There are a couple of points that I would amplify.
It is true that for those who oppose Donald Trump (I would include myself here, although I'm not American so don't have a vote) and other similar populists, he holds political power and represents the most immediate threat. But he can also be voted out. The narrowing of acceptable discourse that results in people losing their jobs, on the other hand, is quickly becoming embedded in institutions such as corporations, schools and universities. Ms. Yoffe has written on violations of due process for Title IX cases in universities. But as we've seen, these ideas don't stay in universities. They will migrate from the law schools into the courts, as is already happening in Canada.
You cannot vote out an institution, and political power is a blunt instrument to effect change. If institutions lose their legitimacy with enough people, you prop up populist demagogues who promise strength over process. And if you've spent years decrying due process as a tool of the powerful, the other side is likely to take you at your word. "Cancelled" moderates are forced to pick a side, and only one side will have them.
Media is becoming fractionated into Substacks with increasingly niche audiences. We no longer mediate disagreement with a common set of facts. In fact, "truth" is ignored (on the populist right) or the concept of truth is dismissed by the left as an epistimologic fiction, a tool of the oppressor. Not only do we not want to talk to one another, we lack the tools to do so. Purity spirals become progressively tighter and more people are cast out as heretics.
Eventually, the critical theorists are proven right: Everything is about power.
What scares me most is the illiberalism of both sides feeding one another. Left-wing illiberalism may prop up Trump or, worse, a populist who is more effective than Trump. But I think that we underestimate the risk of a suffocating left-wing orthodoxy that brooks no dissent, and camouflages its illiberalism with a facade of safety and inclusiveness.
Everyone seems worried about a fascist society, but there are ample instances of left-wing totalitarianism. They legitimized themsevles with appeal to justice as well. I think it's a mistake not to worry about that outcome.
Thank you for this keen and lucid essay. I would add one tendency to those that you describe: the tendency to judge an argument before even considering its content--on the basis of the author's age, status, institutional affiliations, political leanings, and so on. This is similar to "contamination by association" but not quite the same. For instance, many people dismissed the Harper's letter on the grounds that it was signed by a group of "elitists." Many dismiss an op-ed because they perceive the author as "conservative" or "centrist." The underlying assumption is that all arguments can be ascribed to agendas, that a piece of writing is just a power ploy. Take this to its conclusion, and there is no reason to read anything at all, except perhaps tweets and slogans.
I liked this article. One thing that I would add, which I think contributes to the "contamination by association" that Ms Yoffe wrote about, is what the Harper's letter referred to as a "blinding moral certainty". I feel that today's culture has been increasingly absolutist on what is defined as good and bad, and this can be extremely dangerous if it continues to push in this direction. People want to be good people, but if a morality system becomes so extreme, people will start to do bad things in the service of what they think is a good cause. Not only this, but as morality system get more absolutist, it becomes much harder to get out of the system by those already caught in it. I know this from personal experience, being a former evangelical Christian.
I cringe how casually I hear people say, "that persons is a horrible person", usually just because of their politics. Such statements are everywhere, made by prominent people that I like, even on the center-left. It's something that I would almost never say about anyone. It is the definition of an ad-hominem attack, never leads to any productive debate, and can get to ugly places if it keeps going.
A Psychoanalytic Contribution to the Taxonomy of Fear: Projective Identification in Righteous Victimhood
In the relation of the bully to the bullied there is an unconscious redistribution of aggression such that all destructive aggression is loaded in the bully and the bullied is devoid of destructive aggression — the actual bullied person in the experience of being bullied feels as if they have no aggression with which to defend themselves. Usually, out of fear they dissociate themselves from their aggressive potential to survive a situation and this dissociation may in fact be life saving.
Psychoanalytically, the means by which this happens in called “projective identification”. The bully, as if by psychic magic, appropriates the aggression of the bullied to shore themselves up against their own persecuting internal feelings of weakness and helplessness, and, at the same time, projects these into states into the bullied. The bullied experiences themselves (in so far as they have identified with the projections) as hosting all the feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and weakness and are dissociated from their aggression which is projected “into” the bully. Hand in hand with “projective identification” is the defense of “splitting” of the object (the other) into two dimensional terms — “black and white” “all or nothing” “us vs them”
The censorious left in their “safetyism” have adopted an group-as-a-whole righteous-victim stance, which seems to allow them to split and disown or disavow their own destructive aggression (their will to dominate and censor) by cloaking it in righteous anger and project all guilt (badness) onto the white western tradition as if slavery, class oppression, etc., have not occurred throughout human history regardless of skin color and technological sophistication.
The capacity to have open and constructive dialog tolerant of differences requires the “depressive position”, the ability to tolerate ambiguity and accept our limitations (obviously I have to accept my perspective as limited to be able to interested and open to some other view point).
For me as a gay man of Mexican-American decent the problems of oppression and domination are real and need to be uprooted and exposed at every turn to realize what I hope can be a “radical humanist” future where the absurd concept of race and its categories have faded in the rear-view mirror of cultural history. And to do this we need to not Other the Other in whatever ways we habitually do this, and, own that as human beings we cannot but do this — it derives from instinctual and primitive defenses against the terror of difference (at a basic existential level). Martin Buber contrasted the I-It relation with the I-Thou relation. The I-It relation is the relation of utility from benign to slavery; The I-Thou relation is the scary but emotionally essential relation of being met as whole person by a whole person and all the risks that come with that possibility. How to construct a society and culture that fosters I-Thou relations is the question — including an I-Thou relation between humanity and the environment before it is too late. It begins with a space for radical free speech because only in such a space (like the space of the psychoanalytic hour) can all the deep differences be allowed to be. Battling over skin color and other obvious differences between people is a waste of precious time.
