Two things stick out to me. One, that Williamson is writing that in the Dispatch, rather than at NRO, which pretty much says everything about to the degree which conservatives are willing to actually speak publicly about their own views. And two, that we really do need to stop talking about what is and is not 'legitimate' protest and wha…
Two things stick out to me. One, that Williamson is writing that in the Dispatch, rather than at NRO, which pretty much says everything about to the degree which conservatives are willing to actually speak publicly about their own views.
And two, that we really do need to stop talking about what is and is not 'legitimate' protest and what is not. Protesting is, as much as speaking, part of America; the men and women who rallied against the British certainly didn't look at themselves and go 'well, we can protest these taxes, but only if we do so in a calm, rational manner.'
But that is also rather besides the point, isn't it? Because the entire exercise isn't even about what was being said anymore, is it? The issue is that every issue stops being about the issue and instead turns into meta-commentary about the visuals around whatever was being said. No one seems to care what he was there to speak about, no one seems to care what the protestors believed, all anyone seems to care about is 'well, were they respectful?' Which seems like commenting on say, MLK's 'Dream' speech by asking if he really had to wave his hands quite so forcefully while doing it.
Of course the judge looked for a fight. Of course the protestors were angry. We live in the age of content, and protestors who are not energized aren't really protesting much, are they? Why we decided 'well, protesting should be quiet and civil' is beyond me, because that's not much of a protest anymore than sitting quietly in your home with strangers is a party. Beyond that, everyone knew what they were doing going in; everyone got what they wanted. It's unclear why the media people are so uncomfortable with this truth, and instead of talking about what was said or debated, we devolve into some weird back and forth about norms.
Because when we discuss norms rather than speech, we end up with questions like 'well, if Scott Adams had called black people a hate group at a campus speaking event rather than on a livestream, it would have been okay.' That's where meta commentary gets you; a weird place where the manner in which things are said and the place they are said matters more than the actual content of what you are saying.
You could also extend this to lots of people and things, particularly on issues like trans rights, or even Trumpism writ large. So many people focus on the manner in which things are conveyed rather than the content of what is being conveyed, either because they agree with it but don't want to say so, or because they don't want to appeared biased by disagreeing with it. It's the very nature of both-sides journalism to focus on meta-narratives rather than the content of what is being said.
Which is how we're now at, what, week two or three on our meta-narrative analysis of one angry judge dealing with one group of protestors at an Ivy League college, when we've focused about a hundredth of the time on how states are criminalizing speech?
I mean, Florida just introduced a bill last week to make it a criminal offense for girls in school to discuss their periods, which is both creepy and a huge intrusion of the state into the lives of kids and families, but sure, let's keep discussing the meta-narrative and the optics of a one-hour speaking confrontation on an ivy league campus with a belligerent judge and some students.
Do people realize how utterly absurd the focus on optics is? How devoid of substance it makes your analysis? How entirely unhelpful it is to contextualize the greater issues at play in the world? We might as well be discussing Ukraine by saying 'well, the important part is how the president of Ukraine was dressed when he talked to Biden.' Oh wait, people actually did that, because that's the same thing: to focus on optics rather than the substance of what's going on to avoid having to grapple with actual questions and uncomfortable realities.
I thought I had a fairly clear understanding of the rights here but you make some very compelling arguments.
But I wonder if someone like Scott Adams did say the same things he did at a University, wouldn’t it have been better for everyone if the students did let him speak while quietly holding signs or standing up and turning around so their backs were to him as a gesture of objection? II can’t remember where but I know a similar thing happened at some university. I’m sure such a response to a high profile speaker would be filmed and posted online. And I think most rational people would agree that the students were justified in their objections (just as most people agreed that dropping Adams’ cartoon was justified). But refusing to let him speak or provoking violence does tend to make martyrs of otherwise vile people. I also worry that if there are no limitations on the type of protests allowed or if anyone can be disinvited or removed, then attacks like the one on Charles Murray or cancellations of speakers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali who have controversial but legitimate views worthy of debate will be sacrificed on the alter of free association.
"Because when we discuss norms rather than speech, we end up with questions like 'well, if Scott Adams had called black people a hate group at a campus speaking event rather than on a livestream, it would have been okay.' "
It actually is ok that Scott Adams says what he wants to say wherever he chooses to say it...and then faces whatever consequences come afterward from those who heard it. The heart of true freedom is free speech for everyone, the speaker and the audience. We can't abridge anyone's speech because that sets the precedent for escalation like the FL laws that shut down speech in schools. They can point to the behavior of their opponents and say "they obviously don't have a problem with shutting down ideas, they only want to shut down OUR ideas".
