50 thoughts on “Comments on college students and free speech”

1. The problem with trying to stop the propaganda film is that you give it free publicity. Worse, in this case, if you succeed, you give credence to the idea that Jews run the world and have the power to shut down others’ free speech.

   • +1 The Streisand Effect is real.

2. The worst problem of the conservative movement along with free speech is your example of college student complaining about racist Youtube video is that since this stuff is popular that they over-generalize this across the conservative movement. My relatively non-political kids believe this even thought they love their Trump voting Grandparents.
   The reality of yesteryear this stuff had less of a format to display these views.

   Unfortunately, conservative voting for a President that called Mexican Immigrant rapist day one does a lot support the above narrative.

   • I think pointing to the popularity of extremists is misdirection. When, in history, have charismatic extremists not been able to muster enormous popularity? A million ‘mainstream’ channels are fighting over the vast majority of the population, and a handful divvy up the rest; of course the more effective ones will get millions of viewers. They’re not facing as much competition as everyone else for their market.

     And regarding Trump, I think this is a ‘chicken vs. egg’ scenario. To conservatives who support Trump, they see it the opposite way: ‘even the mainstream left has gone off the rails and embraced shredding the first amendment, there’s no center-left anymore, so Trump is clearly the lesser evil.’ In other words, each side bases it’s indulgence of extremism and vilification of the other side on behavior by the other side which the other side itself justifies by referring to said indulgence of extremism and other-vilification.

3. Has anyone ever believed in “free speech”? Like the ability to say things that are untrue and EVIL for no other reason then you’re right to say them?

   I don’t think this has ever been the case, and I’m not sure there has ever been a “culture of free speech”.

   There may have been times with wider Overton Windows. Or differing Overton Windows in a more fractured society where different subgroups didn’t alway get in each others business. Or a time where stepping outside the Overton Window wasn’t always detected or enforcement was not practically possible. Or Overton Windows that didn’t exclude so much capital T Truth from them.

   But has there ever been a time where any but a handful of people thought “this thing widely outside the Overton Window that I consider evil should just go on without punishment”?

   I exclude from this temporary alliances of convenience. The ACLU did in fact support Nazi’s marching, but only because they weren’t a threat (if anything they may have helped the ACLUs cause). The Moral Majority was a threat, and since leftist like the ACLU were temporarily less powerful than them they supported Free Speech in order to protect their own free speech. Not out of principle, but convenience. Now that the Moral Majority is broken and leftist control all avenues of power, it is no longer convenient to have free speech, so we don’t have it.

   • Noam Chomsky has certainly defended free speech on principle:

     “PILGER: Mm. The last time I saw you speak, in south London, you | defended, very vigorously, the right of a man to have his say, a heckler, and he happened to be a man of neo-Fascist views. Does that right of free expression in your view extend to everybody?

     CHOMSKY: I mean if we don’t believe in free expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”

   • Has anyone ever believed in “free speech”? Like the ability to say things that are untrue and EVIL for no other reason then you’re right to say them?

     ———–
     Supreme Court

   • I think of it more terms of my right to hear and judge other people’s ideas for myself, rather than in terms of their right to say it.

   • Plenty of people genuinely support free speech for non-pragmatic reasons (though pragmatic support for it may be the strongest factor in its support). I don’t think it’s really that hard to see why, when one actually contemplates what the absence of free speech actually means. Have people ever actually believed that it is morally wrong to lock someone in a cage for saying something false or evil? Yeah, of course. You may think it’s moral to lock someone in a cage for such a reason, but surely it’s understandable that people would sincerely think it isn’t.

     Maybe it’s just me libertarian instinct, but whenever people characterize the legality of something as though it constitue some sort of positive affirmation of it, e.g., ‘supporting prostitution, supporting drugs’ etc., it irritates me. No, the question is: is it moral to lock people in cages for such and such an action. Thought of that way, it makes far more sense that why principled civil libertarians who want relatively few things to be illegal exist.

     • “It’s bad, but it shouldn’t be illegal” is certainly a reasonable opinion. I think its less shared than people think. Especially when we start to talk about “evil” rather than “bad”. When drinking alcohol is merely a “bad habit” it’s tolerated on pragmatic grounds. When it became “the tool of the devil” and was responsible for every other problem in society a huge super majority was convinced to outlaw it.

       I think libertarians often don’t understand the switch in peoples heads that makes something go from pragmatic tradeoff we can discuss to absolute taboo. If they did better they might trigger it less.

       Handle notes below that we already have lots of exceptions to the free speech rule when we consider the speech “evil” rather than something we merely disagree with “shouting fire in a crowded theater”. What’s happening is that the sphere of what is considered “evil” is expanding. In part because facts that would show certain beliefs to not be “evil” are themselves censored.

