How do we resolve this paradox in free speech?
Opposition to my views on de-platforming racists has been made clear, but as those threads were rarely specifically on topic I thought I'd gather some views on this directly.
Among others, the main opposition to the de-platforming of racists had been that doing so might perversely make their ideas more attractive and that rational debate is the best way to show them to be false.
What I'm not sure about is how supporters of this approach resolve the paradox it creates with regards to the nature of the population and the way they receive these ideas.
In order that de-platforming makes ideas more attractive we must presume that people are motivated to agree with ideas, not on the grounds of the rationality of the argument, but on the grounds of how well it fits into some preferred narrative.
Contrastingly, in order for rational debate to be the best way to dismiss these ideas we must presume that people are motivated to agree/disagree with ideas on the strength of the rationality of the argument.
I'm not sure I can see a way in which these two approaches can be reconciled. Either people generally agree/disagree with a position on the strength of the argument or they do so on the basis of it fitting some narrative they hold dear.
If the former, then de-platforming is irrelevant. People will hear the popular arguments against racism from the worldwide media, they might run into an argument in favour on some dark Web site before it gets shut down, and they will make a rational choice, unaffected by the fact that the racists has been expelled from public debate.
If the latter, then rationally debating with the racist is pointless and the only issue is how best to limit the effect their views have on the irrational. Here I think legitimising them by including them in the discourse is as likely an outcome as bolstering them with the kudos of being banned.
I know there are a lot of other good arguments in favour of free speech, but I just wanted to focus on this issue for now.
Among others, the main opposition to the de-platforming of racists had been that doing so might perversely make their ideas more attractive and that rational debate is the best way to show them to be false.
What I'm not sure about is how supporters of this approach resolve the paradox it creates with regards to the nature of the population and the way they receive these ideas.
In order that de-platforming makes ideas more attractive we must presume that people are motivated to agree with ideas, not on the grounds of the rationality of the argument, but on the grounds of how well it fits into some preferred narrative.
Contrastingly, in order for rational debate to be the best way to dismiss these ideas we must presume that people are motivated to agree/disagree with ideas on the strength of the rationality of the argument.
I'm not sure I can see a way in which these two approaches can be reconciled. Either people generally agree/disagree with a position on the strength of the argument or they do so on the basis of it fitting some narrative they hold dear.
If the former, then de-platforming is irrelevant. People will hear the popular arguments against racism from the worldwide media, they might run into an argument in favour on some dark Web site before it gets shut down, and they will make a rational choice, unaffected by the fact that the racists has been expelled from public debate.
If the latter, then rationally debating with the racist is pointless and the only issue is how best to limit the effect their views have on the irrational. Here I think legitimising them by including them in the discourse is as likely an outcome as bolstering them with the kudos of being banned.
I know there are a lot of other good arguments in favour of free speech, but I just wanted to focus on this issue for now.
Comments (71)
tl;dr deplatforming can make bad people feel bad, and that's good because they may become less bad. Or drive them deeper. But generally the former.
I am not in favour of mobs of students blocking entry to lecture halls that a university has, however unwisely, decided to hire out to a speaker that is deemed racist, or their trying to prevent the speaker from being heard. This is for tactical, not moral reasons. Images of aggressive students shouting somebody down or blocking people from peacefully attending a lecture are high-octane fuel to the populist narrative of the Trumps and Milo Yiannopoulos's of this world, and do enormous damage to progressive causes.
As is evident from my post, I agree entirely. I think it is a right for any community to express what kind of views and language they are willing to tolerate within their community and ostracise those that do not meet that standard.
If a meeting of physicists trying to decide on which particular theory of quantum physics was best was attended by a couple of astrologers, their views would not be listened to, they would be 'de-platformed' in the debate, and quite rightly too as they clearly have nothing to bring to it.
In a discussion about the policies of a liberal democracy, racists have nothing to bring to it, suggesting they do is to suggest that their way is a legitimate option we need to consider.
But I'm interested to hear from people who defend the rights of racists to speak, to try and understand how they reconcile the apparent paradox, are we presuming people decide mostly on rationality or social influence, and if the latter, how are we deciding what kind of influence de-platforming will have?
It's interesting that you think this. I tend to agree about the ability of such images to be used by the alt-right, but I'm not quite so convinced that there's an argument for them actually helping their cause more than the actions of the students would have hindered it.
Consider firstly the effect such images would have on a theoretically equivocal voter. What views would they already have to hold in order that such images would actually persuade them one way or the other? No Liberal defender of free-speech is going to vote for Trump just out of spite, so it wouldn't be enough that they dislike the repression of free speech, such a person would remain politically as they were, but just be more annoyed. So we're concerned about those who have some sympathy with racists views but perhaps have held back until now. What I don't get then, is what kind of weird reverse psychology do we imagine would cause them, on seeing how violently a group of students do not want a racist to speak, to think "well I wasn't so sure about racism before, but I am now". The only thing I can think of is that they really hate students, and tend to think that whatever students hate, they must like. I accept this is possible, but I really can't see it as being a more likely explanation than that they were going to think/vote that way anyway and if it hadn't have been this image/excuse, it would just have been another.
In either case, we also have to ask how allowing the racist to speak (persuading the angry students to let him past) is going to somehow pacify this equivocal voter, how would it make them actually think that their latent racism is somehow less acceptable and they'd better not vote for the racists after all. I'm just not sure how this mechanism is supposed to work.
I think advocates of this position should lay out some specific guidelines for determining what types of speech would be banned. Would certain groups be exempt from the constraints that will clearly be imposed on the likes of Nazis and KKK members? This sense of a double-standard IMO does more to harm the cause of de-platforming than the ostensible added attractiveness of ideas once they've been shut out of public discourse.
Another concern I'd have surrounding this topic--based on similar discussions with people who'd like to curtail free speech on the grounds of racism--is that there seems to be a strong tendency among many to extend the notion of racist speech out to include non-overtly racist groups, such as traditional, small government conservatives.
I'm not a big fan of that particular small government conservative position (nor do I want a massive administrative state), but the idea that holding certain political and economic policy preferences can be seen as implicit forms of racism, on par with (or even more sinister than) explicit racist statements, is extremely disconcerting. Sensing a possible slippery slope here may not be as far-fetched as it sounds.