The only way to live side by side in a pluralistic society with those we disagree with is to let everyone speak and have sane debates of the ideas expressed or to just agree to disagree and let everyone get on with their lives. If we can't we end up stuck in the current hellscape we are living through of constant confrontation and escalation until things implode.
This sounds like the plot of every mystery story. I think it's sound reasoning and true. Observation of details usually has to wait until the shouting stops. Then I feel foolish from rushing to judgement.
There are a lot of comments about free speech today and I can add nothing to that debate. But.
Ken Duncan is a judge who cannot be removed. He is a person that will make decisions on another person's rights, forseeably for the rest of his life. The students are destined to work within judicial framework for the rest of their lives. Everyone in this crowd is intelligent.
The down-grading of the exchange between (asshat) speaker and opposing students took away the opportunity to 1) hear how the judge parsed through the legal questions raised and why he ruled the way he did, and 2) rebut the judge's reasoning with a different take on law and precedent. There are more Ken Duncans out there, lots of them. The mutual covering of the ears and raised voices singing "nah-nah-nah-nah-I'm not listening" likely reinforced Ken Duncan's opinion in his own mind. Ideally, he would have went away reconsidering his reasoning and possibly affecting how he reasons and rules in the future. Instead, both sides are more entrenched. While some opponents are impossible to reason with, this interaction should have been approached with a purpose of winning over part of Ken Duncan's mind. (Or vice versa.)
I was most interested in Judge Duncan's evidence that the show was a set-up planned with cooperation of the Stanford administrators, who agreed not to enforce the school's rules about interfering with invited speakers.
Thanks for the link. I don't understand why this is such a big deal on either side. I'm not gonna look it up, but apparently the judge mocked a defendant about pronouns either in an opinion or less formally. Maybe there was other stuff said. But if he said enough to make clear he does not acknowledge any gender other than recorded on a person's birth certificate, and lefties knew he was coming to speak, it makes sense that they planned to protest, even the teacher planning remarks and not planning to planning to police the event. Again, I don't understand why this is such a big deal. Is it because Stanford appears liberal? Newsflash, Democracy, society, and most colleges are liberal leaning, we've moved on from the wild west where someone could get shot over the good seat in the saloon. Society expects judges to stick to matters of law instead of berating a person who wants to be addressed as the person they are.
I find it hard to believe that people would even be bothered by such an unimportant topic. On either side. One guy says he thinks a few people don't want to be recognized by the sex they were born, and he says he thinks this is really wrong. And the other side say they believe all people must acknowledge the few people who don't want to be the sex they were born.
40 years ago I worked in a few different drinking establishments in the North side of Chicago. I would occasionally have customers who where woman dressed like men, I worked with two male kitchen crew who at the end of the night put on conservative dresses, heels and make up. Guess what. No one cared or even commented. Why do younger people think they invented things that have been around for millennia?
But if you want some reason to fight you'll always find someone to take the other side.
Ah, but this is not "one guy." This is a judge referring to a defendant before him. No one needs "all people" to acknowledge the few, but everyone needs the LAW to apply equally to all. Because if the law can separate out people who dress/identify/roleplay as "other," then the law can do it to any group, say women who can no longer bear children, or people with dementia, fat people. Not to mention the increased danger such people are subject to.
What would you have done 40 years ago had there been a law requiring people to report cross-dressers? Would you have risked paying a small fine and not reported them? What about jail time?
But no one is obliged to report cross dressers. If they were, the Monty Python skits would be prohibited. You could never watch MASH reruns.
Maybe a man identifyig as a woman would have a worse time in a women's prison. As regards to bathrooms, which is ridiculous, because when I lived in Europe, unless you were in a modern high class place, the WC didn't differentiate male and female. In the States a lot of older establishments often have plumbing problems and everyone goes in whatever bathroom that is working. As for men dressing as women and being in women's only areas, it makes me think of the old TV with Tom Hanks. Bosom Buddies. People on both sides make too big a deal out of this issue.
Tennessee and other states banning drag shows will absolutely encourage some people to report a cross-dressing coworker or neighbor. Any restrictions in law against a group of people provides a permission structure for some to call out any person they can contsrue is part of that group. If there are no laws, people stay a little calmer, and other people stay a little safer.
rlritt, you are not a Karen. But there are LOTS of Karens
This is a great expansion of Jane Coaston's concept about how the discourse always focuses on the "thing-adjacent" instead of the thing we're discussing.
We talk about the adjacent things so that we do not have to talk about the thing--which can be dangerous/upsetting/uncomfortable. We can avoid taking a side (which is important for some parts of the media, in particular).