4. There is a glaring omission from these recent conversations on free speech: data. For a blog that purports sound methodology, there doesn’t seem to be a presentation of the available data. These posts have been framed in a sort of careless, lazy way which ironically captures the counter “zeitgeist” of the right movement on free speech. Since these should have been asked anyway, I guess I’ll fill in:

   1.So, are colleges either getting better or worse at protecting free speech, and how can you tell?

   2. If colleges are doing worse at protecting free speech, which kinds of free speech are they failing to protect, and why?

   3. Are there regional trends to the protection of free speech on campus? Is it systemic, or limited to certain states or types of institutions?

   4. How bad is the problem? Are whole categories being subject to censorship, or only some subjects? Are classes of speakers being refused at campuses, or only certain individuals? Why are they being refused?

   Let’s start with some great reporting to answer these questions, found here:

   https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/02/why-do-those-college-students-hate-free-speech-so-much

   • Derrick, skimming your link, I did not see any data, certainly nothing like what you are asking for. All I saw were more anecdotes and the author’s opinions. In contrast, there is plenty of polling data in the report I linked to in my first post. Hard data related to your questions 1-4 would be a nice-to-have, but the absence of such refined data does not prove the absence of a problem.

     The author in your link says “I am not denying that there is a new type of rhetoric on the left that is critical of free speech as a social value, and I am certainly not denying that it is particularly prevalent among student activists. ”

     He goes on to say, ‘I am also, frankly, skeptical about just how many people even in the elite college campuses subscribe to the kind of caricatured “social justice” ideology that conservatives seem to think they do.’

     That latter skepticism is exactly the point of view that I was hoping to have confirmed when I gave my talk, and instead the opposite happened.

   • In addition to what Arnold mentions, there is this old Slate Star Codex piece.

     https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/23/can-things-be-both-popular-and-silenced/

     Charles Murray can occasionally get invited to give talks where he isn’t physically assaulted. But that doesn’t mean Charles Murray’s research, which is hugely relevant to a wide variety of issues, is allowed to achieve a fair and wide enough hearing to influence the world in a way progressives don’t want. In fact this level of silencing is done specifically because if his ideas did get a fair hearing they might defeat theirs in a marketplace of ideas.

     People don’t do the kind of research Charles Murray does simply to do it. I think he genuinely hopes that his research leads to a better world through influencing culture, social norms, a public policy. His books are full of suggestions based on his facts. They aren’t just a list of facts for curiosities sake alone.

     Let’s take a simple example. You’re James Damore at Google. You get called in for demeaning diversity and inclusion seminars that blame you for there not being enough women in certain positions at Google. In addition to that unjust humiliation you find out that people are rewarded/punished for achieving certain diversity quotas that can’t possibly be fulfilled based on an assessment of merit, meaning that certain groups, including your own, will have to be discriminated against to achieve these targets. You get asked to provide feedback on this to your company. So you know that:

     1) The objectives the company is targeting are probably impossible absent immoral means (discrimination).

     2) While you are willing to politely acknowledge your diversity concerns, consider them, and make constructive suggestions to aid in addressing those concerns, you aren’t going to make the leap that ratio X% of group Y in position Z automatically means that evil (men, whites, whatever) are causing it to do discrimination (conscious or unconscious). To assume that is probably wrong (based on science) and also highly insulting (you are accusing people of crimes they haven’t committed).

     James Damore probably put it in as polite, constructive, articulate, and well researched a manner as humanely possible…and he got canned for it and vilified by the media. He received no protection from the National Labor Relations Board, which explicitly stated that his citation of scientifically true facts about differing human attitudes was what was beyond the pale and justified his firing.

     So yes, Charles Murray can speak at some college campuses some of the time, but anyone who cites his research in an effort to end an injustice and assert their rights off in the real world gets crushed. And if that’s the case, then we will never end these injustices, or likely even be able to stop the march of new injustices.

     I will believe there is effective free speech when regular people that aren’t rich or connected to some sympathetic donor can state things that are true and meaningful in order to assert change that is just. As long as average people are getting fired from their jobs for discussing what you can find in The Bell Curve I won’t believe we have effective free speech.

     • James Damore probably put it in as polite, constructive, articulate, and well researched a manner as humanely possible

       It was in writing that would become Exhibit A at sex discrimination suit for the next ten years. (Women are too emotional at work crossed the line here.) Corporate training is condensing as heck but it is good reminder that company assets are at risk.

       Honestly, nobody at a workplace really wants to know your religious or political beliefs. If somebody brings them up, politely move to the business at hand.

       • I really doubt that fear of a discrimination lawsuit was the driving force here. It certainly is used as an excuse by people who don’t want to show backbone when they see an injustice.

