I'm "enjoying" the Dienne-Michael exchanges, but it's too bad, I suppose, when good people disagree so sharply.
Michael,
I appreciate your civil disagreement and have generally held the same view. Even now I don't support the shouting down tactic, but I remain frustrated that the "right" uses this kind of incident to perpetuate a grievance-based false equivalence, as though the overreaction to their bigotry is the real problem. In so many instances, the issue is not about an exchange of ideas, Demeaning and assaulting the rights of gay or trans people is not an "idea" for academic discussion. Protecting that speech, even for noble reasons, confers a level of dignity it doesn't deserve.
We have also been unclear about "freedom of speech." We are protected from government repression. Private entities can repress or censor anything they wish, however misguided they may be. Construing the conservative judge's speech as "protected" is a category error. It might be bad policy or bad behavior to shout him down or disinvite him, but he has no "rights" in this respect.
The false equivalence is obvious. I doubt you disagree. Screaming at a holocaust denier is not the moral equivalent of screaming,"Jews will not replace us." I think we concede far too much when tacitly accepting both things as "protected," whether by the constitution or academic policy. The "right" is running rampant with this. "Antifa" is just like the Proud Boys. Black Lives Matter is just like the KKK. And so on, nearly ad infinitum.
So, while I share your sense of the principle, I also share the outrage of those who are fed up with the rights of "conservative" provocateurs being honored while the rights of their friends and loved ones are being trampled.
Funny, Dienne: we read a lot of the same people: Hedges, Greenwald, Taibbi, Halper, Maté, and this list.
But I wonder if you realize that none of those first five favors the sort of speech suppression you and Steve advocate for here. If you do, what are you learning from reading those people? I'm confident that none of them would agree with the views you've expressed here (nor the tactic of taking personal swipes at someone taking a different viewpoint). I always hope for better than that from people on the left. But less and less these days do I find it whether in response to me or to others who express divergent viewpoints.
I'm not coloring anyone. I lost my crayons in the Sixties when the "color me" expression was first popular. Even as a young teenager I thought it silly.
So you're the sort of person who turns to personal insults when you run out of arguments. That's unfortunate for you. I expect nothing, but hope for discussion. Too few Americans remember how to have a civil one, unfortunately.
It's remarkable how quickly people evoke Germany, Nazis, and Hitler to describe people whose views they disagree with. Oddly enough, it turns out that Russia now, too, is a fascist state looking to reestablish Czarist Russia or the USSR and led by the second coming of Hitler and Stalin combined.
For some reason, I don't believe either story, nor your simple tale of how the Nazis took over. It's convenient, except that there were many who opposed them and who fought them, and not just after the war started and not just in Germany. 28,000,000 Russians died fighting. Many Communists in Germany itself died fighting. Jews died fighting. The myth of silence is exaggerated.
That said, this isn't German in 1930. We have a Constitution that protects protests and free expression among other rights in the First Amendment. And the founders made it the FIRST amendment for good reason. Too bad many liberals today are more driven by fear than by courage to live freely and struggle democratically for what we believe in. We turn to "Big Daddy" to silence all the "bad people" because we are afraid that our ideas can't win. I'll never turn in that direction. I didn't do it as a young teenager in the Sixties when I faced violence and endless hostility for opposing racial injustice and the war in Vietnam. I won't do it now.
Steve, I think your argument here is specious in many specifics. For me, it's irrelevant that some conservatives want to "own the libs." A serious study of free speech issues on campus over the last decade make it clear that neither end of the political spectrum has the market cornered on trying to suppress the free speech of those it disagrees with. However, the use of shouting down as a tactic seems to be particularly popular in some left-wing circles these days. And it is always wrong. If one group, no matter how noble-minded, can silence a speaker either in advance or during an event, then any group can silence anyone.
Not that long ago, an event in which Angela Davis spoke by invitation of the school board had to be moved to another venue due to threats by local parents. I found that a pathetic example of a "democracy." But no worse than "leftist" silencing of speakers to whom they object or college administrators blithely allowing such behavior to go with no consequences. It's the Sixties turned on their head.
I don't care that the judge has "shown contempt for the human rights of others." That's a red herring. What stops right wingers from claiming that "former terrorist" Angela Davis has shown contempt for the lives of others and hence forfeited her free speech rights in public? The answer is nothing. And therein lies the fundamental problem with your argument. You will always run against the wall of the other side doing to you what you what you countenance when your side does it to them. And both sides will be utterly wrong. "Leftists" may not have a pat phrase like "own the conservatives," but here in Ann Arbor, bastion of liberalism, the rallying cry of certain self-proclaimed arbiters of speech rights on campus (and they're not even connected to the university for the most part) for the past thirty years or so has been, "No free speech for fascists." And naturally, they decide who is a fascist.