Citizens are under NO obligation to listen to or put up with speech (content or form) that they do not like. Zero, zip, nada.
Most corporations (with some exceptions depending upon the nature of the corporation and whether they do public (government) work) are also under NO obligation to permit or listen to speech they do not like... since they are also "citizens."
The GOVERNMENT is under obligation to permit that speech (Congress shall make no law.... ).
The supposed purpose of the marketplace of ideas is to literally kill certain ideas in favor of other ideas. Now, it doesn't actually do a very good job of this (for reasons too lengthy and complex to go into here) and it isn't aimed at picking the BEST ideas or most truthful ideas--only the popular ones.
One of the ways that you kill ideas is by preventing them from being expressed or being heard.
We have this conceit (particularly on the Left) that in the contest of ideas, somehow the good and true and correct will win because it is good and true and correct. That calm, rational debate will somehow decide questions.
This is actually pretty rare outside of specific forums (usually associated with the hard sciences).
I am trying to figure out why (in an actual real-world context, where lives and other things are at stake) shouting down racist and fascist PoS's is... bad? It's certainly legal (which is, of course, NOT a high bar to clear). Isn't it a part of enforcing social norms?
Now, understand that I am being PROVOCATIVE and even incendiary here (it is my intention to be so). I am not saying that shouting people down or silencing them (which is not even possible these days) is the BEST strategy. BUT it is a strategy.
But I WOULD be interesting in seeing a justification for allowing these ideas currency and exposure that does nor rely upon recourse to what are rather mistaken and demonstrably untrue understandings of how the so-called marketplace of ideas works. I am also not looking for an instrumental justification (one based upon rhetorical strategy/tactics).
I mean, if your philosophy/principles are built upon a foundation of error.. are they not too in error?
I'm not sure I can buy into your premise that the purpose of the 'marketplace of ideas' is to actually kill bad ideas. That presupposes that ideas, broadly speaking, can be killed. I think it is quite apparent that all kinds of ideas that all kinds of people consider 'bad' have not been killed. We live in a world that has slavery, kings, polytheism, monotheism, atheism, fascism, democracy, communism, etc., etc. These ideas and forces are always out there as they are part of human nature.
If we go with the understanding that 'bad' ideas cannot be killed, but rather will always be present to battle against, I do think a strong case can be made for keeping an aspect of our society civil enough and mature enough to be able to listen to bad ideas. And while all kinds of cases can be made that we aren't mature enough for that (as a society and or a species) I'm not sure what choice we have but to pretend like we are. To me it isn't about whether a particular speaker is a fascist or a racist, or an atheist, or a socialist. I don't think our society is served by having fingers in ears and loud shouting ala a 4-year-old as an acceptable form of public discourse.
I think a big part of the problem for me is that shouting (especially in a closed room) allows for a possibly small minority to prevent the speech that a majority (at least in the room) want to hear. If people want to make their case against someone, gather enough like-minded people and go about it in all kinds of places that aren't that room. Exercise free speech, peaceable assembly, and economic boycott if it is an issue that moves enough people. If it isn't, then it is going to take some convincing to get enough people, and acting like 4-year-olds doesn't seem like a very effective strategy.
A professor of law, Gregory Magarian makes the case.
Excerpts:
Invitations to speak at universities aren’t simple affirmations of speakers’ expressive autonomy or generally available public forums. Rather, when a university invites a speaker to campus, it allocates scarce expressive resources to that speaker and denies those resources to others. The university enables students to engage with that speaker and not with others.
Shouting down contests an invited speaker’s selection to receive the expressive resource of a campus platform. For shouting down to present a free speech problem, the invitation to the speaker must therefore have procedural legitimacy.
First Amendment doctrine provides some useful guidance for normatively assessing procedural legitimacy. First Amendment law lets the government allocate expressive resources in various settings. The simplest example is a speech permit. Some forms of expression, like parades and rallies, require exclusive use of expressive resources. Cities therefore grant exclusive permits to march down particular streets at particu- lar times. Although First Amendment law usually works to avoid government control of speech, speech permit systems can facilitate a system of free expression. Of course, a permitting scheme could undermine the system of free expression if the government selected recipients based on its preference or antipathy for their ideas. That’s why permit systems pass First Amendment muster only when they’re impartial and procedurally consistent.
University students are the constituency for campus speaker invitations....University students aren’t a political majority that putatively threatens First Amendment rights, no matter how much the moral panic about students’ supposed illiberalism exaggerates their power....free speech principles should lead us to conceptu- alize university students as members of a community that university administrators organize and manage but may not dominate.