         To the James Damore’s memo would be constitute sexual harassment (not conceded, but allowed for purposes of argument), this only means that in addition to fighting Google’s policies one should also be campaigning to change the legal definition of sexual harassment.

         The business at hand was specifically what Damore was discussing. Google asked for feedback on its diversity and inclusion initiatives. Damore criticized those initiatives. If Damore had stayed silent, then the things he criticized would not have changed. I think we can all agree the things he was criticizing deserved to change. This was not an abstract debate, this was a specific call to action on specific corporate policies that personally effected him and others.

         • Well there are sex discrimination and harrassment differences but it was a company memo that any lawyer can make Exhibit A of treatment of employees. And these cases are often he said/she said and this memo could make a difference in these cases whether the payoff is $100K or $1M. That does not make right but any lawyer with a grain of salt would use this as evidence.

           1) He did not provide the feedback quietly but a company memo. When in office, figure most people don’t care and honestly don’t want to know your political or religious beliefs.

           2) I bet 50% of the Google women employees thought it was fine and applauded Damore. I bet the 50% of other women employees just stupid pig even if they did not think he should be fired. And most hiring of diversity is wasteful.

           3) And honestly, you don’t know how co-workers or customers might react to this. Or maybe your key customer contact on the phone is a minority, immigrant or even worker living in India. (And honestly I have made a lot wrong images of people I have spoken to on the phone!)

         • And yes Damore’ memo was very finely written and would be appropriate on a National Review page.

         • Again, even if this was the reason, and I’m not convinced it is (nor did Google say it was), then changing the law simply gets added to the list of injustices to get fixed.

           1) This wasn’t an abstract political or religious belief. This was direct feedback on a company policy that affected him personally and was explicitly requested by the company.

           Also as far as I can tell James didn’t work that hard to promote it as it was discussed internally at a low profile for some time before the wrong sort of people decided to make a case out of it.

           2) If true then firing him was pretty dumb.

           3) If your chief customer said “I don’t like black people, don’t let any black employees work on my projects” and the company caved to this demand it would be a scandal. But James is white so it’s OK to do the exact same thing in reverse.

           I think there real problem is that Google’s leadership are true believers in progressivism and are embarrassed that the only way to keep their company from collapsing is to have a heavily white/asian male workforce. Rather than confront their ideology and make peace with what they’ve done they put that angst and guilt onto a scapegoat. It’s cowardly and morally wrong. Not good for a company whose mission statement is “Don’t be evil.”

         • James Damore posted on all employee intranet site that any employee can read! For an average employee that is a big deal. I got to post things on all employee sites about how wonderful it was to work as a team to win a couple large deals. Not the place to get into some of the issues of the workplace.

           Yes there are issues with Google here but honestly I don’t work with them. But I still say a lot of the diversity is sell to both employees and global customers that they are fairly hypocritical a lot of the time. (Otherwise there has been a lot less diversity training the last decade.)

         • > James Damore posted on all employee intranet site that any employee can read!

           True, but:
           a) Google for a long time has tried to foster a culture of open discussion and “bringing your whole self to work”. This includes such deeply personal things as company hosted discussion forums for employees sexual preferences, as well as many controversial topics. I consider this ill-advised, and rather creepy for a company to do[1], but I don’t think in that kind of atmosphere it would necessarily have been obvious just what the fallout of the memo would be (especially for someone on the autistic spectrum, which I believe Damore is).

           b) Have you seen some of the internal messages leaked from Google? People get away with saying a lot of racist/sexist/ageist stuff (if directed at the right demographics). Not like “Science suggests that group X may be on average less intelligent that group Y, here’s my citations…”, but more like “group X is just a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings”. I. Kid. You. Not.

           c) He only posted it to a internal forum after waiting for over a month for HR to respond to his initial memo. If HR has been responsible and addressed him directly when they had the chance, the situation would likely been diffused.

           [1] I suspect the real reason for this (along with the free meals etc.) is to encourage employees to provide more uncompensated overtime.

       • If you’ve read anything about what the google workplace is like, people absolutely love sharing their political beliefs, some of which are positively insane (team leaders openly stating that they won’t allow conservatives on their teams; people on their employee boards expressing overt hatred of white people or men). Google is an extremely political workplace. Damore did not err in expressing his political views. His coworkers do so far more aggressively and hatefully than he did. He erred in being a non-leftist and expressing his views. So the “he had it coming for talking politics at work” angle just doesn’t work. If it did, a few dozen of his aggressively leftist coworkers should’ve been fired well before him.