The same thinking resulted in the disinviting of Dr. Ayaan Hirsi Ali to be the commencement speaker at Brandeis University in 2014, a completely undemocratic and foolish example of a small number of loud voices and a cowardly administration teaching the campus as a whole that free speech rights are only held by "good" people.
And I'm hardly the first person to note that unless there's free speech for everyone, then there's free speech for no one. Which is precisely the way our current and recent federal administrations and those they work for want it. Internet censorship, campus censorship, book banning, etc., are bad for everyone. Every time.
Thank you for putting all that into words - whole sentences, in fact, steeped in facts and history, experience, compassion, and actual consideration of all angles, whatever mister Golden guy wants to think. The anxiety and denial out there is stifling. It surely feels like some would deny us even outrage if they could. The dean’s reaction (not so much a response) is fear-based, clearly. Truly courageous behavior would look different; what is so scary about hearing others’ truth or being fair to fellow humans? We grow when we wrestle with these issues, but it is not easy, and that breeds insecurity that craves approval, which is what it seems he was after. We ought to gather our own complete sentences and original thoughts and have some conversations. Thanks for your insights and your efforts to support those interactions. It is hard to listen but at least I am trying.
Lemme guess, if an LGBTQ group had invited a drag queen to speak and conservative students had shut down that speech, I'm sure Stanford's reaction would have been exactly the same, right? Um hm.
Are you saying that the Dean was not acting in good faith here? I see no evidence at all to support that idea. You're making an unfounded assumption to "prove" that only one sort of person's free speech is being protected. Which suggests to me that you don't follow free speech issues on college campuses very closely these days. You might try subscribing to https://www.thefire.org/ to become more aware of the bipartisan attacks on free speech on college campuses and elsewhere. And F.I.R.E. is probably the top organization working to protect those rights for everyone.
Freedom of speech does not guarantee anyone a platform, nor does it guarantee anyone the right not to get shouted down. Try yelling "Go Green Bay!" in the home section of Soldiers Field on game day.
Yes, I'm accusing the Dean of not acting in good faith. If a university is going to have vile speakers come to campus, expect students to have reactions thereto. The Dean is denying the students' rights to free speech, which I find far more threatening than the students not letting some vile but powerful right wing judge to speak on campus. There are plenty of places that judge can go speak where he will receive a warm welcome. His vileness should not be forced on intelligent, educated students.
p.s.: I've shouted "Go Yankees" in Tiger Stadium and Fenway Park and lived to tell the tale. I openly rooted for the NY Knicks during a playoff game against the Celtics in the old Boston Garden. I can't account for the hypothetical behavior of Bears fans towards fans of other teams, but I don't set my standards based on what goes on at football games in stadiums with drunken fans. Anything that might happen at Soldiers' Field would no doubt be topped by Eagles fans at their home stadium. I don't think a free society should model public behavior in general on the worst examples of human intolerance. Usually, human beings try to use the best people as exemplars.
If someone is invited to speak on campus, then not only does that person have the right to speak, but those who want to hear her/him speak have the right to listen, for whatever reason. If they want to disagree with things the speaker says, there is generally an opportunity to do so.
What no one has the right to do is shout down a speaker. My concern is not only the impact on the speaker, but on the rights of others to listen (critically or otherwise).
Who decides which speakers are "vile"? You? Why not the local campus conservatives? No one has the right to decide whom I can listen to, in person or online. And a society that can't allow all speakers to express their legally-protected views is a crippled, fear-ridden society, and most certainly no sort of democracy.
Finally, no one is or should be "forced" to listen to a speaker whom s/he finds objectionable. The right to NOT listen is also protected. But not at the expense of others' rights to hear. Walk out. Or don't go in the first place. To turn your phrase, there are plenty of speakers you will warmly welcome: go listen to those. Those of us who think all viewpoints can be freely expressed will attend to whom we choose, and where we wish to express criticism, we'll do so in the appropriate manner. We can also protest outside a venue to our heart's desire as long as we don't prevent anyone from entering, including the speaker.
The students decided this guy is vile. And rightly so. His whole career - in words and deeds - has been almost indistinguishable from nazism. He's all about restricting the rights and even the existence of marginalized populations, just like the nazis did. How is he any better than the nazis calling for the "cleansing" of Germany? How is he any better than the Hutus who called for "cutting down the tall trees" (Tutsis) and "clearing the brush (Hutus who "sympathized" with Tutsis)? Language has meaning and meaning can lead to death. I personally have no problem whatsoever restricting the "free speech" rights of powerful right-wing, nazi-adjacent people like this judge in favor of the protection of marginalized populations. People's basic rights and existence are not up for debate, certainly not by powerful cishet white males. Just simply letting people talk is how the Holocaust happened. There is a time to shut down hatred.
I'm "enjoying" the Dienne-Michael exchanges, but it's too bad, I suppose, when good people disagree so sharply.