Concerning the paradox you wanted to focus on, I may be way off here but it seems like you're separating the rational and emotional/non-rational (social influence?) sides of our being in a way that doesn't seem to reflect how people typically form beliefs. I can't think of too many people who are sincerely willing to follow the argument wherever it leads regardless of how the results may fit into their larger sense of identity and overall worldview.
Look at all the thoughtful, intelligent, reasonable people here at TPF and ask yourself how many times you've seen one of them thanking another for pointing out a flaw in their position, for helping them arrive a bit closer to truth, or even acknowledging that they've lost an argument. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's never happened.
Some people are clearly more logically-minded and rational while others may be more intuitive or emotional, I'd grant that, but I don't think there's a sharp dichotomy, and that being the case the either/or scenario you laid out which results in a paradox seems to rest on a questionable assumption.
I'm probably just misunderstanding your position. If so my apologies.
My reason is that it has no effect. People hold beliefs and give answers that are socially acceptable within the group they wish to belong to and speech acts reinforce their bonds with each other. The reason the right has such a solid hardcore base is because they are very clear who's in and who's out. Mushy leftists who want everyone aboard don't have a core story around which people can rally, which is why the left is fragmented and less effective both socially and politically (or downright sabotaged by the democratic party itself).
What's needed is a stronger leftist narrative that enables people to categorise groups of people as in or out, including a broader narrative of socially acceptable responses. So rich vs. poor, people vs. corporations, workers vs. capitalist etc. Meanwhile, you start to demonize right wing bullshit.
The lie of trickle-down economics.
The right takes away our choices.
Nozick is evil.
Rand is a moron.
Peterson is gay.
Capitalism only makes us poorer while the rich get richer.
etc. etc.
A simple message repeated ad nauseum.
If you get enough people in your camp, others will want to join and that's how you'll marginalise the alt-right, neo-nazis and racists by making them socially unacceptable.
We're going backwards...
This is a problem with democracy in general, the idea that people might rationally decide who ought to rule them. The real reasons for why individuals choose what they do, are not clear. Plato compared the voting public to children. One cook offers them a healthy meal, the other offers them candy, and they choose the latter. People do not decide "mostly on rationality". Nor do they decide mostly on "social influence". A decision is a confluence of many particulars, from within, and from outside..
This way we wouldn't be hypocrites banning free speech. Words assembled in an incoherent form, or contradicts other statements, isn't speech at all. It's simply noise. That is what we would be banning - noise from the actual rational debates that are needed.
Do you think that comes first, or do you think we actually need to decide what method we're going to use before applying it. By that I mean, if we were to exclude racists from the debate, why would we be doing so? Once we've answered that question it would become a matter of arguable (but ultimately resolvable?) fact as to whether a particular point of view fits this criteria or not. I don't know if I've just missed it, but I don't feel like we've actually decided, as a society, what it is about racist views that makes us feel able to flatly deny them. Is it the fact that they're unfair (no-one chooses who they're born to), or the fact that they're wrong (you race does not determine your character in any way), or that fact that they're harmful (potentially)? The problem is I can think of lots of commonly held ideas that could fall into any of these categories (though perhaps not all three).
Quoting Erik
I don't see this as being a problem personally. Racism is quite clearly defined as being treating someone differently because of their birth parents. If people wish to have a net migration target, for example, there's clearly no racism involved there, but if people want to have an immigration target (regardless of emigration) from particular countries, I don't see how that's anything but racist, it's clearly saying that the potential immigrants are somehow of a lower value than the native population, or some other population, purely on the basis of where they were born.
You both seem to be making the same point, that people are neither entirely rational nor entirely socially led. This is where I think the importance of practical ethics comes in. I'm not saying that we could ever decide which is the way people act, nor even that there is one way, but we cannot act in such a way as to presume both, even if both are the case.
We must either de-platform racists (presuming most people are socially led and we need to set a clear example), or we debate with them (presuming most people are rational and will see how silly their arguments really are). I'm not sure I see how the insight that people are really a mixture of both actually helps us make the decision.
Absolutely, and there's a considerable amount of good psychological evidence to support this view (as no doubt you already know).
But does it not then follow that obvious displays of what particular social groups find acceptable are important in maintaining their integrity. So if we're going to engage in any sort of social engineering then encouraging the displays of those social groups whose views are most amenable to civilised society over displays by those groups who are not is something we should be supporting?
Yes. From the legal standpoint It gets somewhat more complicated here in God's favorite country when those owners accept government funds, for example, in which case the First Amendment may be implicated.
"De-platforming" forsooth. Is it too difficult to say "Prohibit certain kinds of speech" or "Prohibit certain people from speaking"?
No we don't. If the ideas are only de-platformed and not rationally argued against, they become more attractive from the rational point of view.
This is a good place to start. Is that the definition we're using?
Could you please elaborate on what that means? Does it just mean that the amendment protects a person from prosecution, or administrative sanction, for views expressed in a lecture, tutorial or more widely within public university grounds?
Or - a much stronger interpretation - that a public university is legally obliged not to refuse to hire out its facilities to someone on the grounds of the views they express, unless the expression of those views would actually break a law?
I would be surprised if the latter were the case but, being an alien, I never cease to be surprised by things I learn about God's favourite country.
I don't understand. How could an idea become rationally more attractive simply because it has been de-platformed. What rational step means that an idea is more likely to be right because lots of people don't want it talked about?
Unless anyone's got a better one.
All they need have is a dislike of bullying, which is a very common dislike. Regardless of whether such protests actually are bullying, they look like bullying when shown on the TV news, and that's enough to turn many uncommitted voters against whatever it is that the protesters represent.
Most people do not make decisions in the way that Chidi Anagonye does.
