The reality is that the vast majority of students aren't there for any higher, lofty purpose other than to get the piece of paper that is the degree so they can work for a living. But we're still not talking about reason - the focus on the "illiberalness of the students" and the "students should be learning reason" shades the conversatio…
The reality is that the vast majority of students aren't there for any higher, lofty purpose other than to get the piece of paper that is the degree so they can work for a living.
But we're still not talking about reason - the focus on the "illiberalness of the students" and the "students should be learning reason" shades the conversation. If students organized to pressure the university to, what, ban conservative trolls from coming to speak even though student organizations who want to troll invite them, what would the response be, then? What would the response be if a thousand students came to protest (keep in mind though, Stanford Law school only has something like 550-600 students at any given time. We're talking about a tiny number of people)? "Illiberal students in their bubble shut down conservative judge who just wants to present other perspectives?"
By framing this as a "Good faith conservative vs. illiberal students in their bubble," we're conflating good faith speakers with trolls/demagogues. My point above is that a key aspect of reason is separating the first from the second and understanding that fundamentally they need to be approached in a different manner because they have entirely separate goals. By lumping together "good faith speakers" with trolls, we do the bidding of the trolls.
Jacob, There's no legitimate way to draw a dividing line between "good faith" speakers and "trolls": it's a spectrum, highly subjective, and the basic terms themselves are too vague for institutional application: "reason" will run in circles if it tries to use them.
But using informal language, the prime directive when it comes to trolls is that you do not feed them. The Stanford Federalists were "trolling the libs" and the libs did their bidding. Once that's happened it's too late to bemoan the defective narrative of good-faith vs. illiberalism--the illiberals have already framed themselves in it. I don't think we should in any way be excusing them for this outcome or blaming others. If the type of progressives who perform this sort of self-destructive political theater listened to anyone but themselves and liberal enablers they'd know to stop.
I’m still trying to figure where I come down on this, but I’d say characterizing the Judge as a troll predisposes us to believe he should have been treated as he was. Am I hearing you say that his views and his activist MAGA-decision making calls for the response he got?
I side with the way the piece was presented in the Bulwark. It does students good to listen and engage with the ideas presented. If they are able to do that, then I’d trust them more to be our next leaders, because we all know they will be. Listen and understand thoroughly, cogitate on it and then respond. Better yet, schedule a separate rebuttal. When we shut down what we don’t want to listen to, we deprive ourselves of effective understanding and (so to speak) weaponry.
Maybe he shouldn't have gotten the extent of the heckling he did, but I do recommend you read what the legal profession has been saying about the 5th circuit for a while now. Professor Stephen Vladeck has been good about this.
But yes, the 5th circuit has spent the past however many years acting like a troll circuit. In their rulings they act as if they are not bound by Supreme Court precedent because they don't care about being bound by precedent. They issue decisions going out of their way to grant Republican litigants everything they ask for, even if it's contrary to law and precedent. It's a very bad, very lawless circuit.
Also, I'm not sure it's worth it to spend the time/effort to schedule all of this to respond? While I agree that by unilaterally shutting down outside perspectives, we lose out, I don't agree that we should uncritically accept trolls and troll arguments for the sake of "understanding other perspectives." There's a reason we don't sit down and have a formal debate with every flat earther we meet. And I'd argue that that's an important thing for our next leaders to learn, though. Not just how to listen and engage with ideas presented, but also the wisdom to know when other ideas are presented in good faith (and should be engaged with) and when ideas are presented in bad faith only to get a rise out of the listener.
To bring back the example, our future leaders need to know that flat earth theory is wrong, but also that they don't need to approach with and engage every flat earth theory as if it were legitimate solely because it is a different perspective
I hear you, and I'm not at all familiar with this guy. My concern is how easy it is to start lumping people we don't agree with into the bucket of troll / demagogue.
As for not being able to get thousands to protest, there are thousands at the school and plenty more in the surrounding area. How many can they get to care vs. how many there are in the organization that invited him? Beyond that, if the speech is problematic enough for Stanford they can discipline their local chapter of the inviting organization. Presumably the University has some standards for what they will tolerate?
Plenty seem happy to have trolls shouted down, but if all it takes is a handful of people to agree someone is a troll, won't we see most people shouted down? I can only imagine the troll list the MAGA crowd would submit.
I said in a different comment, but I may have gotten a bit wrapped around the axle with my animus to this specific guy, but I do encourage you look into what the legal profession writ large has been writing about the 5th circuit. No bueno.
