"Marketplace of Ideas"?

[uke2se]

There is a certain philosophy on the marketplace of ideas that's popular in a lot of places and in fact is part of the underlying idea behind the rules of this very forum.

The main gist of it is that no idea or viewpoint is so ugly or dangerous that it ought to be prohibited, even in privately owned discussion spaces.

This viewpoint goes on to argue that its more than slavish devotion to the idea of free speech or fear of a slippery slope but is in fact a positive good to air these ideas in public spaces. Supposedly this allows terrible ideas to be debated publicly where truth and logic will of course win the day! There is often an accompanying claim that absent this public airing these ideas will somehow fester underground and their believers will become worse.

I disagree with all of that. I think that the "marketplace of ideas" just gives more exposure and recruitment to bad ideas and allows people tentatively embracing them to find compatriots and strengthen their grasp on these ugly beliefs. It isn't logic or truth that wins the day, but rhetoric and emotion. The same ideas that fueled the Nazis, slavery and a good chunk of the most horrific things in human history really do not need to be debated over and over again. That merely gives the impression that they're up for debate.

It seems a very mild expectation of civil human society to say we've settled some very basic things.

This discussion, while exacerbated beyond all measures by the advent of social media, isn't new, as evidenced by my sig.

 

[Thermal]

This is all well and good if you are able to control the discussion. You won't, however. Because of the internet, everyone is constantly shouting into the ether, and every viewpoint is treated as equal. You can post "Nazis are bad, m'kay" but you'll immediately be bombed by people posting anime-Hitler memes and shouts of "cuck".

It's not possible to have a rational discussion of the scale that's necessary to convince a body of people of anything that they aren't already leaning towards. Extreme opinions will continue to be amplified and the public polarized. Social media is creating an environment where each person is locked into a view-point, shielded in her echo-chamber from differing opinions, and tutored on how to dismiss people who would tell her differently.

Regulating social media, banning the utterings of extremism, is a way to take back control.

Look, I would very much like that too. Nothing would make yours truly happier than regulating away hateful thinking, and being allowed to publicly bitch slap the proponents of such thinking.

But I would also not be wild about those powers reaching to accusing me of thoughtcrime. Should we also ban me from opining that the Spencers of the world are asking for a fight with their advocation of violence? Perhaps your endorsement of censorship should also be criminalized? Who is going to make the Big Brother calls on what we will tolerate as speech?

 

[uke2se]

Look, I would very much like that too. Nothing would make yours truly happier than regulating away hateful thinking, and being allowed to publicly bitch slap the proponents of such thinking.

But I would also not be wild about those powers reaching to accusing me of thoughtcrime. Should we also ban me from opining that the Spencers of the world are asking for a fight with their advocation of violence? Perhaps your endorsement of censorship should also be criminalized? Who is going to make the Big Brother calls on what we will tolerate as speech?

When people advocating for censorship start killing people, we can have that discussion. Until then, there's no slippery slope.

I am not pointing fingers here, but isn't it interesting that we're only always having this discussion when Nazis and their ilk are deprived their platforms and never when we jail people for child porn or supporting terrorists?

 

[Thermal]

I think it's a bit of cherry picking to discuss deplatforming without mentioning the many other cases in which violence, the threat of violence, or other criminal and disruptive behavior is occurring. Deplatforming as a goal is ideologically different than protest. The goal that invited speakers will be unable to speak because of organized action of students is not something I can support and is inconsistent with 1A law concerning college campuses. Simply put, right wing trolls should be able to speak at universities if invited and students should be able to hear them, if they so choose. It is the universities role to facilitate such speakers as they would other speakers, no matter how objectionable they find the material.

Disorderly conduct intended to prevent students from hearing speakers they want to hear is not laudable, whether that be violent disorderly conduct, or just being a nuisance like pulling a fire alarm, screaming and shouting, rushing the stage, or other such conduct. The "hands off" approach that administrators take to such activity is embarrassing.

Agreed, but you are conflating ideological deplatforming/censorship with legitimate public safety concerns. Two different games.

Protests can be disorderly to varying degrees, based on how much the protesters oppose the content. But I would still disagree that the host's job is to provide security up the wazoo to protect against the violence that the speaker attracts (yes, I am aware of the relevant court rulings. I just disagree that the potential for abuse necessarily outweighs a demonstrable problem).

 

[JoeMorgue]

The "Marketplace of Ideas" is dependent on the idea that putting ideas out there to be debated makes is more likely for the "good" ideas to raise to the top.

To what degree that is true is debatable (personally I think it's more over simplified then wrong but that's me) but if we assume the idea has merit we have to accept within that process that discussions come to an end.