Quoting Pseudonym
That is only relevant if there is no debate about whether the person giving the lecture is a racist, and the person accepts the label themselves. In the real world, that is almost never the case. A more likely interpretation would be
'Those students are screaming that XYZ is a racist and jostling people that are trying to attend the lecture. Those students look like horrible, aggressive bulllies, so I doubt they are believable. So it seems likely that their accusation that XYZ is a racist is false. So not only are they bullying him, but they are falsely accusing him of a horrible thing, which is racism. My how horrible they are! Poor, brave XYZ for standing up to them. I will vote for him'
It's de-platformed -> the people opposing it talk less about it -> the people opposing it argue less against it -> less rational and logical arguments are presented against it -> it's easier to rationally come to the conclusion that the idea is correct.
What that means is public universities and colleges are prohibited from "abridging freedom of speech" Doing so is a violation of the Constitution (and various state constitutions as well). But, although fans of the Second Amendment seem sometimes to think otherwise, the legal rights and prohibitions created by the Constitution are subject to exceptions; they're not absolute. Speech can be abridged in certain circumstances.
For example, the protection of speech under the First Amendment is subject to “regulations of the time, place, and manner of expression which are content-neutral, are narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and leave open ample alternative channels of communication.” How do you like that? In addition, speech is subject to the law of defamation. We can't defame each other freely, alas. We can use the courts to sue for defamation. Worse yet, we can be penalized if we threaten one another in some cases, incite riots, that sort of thing. Judges and lawyers and legislators have labored over the years, whittling away at the First Amendment and others.
So there may be circumstances where a public university or college can abridge free speech, but they must be careful to avoid legal action.
Mill would have strongly disagreed with you. In his day, the equivalent was obscenity or atheism as far as what was deemed unacceptable by society at large. That's the danger. Most of us will agree that racism is wrong, but if we give society the power to deny that speech, then what speech will be denied tomorrow?
It's all good when we agree with the speech being denied, but someone else gets into power or society changes their mind and we might no longer agree. It could be our speech that's being prohibited. That's why the US is so hardcore on free speech, and the ACLU will bend over backwards to defend the most outrageous speech.
Mill thought it was important for us always to have to defend our ideas against all-comers. It's important for society's growth to have to hash out dissenting ideas.
It's better to think of consequences in terms of predictable social psychology and political maneuvering than some imagined consequences that arise from asserting an abstract stamp of disapproval that de-platforming supposedly brings.
So, we shouldn't be judging the speaker here. People come in all shapes and sizes. What we should be doing is assessing the audience. Is the audience rational enough to distinguish good from bad arguments.
Censorship assumes that the audience is not up to the task of making that distinction and likely to fall prey to bad arguments and mind manipulation.
Speaking of this community of philosophers I think you all are reasonable people and unlikely to be swayed by irrational people.
So, I say no to censorship because I think we can quite easily spot a bad apple when we see one.
I never said, nor implied, it would make conservatives go away. I don't believe I even invoked 'conservatives' at all. What I did say is that deplatforming makes it shameful and isolating to hold certain points of view, and that this can be desirable. I have no particular attachment to the sanctity of free speech, insofar as speech, as with all spheres of life, is a potential field of politics, and contrary to liberals like Mill - or indeed, liberals in general - who would aim to pretend that politics doesn't exist - I have no problem both embracing and affirming the political nature of speech. If this means impinging on abstract principles for the sake of it, so much the worse for those principles.
Also I'm not a liberal and don't think like them, but they happen to be right once in a while, even if for different reasons. It's really irrelevant to the point I was making about actual physical consequences of what's happening in politics. That's caring about real ongoing politics and power, not some imagined set of circumstances. I don't really care what political label you tack onto it, I care about winning over people to my perspective, and the shaming tactics regularly used by liberal TV Networks and other bubbles hasn't made a dent in actually making the portion of the public worth considering give a crap.
This is a completely irrational reason to vote for someone, or to agree with their views, as is voting for or agreeing with, someone simply because the accusations against them are carried violently. We know people do not behave this way. The Nazis were extremely violent right from the beginning, this didn't bolster support for their opposition in any meaningful way (I'm not saying it didn't happen, but the effect was insignificant). On the other side of the political divide, the civil rights movement in the 60s and the gay rights movement in the 70s and 80s quite often became violent, again the violence probably didn't help their cause, but in the end it made little difference to the groundswell of opinion. I'm struggling to find an example from history which demonstrates the effect you're claiming, perhaps you could provide the examples you're working from?
Notwithstanding the above, I still can't quite see how your "Poor, brave XYZ for standing up to them. I will vote for him" influenced voter would be persuaded otherwise by the alternative. Lets say the students behave and let the person speak, some academic responds in the media rebutting his racist claims (though what would have prevented him from doing so anyway I don't know but we'll skip over that for now). What difference would that have made to your voter? We've already established that they are completely irrational, so the actual argument will be irrelevant to them. If they're the sort of person to be persuaded by the 'victimisation' of the speaker, then what's going to happen when the racists speaks, tells everyone how badly treated white minorities are in some ghettos, how positive discrimination is robbing white people of jobs, how white girls can't even walk the street in areas dominated by immigrants?
This is the point that I don't think is being addressed. Racists lie, and people are persuaded by the lies they want to hear. Once they're out in the public discourse, it doesn't matter how much they're logically and calmly rebutted, people simply don't care about logical calm rebuttal. People are not so impressed by dignified protest that they're going to turn away from the persuasive and powerful rhetoric that's saying exactly what they want to hear just because the opposition to it are well-behaved.
Your theory is just storytelling, I can't see any evidence that it actually happens, by which I mean people who would have voted/though otherwise are persuaded to change their minds because of the suppression of racist rhetoric.
Why because it's de-platformed must people talk less about it? I think there's been quite a bit of discussion about the university protests. What is preventing anti-racists from talking about why they feel speaker x should not be allowed to speak, explaining what it is about his previously expressed views that they so strongly disagree with. Students are not de-platforming people because they 'look a bit shady'. They're de-platforming people whose opinions are already in the public sphere, we can argue against the opinions they've already expressed we don't need to give them a platform to do it again.
This is another strawman frequently brought out in these arguments, it is always presumed that the person in question has something to say that's not been said before. If that were the case, no-one would be de-platforming them. These are people who've expressed their views already, and the community where they are about to speak has decided that they do not want to allow that kind of language in their community. The 'rational debate', such as there is one, has already been had, the racists have lost, but they want to keep going anyway because they know that the rationality of their argument is irrelevant to winning people over to it.