Great article. I've been working on putting together a cheat sheet on some of the main themes associated with either a push back on free speech generally or against an idea that someone doesn't like. Some of these concepts may actually explain why an argument is not especially a good one, but most enable a diversion from the substance of the original argument to a tangential concern. Hopefully you find it helpful and please add to the list any that I may have missed.
Lack of Authority: Due to x, y or z reason, the speaker does not have authority (or less authority than others) to speak on a given subject (e.g., race, gender, etc.) and therefore should stay silent.
The Idea Is Itself Violence: Akin to hate speech, an idea or a word is so toxic that it effectively equates to violence. Given “safety” is a prerequisite for the sharing of ideas, such idea is not welcome as it not only makes participants unsafe but also directly harms them. [NOTE: This to me seems the most interesting one to discuss as it is directly on point and should be balanced given competing interests]
Malicious Intent: The speaker’s malicious intent rather than the idea/words spoken is the “true” speech. As such, the ideas being conveyed are irrelevant since they are just a “cover” for the true intent which is meant to harm.
Malice By Association: It is not the idea per se, nor is it even the individual who espouses that idea but rather the fact that there are other individuals who share a similar view on that idea AND such other individual believes other “malicious” ideas (or have used the common idea in a way that was malicious or have committed an unforgivable transgression) which in turn nullifies the first individual and/or his/her ideas by association.
A Product Of The System: Given the system is corrupt and the idea or individual is a product/beneficiary of the system, that idea/individual is therefore corrupt/harmful.
It’s Our Time: Given the long oppression of our ideas (and our people), our ideas (and our people) should be given more value/not questioned
God Value: Certain ideas are just true/right - no justification is needed. Questioning those values, however, is a sin and the individual, not just the idea must be punished.
This Is Just The Logical Byproduct Of Your Free Marketplace Of Ideas: Liberalism calls for open dialogue and debate. We are just exercising that system to espouse our views and it is you that is fragile. Generally this argument includes attacks on both ideas and individuals.
It’s Not Really A Problem, You’re Making a Big Deal Out Of Nothing. Data is mostly anecdotal so it does not count. Also, saying there’s a “chilling” effect is too ephemeral to prove (regardless, counter ideas have been “chilled” up to this point).
My Idea Is More Important So Stop Taking Up Space With Your Idea. Ideas are hierarchical in importance and there is a limited about of “space” for people to pay attention. As such, only ideas that are deemed sufficiently “important” should be discussed.
This thoughtful piece reminds me again of how what we're doing with Persuasion is a lot like samizdat in 1970s Czechoslovakia and neighboring counties. It's a place for transmitting our thoughts in a way that reduces the risk of being 'caught'. The Harpers letter is reminiscent of the Czech Charter 78 arising from the group fighting for the unjustly prosecuted (initially the band, 'Plastic People of the Universe') -- analogous to those being trolled, ratioed, cancelled nowadays. Utne's NYT piece today cites Vaclav Havel's 1993 Esquire essay about hope being a state of mind not of the world. Highly recommended reading -- his hilarious anecdote (which I'd forgotten) about being rescued in 1989 from drowning in a sewer a mere 2 months before suddenly becoming president should bring a smile to our faces as we scramble in 2020 rescuing each other from the crap we find ourselves in (not knowing exactly what the future holds but with a feeling of hope).
Some many years ago I watched a presentation of “Barefoot in Athens.” In a scene near the end as Socrates is about to drink hemlock one of his following begs him not to. “It’s brought to you by your enemies,” the student pleads. “But are not my enemies my greatest friends?” the old master replies. “Are they not the ones who tell me who I really am?” Doubt my wording is exact here, but the concept is clear. Always listen carefully to those you don’t agree with, and let them finish what they have to say.
I agree with the author's points about saftyism, contamination by association, snitching (well this one isn't really new), and silencing, but I think the premises of the argument are ahistorical. This whole phenomenon of cancel culture isn't really new. Some ideas have always been considered out-of-bounds, and there have always been a system of pressures, formal and informal, to keep these ideas out of mainstream debate. It's just that now people who once saw themselves as being positioned within the liberal-republican ideological spectrum are being challenged, while in the past it was the radical-left, radical-right, and minorities who were being silenced. Consider the example of Noam Chomsky, who for most of his career could not talk about share his criticisms of Israel in public without death threats and attempts to get his events cancelled. Consider the calls for reparations for African Americans, which were basically treated as a joke until very recently. Consider the silencing effect that the islamophobic atmosphere of the first decade of the war on terror had on Muslim Americans. There are plenty of other examples, too.
I'm not trying to respond to this in a partisan way, since I see myself on the left. I think the particular ways that leftists are abusing public debate, outlined in this article, are new and they are a problem. But my point is just that if we want to understand this phenomenon, we need more historical perspective. We should not assume some sort of idealized past in which the free exchange of ideas thrived, with no abuses of power, no group-think, no biases, and no intellectual bullying.
What I'd be interested in hearing more are the historical factors that allowed formerly marginalized voices to elbow their way into the public debate. Surely social media is part of the story, but it also seems to me that some sort of shift in national consciousness has taken place. That said, this article is a good starting place for this discussion.