Michael,
I appreciate your civil disagreement and have generally held the same view. Even now I don't support the shouting down tactic, but I remain frustrated that the "right" uses this kind of incident to perpetuate a grievance-based false equivalence, as though the overreaction to their bigotry is the real problem. In so many instances, the issue is not about an exchange of ideas, Demeaning and assaulting the rights of gay or trans people is not an "idea" for academic discussion. Protecting that speech, even for noble reasons, confers a level of dignity it doesn't deserve.
We have also been unclear about "freedom of speech." We are protected from government repression. Private entities can repress or censor anything they wish, however misguided they may be. Construing the conservative judge's speech as "protected" is a category error. It might be bad policy or bad behavior to shout him down or disinvite him, but he has no "rights" in this respect.
The false equivalence is obvious. I doubt you disagree. Screaming at a holocaust denier is not the moral equivalent of screaming,"Jews will not replace us." I think we concede far too much when tacitly accepting both things as "protected," whether by the constitution or academic policy. The "right" is running rampant with this. "Antifa" is just like the Proud Boys. Black Lives Matter is just like the KKK. And so on, nearly ad infinitum.
So, while I share your sense of the principle, I also share the outrage of those who are fed up with the rights of "conservative" provocateurs being honored while the rights of their friends and loved ones are being trampled.
Funny, Dienne: we read a lot of the same people: Hedges, Greenwald, Taibbi, Halper, Maté, and this list.
But I wonder if you realize that none of those first five favors the sort of speech suppression you and Steve advocate for here. If you do, what are you learning from reading those people? I'm confident that none of them would agree with the views you've expressed here (nor the tactic of taking personal swipes at someone taking a different viewpoint). I always hope for better than that from people on the left. But less and less these days do I find it whether in response to me or to others who express divergent viewpoints.
I'm not coloring anyone. I lost my crayons in the Sixties when the "color me" expression was first popular. Even as a young teenager I thought it silly.
So you're the sort of person who turns to personal insults when you run out of arguments. That's unfortunate for you. I expect nothing, but hope for discussion. Too few Americans remember how to have a civil one, unfortunately.
It's remarkable how quickly people evoke Germany, Nazis, and Hitler to describe people whose views they disagree with. Oddly enough, it turns out that Russia now, too, is a fascist state looking to reestablish Czarist Russia or the USSR and led by the second coming of Hitler and Stalin combined.
For some reason, I don't believe either story, nor your simple tale of how the Nazis took over. It's convenient, except that there were many who opposed them and who fought them, and not just after the war started and not just in Germany. 28,000,000 Russians died fighting. Many Communists in Germany itself died fighting. Jews died fighting. The myth of silence is exaggerated.
That said, this isn't German in 1930. We have a Constitution that protects protests and free expression among other rights in the First Amendment. And the founders made it the FIRST amendment for good reason. Too bad many liberals today are more driven by fear than by courage to live freely and struggle democratically for what we believe in. We turn to "Big Daddy" to silence all the "bad people" because we are afraid that our ideas can't win. I'll never turn in that direction. I didn't do it as a young teenager in the Sixties when I faced violence and endless hostility for opposing racial injustice and the war in Vietnam. I won't do it now.
Steve, I think your argument here is specious in many specifics. For me, it's irrelevant that some conservatives want to "own the libs." A serious study of free speech issues on campus over the last decade make it clear that neither end of the political spectrum has the market cornered on trying to suppress the free speech of those it disagrees with. However, the use of shouting down as a tactic seems to be particularly popular in some left-wing circles these days. And it is always wrong. If one group, no matter how noble-minded, can silence a speaker either in advance or during an event, then any group can silence anyone.
Not that long ago, an event in which Angela Davis spoke by invitation of the school board had to be moved to another venue due to threats by local parents. I found that a pathetic example of a "democracy." But no worse than "leftist" silencing of speakers to whom they object or college administrators blithely allowing such behavior to go with no consequences. It's the Sixties turned on their head.
I don't care that the judge has "shown contempt for the human rights of others." That's a red herring. What stops right wingers from claiming that "former terrorist" Angela Davis has shown contempt for the lives of others and hence forfeited her free speech rights in public? The answer is nothing. And therein lies the fundamental problem with your argument. You will always run against the wall of the other side doing to you what you what you countenance when your side does it to them. And both sides will be utterly wrong. "Leftists" may not have a pat phrase like "own the conservatives," but here in Ann Arbor, bastion of liberalism, the rallying cry of certain self-proclaimed arbiters of speech rights on campus (and they're not even connected to the university for the most part) for the past thirty years or so has been, "No free speech for fascists." And naturally, they decide who is a fascist.