Actually, Mill specifically said that whilst talking about the greed of the Corn dealers should be allowed, talking about the greed of the Corn Traders to an angry mob outside the house of a Corn dealer would be immoral and a government would be legitimate in banning it.
As Peter Singer has said, now that we live in an age of global communication, anyone could be addressing the 'excited assembled mob' and so this caution needs to be extended to all and every form of communication.
But there is something more going on in our society, i.e., some politicians are using the term bigot or racist to shut down the other side (this happens on both sides), so they paint their opponents as bigots or racist in order to shut down their arguments. They create a narrative about someone they don't like (justified or not) in order to shut them up, or to get others to not listen to them, or even hate them.
What I've observed, is that if you want to see racism in someone you'll find it. There are many things we say that might be interpreted as racist, yet not fully reflect a person's belief about racism, or not fully reflect how a person really acts towards others of a different race. For example, someone might say something in anger that may or may not reflect what they truly believe.
People's actions are more complicated than some might imagine. I've seen people talk in a way that's racist, and yet I've seen that same person act with kindness toward someone of a different race. Some people can struggle with immorality in their lives, and yet generally act in ways that are moral. It's more important to look at a person's actions over a long period of time than to look at a couple of isolated remarks.
I'd say laying out the basic features of racism would come first combined with giving reasons for its incompatibility with the guiding cultural and political values underlying our multiracial society. Racism is antithetical to everything our nation (should) stand for and I think something like your three basic reasons for this being so would convince most people--on rational and non-rational grounds alike--as long as the rules guiding the elimination of racist speech were applied impartially.
I don't find the idea of personal identity being essentially bound up with one's racial background to be a compelling position at all. I've actually listened to lengthy interviews with Richard Spencer a few times and found his ideas of "racial identitariansim" to be pretty silly. The idea of United States becoming a racially homogeneous nation at some point in the future seems both absurd and impractical.
I also think the main reason he draws interest in his views is because of perceived hypocrisy surrounding this topic. It seems to be acceptable for some groups to form racial identities and to attack other groups on those grounds (whites) but not acceptable for that latter group to advocate for their own collective racial identity and attack back. The standard justification for the discrepancy ("one can't be racist if one doesn't have power to adversely influence the dominant group...") is a good example of how an argument may be rational but also completely alienating on emotional or non-rational grounds.
Circling back to the topic I'd say lay out the rules, explain why they're necessary, and apply them impartially. That'd be the simple formula I'd use to justify de-platforming racist speech. Only if each of these conditions were met would I consider limiting freedom of speech, and this despite the fact that Mill's spirited defense of free speech in On Liberty has always resonated with me a great deal. It'd take a lot to get me to change my opinion on the matter but I'm open to the idea of limiting it in this case.
Getting back to the point/question you made at the very start, I guess if I had to pick I'd be in the camp which values free, open and rational debate as a means of influencing popular opinion. I'd add that the more reasonable position--especially in this particular debate--is usually the more emotionally-satisfying one. The two are mutually reinforcing IMO.
Yeah I agree with this. This is a good example of what I was getting at because disagreements over immigration policy these days are often interpreted by one side (pro-immigration) as being covers in which racists safely hide their views behind specific policies. That obviously does happen but there's no necessary connection. I know quite a few Mexican-Americans who support Trump's position on building a wall between Mexico and the United States and their reason(s) for doing so have nothing to do with hatred for other Mexicans.
Sometimes--actually oftentimes--support for Trump is seen as implicating one in racism and general bigotry. Again, that may be the case for many of his supporters but there's no necessary link between the two. It's a debatable point, especially given his own statements concerning Mexicans, Muslims, "shithole" countries, etc. but I can imagine how some people could (e.g.) find his economic policies to be preferable to alternatives.
I'd like to emphasize here that my own personal views run completely contrary to Trump's economic agenda, but I also try to be charitable enough to assume that people can have honest disagreements over important issues like this (and the related immigration one) without implicit racism or other nefarious character flaws being involved. My fear is that there are others who wouldn't be nearly so charitable in their dealings with ideological foes. By making those connections between racism and policy that I've mentioned they'd endeavor to eliminate more than just obvious forms of racist speech.
But perhaps I'm overly paranoid. Maybe what bothers me is this: it's not that I distrust the public's ability to make rational decisions if given all the facts in a fair and charitable manner--it's that politicians can't be relied upon to be moderate and fair and to encourage honest, non-manipulative debate.
I don't think you are, I share your concerns. The issue I'm raising here is that we do not respond to those concerns with a blanket support for free speech (so long as it is not breaking any law). Nothing so simple will do the job.
To me the issue is simply about the most effective way to oppose ideas which are rhetorically persuasive, but ultimately harmful in the social environment we have.
I do not find arguments that rational debate is the best way to do this at all persuasive as they massively overestimate the motivation and ability of the majority of the population to make choices rationally rather than get swept along by the rhetoric.
Nor do I find arguments which raise concerns about the Ideology of free-speech particularly persuasive as it is clear we already limit free-speech for all sorts of compelling reasons of societal well-being.
So the only arguments I do find persuasive are the ones you outline here, the 'slippery slope' problem of creating an environment where suppression of free-speech is so commonplace that all sorts of legitimate views are suppressed by groups who simply have sufficient numbers to do so.
The reason why I'm not too concerned though, are twofold.
Firstly, I really don't see it working this way round, I think we have cause and effect mixed up with this concern. I can't imagine a society, or community sufficiently numerous and united to mount a serious attempt to restrict the free-speech of a moderate speaker, but on which simple constitutional rights and social convention actually have an impact.
It is remarkable to me that people are still citing the US constitution as if that made any difference whatsoever. The genocide of the Native Americans was continued, and later black segregation initiated, under the US constitution supposedly guaranteeing Equal Protection. The 18th Amendment was abolished barely a decade after everyone realised it was ridiculous. The 5th amendment has been casually set aside in the so called 'War on Terror'... Americans routinely ignore, abolish and recreate the constitution as they see fit, so it's rules are nothing but a reflection of the society they arise from. Should a community arise that is so opposed to, say, unionisation, that it wishes to suppress the free-speech of union leaders, then I really don't see something as routinely ignored as the constitution preventing them from doing so.