It's definitely true that there have always been taboos and some topics out of bound for public debate (whether because they were dismissed as unserious or seen as beyond the pale in some way - your examples are good ones). What I believe is different now from the past is that many of the new taboos are ideas that are held or at least considered reasonable by many - sometimes even a large majority - of the public. It's one thing for a society to designate a fringe belief as beyond beyond the pale. It's another thing for commonly held beliefs to suddenly become heresies. It is not necessarily a value judgment. Many commonly held beliefs are wrong. But as Abraham Lincoln said, "a universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded."
As to how this is possible - yes, definitely social media plays a role, and so does the secondary effect of the unbalanced consequences for companies responding to it. Companies can avoid boycotts and bad press by agreeing with online mobs and firing heretics, but so far (though I suspect this is on the cusp of changing) there has been relatively little backlash for overdoing it, so the incentive is to respond to every silly demand and err on the side of indulging Safetyism. Beyond that, yes, I agree that some shift in national consciousness has taken place. I think part of it is a loss of faith among many "elites" that mainstream American culture is valuable and worth defending. There are many reasons for this, some valid, some not, and some that strike me as a kind of religious ritual flagellation. I couldn't begin to diagnose it all, but it is fascinating and perplexing.
Yes, good points. Some of the most egregious examples of safetyism really defy common sense, and they rely on slippery slope reasoning--such that expressing certain ideas contribute to an abstract environment of hate and violence in which certain people will be less safe. On one hand, cheering on discriminatory policing really might make African Americans less safe. But claiming that J.K. Rowlings tweets make trans people less safe is pushing it a bit, in my opinion.
This is really messy stuff, though. I think we need a shared vocabulary (like the kind the author of this article is putting forward) to start differentiating the abuses from the legitimate cases. For example, I was a supporter of the Me Too movement, in principle (of course, there were some borderline cases there, too). Men have canceled women's attempts to check our worst behavior for too long and with too little help from the legal process, so I think it's hard to blame women for stepping outside the official process and calling men (criminals, in the least controversial cases) out publicly. So, in the case of the Me Too movement, the acts (crimes) that men were being canceled for were well within our accepted notion of criminal behavior. Women just had to resort to this new tactic of cancelling because liberal debate and the criminal justice system failed them.
That’s just the trouble, isn’t it? We live in a world colored in shades of gray, but everyone sees the saturation differently and it would be a whole lot easier if it were just black and white.
I agree that pushing down ideas that we find distasteful gives them power in more isolated spaces. The light of day has a way of clearing the foul odor of nasty belief systems that thrive in darkness. Hearing the beliefs of someone like Steve Bannon isn't likely to change my thinking or yours, and having them discussed in a wide forum is better to minimize their influence on those who might find them appealing in a more isolated space.
Again, I agree with this--potentially harmful views should be exposed and critiqued at every available opportunity by skillful debaters and interviewers. In practice, I'm not sure those views have lost power as a result. Bannon's ideas, along with those of Stephen Miller, form the context for crimes that are being committed against this country right now. And their views were exposed, and overexposed, throughout the campaign, by turns dismissed as crackpot views and other times treated with the same seriousness as any mainstream political philosophy. It didn't work. (Regarding Palin, her candidacy was a step toward the mess we have now, no matter how she fared with Katie Couric.) It would be easy for the other side to cast David Remnick as an "out of touch elite" representing a publication that's seen as a bastion of the progressive left who couldn't understand the appeal of Bannon's views for those who have felt left out or left behind. An hour at a CPAC conference makes it pretty clear that there are many minds that won't be changed by a rational argument. To be clear, I very much want it to be true that airing bad views weakens them, but in recent times I haven't seen it happening.
That is well said and I understand what you mean. In Palins case I would argue that when her profile grew she was in fact shown to be unpalatable to moderates and her influence declined. As long as the public debate turns on emotion the polarity will increase. Part of the problem is the only voices we hear are often from the outside wings, and the more tribal we become the less we identify with the humanity of people opposed to us. If you took a far left urban progressive from Brooklyn and an alt-right rural Trumpist from a small town in Idaho and swapped them for five years, they would each become more moderate because they would encounter the humanity of people they disagree with. Public debate is our way of creating a connection between the rural voter who likes Tom Cotton and the Progressive voter who likes Bernie Sanders. If we allow these two types to spiral off into increasingly isolated echo chambers of opinion we get more authoritarians of either stripe and our system breaks. More debate I think is better, words are not in fact violence.
I taught The Coddling of the American Mind in an undergraduate seminar. At first, the students were suspicious of me: what kind of subversive activity was I up to? As we read, most disagreed vehemently with the authors' conception of "safetyism" as a betrayal of the values of higher education. However, in a final paper that could focus on any text in the course, the majority returned to "safetyism" and conceded some of the authors' arguments. We also read Yascha Mounk, which should reveal what I was up to.
Thank you for doing this. I’m curious what other take-aways came from the class? I imagine it is/was very hard to be objective about a topic so core to one’s existence like one’s risk (in)tolerance. How did they react to the foreign world of 20+ years ago where there was more freedom for kids to make mistakes? My anecdotal observation from my kids is that conditioning at school (and at home I’m sure) is to worry constantly about how other’s feel, Immediately acknowledge and agree that ideas cause harm that people can/should be protected from and acre dubious about the value of conflict/discomfort in finding the truth (and also less concerned with the Value of the “truth” in general)
Mike Mills: One of the ways my students responded to information about the past in The Coddling of the American Mind was to check with me so I could confirm the authors were telling the truth. Many of today's college students were born after September 11, so they don't know that, e.g., children used to play outside without being supervised or that universities once assumed that young adults were capable of having their beliefs and feelings challenged by tough subjects.