As with library acquisitions, university administrators owe their constituents, the university’s students, a duty of faithful service in selecting campus speakers. Faithful service to students doesn’t require administrators to invite only those speakers whom the students would vote to invite any more than faithful service to library patrons requires librarians to acquire only those books that patrons expressly request.
University administrators have been known to disinvite campus speakers without any input from students.
Outside funding of campus speakers presents a quandary. On one hand, more sources of money means more funding for speech. On the other hand, a major benefit of having universities fund student groups without regard to viewpoint is to put all manner of different student viewpoints on equal footing. Outside funding upsets that equilibrium.
Shouting down presumptively offends free speech principles for the obvious reason that it disrupts speech. Shouting down is speech that nonviolently obstructs settled order, which makes it a form of civil disobedience. Our free speech tradition values civil disobedience as a way for dissenters to speak truth to power....
....We want civil disobedience to expand public discourse by expressing and embodying opposition to the status quo, not to contract public discourse by turn- ing disagreements into shouting matches.
To argue that shouting down always violates free speech principles, however, ignores the inevitable distributive problems in a system of free expression and forecloses recourse against speakers who gain expressive opportunities in violation of the system’s norms. I contend that shouting down campus speakers usually violates free speech norms but that process failures in inviting speakers can justify shouting down in a narrow range of cases.
The thing is, neither the material that you excerpted or the article I link to actually address the larger question that I raised. My question is not about procedure/policy, but rather about free speech as a thing in and of itself. See my later response to Charlie.
That is why it is such a popular idea. Hard to kill.
Any time it is easy to make a case for something, one should be particularly careful. It often means that you either are missing something or you are asking/answering the wrong question.
As a rhetorician, any time my job is "easy" alarm bells go off all over the place.
So the OPERATIVE question here is not necessarily whether free speech is good or bad, in and of itself or functional in and of itself--but whether or how free speech (as an imperfect thing) fits into how we construct the society we want--how it is both emblematic of that society and instrumental to that society.
How do we make it work for us rather than against us?
Is it more important to try and have a "free speech" society that is (based upon historical example and current events) easily subverted and overthrown for a full-blown authoritarian/fascist society? Or is it more important to build a somewhat more limited society (WRT speech) than can preserve itself and protect its citizens in a more tolerant fashion than the full blown bad?
If we interpret rights as absolute, then I think we have a problem. Germany has a history of Nazism and so criminalizes Nazi speech. In the US of A we'd have a problem with criminalizing speech. There are many more such examples possible.
If in the US of A, free speech starts subverting society, then we will eventually reach a situation where, like Germany, we will have to put some legal restrictions on free speech. It would be much preferable that we try to move back from the edge of this particular abyss by ourselves before we have to make legal and Constitutional changes. How to make this happen is beyond me.
We haven't yet reached a stage like the Germans with Nazism that we have to criminalize some speech. We still have some time to come back to our senses.
Great comment. Which is better, criminalizing free speech? Or shouting down those we disagree with? Both are awful, but one is out-and-out dangerous and antithetical.
Excellent! Your points remind me of the protests against the war in Vietnam. At first the protests were dismissed as a bunch of dirty hippies with nothing better to do. But after years of protests, and especially after the students were killed by the National Guard at Kent State University, the tide changed. Because people didn’t give up.
And yet. Apparently in Daytona FL a white supremacist group is “protesting” outside synagogues and screaming vile things at people going to services. Legal free speech? Probably. Me? I’d throw their nasty asses in jail. (I concede this is what they want.) Why should anyone be subjected to such nastiness just b/c someone doesn’t like them?
Back in the day when the Westboro Baptist anti gay bigots came to town, they were parading up and down the streets that had all our historical churches clumped together. So the Churches decided the best way to shut them up was to ring their bells continuously. The Catholic Church's Carillion bells were awesome and so was the music selection. Westboro folks finally gave up and went away never to be heard from again.
This is exactly the kind of case where people should show up in massive numbers and shout the white supremacists down.
I think even Charlie would say that was acceptable. But if it happened on a college campus instead of public property somehow it would be bad according to his logic?
Two things stick out to me. One, that Williamson is writing that in the Dispatch, rather than at NRO, which pretty much says everything about to the degree which conservatives are willing to actually speak publicly about their own views.
And two, that we really do need to stop talking about what is and is not 'legitimate' protest and what is not. Protesting is, as much as speaking, part of America; the men and women who rallied against the British certainly didn't look at themselves and go 'well, we can protest these taxes, but only if we do so in a calm, rational manner.'
But that is also rather besides the point, isn't it? Because the entire exercise isn't even about what was being said anymore, is it? The issue is that every issue stops being about the issue and instead turns into meta-commentary about the visuals around whatever was being said. No one seems to care what he was there to speak about, no one seems to care what the protestors believed, all anyone seems to care about is 'well, were they respectful?' Which seems like commenting on say, MLK's 'Dream' speech by asking if he really had to wave his hands quite so forcefully while doing it.