Secondly, invoking the idea of a 'slippery slope' is problematic in itself as we are forced by circumstance to be somewhere on that slope, we cannot be off it, so the mere fact that it is slippery and can, if unrestrained, lead to bad consequences does not really stack up. Any position we take on that slope is going to need to be protected against being taken to a harmful extreme. I don't see any reason why that can't be done, nor any reason why we have to stand further up that slope than we'd otherwise like, just as a preventative measure.
If known racists, by a simple definition, are prevented from speaking by a particular community, that's fine, no harm done. If another community uses that as justification for suppressing the free-speech of a union leader complaining about working conditions, then we can use whatever force we'd apply in the first place to simply prevent that in the second, and we'd be entirely justified in doing so because racism is wrong, whereas asking for better working conditions is not.
Then I would go to another university, the one you've chosen is clearly rubbish. I can't think of a single professor within the entire humanities or philosophy departments at my university, nor even colleagues at any other that I know, who would consider that poverty does not play a part in the adoption of racist views. But then I take it you're American, and they consider Stephen Pinker an academic over there so maybe I'm not that surprised afterall.
:D
Who exactly is this rational 'we' that get to de-platform the less enlightened 'them'? How would we maintain the network of rational narrative filterers and ensure we don't end up in a big echo chamber of the dominant ideology?
I would have thought the same rational 'we' responsible for absolutely every single other restriction on autonomy or balancing of competing interests - the democratically elected representatives of whatever community is involved.
The less enlightened 'them' would be people who preach the different treatment of others on the basis of skin colour, gender or any other accident of birth. Any policy in fact which demonstrably increases the suffering of sentient creatures. To suggest such opinions have a place in policy discussions is akin to suggesting that astrologers have something useful to say at a physics conference.
Oh, good, you mean politicians. That's reassuring because I can't imagine them silencing oppositional political views by disingenuously painting them as racist.
Let me ask you an honest, non-rhetorical, question. Is affirmative action racist?
Are politicians a different species then? We leave all these decisions in the hands of ordinary individuals and they somehow miraculously work out fine, but ask someone who should have been chosen by those same individuals to represent them and the objectives become underhand?
I think politics is far from perfect (for a start I'd require politicians to at least be qualified in their area of expertise) but it's the best system we've got for ensuring that might doesn't always make right.
Quoting Roke
It depends on the nature of the action. If one has good reason to believe that the distribution of those wishing to join an institution is different from the population that actually make it to membership by some discriminating factor, then affirmative action is taken to rectify an error. If all one has is evidence that the distribution of some discriminating factor in an institution is different to that of the population as a whole, I don't see that would be anything short of social engineering. In the latter case, a charge of racism would depend entirely on the objective of the engineering in question.
We've never trusted politicians with the censorship of speech and I think for good reason.
Affirmative action always entails treating people differently based on their birth parents, which is the definition of racism you proposed.
In other words, "racists" do not treat certain people with dignity and respect, that is wrong, and the solution is to not treat "racists" with dignity and respect. Two wrongs make a right!
In other words, "racists" treat certain people as less than human, that is wrong, and the solution is to treat "racists" as less than human. Two wrongs make a right!
In other words, let's marginalize a particular group of people, "racists", and let's do it in the name of inclusiveness!
Let's flex our rational muscles! What could better serve the cause of rationality than to use coercion and the brute force of the state to marginalize the "irrational" and keep words from reaching their brains?
Yes, let's trust the same government that does things like force children to attend schools and be taught self-glorifying, self congratulatory myths about its character and history to even further regulate the intellectual lives of people. Yes, let's trust the same government that denies and covers up its acts of genocide and other crimes to even further regulate the intellectual lives of people. What could better serve the causes of rationality, free inquiry, etc.?
And let's base all of this championing of rationality on an ambiguous label: "racists". What could be better for the cause of freedom and liberty than to instantly dismiss a large, vaguely-defined, homogeneous group called "racists"? After all, efficiency is the greatest good in the economic thinking of the free world!
In other words, people will think / not think things and say / not say things based on emotions such as shame, not as the result of rational consideration/reflection. And we will all be free! Mind control / manipulation will be defeated! The triumph of reason!
Obviously. But then, it would be rational to be ashamed in some circumstances.
But is racism a "character flaw"? David Smail seemed to unequivocally assert that the idea of racism, sexism, etc. being features of a person's character, personality, psyche, etc. is patently absurd and that it distracts us from the true sources of our strife:
[b]"There is of course no disputing that in modern Western society whites often oppress blacks and men often oppress women. This is bound to be the case in a social context in which people are forced to compete for scarce resources and to differentiate themselves from each other in any way which will accord them greater power, however illusory that power may be (nothing, after all, could be more pathetic
than the belief that 'whiteness' confers personal superiority or that men are in some way to be valued more highly than women).
However, it is a conceptual mistake of the first magnitude to attribute the causes of such oppression to internal characteristics or traits of those involved. So long as sexism and racism are seen as personal attitudes which the individual sinner must, so to speak, identify in and root out of his or her soul, we are distracted from locating the causes of interpersonal strife in the material operation of power at more distal levels5. Furthermore, solidarity against oppressive distal power is effectively prevented from developing within the oppressed groups, who, successfully divided, are left by their rulers to squabble amongst themselves, exactly as Fanon detailed in the case of Algerians impoverished and embittered by their French colonial masters.
It is not that racist or sexist attitudes do not exist - they may indeed be features of the commentary of those who exercise or seek to exercise oppressive, possibly brutal proximal power. But that commentary is not the cause of the process that results in such proximal oppression and it is as futile to tackle the problem at that level as it is to try to cure 'neurosis' by tinkering with so-called 'cognitions' or 'unconscious motivation'.
This, I think, explains the otherwise puzzling success of 'political correctness' at a time when corporate power extended its influence over global society on an unprecedented scale. For this success was in fact no triumph of liberal thought or ethics, but rather the 'interiorizing', the turning outside-in of forms of domination which are real enough. The best-intentioned among us become absorbed in a kind of interior witch-hunt in which we try to track down non-existent demons within our 'inner worlds', while in the world outside the exploitation of the poor by the rich (correlating, of course, very much
with black and white respectively) and the morale-sapping strife between men and women rage unabated.