Spectacular article, just wonderful. Oh, I do warn my students that Vox is the Fox of the left. I am currently teaching a class in Moral Reasoning, and it is very difficult for students to use reason and derive moral conclusion from ethical principles. Ad hominem, post hoc, appeals to emotions of all sorts dominate their papers. I of course want to keep my job so I have to be very very careful not to disagree with them but only to ask them to apply the principles. But one assignment was to analyse the problems of the so-called "friend zone." From a Kantian view it is patently immoral for both parties since it is based on using people. But the students could only analyze through the group speak of #me too. So their acceptance of propaganda makes it impossible to see the actual immorality of the mutual usage and lack of dignity of the friend zone.
Thank you for this; this issue has been a topic of conversation among my writer friends and colleagues for some time now. I agree with the analysis and many of the concerns expressed in this essay (and touched on in the Harper's Letter), that discourse has been stifled and people are afraid to speak lest they misspeak and make themselves a target. But I disagree about two of the examples that were provided. I think that for the editor of The New Yorker to interview Bannon is to legitimize his views, essentially elevating them into the mainstream. He is a champion of hate, and such views do not warrant that treatment. And, I think James Bennet showed poor editorial judgment and performance at every turn in the Cotton op-ed situation. For that, for doing his job poorly--not necessarily for the views expressed in the op-ed itself--he likely needed to resign. What happened to David Shor (not mentioned in this piece) is perhaps a better example.
It would be hard for me to prove a counterfactual, but I disagree that James Bennet was fired simply for doing his job poorly. I think it was for the views expressed in the op-ed. To me, that is clear from the admonitions that he was "making reporters unsafe". If a "sloppy" editorial had been on an uncontroversial topic, I personally do not believe he would have been fired. I think the "sloppiness" was a pretext.
I also disagree with deplatforming Steven Bannon. If his ideas are bad then you should be able to show why. (And he did, in fact, "lose" his debate with David Frum, in that he did not persuade many people of his position.) I don't think debate and discussion legitimize, I think that they interrogate. Deplatforming just drives the discussion underground and creates echo chambers. That's part of the reason no one saw Trump coming.
I do not think that "deplatforming" was an issue when it came to Trump. Television is his favorite platform, after all, and he received more than twice as much network airtime as Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign (source, Washington Post, Sept 21, 2016). And that doesn't include print or cable programs. I'm not surprised Bannon lost a debate with Frum. But it's my understanding that the New Yorker event was to be an interview, not a debate; it was an opportunity for Bannon to air his views on a rather rarefied stage, and the implication would be that he belonged on such a stage. I don't think so. I think one can disagree with that example and still point to many examples of illiberalism to support Yoffe's argument.
As for the Bennet situation, I disagreed with the op-ed and thought it was irresponsible to publish it, but what I thought was possibly worse was Bennet's failure to explain adequately why he thought it was a good idea to publish it in the first place. As an editor, I think one has to be prepared to explain what one was thinking at the time the decision was made, and to be prepared to be enlightened if that reasoning proves faulty, as it was shown to be, in ways one did not anticipate. What was missing was a sense of thoughtfulness in the approach. I don't know whether sloppiness was a pretext, though it was sloppy. Nor do I know whether a sloppy uncontroversial topic would have led to a different outcome--maybe this incident was preceded by other editorial "sloppiness" that did not become public. We just don't know. By its nature, an op-ed should be somewhat controversial, shouldn't it? If everyone agreed there would be no need to make an argument in the first place. But there's a line between controversy and irresponsibility, and it was irresponsible to publish that op-ed.
By the paper's own admission after the original publication, they allowed assertions to pass as fact. See their note: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html. The writer had to make false claims in order to back up his call to invoke the Insurrection Act. The piece seems like a cover to justify violence against citizens exercising their right to protest, much like what we're seeing right now in Portland.
I don’t see what was the problem with the Tom Cotton editorial. He’s a sitting Senator, with all the legitimacy of the office, however unworthy he is to hold it. Running it in the NYT didn’t give elevation to a fringe element, and it didn’t imply that the paper agreed with him. It was the stated opinion of an elected official.
And, more to the point, don’t you think we the people needed to know what’s going on in his head? He has the power to influence legislation and he’s positioning himself as a successor to Trump. We need to know if he’s agitating for violence against people exercising their first amendment rights. I don’t want the NYT deciding what is safe for me to hear, but it seems to be what they wish they’d done with the Cotton editorial and what they will do more of in the future. They’re treating their readers like sheep, shaping the news to fit our view of the world as we see it, not challenging us to see the world as it is.
Yes, of course I think people need to know what a senator believes and what he's likely to advocate for. (Not that I think this op-ed stance was any surprise to Cotton's constituents.) The problem with it was it was a deeply flawed piece of writing, whether one agrees with the argument presented or not.
The NYT revision mentions that the piece 'represents a newsworthy part of the current debate'. The rest of the editors note was simply chaff to try to minimize fallout. I personally find whats in the op-ed ridiculous and frightening, but it represents an opinion that is sadly relevant in this country. Print the op-ed and let readers discuss it in response. Pretending the authoritarians aren't there doesn't make them go away, and in fact it makes them stronger. It was irresponsible to withdraw the op-ed, not to publish it.
