But Black people are supposed to hear those discussions and say, oh well, they are just talking facts here.
How would you feel if Italian-Americans played the victim card whenever we said that Columbus did bad things? It seems that the feelings of some groups matter more than others. This isn't equality.
Well no, it is not particularly civil to say, but then the people you are talking about did not say that did they? I did. You are making them responsible for something I said later, calling into question what you call facts. Though I think it is a little much to be all snowf-flakey about calling your lack of facts BS. It's not debating club language, obviously, but it was hardly less uncivil than constantly calling people playing the victim. Indeed, much less, since you could presumably prove what you said was true, and how can someone whose a victim, prove it.
I mean dude.
Also, what do you mean "expanding the definition of racism"? Its definition has been fairly steady for a while now. And the term structural racism (not new) which must be what you are talking about, is both observable true and useful, because it talks differentiates between people who initiate racism and those who do it because they are part of structural system, they pick it up in the air. They don't think about what they say, how it harms but do it nonetheless. It is different layers off culpability.
When my 90 year old parents (Ok late 80 at the time) asked me what critical race theory was, I explained it. Then they said, but why is that a problem? Because of course, racism is part of the structure of this country. They were old enough to know it.
And really, intent matters with levels of apology. That's why I used that example-which we use anytime we might be misunderstood. But also, we all live in this country, we are well aware of the social parameters of race until suddenly someone calls someone on it and then suddenly, amnesia.
Plus,I mean Italian Americans DO cry victim about Columbus, so that's a silly question. They get kinda insane about it. They also complain, fairly, about many of the stereotypes people have. How people associate themselves with crime etc. One doesn't have to imagine.
I take them seriously but also, since they played the Columbus card they haven't been lynched. They were never enslaved. Or segregated etc.etc.
I'm not sure why you don't understand that phrases, words etc. that have done more damage, both materially and to the dignity of a people will get more concern. There is no word commensurate to the N word. As a word it is nothing and yet it has absorbed the hate and abuse of 400 years. It is not the same as other words, even those of abuse. Why is this difficult for you to understand? Everyone understands that both those who use it and those who don't.
It isn't people's feelings mattering more but the meanings are in fact different.
You say I attribute views you don't believe, ok, but I don't do that out of nowhere. Your language is as careless and pointed as one who does. More to the point, your defense and obsession with the IQ question and Charles Murray in particular. Charles Murray was not a man of facts. He was a man who elided facts to propel his racist views. He neglected to properly define what IQ test as about and its limitations. He neglected to explain what genetic actually means. He neglected to consider how environmental factors affect it. And as someone pointed out too me once, in comparing white and black people, and environment/genetics, he considered white/blacks being equal but environment mattering, and whites being smarter but he never took as a possibility that Black people could be smarter and environment really mattering.
Murray's not a scientist. He's not about facts. He is about selling the well-trod idea that Black people are inferior.
If you don't abide by these views, then stop claiming amnesia about what's going on here. I mean Trump demanded to see Obama's SAT scores after he was president! As if in admitting him, his schools had admitted an inferior applicant.
These are not "neutral" subjects. And insisting that the people who point this out are the antagonists is not a neutral stance.
Talking about the marketplace of ideas is another terrible argument that discredits free speech more than it helps.
Why's that?
Its not complicated. You have the legal right to say anything on any subject. Conversely, you ALSO have the legal right to protest loudly against the speaker who is saying anything. What you do NOT have the legal right to do is to PREVENT that speaker from speaking regardless of how vile or distasteful the WORDS from the speaker are to you personally.
But.... and here's the thing that will not be discussed in civilized company.... Everything has 'real world consequences' and THAT is what keeps the balance of the will of the Majority. For example, a speaker MAY espouse that the Holocaust was a hoax, and that the world would be better off if Hitler had exterminated all the Jews - and I support the legal right of the speaker to say so. However, that doesn't mean the speaker is not going to get a baseball bat to the head in some dark alley. As Woody Allen famously said through the character of Isaac Davis in the film Manhattan," Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey? You know, I read this in the newspaper. We should go down there, get some guys together. You know, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them."
Just to be clear, I am not advocating violence as a remedy for correcting a social injustice that is perceived by the majority to be harmful for society at large. That being said, you may say what you like legally, but like it or not, there are always going to be 'real world consequences'.
A less violent consequence is people not wanting their school to use their school fees to have you speaker, and to express too their school that doing so would be a mistake--or if they did so, will be.
Yes for sure. And that is the right of any private institution or any other private entity.
But the folks tagged here as the free speech club, didn't approve of students objecting to speakers.
That's fine. They dont need to 'approve' and furthermore have no right to prevent protests - that is protests that are held legally. If they dont wish protests to be conducted so as they interupt a scheduled speaker, they can and should be allowed to eject protestors who are trying to drown out the words and message of the guest speaker. Protests held with the intention of drowning out or 'cancelling' a speakers message in a Private forum is contrary to the 1st amendment and probably illegal in several ways, including trespassing.
However, students can and will protest anyway. Perhaps outside the venue or anywhere other than in that private place.
That's how free speech works, or at least how it SHOULD work and there's always going to be those pesky 'real world consequences' which dont always follow the rules.
I don’t know that private/public is actually a distinction in the first amendment, unless one is talking about ones home. I think a social compromise could be the drown out caveat but protesting the speaker itself, I think is fair game with some limitations. I attended a graduation in which there was a protest. They limited the vocal part to a board member’s speech, (the one everyone was least interested in) you could hear what he was saying if you wished, but they did chant. then at the end, then they sat down. It seemed appropriate. The speaker being a board member wasn’t too ruffled, he knew what college he went to.
Drowning out things like classes etc. strikes me as different. Some of the disruptions that happened at Columbia crossed a line, but some also justt pissed off those who disagreed. (And with that issue of course, legitimate issues always get expressed through a bad lense)
"We should go down there, get some guys together. You know, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them."
On that score, I've always had a good bit of admiration (however grudging) for Meyer Lansky. ;-)