Once again, we are stuck with the immaterial processes of 'psychology', unable to think beyond those aspects of commentary we take to indicate, for example, 'attitudes' or 'intentions'. The history of the twentieth century should have taught us that anyone will be racist in the appropriate set of circumstances. What is important for our understanding is an analysis of those circumstances, not an orgy of righteous accusation and agonised soul-searching."[/b] -- David Smail: [i]Power, Responsibility and Freedom[/I]
However, if racism, the power of words, the social psychology and politics of how people respond to words, etc. are your concern, Smail sums up a lot of reality in just a few paragraphs.
Pay particular attention to this statement:
"However, it is a conceptual mistake of the first magnitude to attribute the causes of such oppression to internal characteristics or traits of those involved."
Cloaking one's true beliefs out of fear of being shamed is not rational.
A society in which people walk around harboring repressed thoughts and are silenced and/or say only "politically correct" things out of fear of being shamed--or worse--is not rational. It is not a free society either. It is oppressive.
And if we are going to suppress speech that has negative consequences we may as well ban all speech. Any words can be used to do bad/evil.
I don't doubt that you are.
That does not make it any less irrational, self-defeating, and morally wrong.
Fighting evil with evil has not been the strategy of any sane, rational person who has ever been brought to my attention, let alone any person thought of / remembered as doing / having done good.
Of course we trust government with the censorship of free-speech. Who is it do you think prevents hate-speech, incitement to violence, defamation, bad language in from of children, threats, verbal harassment ..?
We prevent a person's free-speech for the well-being of wider society all the time, and it's government which gets to decide what might be against the well-being of society because someone has to, and there is no better authority to do the job.
Are you opposed to government protecting society from the harms caused by the list of restrictions on free-speech above? If not then you need to put forward an argument for why your line-in-the-sand is where it is, rather than just bemoan the fact that we have to draw one at all.
Quoting Roke
Then my definition of racism is wrong. This isn't a game where we try to catch each other out with grammar, we're talking about ethics which affect people's lives.
But with regards to affirmative action itself, if for 200 years, some sub-section of the population have been forced to live in a hole and we decide that everyone should live at the same height, in order to rectify that we must lift up those people currently in holes, it's pointless saying "that's discrimination, we should lift everyone up", not everyone is in a hole.
You've raised a few separate issues;
1. De-platforming racists would be marginalising them in the same way as they wish to marginalise and so we should not do it.
2. We cannot trust our government so we should not allow them to restrict freedom of speech for any reason.
3. People are racists/sexists because of resource scarcity and if we prevent them form speaking on these grounds we're somehow ignoring the resource scarcity issue.
So
1. If a person imprisons someone should we spare them prison because we should not do back to them what they did, should we show them that imprisoning people is wrong by letting them go free? If a person takes someone's possessions, should we let them keep those possessions because we wouldn't want to just take them back, we want to show them that we do not just take stuff?
Of course not. You've completely missed the main driving force of interventionist ethics which is Justice. We imprison the imprisoner because we are justified in doing so and he was not. We take possessions from the thief because we are justified in doing so and he was not. We marginalise the person trying to marginalise people because we are justified in doing so and he is not. Rhetoric which may lead to or encourage the oppression of a particular section of society who themselves are causing no harm is something which we have good reason to believe will cause an increase in suffering. We are therefore right to try and prevent that increase, unless we have equally good reason to think that doing so will cause more suffering somewhere else.
2. I am not speaking to government, I'm speaking to people, who are in a democratic country (mostly). When we say "government should...", we obviously do not mean that government should do this without the mandate of it's population. What we mean is that "people (the people to whom we are speaking) should ask their government to...". This idea that we can't trust the government is trotted out repeatedly in arguments about enforcing what is morally right, but it's a non-sequitur. We cannot trust the government because we have voted in a government which is patently untrustworthy. To say we cannot trust the government is synonymous with saying we cannot trust the population, a sentiment with which I would entirely agree. So where do we go from there? Does that automatically lead to the fact that we should not give these powers to government? Well we've just concluded that we can't trust individuals with them to any greater extent. If individuals could be persuaded by rational argument then they would have voted in a more trustworthy government wouldn't they? Government, no matter what scale, is simply a reflection of the will of the people There should be no problem with government power acting to prevent societal harm if the people who put them there voted rationally/morally. The reason why there is a huge problem with the exercise of government power is that the people who put them there did not vote rationally/morally. I don't see how removing power from government does anything to impact on that problem. People are no more free to do as they think best because they are still restricted from doing so by the same irrational population that voted in the government we can't trust with the job.
When I say that these matters 'should' be decided by government, I mean we (the individuals) 'should' vote in a government whom we trust to make these decisions on our behalf and then that government 'should' make them.
3. I don't understand what the root cause of racism/sexism has to do with preventing potentially harmful rhetoric. I expect resource scarcity has quite a lot to do with gun crime too, but we don't allow the crime to take place so that we can better focus on the poverty at the heart of the problem. We ban gun crime to protect people and then with any spare resources we focus on the poverty at the root (or at least that's what we 'should' do). I see no difference here. Rhetoric encouraging oppression will cause harm, we act to prevent that harm and then with any spare resources we focus on the root cause.
OK, so have another try at defining it. It's not so easy. There's no consensus about this. You want to deplatform racists and my concern is that we're not capable of identifying them consistently and fairly. It's not about grammar.
I entirely agree that it is difficult to define, but that doesn't mean we get to throw our hands up and say "let's not bother then". That something is difficult to get right doesn't have any unique bearing on the morality of doing it, it's still about balancing harms.
So far as a definition is concerned we might simply add that the treatment either harms the community concerned, or raises them favourably above others. Such an addition would enable certain kinds of positive discrimination, where the action raised the community concerned favourably, but only up to, not above, the level of others.
To you have concerns still about this slightly refined definition?
Isn't that the point and the goal of de-platforming? Whether it works is a different thing.