To try to be a bit more clear, I don't think he should be/should have been shouted down. I just really have a problem with the framing of these incidents that always seems to happen.
"The speaker demands our utmost respect and those illiberal woke students should sit and Respect the speaker, they clearly don't want to leave their bubble (though the speaker was acting badly too)." Why do we need to demand unquestioning respect for every speaker that is invited to campus? A troll is a troll is a troll is a troll and I have a problem with the fact that this isn't brought up at all in reporting/framing these things.
I kinda responded to this concept elsewhere as well, but I view it more as respect for the form of interaction. As a university student, they have access to events like this, where a speaker will come in and often times have a Q&A. They can register their protest in any number of ways that don't destroy the event. They can even use being called on to just issue a damning statement to the individual and then sit down and let the next person talk.
My mind goes to court, where respect for the institution (of course, backed up by force) means that we let people speak in their turn. If we don't like the prosecutor, we don't scream at her in court, we vote against the DA in the next election. Certainly not a perfect analogy, but for the students, if they don't like the actions of a student group, take it up with the university that approved them.
Ultimately if we excuse shouting and screaming when it feels right to us, we will lose the benefit of having engaging, controversial, entertaining, etc. speakers on campus because that shouting and screaming are going to feel right to some for just about any speaker.
In follow ups, I've been trying to be clear that I'm not a fan of the students heckling/shouting down the speaker. My original comment specifically noted that I wasn't going to focus on that - my main issue was with the framing of the narrative.
If we're going to use court as an example, yeah we don't scream at the DA (or prosecutor). But if the DA is spouting nonsense, or bringing up irrelevant arguments, or even going down a line of questioning that's trolling, I'd be a bad attorney if I didn't register "objection, relevance." Just because the court has rules and procedures and we (within reason) listen to what people have to say, doesn't mean judges won't routinely cut people off if they're not focused on the case at hand. I've seen judges cut people off after they're meandering/not addressing the questions with just a (paraphrased) "I want you to answer the question. Nothing more and if you have anything else to say I don't want to hear it right now."
To fuse metaphor and point, yeah, let people speak. But when they're trolling, or bringing up bullshit arguments, I don't feel the need to afford them automatic respect by dint of their status as Speaker. I'm well within my rights (and I'd argue, many people should exercise this right) to just reply "Objection, relevance." Again, when we lump in engaging, controversial, entertaining" speakers in the same group as "trolls and demagogues" without distinguishing, we privilege trolling and demagoguery over an actual exchange of ideas.
For the court thing though, is the the other attorney or the judge who gets to say that, not a random spectator. So within the rules of the occasion.
As for the troll thing it could depend a lot on just how trolling the person is and or how much time the people in question allow him or her to do so. This guy may well be a known troll as a speaker, but then again, is he? Having despicable views doesn't make one a troll as a speaker, per se.
I mean, I leave it up to you whether you categorize the 5th Circuit and its judges as "troll" vs "has despicable opinions" but the legal community writ large has had a problem with the 5th circuit for a long long time.
But like, how else am I supposed to categorize a circuit that has decided that it is unbound by Supreme Court precedent as long as it lets the 5th circuit rule in favor of the Republican litigants and against Democratic litigants (even if the opinion makes no sense at all).
This is the circuit that ruled in favor of Ken Paxton in NetChoice v. Paxton, ruling that Texas could make it illegal for private social media companies to do any sort of moderation because the First Amendment was chiefly "a prohibition on prior restraint and, second, a privilege of speaking in good faith on matters of public concern" contrary to ages and ages of First Amendment jurisprudence. Lawfare in general is very good and I recommend this link explaining this specific case: https://www.lawfareblog.com/fifth-circuits-social-media-decision-dangerous-example-first-amendment-absolutism
I guess on the specifics I'd get to the distinction on whether the man in question is trolling on the Stanford stage vs. making trolling legal arguments in his decisions.
Does he defend the decisions with attempts at logic and reason, or does he stand up there and say, "nah, nah, nah, I can do what I want and you libtards have to suck it!" Now maybe the guy has a track record of that in his university speaking engagements, I wouldn't know. But if not, I'd still default to the University being the responsible party to decide that the guy's legal opinions are so out there (like a earnest flat earther) that they aren't worth tarnishing the schools name by having him. As such, they'd be the ones to protest for allowing the FedSoc to invite a crank.