Of course the judge looked for a fight. Of course the protestors were angry. We live in the age of content, and protestors who are not energized aren't really protesting much, are they? Why we decided 'well, protesting should be quiet and civil' is beyond me, because that's not much of a protest anymore than sitting quietly in your home with strangers is a party. Beyond that, everyone knew what they were doing going in; everyone got what they wanted. It's unclear why the media people are so uncomfortable with this truth, and instead of talking about what was said or debated, we devolve into some weird back and forth about norms.
Because when we discuss norms rather than speech, we end up with questions like 'well, if Scott Adams had called black people a hate group at a campus speaking event rather than on a livestream, it would have been okay.' That's where meta commentary gets you; a weird place where the manner in which things are said and the place they are said matters more than the actual content of what you are saying.
You could also extend this to lots of people and things, particularly on issues like trans rights, or even Trumpism writ large. So many people focus on the manner in which things are conveyed rather than the content of what is being conveyed, either because they agree with it but don't want to say so, or because they don't want to appeared biased by disagreeing with it. It's the very nature of both-sides journalism to focus on meta-narratives rather than the content of what is being said.
Which is how we're now at, what, week two or three on our meta-narrative analysis of one angry judge dealing with one group of protestors at an Ivy League college, when we've focused about a hundredth of the time on how states are criminalizing speech?
I mean, Florida just introduced a bill last week to make it a criminal offense for girls in school to discuss their periods, which is both creepy and a huge intrusion of the state into the lives of kids and families, but sure, let's keep discussing the meta-narrative and the optics of a one-hour speaking confrontation on an ivy league campus with a belligerent judge and some students.
Do people realize how utterly absurd the focus on optics is? How devoid of substance it makes your analysis? How entirely unhelpful it is to contextualize the greater issues at play in the world? We might as well be discussing Ukraine by saying 'well, the important part is how the president of Ukraine was dressed when he talked to Biden.' Oh wait, people actually did that, because that's the same thing: to focus on optics rather than the substance of what's going on to avoid having to grapple with actual questions and uncomfortable realities.
I thought I had a fairly clear understanding of the rights here but you make some very compelling arguments.
But I wonder if someone like Scott Adams did say the same things he did at a University, wouldn’t it have been better for everyone if the students did let him speak while quietly holding signs or standing up and turning around so their backs were to him as a gesture of objection? II can’t remember where but I know a similar thing happened at some university. I’m sure such a response to a high profile speaker would be filmed and posted online. And I think most rational people would agree that the students were justified in their objections (just as most people agreed that dropping Adams’ cartoon was justified). But refusing to let him speak or provoking violence does tend to make martyrs of otherwise vile people. I also worry that if there are no limitations on the type of protests allowed or if anyone can be disinvited or removed, then attacks like the one on Charles Murray or cancellations of speakers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali who have controversial but legitimate views worthy of debate will be sacrificed on the alter of free association.
You are so right!
"Because when we discuss norms rather than speech, we end up with questions like 'well, if Scott Adams had called black people a hate group at a campus speaking event rather than on a livestream, it would have been okay.' "
It actually is ok that Scott Adams says what he wants to say wherever he chooses to say it...and then faces whatever consequences come afterward from those who heard it. The heart of true freedom is free speech for everyone, the speaker and the audience. We can't abridge anyone's speech because that sets the precedent for escalation like the FL laws that shut down speech in schools. They can point to the behavior of their opponents and say "they obviously don't have a problem with shutting down ideas, they only want to shut down OUR ideas".
The only way to live side by side in a pluralistic society with those we disagree with is to let everyone speak and have sane debates of the ideas expressed or to just agree to disagree and let everyone get on with their lives. If we can't we end up stuck in the current hellscape we are living through of constant confrontation and escalation until things implode.
Nailed it again Shawn!!
This sounds like the plot of every mystery story. I think it's sound reasoning and true. Observation of details usually has to wait until the shouting stops. Then I feel foolish from rushing to judgement.
There are a lot of comments about free speech today and I can add nothing to that debate. But.
Ken Duncan is a judge who cannot be removed. He is a person that will make decisions on another person's rights, forseeably for the rest of his life. The students are destined to work within judicial framework for the rest of their lives. Everyone in this crowd is intelligent.
