That Harpers Open Letter

[_honorentheos]

I've participated in this board roughly 10 years. I've seen people here say innumerable stupid, wrong, and even despicable things. I've only once seen something said that crossed the boundary into seriousness where action seemed necessary rather than counter speech. It involved a threat of physical, lethal violence against another.

Remember that at issue is freedom of expression. The act of expressing ones views is assumed.

The issue with your comment is it behaves in extralegal ways to define a new category of expression as actionable public conduct short of being illegal but where the punishment you'd justify are extremely damaging. That's essentially arguing in favor of lynch mobs.

[_Chap]

The issue is in the belief that having a view with which one doesn't agree is actionable immoral conduct that demands punishment.

I think it is normally acts (or the omission of acts that one might or should have performed) that we judge as moral or immoral. And having a view would in itself not normally be described as 'conduct'. So it would at least be a mistake to say that 'having a view' of some given kind might be immoral.

Thus, for instance, the view that taking hydroxychloroquine is a cure for COVID-19 is pretty well certainly baseless and wrong. However, to hold that view despite the increasing amount of scientific evidence against it is in itself no more than an error of fact and judgement. But spending your time and energy on social media propagating this belief without paying serious attention to the scientific arguments tending to show that it is not only useless as a cure, but is even dangerous to health under certain circumstances would be immoral conduct. For if we openly advocate a view, we may reasonably be supposed to take responsibility for any harm caused to others who are persuaded by our advocacy and act on its basis. Thus we should only propagate a view on a question known to be both contested and crucial to the health of others when we have carefully examined the counter-evidence, and we should at least indicate to our hearers the existence of the counter-evidence. If we do not do so, we are at fault, and may deservedly condemned.

When people act so as to cause a speaker who is discovered to advocate a false and harmful view (such as that all gay men wish to rape children) to be disinvited, it is not the view itself that deserves sanction. The fact that the public advocacy of it causes undeserved harm to others (in this case gay men) may however cause the sanction to be merited. And so on.

I've participated in this board roughly 10 years. I've seen people here say innumerable stupid, wrong, and even despicable things. I've only once seen something said that crossed the boundary into seriousness where action seemed necessary rather than counter speech. It involved a threat of physical, lethal violence against another.

Remember that at issue is freedom of expression. The act of expressing ones views is assumed.

The issue with your comment is it behaves in extralegal ways to define a new category of expression as actionable public conduct short of being illegal but where the punishment you'd justify are extremely damaging. That's essentially arguing in favor of lynch mobs.

I'll assume that comment is directed to my immediately preceding post, though I am not identified as the person addressed.

Godwin's law (or Godwin's rule of Hitler analogies) is (so Google tells me) an Internet adage asserting that "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1". Maybe we need a similar adage for the probability that discussions of whether advocates of certain views (see the examples above) should or should not be invited to make use of privileged public platforms will end with references to 'lynch mobs'?

Case A (what I have in mind):

Dear Mr X,

I write with reference to your scheduled talk to the [relevant student organisation at a prestigious university] on the subject of 'Gender Preference and Gender Bias'. Since we scheduled this talk with you, a number of members of the society have drawn to the attention of the executive committee of [relevant student organisation at a prestigious university] the fact that you have repeatedly and publicly expressed the view that gay men all harbor a strong wish to rape young boys, and that as a result they should be forced to choose between undergoing conversion therapy or indefinite confinement and registration as sex offenders. We do not wish our organisation to be used as a platform for publicising such inaccurate and provocative characterisations of gay men, and so I now write to inform you that the scheduled lecture by you has been cancelled.

Yours,

AB

President, [relevant student organisation at a prestigious university]

Case B (a lynching):

Jesse Washington was an African-American seventeen year old farmhand who was lynched in the county seat of Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, in what became a well-known example of racially motivated lynching. Washington was convicted of raping and murdering Lucy Fryer, the wife of his white employer in rural Robinson, Texas. He was chained by his neck and dragged out of the county court by observers. He was then paraded through the street, all while being stabbed and beaten, before being held down and castrated. He was then lynched in front of Waco's city hall.

Over 10,000 spectators, including city officials and police, gathered to watch the attack. There was a celebratory atmosphere among whites at the spectacle of the murder, and many children attended during their lunch hour. Members of the mob cut off his fingers, and hung him over a bonfire after saturating him with coal oil. He was repeatedly lowered and raised over the fire for about two hours. After the fire was extinguished, his charred torso was dragged through the town. A professional photographer took pictures as the event unfolded, providing rare imagery of a lynching in progress. The pictures were printed and sold as postcards in Waco.

In case A, an invitation to lecture is politely withdrawn, as a result preventing the advocate of certain views likely to provoke hatred and violence against gay men from being able to use the words "Invited lecturer at [prestigious university]" on his CV when trying to obtain invitations to speak elsewhere. He will of course find many other means of propagating his views freely in less choosy venues, particularly on the internet.

In case B, a violent seizure of a person in legal custody leads on to his torture and murder by a mob, and the burning of his body as a public spectacle.

Frankly, I just don't see that one is remotely analogous to the other.

[Guest]

The guy who has reached for "Claims all gay men rape children" and earlier, "Religionists who want to burn people at the stake shouldn't be allowed to sign a letter calling for protecting freedom of expression" is calling out of bounds for saying extralegal punishment that has consequences for a person's life is arguing for lynch mobs?

Yeah, fu-ck you.

[_Chap]

Yeah, fu-ck you.

Since we have come to this - I am happy for my last substantive post (the one immediately preceding honorentheos's expression of good wishes quoted here) to be understood as representing my views on any attempted identification between the withdrawal of invitations to speak and the activities of lynch mobs.

[_honorentheos]

The guy who has reached for "Claims all gay men rape children" and earlier, "Religionists who want to burn people at the stake shouldn't be allowed to sign a letter calling for protecting freedom of expression" is calling out of bounds for saying extralegal punishment that has consequences for a person's life is arguing for lynch mobs?

Yeah, fu-ck you.

Since we have come to this - I am happy for my last substantive post (the one immediately preceding honorentheos's expression of good wishes quoted here) to be understood as representing my views on any attempted identification between the withdrawal of invitations to speak and the activities of lynch mobs.

Sure. You have used unrealistic, extreme examples to make non-points so you're welcome to imagine you have been engaging in "substantive" discussion. I can see why a debate regarding freedom of expression is apparently over your head.

[_Some Schmo]

If I have a popular soapbox, people may want to borrow it. If I tell them, No, you can't borrow my soapbox because I don't like the views you want to express on it, that is not suppressing free speech. I am under no obligation to share my soapbox with anyone.

That is not the same as telling them, You are not allowed to express your views anywhere. It's simply saying, I've already heard your nonsense, and I will not allow my soapbox to be used to peddle BS; go express your nonsense elsewhere.

It's strange how this seems to be a difficult concept for some people. It's almost as though the discussion of free speech is over their heads. They're too busy expressing their freedom by yelling Fire! in a crowded theater.

[_honorentheos]

It's strange how this seems to be a difficult concept for some people. It's almost as though the discussion of free speech is over their heads. They're too busy expressing their freedom by yelling Fire! in a crowded theater.

Read the letter and point out to me where exactly you take issue. I don't think anything you said in the post above applies to the actual content of the letter. So you might want to examine who exactly is crying fire in a crowded theater here.