The reality is that the vast majority of students aren't there for any higher, lofty purpose other than to get the piece of paper that is the degree so they can work for a living.
But we're still not talking about reason - the focus on the "illiberalness of the students" and the "students should be learning reason" shades the conversation. If students organized to pressure the university to, what, ban conservative trolls from coming to speak even though student organizations who want to troll invite them, what would the response be, then? What would the response be if a thousand students came to protest (keep in mind though, Stanford Law school only has something like 550-600 students at any given time. We're talking about a tiny number of people)? "Illiberal students in their bubble shut down conservative judge who just wants to present other perspectives?"
By framing this as a "Good faith conservative vs. illiberal students in their bubble," we're conflating good faith speakers with trolls/demagogues. My point above is that a key aspect of reason is separating the first from the second and understanding that fundamentally they need to be approached in a different manner because they have entirely separate goals. By lumping together "good faith speakers" with trolls, we do the bidding of the trolls.
Jacob, There's no legitimate way to draw a dividing line between "good faith" speakers and "trolls": it's a spectrum, highly subjective, and the basic terms themselves are too vague for institutional application: "reason" will run in circles if it tries to use them.
But using informal language, the prime directive when it comes to trolls is that you do not feed them. The Stanford Federalists were "trolling the libs" and the libs did their bidding. Once that's happened it's too late to bemoan the defective narrative of good-faith vs. illiberalism--the illiberals have already framed themselves in it. I don't think we should in any way be excusing them for this outcome or blaming others. If the type of progressives who perform this sort of self-destructive political theater listened to anyone but themselves and liberal enablers they'd know to stop.
I’m still trying to figure where I come down on this, but I’d say characterizing the Judge as a troll predisposes us to believe he should have been treated as he was. Am I hearing you say that his views and his activist MAGA-decision making calls for the response he got?
I side with the way the piece was presented in the Bulwark. It does students good to listen and engage with the ideas presented. If they are able to do that, then I’d trust them more to be our next leaders, because we all know they will be. Listen and understand thoroughly, cogitate on it and then respond. Better yet, schedule a separate rebuttal. When we shut down what we don’t want to listen to, we deprive ourselves of effective understanding and (so to speak) weaponry.
Maybe he shouldn't have gotten the extent of the heckling he did, but I do recommend you read what the legal profession has been saying about the 5th circuit for a while now. Professor Stephen Vladeck has been good about this.
But yes, the 5th circuit has spent the past however many years acting like a troll circuit. In their rulings they act as if they are not bound by Supreme Court precedent because they don't care about being bound by precedent. They issue decisions going out of their way to grant Republican litigants everything they ask for, even if it's contrary to law and precedent. It's a very bad, very lawless circuit.
Also, I'm not sure it's worth it to spend the time/effort to schedule all of this to respond? While I agree that by unilaterally shutting down outside perspectives, we lose out, I don't agree that we should uncritically accept trolls and troll arguments for the sake of "understanding other perspectives." There's a reason we don't sit down and have a formal debate with every flat earther we meet. And I'd argue that that's an important thing for our next leaders to learn, though. Not just how to listen and engage with ideas presented, but also the wisdom to know when other ideas are presented in good faith (and should be engaged with) and when ideas are presented in bad faith only to get a rise out of the listener.
To bring back the example, our future leaders need to know that flat earth theory is wrong, but also that they don't need to approach with and engage every flat earth theory as if it were legitimate solely because it is a different perspective
I hear you, and I'm not at all familiar with this guy. My concern is how easy it is to start lumping people we don't agree with into the bucket of troll / demagogue.
As for not being able to get thousands to protest, there are thousands at the school and plenty more in the surrounding area. How many can they get to care vs. how many there are in the organization that invited him? Beyond that, if the speech is problematic enough for Stanford they can discipline their local chapter of the inviting organization. Presumably the University has some standards for what they will tolerate?
Plenty seem happy to have trolls shouted down, but if all it takes is a handful of people to agree someone is a troll, won't we see most people shouted down? I can only imagine the troll list the MAGA crowd would submit.
I said in a different comment, but I may have gotten a bit wrapped around the axle with my animus to this specific guy, but I do encourage you look into what the legal profession writ large has been writing about the 5th circuit. No bueno.
To try to be a bit more clear, I don't think he should be/should have been shouted down. I just really have a problem with the framing of these incidents that always seems to happen.