The down-grading of the exchange between (asshat) speaker and opposing students took away the opportunity to 1) hear how the judge parsed through the legal questions raised and why he ruled the way he did, and 2) rebut the judge's reasoning with a different take on law and precedent. There are more Ken Duncans out there, lots of them. The mutual covering of the ears and raised voices singing "nah-nah-nah-nah-I'm not listening" likely reinforced Ken Duncan's opinion in his own mind. Ideally, he would have went away reconsidering his reasoning and possibly affecting how he reasons and rules in the future. Instead, both sides are more entrenched. While some opponents are impossible to reason with, this interaction should have been approached with a purpose of winning over part of Ken Duncan's mind. (Or vice versa.)
In case readers might be interested in Judge Duncan's account of his encounter with the Progressive students at Stanford, here's a link:
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/advisoryopinions/the-stanford-squeeze/
An excerpt is at https://youtu.be/eDT-eEglAp0
I was most interested in Judge Duncan's evidence that the show was a set-up planned with cooperation of the Stanford administrators, who agreed not to enforce the school's rules about interfering with invited speakers.
Thanks for the link. I don't understand why this is such a big deal on either side. I'm not gonna look it up, but apparently the judge mocked a defendant about pronouns either in an opinion or less formally. Maybe there was other stuff said. But if he said enough to make clear he does not acknowledge any gender other than recorded on a person's birth certificate, and lefties knew he was coming to speak, it makes sense that they planned to protest, even the teacher planning remarks and not planning to planning to police the event. Again, I don't understand why this is such a big deal. Is it because Stanford appears liberal? Newsflash, Democracy, society, and most colleges are liberal leaning, we've moved on from the wild west where someone could get shot over the good seat in the saloon. Society expects judges to stick to matters of law instead of berating a person who wants to be addressed as the person they are.
I find it hard to believe that people would even be bothered by such an unimportant topic. On either side. One guy says he thinks a few people don't want to be recognized by the sex they were born, and he says he thinks this is really wrong. And the other side say they believe all people must acknowledge the few people who don't want to be the sex they were born.
40 years ago I worked in a few different drinking establishments in the North side of Chicago. I would occasionally have customers who where woman dressed like men, I worked with two male kitchen crew who at the end of the night put on conservative dresses, heels and make up. Guess what. No one cared or even commented. Why do younger people think they invented things that have been around for millennia?
But if you want some reason to fight you'll always find someone to take the other side.
Ah, but this is not "one guy." This is a judge referring to a defendant before him. No one needs "all people" to acknowledge the few, but everyone needs the LAW to apply equally to all. Because if the law can separate out people who dress/identify/roleplay as "other," then the law can do it to any group, say women who can no longer bear children, or people with dementia, fat people. Not to mention the increased danger such people are subject to.
What would you have done 40 years ago had there been a law requiring people to report cross-dressers? Would you have risked paying a small fine and not reported them? What about jail time?
But no one is obliged to report cross dressers. If they were, the Monty Python skits would be prohibited. You could never watch MASH reruns.
Maybe a man identifyig as a woman would have a worse time in a women's prison. As regards to bathrooms, which is ridiculous, because when I lived in Europe, unless you were in a modern high class place, the WC didn't differentiate male and female. In the States a lot of older establishments often have plumbing problems and everyone goes in whatever bathroom that is working. As for men dressing as women and being in women's only areas, it makes me think of the old TV with Tom Hanks. Bosom Buddies. People on both sides make too big a deal out of this issue.
No one is obliged to report them 'yet.'
Tennessee and other states banning drag shows will absolutely encourage some people to report a cross-dressing coworker or neighbor. Any restrictions in law against a group of people provides a permission structure for some to call out any person they can contsrue is part of that group. If there are no laws, people stay a little calmer, and other people stay a little safer.
rlritt, you are not a Karen. But there are LOTS of Karens
It's funny because drag show performers aren't necessarily men who think they are women and, believe or not, they are not all Gay.
That's true.
Thank you Carolyn Spence. This is exactly the right approach. In fact, it’s the only approach.
This is a great expansion of Jane Coaston's concept about how the discourse always focuses on the "thing-adjacent" instead of the thing we're discussing.
https://twitter.com/janecoaston/status/1154032084253585408
We talk about the adjacent things so that we do not have to talk about the thing--which can be dangerous/upsetting/uncomfortable. We can avoid taking a side (which is important for some parts of the media, in particular).
It is an avoidance mechanism.
It is, at the core, THAT simple.
Citizens are under NO obligation to listen to or put up with speech (content or form) that they do not like. Zero, zip, nada.
Most corporations (with some exceptions depending upon the nature of the corporation and whether they do public (government) work) are also under NO obligation to permit or listen to speech they do not like... since they are also "citizens."
The GOVERNMENT is under obligation to permit that speech (Congress shall make no law.... ).