   • Good comment.
     It’s also interesting that many conservatives complaints are not so much about their own speech being suppressed but about how other people’s speech makes them feel. I.e. having professors say nasty things about white men and/or conservatives in class – that makes conservatives feel oppressed, but it is not in itself a suppression of conservative speech. It’s actually the professor exercising their own free speech rights. Of course we all recognize that an environment where people are making disparaging remarks and you are outnumbered 10 to 1 is going to be one where you aren’t going to speak up. But exactly the same point can be made about minorities – when you are outnumbered 10-to-1 and people are making racist comments in class, you probably are going feel pretty oppressed and not want to stick your neck out too far. So in some cases, progressives and conservatives positions are actually identical mirror images of each other – in some cases, both complain about something that isn’t exactly suppression of speech, but rather about how other people’s speech makes them feel that they are oppressed and can’t speak their mind. You might think this would be a basis for mutual understanding!

     • Yeah, I remember when I was in college, all the n-bombs people would drop in class, and how deeply affecting that must have been for black students.

       Oh, wait…no, I never heard anyone say that.

     • I would say – being someone who does indeed get annoyed at coworkers saying disparaging things about me because of my race or sex – that the asymmetry of standards and rules is the crux of the matter. I favor a comparatively ‘open’ space. However, I can at least appreciate the idea that a more ‘closed’ space is more appropriate. A space where potentially offensive things are off limits.

       But the reality is, it can be more closed for one side than the other. So, when I here someone say, for example, that all men should be enslaved, it’s not merely that it annoys me (I wouldn’t say I feel oppressed; I feel insulted; and it doesn’t really have to do with being conservative, which I’m not, just being make) I am instaneously reminded that my speech is indeed effectively suppressed. I cannot respond in kind. She can say, “you’re evil because you’re a man” and if I were to respond, “go bake me a cake”, I and I alone would be punished (even though I think the latter remark is less egregious than the former). I think the fact the rules are, effectively, highly discriminatory in in nature is, if not the sole cause, at least a major factor in the indignation.

       • Correct. In an environment where the slightest hint of racism, including merely stating true facts, is worse then Hitler, its absurd to claim minorities are afraid of anything. You’re worshiped and given everything you don’t deserve for free. If you are actually afraid of white supremacism, you don’t say “white people should die off.”

         But if one side couldn’t blame the other, the affirmative action and gibsmedats would dry up. There needs to be someone to blame to keep that going. So it can never be a neutral place, because if it were one side would lose power and they aren’t giving it up.

         *White “allies” that use the diversity narrative to increase their own power are just as guilty.

       • Do you think white men are the only people who are subjected to asymmetries of standards when it comes to what they can say or do in the workplace?

         I would bet anything that the average black person has a lot more to say that they hold their tongue about than the average white male.

5. It seems to me that we are conflating the tactics used by social activism with the opinions/beliefs of those who wield those tactics.

   The American civil rights movement used a set of tactics that proved to be extremely effective in advancing their cause and these tactics have been embraced and refined by the anti-war movement and many other movements since then.

   The problem is that these tactics work equally well for corrupt and misguided causes as well. It seems to me that the concern here is that we are witnessing a tectonic shift in the acceptance of corrupt and/or misguided beliefs when what we are seeing is the mastery and application of specific tactics.

   Some groups embrace these tactics but fail to master them as is evidence by this protest against Netflix:

   Thousands petition Netflix to cancel Amazon Prime’s Good Omens

   I don’t think we need to look towards a fundamental shift in attitudes towards free speech by social justice activists or Christians when the abuse of proven tactics seems more relevant.

   I don’t think any of the current de-platforming is any worse or immoral than what happened to E. O. Wilson after his publication of “Sociobiology: The New Synthesis” in 1975. Some of the tools and communication channels have changed/advanced but not much else.

   In my mind, I keep wondering if this is not C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” pitting Humanities vs. STEM over and over again.

6. I think there is a middle ground here. Occasionally I do hear some nuanced arguments from progressives regarding why they support deplatforming or speech regulation of various sorts. (Not that any of the student in this case were actually making them.) I will list these:
   1. Due to their numerical minority status, the perspectives of minority groups are often swamped out so they cannot be heard or get equal time compared to those of white people. This tends to result in a conversation in which black people (or other minorities) can’t authentically get their arguments or perspectives across, and the conversation devolves into different groups of white people arguing with each other without actually paying attention to anything non-white people are saying. Consequently to have a real conversation, sometimes white people need to be told to shut up and just let non-whites talk.

   2. Often what is claimed to be attacks against free speech are actually attacks against counter-speech. For instance, when protests against a particular speaker’s views are in themselves treated as speech suppression. For instance, if someone get’s called a “racist” they will decry that as suppression of their speech, even though it objectively isn’t. Calling someone a racist is not censorship. Calling someone a “racist” is not even objectively against a culture of free speech. It is simply free speech itself. Thus claims about free speech are often evasions designed to suppress challenges to racist views and existing racist institutions. In order to challenge those ideas, you have to deconstruct the idea that challenging those ideas is an attack on “free speech”.
   Here’s a good discussion of this at CATO Unbound:
   https://www.cato-unbound.org/2018/06/13/anthony-leaker/against-free-speech

   Ultimately, this means that supposedly “free speech” opponents are not actually anti-free speech – rather they are asserting the right to challenge views by calling out how those views reinforce various form of institutional bias and prejudice. i.e. by calling those views racist, and being allowed to argue for why they are racist.