"The speaker demands our utmost respect and those illiberal woke students should sit and Respect the speaker, they clearly don't want to leave their bubble (though the speaker was acting badly too)." Why do we need to demand unquestioning respect for every speaker that is invited to campus? A troll is a troll is a troll is a troll and I have a problem with the fact that this isn't brought up at all in reporting/framing these things.
Well, I am not going to prove I'm better than MGT by engaging in her antics myself. "Shut up" is not an explanation.
I kinda responded to this concept elsewhere as well, but I view it more as respect for the form of interaction. As a university student, they have access to events like this, where a speaker will come in and often times have a Q&A. They can register their protest in any number of ways that don't destroy the event. They can even use being called on to just issue a damning statement to the individual and then sit down and let the next person talk.
My mind goes to court, where respect for the institution (of course, backed up by force) means that we let people speak in their turn. If we don't like the prosecutor, we don't scream at her in court, we vote against the DA in the next election. Certainly not a perfect analogy, but for the students, if they don't like the actions of a student group, take it up with the university that approved them.
Ultimately if we excuse shouting and screaming when it feels right to us, we will lose the benefit of having engaging, controversial, entertaining, etc. speakers on campus because that shouting and screaming are going to feel right to some for just about any speaker.
In follow ups, I've been trying to be clear that I'm not a fan of the students heckling/shouting down the speaker. My original comment specifically noted that I wasn't going to focus on that - my main issue was with the framing of the narrative.
If we're going to use court as an example, yeah we don't scream at the DA (or prosecutor). But if the DA is spouting nonsense, or bringing up irrelevant arguments, or even going down a line of questioning that's trolling, I'd be a bad attorney if I didn't register "objection, relevance." Just because the court has rules and procedures and we (within reason) listen to what people have to say, doesn't mean judges won't routinely cut people off if they're not focused on the case at hand. I've seen judges cut people off after they're meandering/not addressing the questions with just a (paraphrased) "I want you to answer the question. Nothing more and if you have anything else to say I don't want to hear it right now."
To fuse metaphor and point, yeah, let people speak. But when they're trolling, or bringing up bullshit arguments, I don't feel the need to afford them automatic respect by dint of their status as Speaker. I'm well within my rights (and I'd argue, many people should exercise this right) to just reply "Objection, relevance." Again, when we lump in engaging, controversial, entertaining" speakers in the same group as "trolls and demagogues" without distinguishing, we privilege trolling and demagoguery over an actual exchange of ideas.
Good points and good discussion.
For the court thing though, is the the other attorney or the judge who gets to say that, not a random spectator. So within the rules of the occasion.
As for the troll thing it could depend a lot on just how trolling the person is and or how much time the people in question allow him or her to do so. This guy may well be a known troll as a speaker, but then again, is he? Having despicable views doesn't make one a troll as a speaker, per se.
I mean, I leave it up to you whether you categorize the 5th Circuit and its judges as "troll" vs "has despicable opinions" but the legal community writ large has had a problem with the 5th circuit for a long long time.
But like, how else am I supposed to categorize a circuit that has decided that it is unbound by Supreme Court precedent as long as it lets the 5th circuit rule in favor of the Republican litigants and against Democratic litigants (even if the opinion makes no sense at all).
This is the circuit that ruled in favor of Ken Paxton in NetChoice v. Paxton, ruling that Texas could make it illegal for private social media companies to do any sort of moderation because the First Amendment was chiefly "a prohibition on prior restraint and, second, a privilege of speaking in good faith on matters of public concern" contrary to ages and ages of First Amendment jurisprudence. Lawfare in general is very good and I recommend this link explaining this specific case: https://www.lawfareblog.com/fifth-circuits-social-media-decision-dangerous-example-first-amendment-absolutism
I guess on the specifics I'd get to the distinction on whether the man in question is trolling on the Stanford stage vs. making trolling legal arguments in his decisions.
Does he defend the decisions with attempts at logic and reason, or does he stand up there and say, "nah, nah, nah, I can do what I want and you libtards have to suck it!" Now maybe the guy has a track record of that in his university speaking engagements, I wouldn't know. But if not, I'd still default to the University being the responsible party to decide that the guy's legal opinions are so out there (like a earnest flat earther) that they aren't worth tarnishing the schools name by having him. As such, they'd be the ones to protest for allowing the FedSoc to invite a crank.
Thank you Jacob a thousand times over for properly framing this issue. It is the blind spot of so many people who frame EVERYTHING as a horse race…