I certainly see your point. At the same time, I wouldn't equate a decision not to publish this particular piece with pretending the opinion does not exist or that its existence should not be discussed in the NYT. This piece is not the only avenue for holding those conversations in the paper. It could have been done differently and more effectively, and accurately.
keep in mind that an "Opinion" piece is just that - opinion, and the views expressed are not required to be justified by fact. It is up to the readers to understand this and investigate if they so choose.
I don't think we're going to agree on this. To me, the NYT "own admission" is as credible as any that emerges from a struggle session. They faced rebellion within their ranks and decided to capitulate. The larger issue is the narrowing of acceptable discourse within a (formerly) liberal institution. I think the Bari Weiss resignation is illustrative. Kathleen Kingsbury's offer to protect her own journalists from "any piece of Opinion jounalism...that gives you the slightest pause" is probably intended to ease concerns about "putting lives at risk", although if pressed I would not be surpised to hear her claim that she was referencing factual inaccuracies.
I have not engaged in this exercise, but it would interesting to go through editorials that flatter the prejudices of the NYT editors to see if you can find "factual inaccuracies" of the same magnitude as those in the Cotton editorial. Did anyone lose their job at any newspaper over the torqued and inaccurate coverage of the Convington kids? Was that sloppy? (N.B.: I have not looked specifically at the NYT coverage, this is a general point. And it's a comment section, so I'm going from memory.)
If you don't see this as an institutional problem, then honestly I don't think the problem is very signficant. People get fired for superfluous reasons every day. The David Shor example wouldn't have made the Twitter news if people didn't feel it was emblematic of something larger. Perhaps you have some other institutional examples in mind, but if David Shor is our largest worry then I don't think there is much to worry about. (But he's not and there is.)
Regarding previous controversial op-Ed pieces, I expect you would find plenty of factual inaccuracies in the Taliban editorial published by the NYT back in February. They just let all of Haqqani’s claims stand unchallenged, with only their standard disclaimer about publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Which apparently includes not warning readers that the person writing about peace and harmony is responsible for the deaths of dozens of US soldiers and atrocities against civilians. It’s a pure propaganda piece written by an enemy.
They took some heat for it, but nobody got fired. The drama over the Cotton piece looks hypocritical in this context.
Link to wapo story about the story if you’re interested:
Thank you for pointing this out. I don't think the Cotton editorial was unique in the NYT in being the object of inadequate oversight. I'm sure there are other examples. Imo, this underlines my point--Bennet was not doing his job as an editor. If I were (as an editor) to run a piece like either of these, I would send the author through rounds of serious revision in order to make sure the logic and facts in the writing stood up and supported the argument, whether or not I personally agreed with it.
There are a couple of points that I would amplify.
It is true that for those who oppose Donald Trump (I would include myself here, although I'm not American so don't have a vote) and other similar populists, he holds political power and represents the most immediate threat. But he can also be voted out. The narrowing of acceptable discourse that results in people losing their jobs, on the other hand, is quickly becoming embedded in institutions such as corporations, schools and universities. Ms. Yoffe has written on violations of due process for Title IX cases in universities. But as we've seen, these ideas don't stay in universities. They will migrate from the law schools into the courts, as is already happening in Canada.
You cannot vote out an institution, and political power is a blunt instrument to effect change. If institutions lose their legitimacy with enough people, you prop up populist demagogues who promise strength over process. And if you've spent years decrying due process as a tool of the powerful, the other side is likely to take you at your word. "Cancelled" moderates are forced to pick a side, and only one side will have them.
Media is becoming fractionated into Substacks with increasingly niche audiences. We no longer mediate disagreement with a common set of facts. In fact, "truth" is ignored (on the populist right) or the concept of truth is dismissed by the left as an epistimologic fiction, a tool of the oppressor. Not only do we not want to talk to one another, we lack the tools to do so. Purity spirals become progressively tighter and more people are cast out as heretics.
Eventually, the critical theorists are proven right: Everything is about power.
What scares me most is the illiberalism of both sides feeding one another. Left-wing illiberalism may prop up Trump or, worse, a populist who is more effective than Trump. But I think that we underestimate the risk of a suffocating left-wing orthodoxy that brooks no dissent, and camouflages its illiberalism with a facade of safety and inclusiveness.
Everyone seems worried about a fascist society, but there are ample instances of left-wing totalitarianism. They legitimized themsevles with appeal to justice as well. I think it's a mistake not to worry about that outcome.
Thank you for this keen and lucid essay. I would add one tendency to those that you describe: the tendency to judge an argument before even considering its content--on the basis of the author's age, status, institutional affiliations, political leanings, and so on. This is similar to "contamination by association" but not quite the same. For instance, many people dismissed the Harper's letter on the grounds that it was signed by a group of "elitists." Many dismiss an op-ed because they perceive the author as "conservative" or "centrist." The underlying assumption is that all arguments can be ascribed to agendas, that a piece of writing is just a power ploy. Take this to its conclusion, and there is no reason to read anything at all, except perhaps tweets and slogans.
I liked this article. One thing that I would add, which I think contributes to the "contamination by association" that Ms Yoffe wrote about, is what the Harper's letter referred to as a "blinding moral certainty". I feel that today's culture has been increasingly absolutist on what is defined as good and bad, and this can be extremely dangerous if it continues to push in this direction. People want to be good people, but if a morality system becomes so extreme, people will start to do bad things in the service of what they think is a good cause. Not only this, but as morality system get more absolutist, it becomes much harder to get out of the system by those already caught in it. I know this from personal experience, being a former evangelical Christian.