We can't have "the cream rises to the top" and "But one stubborn dickcheese can keep the 'debate' going forever by just being thick and impossible to reason with."

 

[Thermal]

When people advocating for censorship start killing people, we can have that discussion. Until then, there's no slippery slope.

I am not pointing fingers here, but isn't it interesting that we're only always having this discussion when Nazis and their ilk are deprived their platforms and never when we jail people for child porn or supporting terrorists?

Because they have nothing to do with each other.

Kiddie porn is a crime, in every way shape and form. Terrorism, too.

White supremacists, not so much. They certainly are at the extremes, but the rank and file racists are not lynching on their lunch hour. Their thinking is sniveling, and cowardly, and hateful...but not criminal among the masses.

So let them talk. I want to know who they are. I want them seen. No more invisible empires. Stay. Right. Where. I. Can. See. You.

 

[Cavemonster]

I believe mods split this thread at my request. I got a bit impatient and started the new thread in the meantime.

I would request that the two threads be merged.

 

[dann]

Because they have nothing to do with each other.

Kiddie porn is a crime, in every way shape and form. Terrorism, too.

White supremacists, not so much. They certainly are at the extremes, but the rank and file racists are not lynching on their lunch hour. Their thinking is sniveling, and cowardly, and hateful...but not criminal among the masses.
So let them talk. I want to know who they are. I want them seen. No more invisible empires. Stay. Right. Where. I. Can. See. You.

No, they aren't lynching on their lunch hour, but when they take power, they are lynching full time on the job. You seem to forget that they don't really reward you for protecting their freedom of (hate) speech once they're in command. You're either with them or they're knocking on your door to arrest you. Not to ask you to write and publish an opinion piece ...
(Of course, you won't have any problem seeing them, but you may wish that you wouldn't have to - All. The. Time.)

 

[Belz...]

I believe mods split this thread at my request. I got a bit impatient and started the new thread in the meantime.

I would request that the two threads be merged.

STOP PLAYING GOD WITH US!!!!

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Agreed, but you are conflating ideological deplatforming/censorship with legitimate public safety concerns. Two different games.

Protests can be disorderly to varying degrees, based on how much the protesters oppose the content. But I would still disagree that the host's job is to provide security up the wazoo to protect against the violence that the speaker attracts (yes, I am aware of the relevant court rulings. I just disagree that the potential for abuse necessarily outweighs a demonstrable problem).

Depends on the source of the violence. Cancelling an event because a speaker attracts counter protester violence is the very definition of the heckler's veto.

Universities have a long reputation of being raucous places, and a bit of disorder is perhaps unavoidable and desirable. Ideas are important and people care about them, after all. I can certainly see the argument for administration being cautious and having a light touch.

Preemptively banning a speaker because you know your own students will violently riot is cowardly and encourages such tactics.

 

[Darat]

I have to agree with this. There are certainly any number of examples where a certain ideas, by virtue of being allowed to proliferate unchecked in the "free marketplace of ideas", has contributed nothing but misery to the human condition, even directly costing lives. Anti-vaxxers' "right to be heard" has predictably resulted and continues to result in dead and hospitalized children and its thought leaders pointedly are okay with that. White supremacy and the "great replacement" delusion have cultivated a growing and increasingly deadly terrorism threat with worldwide reach.



The fact that people are able to, and do, freely argue with and rebut these malignant viewpoints has not stopped them from proliferating, or killing. The notion that good people with "better" arguments is all that's need to defeat bad people with toxic ideas, is a failure.

I said in another thread that I'm quite happy to see Nazism prohibited, because we know very well what happens when it is allowed to flourish. Why anyone thinks that keeping it out in the open serves any other purpose than recruiting more people to its siren call is beyond me.

 

[Stout]

How about all that MRA stuff, or is this thread still supposed to be about nazis ?

Look what happened with Elliot Rodger

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

A bit of a tangent, but since Cavemonster has said several times he is most concerned about white supremacy and white nationalism, I'd like to ask him to define those terms. One can go to wikipedia, but things quickly get pretty tricky especially since we are speaking about disallowing certain types of speech.

Many on this very forum call all sorts of things white supremacist. So which speech is exactly white supremacist?

- Saying that most countries in Africa are ****hole countries?
- Saying that you think the US or Europe needs immigration reform?
- Saying you hope Trump gets re-elected in 2020?
- Saying that you believe whites are more intelligent than blacks on average?
- Saying that you think Jussie Smollett is guilty?
- Saying you don't believe Richard Spencer should have been punched by that guy?