Yes, I still have major concerns. Positive discrimination, on the basis of race, is racist. If we want to help people out of a hole, we should help the people in the hole. Not the population of people who look like the people in the hole. It's not like we don't know how to identify the people actually in the hole and, to the extent the populations overlap, doing so would also have the desired affect on whatever correlated racial group.
But don't rebut that, it's beside the point. The argument I'm trying to make is an argument about arguments. Seems to me, people have a lot of difficulty being charitable to their opponents. It's too easy to profoundly misunderstand each other. I don't trust your hubris on this, that you would do more good than harm as Grand Curator of ideas. I have the same hubris and I don't trust it in myself either. These utilitarian calculations you're doing are impossible. Freedom to express earnestly held ideas and beliefs just seems foundational to the human condition to me. You need a really really good reason to suppress that and hurt feelings don't even come close. I'm a meta-ethical utilitarian and, like you, I've done the calculation. But, I emphasize, it's not that I'm correct. It's that self-righteous meddling is an indulgence that should be held in check.
No, the goal of de-platforming is to prevent rhetoric that can incite people to take up ideas that are harmful to society. Absolutely nothing prevents those doing the de-platforming from rationally and publicly explaining why the ideas of the de-platformed speaker are harmful.
I'm glad that you're focussing on the 'argument about arguments' as you put it. That's exactly what I'm talking about too. Where I differ is that I don't see this meta-level as being in any way excused from ethics.
I don't trust my hubris either (though personally I wouldn't describe it as hubris if we're not trusting it, but just to keep the term, we'll go along with it for now), it doesn't mean we don't still have a choice to make.
Quoting Roke
I don't believe they are entirely utilitarian. On an individual level, I'm a virtue ethicist. I know we got a little sidetracked into government, but I did originally say that I felt 'community leaders' should be able to prevent certain people from speaking to their community. I think this is not a matter of utilitarianism, but one of virtue. As I've said earlier in this post (I think), I would not allow that kind of talk in my house as an expression of my values, such expressions are an important part of community ethics and I see it as just as much " foundational to the human condition " as you do with expression of ideas.
In Hunter-Gather societies, despite an almost total absence of coercion to do anything at all, those who do not share food are routinely ostracised. Sharing is such a fundamental part of their community virtue, that they need to express their intolerance of any transgression. I don't see how you could make an empirical argument to say that the free expression of ideas is foundational to the human condition, but then deny the fact that the ability to express virtues through taboo behaviours and attitudes is not.
I would argue that espousing the treatment of one section of our community such as to put them at a disadvantage, or maintain a disadvantage they have been put at historically, is against good human values, and any community has a right to express those values by ostracising those who transgress them. If anything has a claim to be 'foundational' it's that.
Quoting Roke
Do you see how contradictory this is, you claim humility in the face of a calculation about the position of out hypothetical speaker (you think he's wrong but are not going to be supercilious enough to say so with enough certainty to ban him), but then you make a statement that self-righteous meddling (as you put it) should definitely be held in check. Where's the humility in that decision? You seem all of a sudden to know exactly what's right and what's wrong on this meta-issue, and I just don't think it's that clear. Free-speech seems to be being given a place in the set of human virtues above all else, and I just don't see any convincing arguments to justify its commanding position.
I personally seem to come across plenty of people who are not particularly committed either way, but speak very disparagingly when they see aggressive demonstrators on the TV news, then keep referring back to it at regular intervals from then on.
You say the above is irrational. Well, yes, most people do not vote rationally - as I said, not like Chidi Anagonye. Ask any spin doctor.
Quoting Pseudonym Then the issue would not have moved them to vote against whatever cause the students support. So they will vote based on some other (quite possibly irrational) consideration. But the bias against the progressive cause has been removed, so the expected number of votes against progressivity has reduced. That's a win for the progressive camp.
Quoting Pseudonym
The voter will probably never hear what the racist says, because they didn't go to the rally, and the rally won't make the TV news, because it was only the violent demonstrations that made it newsworthy. The demonstrators were essentially providing free publicity for the racist's cause.
Quoting Pseudonym
We differ there. I think people are impressed by dignified protest. I think of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. And Nelson Mandela only became an international hero after he had been in jail long enough, and conducted himself in such a dignified manner, that people had forgotten he was arrested for arms offences. In Northern Ireland the most notable phenomenon leading up to the Good Friday agreement was not the violence of the IRA and UDA, but the increasing size and prevalence of peace marches.
I don't think Rosa Parks would have had nearly as much of an impact if, when arrested, she had started screaming, striking out at and spitting on the police officers that led her off the bus.
But it just occurred to me that maybe you're American (apparently many people on here are). If so then the biggest platform problem you've got is that your head of state is a fascist. So he can get horrifically mean and discriminatory views on the national news simply via twitter. I think that's a much bigger problem than a few white supremacist rabble turning up to a rambling diatribe at a lonely lecture hall of some university. But I'm afraid I have no suggestions for 'de-platforming' your leader other than to work towards (1) reducing his power via a loss of his party's majorities in Congress at the mid-term elections, and (2) removing him completely in 2018.
Quoting andrewk
I think these two quotes really summarise a large part of our disagreement, and as both are essentially judgement calls, I'm not sure that I can persuade you any more than you could persuade me.
Firstly, I think people are impressed by causes, ones the support for which confer membership of a social group to which they want to belong. Non-violence is often part of that cause. I don't think there is overwhelming evidence of people like Gandhi having more success in their cause than, for example, the anti-segregation riots. I respect Gandhi's approach more, but that's because I'm a reasonable person who doesn't want anyone to suffer needlessly. That means I already agree with Gandhi's cause, his non-violence isn't something that would win me over unless I already thought that needless suffering was a bad thing, and the might of the strong oppressing the weak, was a bad thing. The ethical position must come first in order for me to find the lack of violence compelling.
This I think is at the heart of the first element of where we differ. You're seeing all political views as morally neutral, or at least seeing their potential supporters as neutral members of society, but I don't believe they are. Someone who is a potential supporter of Trump, or some other racist is not the same kind of person as someone who is a potential supporter of Gandhi, so the kinds of behaviour that will genuinely appeal to them (not the kinds of behaviour they say appeal to them) will be different. So whilst Gandhi's non-violence might have persuaded someone previously only slightly sympathetic to his cause, I don't see anything to convince me that the non-violence of antifa students is going to do anything to persuade someone previously slightly sympathetic to racists to be less so. What would the lack of one group oppressing another appeal to someone at risk of being persuaded by policies proposing exactly that?