I cringe how casually I hear people say, "that persons is a horrible person", usually just because of their politics. Such statements are everywhere, made by prominent people that I like, even on the center-left. It's something that I would almost never say about anyone. It is the definition of an ad-hominem attack, never leads to any productive debate, and can get to ugly places if it keeps going.
A Psychoanalytic Contribution to the Taxonomy of Fear: Projective Identification in Righteous Victimhood
In the relation of the bully to the bullied there is an unconscious redistribution of aggression such that all destructive aggression is loaded in the bully and the bullied is devoid of destructive aggression — the actual bullied person in the experience of being bullied feels as if they have no aggression with which to defend themselves. Usually, out of fear they dissociate themselves from their aggressive potential to survive a situation and this dissociation may in fact be life saving.
Psychoanalytically, the means by which this happens in called “projective identification”. The bully, as if by psychic magic, appropriates the aggression of the bullied to shore themselves up against their own persecuting internal feelings of weakness and helplessness, and, at the same time, projects these into states into the bullied. The bullied experiences themselves (in so far as they have identified with the projections) as hosting all the feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and weakness and are dissociated from their aggression which is projected “into” the bully. Hand in hand with “projective identification” is the defense of “splitting” of the object (the other) into two dimensional terms — “black and white” “all or nothing” “us vs them”
The censorious left in their “safetyism” have adopted an group-as-a-whole righteous-victim stance, which seems to allow them to split and disown or disavow their own destructive aggression (their will to dominate and censor) by cloaking it in righteous anger and project all guilt (badness) onto the white western tradition as if slavery, class oppression, etc., have not occurred throughout human history regardless of skin color and technological sophistication.
The capacity to have open and constructive dialog tolerant of differences requires the “depressive position”, the ability to tolerate ambiguity and accept our limitations (obviously I have to accept my perspective as limited to be able to interested and open to some other view point).
For me as a gay man of Mexican-American decent the problems of oppression and domination are real and need to be uprooted and exposed at every turn to realize what I hope can be a “radical humanist” future where the absurd concept of race and its categories have faded in the rear-view mirror of cultural history. And to do this we need to not Other the Other in whatever ways we habitually do this, and, own that as human beings we cannot but do this — it derives from instinctual and primitive defenses against the terror of difference (at a basic existential level). Martin Buber contrasted the I-It relation with the I-Thou relation. The I-It relation is the relation of utility from benign to slavery; The I-Thou relation is the scary but emotionally essential relation of being met as whole person by a whole person and all the risks that come with that possibility. How to construct a society and culture that fosters I-Thou relations is the question — including an I-Thou relation between humanity and the environment before it is too late. It begins with a space for radical free speech because only in such a space (like the space of the psychoanalytic hour) can all the deep differences be allowed to be. Battling over skin color and other obvious differences between people is a waste of precious time.
Great article. I've been working on putting together a cheat sheet on some of the main themes associated with either a push back on free speech generally or against an idea that someone doesn't like. Some of these concepts may actually explain why an argument is not especially a good one, but most enable a diversion from the substance of the original argument to a tangential concern. Hopefully you find it helpful and please add to the list any that I may have missed.
Lack of Authority: Due to x, y or z reason, the speaker does not have authority (or less authority than others) to speak on a given subject (e.g., race, gender, etc.) and therefore should stay silent.
The Idea Is Itself Violence: Akin to hate speech, an idea or a word is so toxic that it effectively equates to violence. Given “safety” is a prerequisite for the sharing of ideas, such idea is not welcome as it not only makes participants unsafe but also directly harms them. [NOTE: This to me seems the most interesting one to discuss as it is directly on point and should be balanced given competing interests]
Malicious Intent: The speaker’s malicious intent rather than the idea/words spoken is the “true” speech. As such, the ideas being conveyed are irrelevant since they are just a “cover” for the true intent which is meant to harm.
Malice By Association: It is not the idea per se, nor is it even the individual who espouses that idea but rather the fact that there are other individuals who share a similar view on that idea AND such other individual believes other “malicious” ideas (or have used the common idea in a way that was malicious or have committed an unforgivable transgression) which in turn nullifies the first individual and/or his/her ideas by association.
A Product Of The System: Given the system is corrupt and the idea or individual is a product/beneficiary of the system, that idea/individual is therefore corrupt/harmful.
It’s Our Time: Given the long oppression of our ideas (and our people), our ideas (and our people) should be given more value/not questioned
God Value: Certain ideas are just true/right - no justification is needed. Questioning those values, however, is a sin and the individual, not just the idea must be punished.
This Is Just The Logical Byproduct Of Your Free Marketplace Of Ideas: Liberalism calls for open dialogue and debate. We are just exercising that system to espouse our views and it is you that is fragile. Generally this argument includes attacks on both ideas and individuals.
It’s Not Really A Problem, You’re Making a Big Deal Out Of Nothing. Data is mostly anecdotal so it does not count. Also, saying there’s a “chilling” effect is too ephemeral to prove (regardless, counter ideas have been “chilled” up to this point).
My Idea Is More Important So Stop Taking Up Space With Your Idea. Ideas are hierarchical in importance and there is a limited about of “space” for people to pay attention. As such, only ideas that are deemed sufficiently “important” should be discussed.
This was chillingly accurate.
This is a great list.