   I don’t think this is what *always* happens on college campuses, but this is a more nuanced “steelman” view of what people who appear to be against free speech are actually arguing.

   • I think telling people to shut up because of their race – let’s call it what it is, corrective racism – is probably one of the worse and least ‘nuanced’ ideas to come out of progressive circles. That whole argument rests on the faulty notion that people’s perspectives are fundamentally defined by their race, and that people function as some sort of hivemind, where they are magically incited to talk more upon hearing people with a similar hue of skin talk.

     I suppose it’s possible. I suppose that, when I’m in a room, if I see another blue eye’d person talk, I think, “that’s my cue to join in.” But it’d require some empirical evidence to accept this model of group behavior. The idea of rationing time (or anything) according to racial group plainly contradictory to the ideal of people being individuals and race being an irrelevant factor. I think people on the left need to decide if that’s what they want, otherwise it’s just an intractable difference in core values.

     • When a formal debate occurs, each side gets equal time regardless of how popular or unpopular that viewpoint is. And when one side is talking, it’s time for the other side to shut up and let them talk. Interruptions are not allowed. That’s what I’m talking about – sometimes, you have to structure a discussion with formal rules so that each side has a chance to speak without being interrupted. Does freedom of speech give you the right to interrupt people and shout them down?

       And yes, sometimes someone race does give someone a perspective that is fundamentally different and they need to be allowed to relate their perspective. It’s patronizing to suggest that a white person could stand in for them and represent their views and interests.

7. AK wrote: “If you’ve seen it, and you think it’s misleading, then put together a polite flyer spelling out the misleading aspects, and hand out the flyer to people going into the film.”

   The problem is the damage is already done. For example, let’s say someone produced a moderately convincing deep fake video of your neighbor having sex with your wife (and let’s say it was posted anonymously and was untraceable). And let’s say it went viral prior to you being able to get youtube to delete it. Even after you proved it was fake, do you think anybody could “unsee” that? Could your friends? Could you? Or would they always look at you, your wife and your neighbor a little differently?

   People produce propaganda because it works.

   Having a polite little flyer correcting “misinformation” after the fact is pretty much silly.

   • We have libel laws for that sort of thing.

     • And how to apply libel laws to an anonymous, untraceable and possibly foreign poster? Hmmm?

       Besides, the point is that any sort of propaganda, even of a legal sort, causes irreparable damage.

       • If something is anonymous and untraceable then there is little point in our debating how to restrict or punish them since its beyond our power.

         But that wasn’t what Kling was discussing. This is some event being advertised. It’s hardly anonymous or untraceable.

         • No, I was addressing: “If you’ve seen it, and you think it’s misleading, then put together a polite flyer spelling out the misleading aspects, and hand out the flyer to people going into the film.”

           You could do the equivalent in the comments of youtube until the video was removed whether or not it was traceable.

           I just don’t think that has much effect at all relative to the effect of the video/propaganda.

         • I guess we are getting back and forth between “libel” and “propaganda”.

           Libel is making up a lie about someone, such as “deep fake video of your neighbor having sex with your wife”. I don’t think I would call that “propaganda”. It’s just fraud and libel.

           Propaganda, like pornography, has a certain “I know it when I see it” character.

           Many people on the left consider the IDW propaganda and want it banned from Youtube. Similarly, I think many also think that any discussion of HBD is essentially some kind of white supremicist propaganda that should be banned, no matter what form it comes in.

           I can’t really debate with you “if propaganda works”. Probably in some cases…

           But there is also the problem of just what “propaganda” is. In the modern context propaganda just seems to be “things I dislike” regardless of content or truth.

     • BTW, expanding out this idea. People give places like Singapore a hard time for making liberal use of its libel laws. But the government does seem to narrow its focus to actual libel for the most part. This keeps the misleading demagoguery suppressed, and makes rational debate of serious subjects easier by reducing the signal to noise ratio.

       If you cut out a lot of the noise, and get people to debate the signal without dishonesty and libel, you can actually expand the sphere of serious issues you can discuss.

8. Let’s say you hate an idea. You want to defeat the power of this idea.

   You are presented with two strategies:

   1. Prevent anyone from discussing the idea, hoping that it doesn’t spread.
   2. Allow free expression of the idea, but then publicly and strenuously argue against that idea.

   You have to make an argument that #2 will usually produce superior results. This is the debate of free speech. It is not obvious to each generation of young people what the right answer is. It takes work to convince them of the value of strategy #2. We should not resent this.