How does one tell what speech acts are or are not white supremacist?

I think this is one slippery slope that is actually pretty slippery.

 

[Thermal]

I said in another thread that I'm quite happy to see Nazism prohibited, because we know very well what happens when it is allowed to flourish. Why anyone thinks that keeping it out in the open serves any other purpose than recruiting more people to its siren call is beyond me.

Because nazism for all intents and purposes hasn't existed for over half a century, and never existed in the States. People are conflating white supremacy and alt-right with actual nazis. They are nowhere near comparable.

 

[Cavemonster]

In that case you should ban religion immediately.

ETA: Woah! Thought this was a new thread rather than a split.

I think we might say death is a necessary but not sufficient condition.


And while we're at it, too many people jump right to taking a side on "banning" ideas completely. But even if we're talking about the government as opposed to private platforms, we have a lot of room to walk away from the marketplace of ideas without outright banning anything. We in fact have a ways to travel before we'd be on the same field as countries with hate speech laws. There is a lot of room for smaller intervention.

Way below outright banning an idea might be eliminating certain restrictions on venues. Maybe a publicly funded college can curate the content of speakers who use their space and their audience. Maybe even a town can limit what rallies happen in their square. These sorts of interventions are far short of silencing or criminalizing ideas unless you're feeling particularly hyperbolic. And from a legal practical perspective I'm not sure how we'd change the law to get there. But it seems like we could be less accommodating to their recruitment efforts in many ways.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Because nazism for all intents and purposes hasn't existed for over half a century, and never existed in the States. People are conflating white supremacy and alt-right with actual nazis. They are nowhere near comparable.

you haven't heard of George Lincoln Rockwell, have you?

 

[Thermal]

Depends on the source of the violence. Cancelling an event because a speaker attracts counter protester violence is the very definition of the heckler's veto.

Not the problem with herr Spencer. His own supporters brought the violence.

Universities have a long reputation of being raucous places, and a bit of disorder is perhaps unavoidable and desirable. Ideas are important and people care about them, after all. I can certainly see the argument for administration being cautious and having a light touch.

Preemptively banning a speaker because you know your own students will violently riot is cowardly and encourages such tactics.

Again, not the problem. The problem is the neo-nazi speakers bringing their own violent followers to the audience. Who, you know, shoot at the others and kill them with cars and stuff. This is worlds away from thoughtcrime. They bring conventional violent crime.

 

[Thermal]

you haven't heard of George Lincoln Rockwell, have you?

Excuse me: never existed in any meaningful numbers or position of power

 

[Cavemonster]

A bit of a tangent, but since Cavemonster has said several times he is most concerned about white supremacy and white nationalism, I'd like to ask him to define those terms. One can go to wikipedia, but things quickly get pretty tricky especially since we are speaking about disallowing certain types of speech.

Many on this very forum call all sorts of things white supremacist. So which speech is exactly white supremacist?

- Saying that most countries in Africa are ****hole countries?
- Saying that you think the US or Europe needs immigration reform?
- Saying you hope Trump gets re-elected in 2020?
- Saying that you believe whites are more intelligent than blacks on average?
- Saying that you think Jussie Smollett is guilty?
- Saying you don't believe Richard Spencer should have been punched by that guy?

How does one tell what speech acts are or are not white supremacist?

I think this is one slippery slope that is actually pretty slippery.

A fair question.

I think the important distinction is between literal advocacy of white nationalism/supremacy and ideas and statements that one might have varying levels of justification for identifying as influenced by white nationalism/supremacy.

And I actually agree with you that this question is at least potentially a slippery slope or at least a Loki's wager.

Of the statements you listed, I think none are actually in that first category although all might be influenced by white supremacy ideals to some degree. The one about intelligence comes closest and we could go far into the weeds with the whole idea of what they call "scientific race realism" but we don't need to go anywhere near that. I don't think that's the sort of thing that would be productive to target on a corporate or governmental level.

And again I haven't talked about anything so sweeping as judging individual statements for acceptability.

I think its fine for facebook to take down a page that describes itself as something like "Dedicated to making the USA a pure, all white nation by deporting mongrel races".

I think it should be fine for a town square to refuse a permit for a speaker on that topic.

That's about as far as I'm advocating. Much of the developed world is already there.

 

[ahhell]

A fair question.

I think the important distinction is between literal advocacy of white nationalism/supremacy and ideas and statements that one might have varying levels of justification for identifying as influenced by white nationalism/supremacy.

And I actually agree with you that this question is at least potentially a slippery slope or at least a Loki's wager.

Really wish I'd known that phrase when the relgion v cult thread was active.