I agree with much of the argument in this thread by @rinireg. In particular, it's true that the hard work of defending open discussion comes when we have to identify the places where we think such discussion should not, in fact, be tolerated.
BUT.
BUT.
For one thing, a good number of those who are currently defending open discussion really do not think the thing that @rinireg says "almost everyone" agrees on, viz. that there should be exceptions to the norm of permitting open discussion of disagreeable topics.
Noam Chomsky is a case in point: he really does think that ANYTHING should be permitted, and indeed that "it is precisely in the case of horrendous ideas that the right of free expression must be most vigorously defended".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson…
So the argument here is simply ineffective against that view. But is the view false?
As a matter of principle, I think so: a well functioning society would be able to treat some ideas as outside the bounds of acceptable discussion.
As a matter of practice, I am deeply torn.
As a matter of principle, I think so: a well functioning society would be able to treat some ideas as outside the bounds of acceptable discussion.
As a matter of practice, I am deeply torn.
On the one hand I think it good to strive, no matter the difficulty, for a perfect justice, in which hate and falsehood get no hearing.
On the other hand I think it *is* very difficult to achieve this in practice, and that the attempt to do so carries a lot of real risks.
On the other hand I think it *is* very difficult to achieve this in practice, and that the attempt to do so carries a lot of real risks.
But then I am back where the thread started. For me, the conversation to have is about what are the proper EXCEPTIONS to the general norm in favor of allowing open discussion. This is a *difficult* question that I don't anticipate resolving over Twitter. But I'll say one thing:
I'm skeptical of attempts to resolve this difficult question in terms of what @rinireg calls "the Movement for Marginalized Protections". That's b/c marginalization itself is one of the central topics at stake in our contemporary discussions.
That is, questions like "Race or class?" and "Sex or gender identity?" are right at the core of these debates, and so anyone who appeals to the MMP to justify shutting them down owes an account of what justifies the claim of marginalization, and a rebuttal to challenges to it.
And to do this is just to engage in the 1st-order discussion that the appeal was supposed to rule out.
Now, what happens in practice is that appeals to MMP are treated as axiomatic: a claim of marginalization is put forward and then used to justify shutting down debate about it.
Now, what happens in practice is that appeals to MMP are treated as axiomatic: a claim of marginalization is put forward and then used to justify shutting down debate about it.
And I've just explained why this argumentative move is fallacious.
This is NOT to say that these claims of marginalization are always false (often, they are not), nor even that we shouldn't think it bad to debate the rights of those who are marginalized (often, I think it is).
This is NOT to say that these claims of marginalization are always false (often, they are not), nor even that we shouldn't think it bad to debate the rights of those who are marginalized (often, I think it is).
But it does mean that the appeal to the rights of the marginalized doesn't offer an *easy* resolution to the question "What should be the exceptions to the norms permitting open discussion of disagreeable topics?", and indeed it seems to require debating some disagreeable things.
In conclusion, the messiness of social life is something that there's often a failure to acknowledge on ALL sides of this debate, but yes, anyone who's not a Chomsky-style free speech absolutist needs to be honest about the difficulty of navigating it.
