If you criticize it by mere association, that's ad hominem. It's not you're fault if some malicious actor agrees with you for the wrong reasons. But I think the way to present that criticism is different. It's more that if you sign a list that is prominently featuring them, people are going to assume that you are implicitly endorsing this behavior. You're not, but there's an impression created. It's like if I signed a petition stating that "Evolutionary theory has areas of uncertainty in want of explanation requiring further questioning and reevaluation." It doesn't matter that this is a harmless, obviously true statement if the signatories are me and a bunch of creationists. The creationists create the context to interpret what's being communicated by the sentiment, and it's *not* what I mean. People will interpret it to mean that I think evolutionary theory is in more doubt that I intend.
Anyway, I mostly agree with Ken White's opinion:
The only thing I'd quibble with here is that "the solution to bad speech is more speech" isn't a sound sociological analysis. Bad speech wins out all the time. People are remarkably easy to convince of bad ideas while good ones are staring them in the face. History is replete with examples of bad ideas winning in the marketplace of ideas and causing catastrophic harm. It's more that giving too much power to too few people to determine the bounds of acceptable opinion does far more harm than good, so we have to maintain a mutual respect to keep it to speech even if that doesn't always work.If the Harper's Letter is meant as a statement of principles, fine. If it's meant to persuade, I'm not sure how effective it is out of the circles of people already persuaded. I respectfully question the chosen emphasis.
Here's the thing. First Amendment protections in America are at a historical strong point -- the LEGAL (not cultural) free speech position has been running the table at the Supreme Court for a generation. But things change. The 4th and 5th Amendments are in tatters compared to their high mark, victims of a successful conservative counter-revolution to the Warren Court. The pendulum can swing. What prevents that? Broad respect for the values underlying the First Amendment.
If respect for First Amendment values -- limits on government power to punish speech -- are sufficiently strong and universal, unlike our fatuous law-and-order culture that undermines the other amendments, the First stays strong. I know the signatories to the letter view themselves as protecting those First Amendment values, and intend to do so. But, as a cultural project, I think their approach misses the mark and generates more suspicion of First Amendment values than support.
That's because of the fundamental deal behind First Amendment values: you can't use the government to punish speech because the marketplace of ideas, the private sector, society's "more speech" is the best way to address "bad speech," not government action.
So. What if your emphasis in supporting First Amendment values is attacking "more speech" as illegitimate?
People: Censor this speech!
Defenders: No, counter it with more speech.
People: okay, [more speech]
Defenders: No, not like that.
I think this emphasis has the natural and probable effect of conveying to people that "the deal" is BS.
That's particularly true because the "cancel culture" narrative, even if a matter of good faith concern, is ALSO used relentlessly by people of manifestly bad faith. People who complain about cancel culture while demanding flag burning amendments and "loosening up" libel laws and laws protecting running over protesters and having Black Lives Matter declared terrorist are, to be plain, utterly full of crap. And they're legion.
That's exacerbated by the tendency -- including in the letter -- to be vague on the distinction between real "cancellation" (say, getting someone fired) and vigorous and even profane condemnation, shunning, etc. The appearance is that of a motte-and-bailey argument. The motte-and-bailey argument is, basically, using the very widespread feeling that people shouldn't get fired for (say) retweeting an academic paper and trying to apply it when someone calls out blatant overt yelling-at-strangers-in-a-restaurant racism. Which is a thing.
So, how to sell the deal better? How to get people to internalize the value of no-government-punishment-for-speech instead of letting it erode, as it inevitably will if not defended?
With respect, some discipline and proportion. First, proportion. In general, the people who bear the most weight of the First Amendment -- that is, who have to suck up the most "bad speech" and take it -- are not the victims of cancel culture. Are some of them wronged by "cancel culture," in terms of morals and decency? Hell yes. Are they the only ones? No. Is the person who says things offensive to the (occasionally freakishly irrational) political left the central tragic figures of the age? Nah bro. A bit more of reading the room -- particularly when there are, you know, white nationalists marching -- and a bit less self-focus. Maybe a bit more explicit recognition that the First Amendment requires people to endure horrible things.
Also. Since we're selling the deal -- how about distinguishing your product from the competitor's? How does your version of free speech differ from the version of people who are simultaneously crying "cancel culture" and calling for mass arrests of protesters? Selling people on the deal means pointing out how "the same rights protect us all" is more than a platitude -- it's real. It's pointing out how the forces you empower by allowing government punishment of speech are the bad guys -- not in the abstract, right here right now.
I mean, right now this is easy like selling cold beer at a party in July. You've got political and cultural forces that are explicitly, openly salivating over punishing left-leaning speech. So why not call that out? Why not point out how the deal protects people right now?
To sell the deal -- to protect not just "culture" but the actual First Amendment -- you've got to convince people that this isn't elaborate special pleading to protect some speech but not other speech from consequences. I respectfully submit this falls short of that.