   I don’t get the impression that Arnold went into this with the clear intent of making that argument. That wasn’t the topic he discussed. He just expressed concern for the lack of support for free speech on campuses.

   • Questions:
     1. What to do in situation #2 if the response to your strenuous arguments against the idea is for it’s defenders to claim that you are trying to suppress their speech.

     2. What to do in situation #2 if the nature of the speech is such that it terrorizes some sub-segment of the population. I.e. burning a cross in the public square as part of a Klan demonstration. Can certain kinds of speech, when placed in historical context, carry more meaning, including implicit threats of violence, than what is explicitly stated?

     • 2b. What do you do when people try to argue that something non-threatening and non-violent – be it refusing to sell cakes to some people or denying the existence of climate change, or saying a racial slur – is actually a form of violence, and therefore suppressing it isn’t actually actually in violation of freedom of speech.

       My snark (probably not the right word) aside, on 2: what is threatening may well be contextually or culturally determined. For example, I can imagine a situation where a particular idiom that is nonthreatening literally is nonetheless almost never used other than as a means of implying ‘give me your money or I’ll hurt you,’ and that in such a case, the idiom, uttered sincerely, could be treated legally as a threat.

       The problem, however, is that the putative victims should not be trusted to decide whether the idiom is actually a threat. Leaving aside the idea of epistemic privilege (which is, imo, based on circular reasoning) people aren’t good (or unbiased) at distinguishing an emotional or social threat from a genuine physical one. Someone saying a hurtful thing may induce anger, fear, etc. even in someone completely aware that they are in no physical harm. On campuses, some members of supposedly marginalized groups have already often shown a penchant for using the “I feel threatened” card to shut down speech that isn’t actually threatening, but simply bothers or angers them. And I don’t think they’re even necessarily being manipulative. I think human emotions are a terrible guide here. We should not trust an insulted party to decide the gravity or implication of the insult.

       So how do we determine if a literally unthreatening idiom actually portends a threat? Well, empirically, I think. We assess how often people who use the idiom follow it up with violent action. My suspicion is, though, that regarding racist speech, the results would disappoint you. Absent interference, how often do Klansmen burning a cross in a public square then proceed to commit violence? Most of the time? 25% of the time? 1% of the time? Even absent any interference, do they almost always just go home afterward? Is a Klan meeting (these days) even more likely to be followed by violence than a Stanley Cup game? Most racial slurs or comments I am willing to bet are less predictive of violence than many abrasive phrases that we’d never think of treating as strictly threatening, (e.g., I’d bet more people get beat up right after hearing, “you son of a b*tch” or “what the hell is wrong with you” than after hearing a racial slur).

       • Well, I don’t think the percentage of time violence is actually employed ought to be the definitive measure. Because the cost of harm can be very high, even a small chance that the idiom is followed by violent action can be quite threatening. Most death threats ate not actually followed by attempts to kill people, but death threats are still death threats.

         The thing with Klan cross burnings is that there is a long and violent history of attacks against African Americans going all the way back to the post-slavery period. There’s an entire unbroken history stretching across many generation during which violence was employed to keep African Americans first as slaves and then as second class citizens. To keep them in fear, to prevent them from asserting equal rights. When a Klan group burns a cross, they are reminding that entire community of that long history: We’ve used violence in the past against you, and we can do it again. We’re still here. We havn’t gone away. The fact that the chance of actual violence is small doesn’t mean much because you remember how high the cost can be – you remember churches being burned down, people being beaten and killed, often with no suspect being arrested or convicted, and you’re being told that the people who did all that stuff are still around.

9. In addition to the question of whether prohibitions on discrimination on the basis of content and expression should apply to the state, private parties or both, I think also we run into problems with a vague and shifting concept of the cateogories of expression protected by “free speech”. Even restricting ourselves to limitations on state authority, We should distinguish between a few possibilities.

   1. Genuine absolutism – the state cannot impose any negative consequence on an individual or organization for anything they say or write. This has never been the case in our history, and my impression is that even most libertarians don’t advocate it.

   2. Absolutism, but excluding traditional common law exceptions such as fraud, tortious interference, obscenity, fighting words, incitement, false statements under oath, defamation, privacy / secrecy / non-disclosure agreements, copyright, sedition, etc. Notice that all of these are based on an underlying theory that some speech causes personal or social harm and has therefore been understood to not fall under the protection of “Free Speech” values and principles.