This thoughtful piece reminds me again of how what we're doing with Persuasion is a lot like samizdat in 1970s Czechoslovakia and neighboring counties. It's a place for transmitting our thoughts in a way that reduces the risk of being 'caught'. The Harpers letter is reminiscent of the Czech Charter 78 arising from the group fighting for the unjustly prosecuted (initially the band, 'Plastic People of the Universe') -- analogous to those being trolled, ratioed, cancelled nowadays. Utne's NYT piece today cites Vaclav Havel's 1993 Esquire essay about hope being a state of mind not of the world. Highly recommended reading -- his hilarious anecdote (which I'd forgotten) about being rescued in 1989 from drowning in a sewer a mere 2 months before suddenly becoming president should bring a smile to our faces as we scramble in 2020 rescuing each other from the crap we find ourselves in (not knowing exactly what the future holds but with a feeling of hope).
Some many years ago I watched a presentation of “Barefoot in Athens.” In a scene near the end as Socrates is about to drink hemlock one of his following begs him not to. “It’s brought to you by your enemies,” the student pleads. “But are not my enemies my greatest friends?” the old master replies. “Are they not the ones who tell me who I really am?” Doubt my wording is exact here, but the concept is clear. Always listen carefully to those you don’t agree with, and let them finish what they have to say.
I agree with the author's points about saftyism, contamination by association, snitching (well this one isn't really new), and silencing, but I think the premises of the argument are ahistorical. This whole phenomenon of cancel culture isn't really new. Some ideas have always been considered out-of-bounds, and there have always been a system of pressures, formal and informal, to keep these ideas out of mainstream debate. It's just that now people who once saw themselves as being positioned within the liberal-republican ideological spectrum are being challenged, while in the past it was the radical-left, radical-right, and minorities who were being silenced. Consider the example of Noam Chomsky, who for most of his career could not talk about share his criticisms of Israel in public without death threats and attempts to get his events cancelled. Consider the calls for reparations for African Americans, which were basically treated as a joke until very recently. Consider the silencing effect that the islamophobic atmosphere of the first decade of the war on terror had on Muslim Americans. There are plenty of other examples, too.
I'm not trying to respond to this in a partisan way, since I see myself on the left. I think the particular ways that leftists are abusing public debate, outlined in this article, are new and they are a problem. But my point is just that if we want to understand this phenomenon, we need more historical perspective. We should not assume some sort of idealized past in which the free exchange of ideas thrived, with no abuses of power, no group-think, no biases, and no intellectual bullying.
What I'd be interested in hearing more are the historical factors that allowed formerly marginalized voices to elbow their way into the public debate. Surely social media is part of the story, but it also seems to me that some sort of shift in national consciousness has taken place. That said, this article is a good starting place for this discussion.
It's definitely true that there have always been taboos and some topics out of bound for public debate (whether because they were dismissed as unserious or seen as beyond the pale in some way - your examples are good ones). What I believe is different now from the past is that many of the new taboos are ideas that are held or at least considered reasonable by many - sometimes even a large majority - of the public. It's one thing for a society to designate a fringe belief as beyond beyond the pale. It's another thing for commonly held beliefs to suddenly become heresies. It is not necessarily a value judgment. Many commonly held beliefs are wrong. But as Abraham Lincoln said, "a universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded."
As to how this is possible - yes, definitely social media plays a role, and so does the secondary effect of the unbalanced consequences for companies responding to it. Companies can avoid boycotts and bad press by agreeing with online mobs and firing heretics, but so far (though I suspect this is on the cusp of changing) there has been relatively little backlash for overdoing it, so the incentive is to respond to every silly demand and err on the side of indulging Safetyism. Beyond that, yes, I agree that some shift in national consciousness has taken place. I think part of it is a loss of faith among many "elites" that mainstream American culture is valuable and worth defending. There are many reasons for this, some valid, some not, and some that strike me as a kind of religious ritual flagellation. I couldn't begin to diagnose it all, but it is fascinating and perplexing.
Yes, good points. Some of the most egregious examples of safetyism really defy common sense, and they rely on slippery slope reasoning--such that expressing certain ideas contribute to an abstract environment of hate and violence in which certain people will be less safe. On one hand, cheering on discriminatory policing really might make African Americans less safe. But claiming that J.K. Rowlings tweets make trans people less safe is pushing it a bit, in my opinion.
This is really messy stuff, though. I think we need a shared vocabulary (like the kind the author of this article is putting forward) to start differentiating the abuses from the legitimate cases. For example, I was a supporter of the Me Too movement, in principle (of course, there were some borderline cases there, too). Men have canceled women's attempts to check our worst behavior for too long and with too little help from the legal process, so I think it's hard to blame women for stepping outside the official process and calling men (criminals, in the least controversial cases) out publicly. So, in the case of the Me Too movement, the acts (crimes) that men were being canceled for were well within our accepted notion of criminal behavior. Women just had to resort to this new tactic of cancelling because liberal debate and the criminal justice system failed them.
That’s just the trouble, isn’t it? We live in a world colored in shades of gray, but everyone sees the saturation differently and it would be a whole lot easier if it were just black and white.
Thanks for adding this nuance! I completely agree, but you said it better than I could have. If only things were simpler.
I agree that pushing down ideas that we find distasteful gives them power in more isolated spaces. The light of day has a way of clearing the foul odor of nasty belief systems that thrive in darkness. Hearing the beliefs of someone like Steve Bannon isn't likely to change my thinking or yours, and having them discussed in a wide forum is better to minimize their influence on those who might find them appealing in a more isolated space.
