Categories:
Liberty
The free speech of the neo-nazis and the woke must be defended not because their theories are true. As obvious as can be, their beliefs are non-sensical and dangerous. But, as John Stuart Mill argued in On Liberty, free speech is a rule for learning or approaching the truth, and the rule can only function and survive if selling intellectual snake oil is not banned. For if it is, you need somebody to determine for others what intellectual snake oil is.
However, government subsidization of one set of ideas or the other is a recipe for disaster.
READER COMMENTS
Cecil Bohanon
Jul 14 2020 at 9:34pm
To the point. Well Done
Monte
Jul 15 2020 at 1:15am
So…todays Clark Stanley is Nicole Hannah-Jones. But rather than being “fined” for her intellectual snake oil (the 1619 Project) like Stanley was for his product in 1916, she will ultimately be rewarded and canonized. Let our school children line up for their spoonful.
Pierre Lemieux
Jul 15 2020 at 11:39am
Monte: Socrates also had a spoonful, remember? Think of government snake oil! My comment on Craig’s post might also be relevant to yours.
Monte
Jul 15 2020 at 1:07pm
Pierre,
Yes. Socrates also believed that ethics and politics were integral. To wit, politics in the absence of ethics is harmful:
“The highest of all virtues is the political art which includes statecraft and makes men good politicians and public officials.”
Monte
Craig
Jul 15 2020 at 10:11am
Discussing the (in)famous case of Nazi Part of America v Skokie,, my constitutionak law professor said something I will jever forget, “The First Amendment is all fun and games until the Nazis show up.”
Pierre Lemieux
Jul 15 2020 at 11:36am
Craig: Same when the “enemies of the people” show up? Your professor could have meant many things with his aphorism. I assume he knew that without free speech, it’s not all fun and games either. “Without free speech,” could you have answered, “it’s all fun and games until you hear the noise of jack-booted government thugs.” The Chinese have experienced it for centuries (if not millennia) and should soon discover it again. Moreover, free speech is a key to innovation and prosperity: one aspect of this is apparent in https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2013/1/v35n4-7_5.pdf#page=11; another one in https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2020-03/regv43n1-reviews.pdf#page=20. We get a preview of the mob in the woke’s campaigns.
Craig
Jul 16 2020 at 4:24pm
“Your professor could have meant many things with his aphorism”
There was additional context which I would be unable to quote verbatim, but the context at the time was clear that his sense was, “Its easy to support the First Amendment rights of the non-controversial”
The quip itself was memorable but it also got a laugh from the entire class.
Jay Molnar
Jul 15 2020 at 3:00pm
I saw Lee Bollinger’s “The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech and Extremist Speech in America” (1986) mentioned on another website and found this critique as an interesting dicussion point.
I enjoy the line “For example, as Bollinger notes, the judges who upheld the Nazis’ right to march in Skokie-in a reaction that was quite typical of defenders of the Nazis’ rights-excoriated the Nazis for their views but proudly explained that one of the things that distinguishes our society from societies like the Third Reich is
that we allow the expression of views we revile”.
Vangel Vesovski
Jul 16 2020 at 7:47am
Great job. Since a heretic is an individual who sees with his own eyes, anyone who ignores the common view can use free speech to create chaos by promoting diversity of thought. Can’t have that, can we?
Pierre Lemieux
Jul 16 2020 at 2:11pm
@Vangel: I am not sure at all that I understand what you mean, but if I do, yours may the exact opposite of Mill’s argument: let “us” make sure that everybody thinks the same (and unanimously elect Mrs. Grundy), and we have the recipe for innovation and the discovery of truth.
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Mark Brady
Jul 16 2020 at 8:06pm
Pierre writes, “However, government subsidization of one set of ideas or the other is a recipe for disaster.”
Does this rule out all government funding of schools, public and private?
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