   3. The modern exceptions: Severely diminished exceptions for sedition, defamation (especially by the press) and obscenity (essentially only child pornography, ‘snuff’ films, and only the most extremely humilating and degrading forms of hard core pornography). Add in time, place, and manner regulation; extensive regulation of “commercial speech”; obstruction of justice; incitement to suicide; publication of national secrets; regulation of content for traditional broadcasters, for students in public schools, as a condition for certain state-granted licenses (e.g., to practice law as a member of the bar), and regulation of the speech of prisoners and military servicemembers. And – perhaps as important as any of these – offensive, disruptive, and/or discrimatory ‘harassment’ likely to give rise to a ‘hostile environment’, when committed by government employees, or when relevant to any government decisions, for instance, in adjudiating labor rights or selecting contractors, and imposed on nearly all private employers or recipients of government money via liabilities arising out of Title VII.

   As I’ve said before, the support of progressives, liberals, and the broader cultural left for “free speech” was facultative and opportunistic, as a result of the balance of cultural and social power at the time. They wanted to relax the restrictions they didn’t like. But to string some metaphors, as soon as the shoe was on the other foot, they would turn on a dime and switch gears, and create new speech restriction to now prohibit speech they didn’t like. That’s just how the power dance goes.

   The peak social equilibrium seems to be in the Warren Court era of the 60’s and early 70’s with NYT v. Sullivan narrowing defamation, Brandenburg narrowing incitement, Tinker narrowing student restriction, and Miller narrowing obscenity, and cases like Cohen v. California narrowing both obscenity and breach of the peace. Maybe the high-water mark was Skokie “marching Nazis” decision in 1977.

   Now, in my view, and in addition to the progressives rising in power and using it in the “undoing the old culture” phase – before the “recreate a new culture in accordance with our morality” phase in which we currently live – part of the general backdrop behind many of these cases was also the well-known problem of the powers that be abusing discretion and the English language, by greatly expanding the interpretations of the the traditionally understood meaning of some of these exceptions, essentially to be able to use them to get at any trouble-makers they don’t like. Some of the courts came to the reasonable conclusion that there was just no effective way to police or contain that problem – let alone deter it in the first place – except for declaration of bright-line and near-absolutist principles. They did this knowing some rascals worthy of justified punishment would get through, but essentially were choosing to alter the balance in favor of more Type II errors and fewer Type I errors.

   But nothing in any of those cases – even at the high-water mark – denied the fundamental principle that the general exception to free speech was harmful speech. The question was one of where the lines would be drawn, and whether there was any lingering danger of the remaining or new speech-restriction categories being expanded in interpretation to incorporate more and more ‘harms’ such as to recreate the problem, just with different powers that be with different ideas about the people and ideas they wanted to suppress.

   And that’s what happened. The harassment exception gradually expanded to become an increasingly broad prohibition on any non-PC speech or mere ideas which could be characterized as harmful or generating any emotional state south of perfect contentment and comfort in any potential listener (actually only those in protected categories), which, as we’ve seen, is a trend with no real limit, and regarding which discretion can abused in a biased manner to get at anyone.

   So, we’ve never had a “culture of free speech”. We’ve had a culture of “free speech except harmful speech” for nearly all of our history, and the issue is what counts as ‘harm’, but even more importantly, the real question is whether that definition has been abused in a biased and politicized manner such that it is no longer ideologically neutral.

   In other words, whether the harm exception to free speech can be twisted and abused so that the powers that be can get away with exercising the power of political and ideological censorship: which is an obvious and irresistable end of anyone who seeks greater power. We start with objective material and physical harms, we move on to emotional distress but with objective and severe physical consequences and a burden of proof to demonstrate them on the claimant, and we arrive at complete subjective states of mind regarding petty levels of annoyance which cannot be verified or even challenged and must be accepted as true on the claimant’s say so.

   That is really the issue – not the harm principle, but how to prevent ideological censorship by means of abusing the harm exception.

   And the problem is now one involing social psychology, law, and linguistics. If the source of abuse is that the definition of a particular word is fluid and subject to change and expansion over time, then it will inevitably keep expanding in the direction of the ideological agenda of those with dominant influence over public opinion until put in check by an official act.

   That’s the real value of state action in this instance, which is of course no permanent solution capable of holding back an opposing cultural flood for all time, but in the nature of things tends to impose a huge amount of inertia by setting up a new focal / Schelling point by an act of high authoirty generally perceived as a legitimate exercise of power.

   If the state – and in our circumstances it can only be the state – draws the line of harm at objective and serious material or physical harm, and requires everyone to heed to that same line, then we can start along the journey of reestablishing a culture of free speech, at least for a generation or so, until its enemies regroup again.

   • You are drifting hopelessly away from ideas of free speech, and confusing them with all manner of other types of legal and commercial entanglements, as well as the rights of others to disagree with you and disentangle with you when they see fit.

     Free speech doesn’t mean that you can say whatever you want in any context, such as at work, or in a school, and that no consequences will flow from your statements. It means we all agree to maintain certain understood neutral spaces (the press, political speech, some college lecture platforms) for the free debate of ideas.

