Thread by @JeffreyASachs

A Defense of the Heckler's Veto: In Which I Try to Tie Together a Bunch of Recent But Now Seemingly Impossibly Distant Culture War Controversies

The Heckler's Veto. A bad thing, right? Maybe not. In the spirit of this call by @JedediahSPurdy to reorient free speech toward social democratic ends (and mindful of how titanically dumb that NYTimes piece was last week), here's my defense./1

https://twitter.com/jedediahspurdy/status/1013197720335634433?ref_src=twcamp%5Eshare%7Ctwsrc%5Eios%7Ctwgr%5Ecom.google.Gmail.ShareExtension

In the context of the college campus, free speech skeptics tend to make two arguments: (1) Folks like Milo or a racist student aren't adding anything valuable to the conversation, so no-platforming or censoring them inflicts minimal cost./2

And (2) Regardless of their value, such speakers intimidate many students into silence. Or maybe they inflict damage on student dignity (see @SigalBenPorath). Either way, they actually undermine open dialogue and the free exchange of ideas./3

To which free speech absolutists like @conor64 and @asymmetricinfo say "Pshaw! First, it's not up to us to decide what kind of speech is valuable and what kind is not. Don't you know how bad we are at making those kinds of calls, and the consequences when we get them wrong?"/4

"Second, students who claim to be 'silenced' by offensive or obnoxious speech need to toughen up. Too much coddling! Don't you know that the best response to bad speech is more speech?"/5

Enter @JeremyJWaldron, who in a recent working paper does that lovely Waldron-ian thing where he assumes all your priors, grants all your arguments, and then flips them on their ear./6

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Heckling is a kind of speech. Shouting pointed questions at a speaker, confusing her, forcing her to address some matter she'd prefer to ignore, etc. It's also a kind of speech that universities are under enormous pressure to suppress./7

aaup.org/report/campus-…

But why? What is the logic that compels universities to rigorously enforce the free speech rights of the "speaker", but not those of the heckler?

You, a free speech absolutist: Oh come on, that's obvious.

Me: Not so fast./8

Is it because hecklers aren't adding anything of value with their speech? That they're just trying to mock the speaker and screw up her prepared remarks?

Please see tweet #4.

Is it because the heckler's agenda isn't dialogue, but rather to silence the speaker and force her to abandon her platform? And that if we let heckling go unpunished, we'd actually undermine open dialogue and the free exchange of ideas?

Please see tweet #5.

Waldron's point can be paraphrased thusly: everybody has a right to speak, but nobody has a right to an audience. Or to be more precise, nobody has a right to the audience of their choice./11

And all of this matters a huge deal. Waldron is alarmed by the increasing choreography of public speech. He has in mind episodes like these:/12

time.com/4203094/donald…

theage.com.au/news/world/hec…

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content…

Or to use a different pair of examples, consider the difference between the stultifying and heavily orchestrated rules of speech in the US Senate vs. the raucous, free-wheeling, and heckle filled debate of British parliament. Which do you think comes closer to Mill's ideal?/13

Is democracy really well-served when all speech must be greeted with (at worst) respectful silence until such time as a response may be permitted? Not to resurrect the civility debate, but this is precisely the burden that civility places on genuinely free speech./14

And look how far we're already going in this direction on the college campus. The danger is real./15

reason.com/blog/2018/01/2…

detroitnews.com/story/news/pol…

academeblog.org/2017/12/12/nor…

Hell, the Canadian "Campus Freedom Index" actually rates a campus as *more* free to the extent it suppresses disruptive speech -- that's how committed some people are to the smooth functioning of orchestrated speech./16

campusfreedomindex.ca/methodology/#u…

That's why a robust defense of campus free speech must include a defense of the heckler. And more broadly, a progressive, social democratic vision of free speech is one that resists attempts to choreograph or privatize speech on matters of public concern./17

Who benefits the most when speech is insulated from democratic pressures? The powerful. Who benefits the most when speech is privatized? The wealthy. A genuinely free public sphere is one that makes room for the unpleasant, the unwelcome, and the unexpected./END

CODA: "But wait! I still have a dozen more objections to heckling that you don't address."

Check out Waldron's paper first, since he's much smarter than I am and covers a lot more territory.

CODA #2: "No really, wait! Sure there's a tension, but don't you see the damage that unfettered heckling would do? It would turn free speech into a kind of weapon that students can use against folks they don't like."

Buddy, have I got an article for you.

nytimes.com/2018/06/30/us/…