The supposed purpose of the marketplace of ideas is to literally kill certain ideas in favor of other ideas. Now, it doesn't actually do a very good job of this (for reasons too lengthy and complex to go into here) and it isn't aimed at picking the BEST ideas or most truthful ideas--only the popular ones.
One of the ways that you kill ideas is by preventing them from being expressed or being heard.
We have this conceit (particularly on the Left) that in the contest of ideas, somehow the good and true and correct will win because it is good and true and correct. That calm, rational debate will somehow decide questions.
This is actually pretty rare outside of specific forums (usually associated with the hard sciences).
I am trying to figure out why (in an actual real-world context, where lives and other things are at stake) shouting down racist and fascist PoS's is... bad? It's certainly legal (which is, of course, NOT a high bar to clear). Isn't it a part of enforcing social norms?
Now, understand that I am being PROVOCATIVE and even incendiary here (it is my intention to be so). I am not saying that shouting people down or silencing them (which is not even possible these days) is the BEST strategy. BUT it is a strategy.
But I WOULD be interesting in seeing a justification for allowing these ideas currency and exposure that does nor rely upon recourse to what are rather mistaken and demonstrably untrue understandings of how the so-called marketplace of ideas works. I am also not looking for an instrumental justification (one based upon rhetorical strategy/tactics).
I mean, if your philosophy/principles are built upon a foundation of error.. are they not too in error?
I'm not sure I can buy into your premise that the purpose of the 'marketplace of ideas' is to actually kill bad ideas. That presupposes that ideas, broadly speaking, can be killed. I think it is quite apparent that all kinds of ideas that all kinds of people consider 'bad' have not been killed. We live in a world that has slavery, kings, polytheism, monotheism, atheism, fascism, democracy, communism, etc., etc. These ideas and forces are always out there as they are part of human nature.
If we go with the understanding that 'bad' ideas cannot be killed, but rather will always be present to battle against, I do think a strong case can be made for keeping an aspect of our society civil enough and mature enough to be able to listen to bad ideas. And while all kinds of cases can be made that we aren't mature enough for that (as a society and or a species) I'm not sure what choice we have but to pretend like we are. To me it isn't about whether a particular speaker is a fascist or a racist, or an atheist, or a socialist. I don't think our society is served by having fingers in ears and loud shouting ala a 4-year-old as an acceptable form of public discourse.
I think a big part of the problem for me is that shouting (especially in a closed room) allows for a possibly small minority to prevent the speech that a majority (at least in the room) want to hear. If people want to make their case against someone, gather enough like-minded people and go about it in all kinds of places that aren't that room. Exercise free speech, peaceable assembly, and economic boycott if it is an issue that moves enough people. If it isn't, then it is going to take some convincing to get enough people, and acting like 4-year-olds doesn't seem like a very effective strategy.
But they are college students.
You make a cogent case for fascism.
A professor of law, Gregory Magarian makes the case.
Excerpts:
Invitations to speak at universities aren’t simple affirmations of speakers’ expressive autonomy or generally available public forums. Rather, when a university invites a speaker to campus, it allocates scarce expressive resources to that speaker and denies those resources to others. The university enables students to engage with that speaker and not with others.
Shouting down contests an invited speaker’s selection to receive the expressive resource of a campus platform. For shouting down to present a free speech problem, the invitation to the speaker must therefore have procedural legitimacy.
First Amendment doctrine provides some useful guidance for normatively assessing procedural legitimacy. First Amendment law lets the government allocate expressive resources in various settings. The simplest example is a speech permit. Some forms of expression, like parades and rallies, require exclusive use of expressive resources. Cities therefore grant exclusive permits to march down particular streets at particu- lar times. Although First Amendment law usually works to avoid government control of speech, speech permit systems can facilitate a system of free expression. Of course, a permitting scheme could undermine the system of free expression if the government selected recipients based on its preference or antipathy for their ideas. That’s why permit systems pass First Amendment muster only when they’re impartial and procedurally consistent.
University students are the constituency for campus speaker invitations....University students aren’t a political majority that putatively threatens First Amendment rights, no matter how much the moral panic about students’ supposed illiberalism exaggerates their power....free speech principles should lead us to conceptu- alize university students as members of a community that university administrators organize and manage but may not dominate.
As with library acquisitions, university administrators owe their constituents, the university’s students, a duty of faithful service in selecting campus speakers. Faithful service to students doesn’t require administrators to invite only those speakers whom the students would vote to invite any more than faithful service to library patrons requires librarians to acquire only those books that patrons expressly request.
University administrators have been known to disinvite campus speakers without any input from students.