     “Harm” is not a standard, and holds no legal weight whatsoever.

   • I would refer to Andrew Breitbart’s aphorism about politics being downstream of culture. This is one reason why I don’t think state action would work: if passed and enforced as you’d hope it would be, it would elicit a cultural backlash by those in the ‘anti-free speech culture.’ Institutions like Google and Facebook, and especially the universities – made up overwhelmingly by leftists – would rankle under the requirement to give platforms to people they believe to be intolerable bigots, and would push and lobby and cajole regulators into selective non-enforcement (and the regulators themselves will most likely be sympathetic to them already, and content to do so). Many institutions would openly defy such restrictions in protest, and I seriously doubt the government will be willing to throw the book at them; ultimately, the regulation would lose its teeth fairly quickly.

     A second reason I don’t think this is a good idea is that it would concede that the state has the right to regulate speech for the common good, and thereby open the door for things like ‘hate speech’ laws. Allowing the taboo against state action on speech to disintegrate would invite those who are currently merely culturally anti-free speech to become actively and vociferously politically anti-free speech. That institutions are allowed to discriminate is a fact that serves as key high ground in discussions on things like hate speech laws, which remain controversial even among the ‘culturally’ anti-free speech.

     Put succinctly, if the battle over free speech is already lost in the cultural realm, then trying to take it into the political realm will only lead to another loss there as well. It’s trying to cure a hangover by the hair of the dog.

     • I would refer to Andrew Breitbart’s aphorism about politics being downstream of culture.

       That one always annoys me: isn’t it obvious that Breitbart was wrong? At the very least, he’s half wrong: there is feedback, not the one-direction cause-and-effect allusion of ‘downstream’.

       “Well, what is culture downstream of, and why don’t we influence that?” Breitbart was trying to say that if you want to influence politics, you have to influence ‘culture’, and one important way to influence culture is through gatekeeper-bypassing media (so long as it lasts) and so please consider investing in my public-opinion-making endeavors.

       But if one buys this, then that just raises the question of what else is “upstream” from culture that might be worth trying to influence.

       Culture is in large part downstream of the publicly conspicuous activity and signalling of high status individuals, many of whom are perceived as ‘powerful’ in some way. The exercise of political authority by a strong state in a way that is perceived as both important and likely to last has a way all its own of shaping the culture under its jurisdiction.

10. What a depressing comment thread. Only Handle was worth the read.

    I feel for Kling, I really do, but he is hopelessly naive.

11. Hazel Meade/Mark Z

    You are both posing the same problem.

    Again, the goal is to to separate the speech from the idea, and to make that distinction as clearly as you can. Just evaluating perceived harm is insufficient. Ideas always have consequences, or they aren’t worth much. We draw the line at a direct physical threat.

    You don’t have a right to explicitly physically threaten someone, and a cross burning fails that test. You do have a right to ideas that can be judged by others to have threatening consequences.

    Denying climate change could be judged by some to be a civilization ending threat, but the threat is from inaction and is not a call to direct violence.

    In the end, speech has boundaries that are subjective. You support speech in good faith, state your reasons, and let it ride. We don’t owe anyone better than that.

12. -Arnold’s post and some of the comments here remind me of this quote from C.S. Lewis:
    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

    -I find it stunning that the military can endow 18 year olds with the capacity to endure incredible amounts of physical hardship, terror, and function in situations where a violent death is an ever present reality, and our universities can turn 18 year olds into neurotic, censorious scolds that quake at the thought of hearing mean words directed at them spoken in their presence. I can’t think of any time in American history when the chasm between the level of resilience and fortitude demanded of and instilled in the two groups has been so vast.

    -I wonder when and if it the erstwhile beneficiaries of the woke-white-allies will realize that their activism on their behalf rests on a foundation of condescension, contempt, and deeply-rooted doubts about their capacities. If they were to point at someone and loudly proclaim that they are so weak and feeble that we can’t possibly expect them to jog a half a mile without collapsing, the person they are speaking about would presumably feel deeply insulted and patronized, but evidently making the same claims about their capacity to endure even the most trivial of perceived slights evidently makes one an “ally.” Fascinating.

13. I think the generational difference is that young people’s experience of free speech is better described by Martin Gurri than John Locke. They see free speech as unlikely to lead to a better understanding of the truth and more likely to lead to total epistemic fragmentation and collapse. Productive debate isn’t possible between people who don’t have enough shared premises to at least agree on what’s worth debating.

    Also, demands for censorship are fundamentally based on insecurity. People only care if somebody calls them a loser when they have suspicions that it’s true. I think it’s at least partly due to the “every child succeeds” system they were raised in – people build confidence by overcoming real challenges. If you can’t possibly lose, what does it prove when you win?

    • +1 the entire thing

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