Besides, the student's wouldn't have to protest violently if they had the right to say to their university that they did not want that speaker on campus, so focussing on the violence of the protest is missing the point. It's the right of a community to say that they do not wish to hear from people with certain opinions.
The second, unrelated issue, is that I think you're placing too much hope of some spurious presumptions like the one I quote. The voter will 'probably' never hear what the racist says. Do you think it's safe to take that chance, knowing what we know about the power of rhetoric? I certainly don't. Someone's going to hear what they say, and those people are going to feel more entitled to spread that message until you end up with a situation like we had in Nazi Germany, or with the rise of fascism in Europe. I just don't think it's worth the risk.
Quoting andrewk
For some reason revealing of my own unacceptable prejudice I'm slightly offended that you think I'm American. Anyway, I'm English, Our biggest problem is the BNP, UKIP etc., but the problem of Trump I see as an example, not an exception, and the British response has been instrumental. We've basically said that we don't want him over here to speak, that nothing he's got to say is of any interest to us. I think that's a very powerful expression of the contempt in which we hold his views, much more powerful than letting him over here and debating them, as if they had any kind of legitimate reasons that might require some thought.
I think that's exactly the correct response in that case. I hope it lasts. Do you think May will give in and invite him over at some stage, despite the unpopularity of such a move with the British people?
For the first part of your post - I think your assessment of our respective positions is correct. We seem to agree on aims, but disagree on methods - at least as far as local talks and demonstrations go. And we seem unlikely to persuade one another. I hope you turn out to be right and I turn out to be wrong, because that will mean that your 'de-platforming' efforts have been successful in diminishing the influence of the UKIPs, BNPs and Milo Yiannopoulos's of this world..
On this rare occasion I actually have some faith in the population (I'm generally fairly despairing of modern humanity), I think it would be political suicide for May to go against popular opinion on this. My only concern is that that political suicide seems to be something May is drawn to like a lemming.
In terms of the paradox, I'm not entirely sure that the paradox exists. First, I'm not sure that the extremes of rationality or irrationality required for the argument to work hold true. Some people are more prone to rationality in some areas of their life than others. Second, I don't see how de-platforming becomes irrelevant if people are rational; "you might find an argument stating on the Dark Web" doesn't seem like that strong of a position. Third, rational argument may be "best" for reasons other than pursuading opposition, which it seems to be operating as. I may use rational arguments in educational settings in order to shut down and redicule the absurdity of racist claims, for example, preventing the spead of ideas that way, making it "best" in my eyes.
Lastly, the paradox only potentially exists for specific subgroup of free speech advocates. Not everyone holds the two statements to be true. I can weaken the statement to, "I believe that de-platforming a racist position can cause a small but sizable number of people to garner sympathy and potential support and I also believe that rational arguments against racism is a good way of stopping the spread of these beliefs." With that, I'm not sure the paradox exists.
The humility in my position is that I put myself on even ground with everyone else. When someone talks about silencing 'some ideas' I assume none of them will happen to be their own. My position doesn't depend on free speech being the pinnacle of virtues because I find it perfectly consistent with all other virtues. In the end, we can't control other people and they're capable of far worse than speech.
Edit - and look, I want to acknowledge that I follow your argument and I consider you a reasonable guy. But I'm tending to disagree subtly, yet strongly, each step of the way. That's all it takes to end up with very different conclusions. That's exactly what makes me feel we should be very careful with this.
De-platforming, as far as I'm aware, was coined by the National Union of Students in the UK, and refers to attempts by that union to prevent certain people from finding opportunities to speak to certain groups. They campaign to their respective university authorities to refuse to host these people. The concept within ethical debate (at least those I've been party to) has been extended to essentially saying that people have a right to try and prevent others from speaking within their communities if they feel their speech may be harmful.
Quoting Chany
The justification arises from the harm to society. Racism harms society.
Quoting Chany
This is true, but the only way this would limit the paradox would be if people were consistently irrational when it came to agreeing with those ideas which appear suppressed, but suddenly rational when it came to assessing debate. I don't deny people vary in their rationality, but I really can't see them doing so in such a way as to consistently undo the paradox in this way.
Quoting Chany
Perhaps you could expand on why you think this position is weak?
Quoting Chany
That sounds like 'persuading' to me. Ridicule only works with an already sympathetic audience. We ridicule Nazis now, the silly walks and Hugo Boss uniforms, how successful do you think ridicule would have been in 1940s Berlin?
Quoting Chany
No, that's is the paradox exactly. By what empirical justification do you believe this, how are you defining these groups? I can only see one way in which this statement could make rational sense and that it you postulate a group of people who become irrationally more sympathetic to a cause because people deny it a platform, and a separate group who are willing to be rationally persuaded by counter arguments. I concede that two such groups are possible, but you've not provided any evidence that they are probable, nor that they outweigh the third group who irrationally believe that because the ideas are given platforms, that makes it OK to believe them.
To summarise I think it is possible to identify three reactions to de-platforming;
1. Become more sympathetic to the cause because it has been denied a platform.
2. Become more sympathetic to the cause because you've heard no rational rebuttal or ridicule (because the debate didn't take place).
3. Become less sympathetic to the cause because it seem like a fringe position that most of your community are so opposed to they don't even want to hear it again.
All I'm arguing is that;
Groups 1 and 2 can't be the same people, because 1 is irrational and 2 is rational.
Group 3 ties in more closely with everything we know about human psychology, crowd following, Zeitgeist, paradigms etc. and so represents the most likely and largest group.
Group 2 is a strawman because these arguments have been heard before and there's nothing to stop people rationally rebutting and ridiculing the old version of it, we do not need to hear them again and again.
And finally, that notwithstanding the above utilitarian argument, there's a virtue ethical argument to be had which says that a community has the right to express it's virtues through define behaviour and rhetoric it considers taboo.