Outside funding of campus speakers presents a quandary. On one hand, more sources of money means more funding for speech. On the other hand, a major benefit of having universities fund student groups without regard to viewpoint is to put all manner of different student viewpoints on equal footing. Outside funding upsets that equilibrium.
Shouting down presumptively offends free speech principles for the obvious reason that it disrupts speech. Shouting down is speech that nonviolently obstructs settled order, which makes it a form of civil disobedience. Our free speech tradition values civil disobedience as a way for dissenters to speak truth to power....
....We want civil disobedience to expand public discourse by expressing and embodying opposition to the status quo, not to contract public discourse by turn- ing disagreements into shouting matches.
To argue that shouting down always violates free speech principles, however, ignores the inevitable distributive problems in a system of free expression and forecloses recourse against speakers who gain expressive opportunities in violation of the system’s norms. I contend that shouting down campus speakers usually violates free speech norms but that process failures in inviting speakers can justify shouting down in a narrow range of cases.
There is also this:
https://gatewayjr.org/wash-u-chancellor-harms-free-speech-by-embracing-college-republicans-9-11-message-while-ignoring-hateful-attacks-on-student-protester/
The thing is, neither the material that you excerpted or the article I link to actually address the larger question that I raised. My question is not about procedure/policy, but rather about free speech as a thing in and of itself. See my later response to Charlie.
That is why it is such a popular idea. Hard to kill.
Any time it is easy to make a case for something, one should be particularly careful. It often means that you either are missing something or you are asking/answering the wrong question.
As a rhetorician, any time my job is "easy" alarm bells go off all over the place.
So the OPERATIVE question here is not necessarily whether free speech is good or bad, in and of itself or functional in and of itself--but whether or how free speech (as an imperfect thing) fits into how we construct the society we want--how it is both emblematic of that society and instrumental to that society.
How do we make it work for us rather than against us?
Is it more important to try and have a "free speech" society that is (based upon historical example and current events) easily subverted and overthrown for a full-blown authoritarian/fascist society? Or is it more important to build a somewhat more limited society (WRT speech) than can preserve itself and protect its citizens in a more tolerant fashion than the full blown bad?
Is this actually a binary solution set?
If we interpret rights as absolute, then I think we have a problem. Germany has a history of Nazism and so criminalizes Nazi speech. In the US of A we'd have a problem with criminalizing speech. There are many more such examples possible.
If in the US of A, free speech starts subverting society, then we will eventually reach a situation where, like Germany, we will have to put some legal restrictions on free speech. It would be much preferable that we try to move back from the edge of this particular abyss by ourselves before we have to make legal and Constitutional changes. How to make this happen is beyond me.
IF free speech starts subverting society?
Ummm, have you looked around?
We haven't yet reached a stage like the Germans with Nazism that we have to criminalize some speech. We still have some time to come back to our senses.
Can you declare NAZI's as a group are illegal, but not their speech?
Then you end up with a bunch of "unofficial" Nazis, who call themselves things like, IDK, Proud Boys or Oathkeepers or other nifty names.
The Sturm Abteilung is still the SA if you changes the name and have them wear camo instead of brown shirts.
I want to frame this comment and put it up on the wall.
Love your comment! People have freedom of speech as much as freedom of protest which is another form of freedom of speech.
Great comment. Which is better, criminalizing free speech? Or shouting down those we disagree with? Both are awful, but one is out-and-out dangerous and antithetical.
Excellent! Your points remind me of the protests against the war in Vietnam. At first the protests were dismissed as a bunch of dirty hippies with nothing better to do. But after years of protests, and especially after the students were killed by the National Guard at Kent State University, the tide changed. Because people didn’t give up.
And yet. Apparently in Daytona FL a white supremacist group is “protesting” outside synagogues and screaming vile things at people going to services. Legal free speech? Probably. Me? I’d throw their nasty asses in jail. (I concede this is what they want.) Why should anyone be subjected to such nastiness just b/c someone doesn’t like them?
Back in the day when the Westboro Baptist anti gay bigots came to town, they were parading up and down the streets that had all our historical churches clumped together. So the Churches decided the best way to shut them up was to ring their bells continuously. The Catholic Church's Carillion bells were awesome and so was the music selection. Westboro folks finally gave up and went away never to be heard from again.
That’s doing the Lord’s work!
Truly, the Carillion Concert was heavenly.
This is exactly the kind of case where people should show up in massive numbers and shout the white supremacists down.
I think even Charlie would say that was acceptable. But if it happened on a college campus instead of public property somehow it would be bad according to his logic?
While I agree, I'm not sure I'd call shouting down bigots and oppressive state actors "awful".
If anything it's more "moral duty".
Great comment.