The same thinking resulted in the disinviting of Dr. Ayaan Hirsi Ali to be the commencement speaker at Brandeis University in 2014, a completely undemocratic and foolish example of a small number of loud voices and a cowardly administration teaching the campus as a whole that free speech rights are only held by "good" people.
And I'm hardly the first person to note that unless there's free speech for everyone, then there's free speech for no one. Which is precisely the way our current and recent federal administrations and those they work for want it. Internet censorship, campus censorship, book banning, etc., are bad for everyone. Every time.
Thank you for putting all that into words - whole sentences, in fact, steeped in facts and history, experience, compassion, and actual consideration of all angles, whatever mister Golden guy wants to think. The anxiety and denial out there is stifling. It surely feels like some would deny us even outrage if they could. The dean’s reaction (not so much a response) is fear-based, clearly. Truly courageous behavior would look different; what is so scary about hearing others’ truth or being fair to fellow humans? We grow when we wrestle with these issues, but it is not easy, and that breeds insecurity that craves approval, which is what it seems he was after. We ought to gather our own complete sentences and original thoughts and have some conversations. Thanks for your insights and your efforts to support those interactions. It is hard to listen but at least I am trying.
Thanks, Amy! Nice to hear from you.
Lemme guess, if an LGBTQ group had invited a drag queen to speak and conservative students had shut down that speech, I'm sure Stanford's reaction would have been exactly the same, right? Um hm.
Are you saying that the Dean was not acting in good faith here? I see no evidence at all to support that idea. You're making an unfounded assumption to "prove" that only one sort of person's free speech is being protected. Which suggests to me that you don't follow free speech issues on college campuses very closely these days. You might try subscribing to https://www.thefire.org/ to become more aware of the bipartisan attacks on free speech on college campuses and elsewhere. And F.I.R.E. is probably the top organization working to protect those rights for everyone.
Freedom of speech does not guarantee anyone a platform, nor does it guarantee anyone the right not to get shouted down. Try yelling "Go Green Bay!" in the home section of Soldiers Field on game day.
Yes, I'm accusing the Dean of not acting in good faith. If a university is going to have vile speakers come to campus, expect students to have reactions thereto. The Dean is denying the students' rights to free speech, which I find far more threatening than the students not letting some vile but powerful right wing judge to speak on campus. There are plenty of places that judge can go speak where he will receive a warm welcome. His vileness should not be forced on intelligent, educated students.
p.s.: I've shouted "Go Yankees" in Tiger Stadium and Fenway Park and lived to tell the tale. I openly rooted for the NY Knicks during a playoff game against the Celtics in the old Boston Garden. I can't account for the hypothetical behavior of Bears fans towards fans of other teams, but I don't set my standards based on what goes on at football games in stadiums with drunken fans. Anything that might happen at Soldiers' Field would no doubt be topped by Eagles fans at their home stadium. I don't think a free society should model public behavior in general on the worst examples of human intolerance. Usually, human beings try to use the best people as exemplars.
So you're the kinda guy who likes to provoke and just expects everyone else to take it. Color me shocked.
If someone is invited to speak on campus, then not only does that person have the right to speak, but those who want to hear her/him speak have the right to listen, for whatever reason. If they want to disagree with things the speaker says, there is generally an opportunity to do so.
What no one has the right to do is shout down a speaker. My concern is not only the impact on the speaker, but on the rights of others to listen (critically or otherwise).
Who decides which speakers are "vile"? You? Why not the local campus conservatives? No one has the right to decide whom I can listen to, in person or online. And a society that can't allow all speakers to express their legally-protected views is a crippled, fear-ridden society, and most certainly no sort of democracy.
Finally, no one is or should be "forced" to listen to a speaker whom s/he finds objectionable. The right to NOT listen is also protected. But not at the expense of others' rights to hear. Walk out. Or don't go in the first place. To turn your phrase, there are plenty of speakers you will warmly welcome: go listen to those. Those of us who think all viewpoints can be freely expressed will attend to whom we choose, and where we wish to express criticism, we'll do so in the appropriate manner. We can also protest outside a venue to our heart's desire as long as we don't prevent anyone from entering, including the speaker.
The students decided this guy is vile. And rightly so. His whole career - in words and deeds - has been almost indistinguishable from nazism. He's all about restricting the rights and even the existence of marginalized populations, just like the nazis did. How is he any better than the nazis calling for the "cleansing" of Germany? How is he any better than the Hutus who called for "cutting down the tall trees" (Tutsis) and "clearing the brush (Hutus who "sympathized" with Tutsis)? Language has meaning and meaning can lead to death. I personally have no problem whatsoever restricting the "free speech" rights of powerful right-wing, nazi-adjacent people like this judge in favor of the protection of marginalized populations. People's basic rights and existence are not up for debate, certainly not by powerful cishet white males. Just simply letting people talk is how the Holocaust happened. There is a time to shut down hatred.