(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Cancel Culture, FIRE, Free Speech and Morality [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-22 Politico has an article about Cancel Culture and Free Speech, describing Greg Lukianoff’s efforts to promote a broader, more respectful discourse between competing views, based on his civil libertarian philosophy. He wrote The Coddling of the American Mind and more recently The Canceling of the American Mind. He led the group FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which promotes free speech on campuses. Lukianoff’s views are presented as part of a long tradition of protecting free speech and as being attacked by both Left and Right. He is described as a Democrat, and his funding and recent co-writer are described as right leaning, including funding from the Kochs. The article goes over his background, his views, some criticism of his ideas, free speech flashpoints on both left and right, and generally raises whether ‘cancel culture’ chills free speech and creates fear among professors. Defending the rights of Nazis to march, hate speech, anti-woke, book banning and inciting violence are some of the issues mentioned. The article begins by pointing to a viral debate over Halloween costumes at Yale in 2015, where one side encouraged students not to dress offensively and the other side said that should be left to students. FIRE is known for joining legal actions to defend free speech, such as opposing ‘security fees’ levied on groups that bring in controversial speakers, especially at public universities. FIRE ranks Harvard as one of the worst schools for free speech and Michigan Tech as one of the best. Lukianoff disagreed with the Obama era education recommendation of accepting ‘preponderance of evidence’ in sexual assault cases rather than the higher ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standard, and, as a free speech defender, believes that speech should not be a legitimate basis for sexual harassment claims. FIRE supported Tr*mp era ‘cross examination’ requirements in sexual assault cases. Obviously defending the rights of accused sexual offenders, of speakers who advocate for the destruction of Palestine or people who use lies to promote the Proud Boys on campus isn’t particularly popular here, but FIRE has also supported Boots Riley, a Bernie supporting rapper, and Nikole Hannah-Jones, known for her 1619 project. Given GQP censorship in education, some may view FIRE as a potential ally. The article prompted me to address some confusion around free speech on campus with this brief post. I’m not going to regurgitate the whole article, as you’re capable of reading it on your own. Also, I know that many of you are more familiar with this whole topic than I am, so I hope you will educate me in the comments. Thanks in advance. But for discussion, here is Lukianoff’s core argument: American minds are being weakened by a dangerously over-protective effort to control unpopular speech, leading to book bans, silencing debate, fear and conflict. This effort is based on three alleged lies, listed below. — The Untruth of Fragility: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker. — The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always trust your feelings — The Untruth of Us versus Them: Life is a battle between good and evil people. His new book apparently promotes a “Buddhist” approach of listening to disagreeable views to achieve “mutual respect”, as opposed to ‘canceling’ those views. The solution to ‘cancel culture’ would be to toughen up and allow more hateful speech in public spaces, apparently. I find these views abhorrent and profoundly misguided. While I support free speech and the first amendment, I believe that this approach of forcing bad speech into public spaces, without regard to validity or risk to the public, creates a back door to promote bigotry and violence on campus. Universities judge the validity of arguments every single day, and while many topics are up for debate, some have been rejected based on logic, morality and history. Bad actors, who want to reintroduce failed ideologies, abusive language and dangerous speech on campus, should be rejected just like student applicants who failed in high school or have poor disciplinary records. First, free speech is not absolute. Trump’s use of speech as part of an illegal coup plot is a timely example. An academic campus is not and has never been an entirely free speech zone. It is illegal to commit fraud on campus, to shout fire in a crowded lecture hall, to bully a roommate into suicide, to harass racially or sexually, or to encourage violence. One should learn about horrific philosophies in history class and read about them in the library, but encouraging the burning of young women for witchcraft is not allowed, outside of drama class. The university is legally responsible for protecting its students, as ‘parents’, and that gives them considerable power to restrict offensive behavior on campus. The classroom is also not a free-speech zone. Professors have the right to silence everyone (and their phones) for the duration of class. Professors have earned the right to present one set of facts as true, to expect students to learn and answer based on that set of facts, and to mark someone as wrong for believing that 2+2=5. Medical schools are under no obligation to provide equal time to people who believe in leeches or that vaccines contain microchips. It is simply wrong to argue that we must accept views which have been completely debunked or have even proven to be extremely dangerous. Just because someone wants to promote old evils like racism, anti-semitism, misogyny or other types of cruel violence, does not mean that we must listen to those views with a goal of learning to respect them. Giving a forum to promote views that have only brought misery and evil to civilization, merely helps sustain and spread those views to a new generation. It is wrong to argue that listening to those views will make us stronger, when history has proven that certain hateful views have caused centuries of bloodshed and suffering. It is wrong to argue that rationality requires setting aside emotions like anger when hearing someone argue that slavery was ‘actually good for the slaves’. Rationality requires recognizing that the argument is so completely wrong, dangerous and morally despicable that the best response is to reject it immediately in the most forceful way. It is wrong to argue that intellectual thought requires moral neutrality. Considering the centuries of cruelty and suffering under slavery, we all have a moral obligation to stand, finally and unequivocally, on the right side of that history. If educated people learn to recognize the dangerous minority that spreads hateful bigotry, then we do have an obligation to be good and to fight their evil words. Neutrality on moral issues is not a type of thinking, it is a lack of thinking. Academic campuses choose to invite a variety of speakers, but they have no obligation to invite everyone. If a conservative club wants to invite an insurrectionist to speak, then they should bear the necessary security fees proportionately, as long as the bonsai club has a similar responsibility. A school of Fine Arts does not have to allow a concert where the volume is so loud that ears bleed and permanent hearing damage is done. Why should a school that teaches democratic government be forced to host Nazis? Being invited to share one’s views is a privilege, often earned by years of honest work, and is not an absolute right. We live in a society with systemic bigotry, sadly. That means that many people alive today hold views that are wrong, cruel and dangerous. Some are actively trying to spread such hate, against the interests of civil society. Some have grown their influence through lies on unregulated social media, have many followers or have assembled significant political power. But that does not make their bigoted views worthy. We also live in a society that does not tolerate or respect the speech rights of certain dangerously anti-social views, thankfully. Rapists may want society to relax its views on sexual assault, but society rules against them. Bigots may want to protect their right to hate, but society must rule against them. Nazis want to elevate their political power, but democracy must stop them. Society does not make those choices arbitrarily or out of cruelty. Society made those decisions finally out of painful historic experience, and there is no decent argument to revisit those choices. Excising bigotry makes us stronger; perpetuating bigotry makes us weaker. Education is meant to enlighten us, not to cause us to repeat our darkest mistakes. Education should take a positive forward-facing position against bigotry and violence. Education should be engaged in a battle against ignorance and evil. Drawing bright, clear, well-reasoned and moral lines on these issues is needed, so that all participants in academic speech understand what is out of bounds and why. Dangerous topics should not be ignored or avoided in academics, but they should be dealt with in safe ways, just as dangerous materials are handled in chemistry labs and not at dining tables. And those who are educated, especially authors, would-be educators and leaders of advocacy groups, should know better than to provide a free-for-all of ‘safe spaces’ for proven wrong, dangerous and hateful speech. My $0.02. I welcome your comments and look forward to reading and learning from your opinions. Thanks for reading. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/22/2200893/-Cancel-Culture-FIRE-Free-Speech-and-Morality?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/