Again, I agree with this--potentially harmful views should be exposed and critiqued at every available opportunity by skillful debaters and interviewers. In practice, I'm not sure those views have lost power as a result. Bannon's ideas, along with those of Stephen Miller, form the context for crimes that are being committed against this country right now. And their views were exposed, and overexposed, throughout the campaign, by turns dismissed as crackpot views and other times treated with the same seriousness as any mainstream political philosophy. It didn't work. (Regarding Palin, her candidacy was a step toward the mess we have now, no matter how she fared with Katie Couric.) It would be easy for the other side to cast David Remnick as an "out of touch elite" representing a publication that's seen as a bastion of the progressive left who couldn't understand the appeal of Bannon's views for those who have felt left out or left behind. An hour at a CPAC conference makes it pretty clear that there are many minds that won't be changed by a rational argument. To be clear, I very much want it to be true that airing bad views weakens them, but in recent times I haven't seen it happening.
That is well said and I understand what you mean. In Palins case I would argue that when her profile grew she was in fact shown to be unpalatable to moderates and her influence declined. As long as the public debate turns on emotion the polarity will increase. Part of the problem is the only voices we hear are often from the outside wings, and the more tribal we become the less we identify with the humanity of people opposed to us. If you took a far left urban progressive from Brooklyn and an alt-right rural Trumpist from a small town in Idaho and swapped them for five years, they would each become more moderate because they would encounter the humanity of people they disagree with. Public debate is our way of creating a connection between the rural voter who likes Tom Cotton and the Progressive voter who likes Bernie Sanders. If we allow these two types to spiral off into increasingly isolated echo chambers of opinion we get more authoritarians of either stripe and our system breaks. More debate I think is better, words are not in fact violence.
I taught The Coddling of the American Mind in an undergraduate seminar. At first, the students were suspicious of me: what kind of subversive activity was I up to? As we read, most disagreed vehemently with the authors' conception of "safetyism" as a betrayal of the values of higher education. However, in a final paper that could focus on any text in the course, the majority returned to "safetyism" and conceded some of the authors' arguments. We also read Yascha Mounk, which should reveal what I was up to.
Thank you for doing this. I’m curious what other take-aways came from the class? I imagine it is/was very hard to be objective about a topic so core to one’s existence like one’s risk (in)tolerance. How did they react to the foreign world of 20+ years ago where there was more freedom for kids to make mistakes? My anecdotal observation from my kids is that conditioning at school (and at home I’m sure) is to worry constantly about how other’s feel, Immediately acknowledge and agree that ideas cause harm that people can/should be protected from and acre dubious about the value of conflict/discomfort in finding the truth (and also less concerned with the Value of the “truth” in general)
Mike Mills: One of the ways my students responded to information about the past in The Coddling of the American Mind was to check with me so I could confirm the authors were telling the truth. Many of today's college students were born after September 11, so they don't know that, e.g., children used to play outside without being supervised or that universities once assumed that young adults were capable of having their beliefs and feelings challenged by tough subjects.
Spectacular article, just wonderful. Oh, I do warn my students that Vox is the Fox of the left. I am currently teaching a class in Moral Reasoning, and it is very difficult for students to use reason and derive moral conclusion from ethical principles. Ad hominem, post hoc, appeals to emotions of all sorts dominate their papers. I of course want to keep my job so I have to be very very careful not to disagree with them but only to ask them to apply the principles. But one assignment was to analyse the problems of the so-called "friend zone." From a Kantian view it is patently immoral for both parties since it is based on using people. But the students could only analyze through the group speak of #me too. So their acceptance of propaganda makes it impossible to see the actual immorality of the mutual usage and lack of dignity of the friend zone.
Thank you.
Thank you for this; this issue has been a topic of conversation among my writer friends and colleagues for some time now. I agree with the analysis and many of the concerns expressed in this essay (and touched on in the Harper's Letter), that discourse has been stifled and people are afraid to speak lest they misspeak and make themselves a target. But I disagree about two of the examples that were provided. I think that for the editor of The New Yorker to interview Bannon is to legitimize his views, essentially elevating them into the mainstream. He is a champion of hate, and such views do not warrant that treatment. And, I think James Bennet showed poor editorial judgment and performance at every turn in the Cotton op-ed situation. For that, for doing his job poorly--not necessarily for the views expressed in the op-ed itself--he likely needed to resign. What happened to David Shor (not mentioned in this piece) is perhaps a better example.
It would be hard for me to prove a counterfactual, but I disagree that James Bennet was fired simply for doing his job poorly. I think it was for the views expressed in the op-ed. To me, that is clear from the admonitions that he was "making reporters unsafe". If a "sloppy" editorial had been on an uncontroversial topic, I personally do not believe he would have been fired. I think the "sloppiness" was a pretext.
I also disagree with deplatforming Steven Bannon. If his ideas are bad then you should be able to show why. (And he did, in fact, "lose" his debate with David Frum, in that he did not persuade many people of his position.) I don't think debate and discussion legitimize, I think that they interrogate. Deplatforming just drives the discussion underground and creates echo chambers. That's part of the reason no one saw Trump coming.
I do not think that "deplatforming" was an issue when it came to Trump. Television is his favorite platform, after all, and he received more than twice as much network airtime as Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign (source, Washington Post, Sept 21, 2016). And that doesn't include print or cable programs. I'm not surprised Bannon lost a debate with Frum. But it's my understanding that the New Yorker event was to be an interview, not a debate; it was an opportunity for Bannon to air his views on a rather rarefied stage, and the implication would be that he belonged on such a stage. I don't think so. I think one can disagree with that example and still point to many examples of illiberalism to support Yoffe's argument.
As for the Bennet situation, I disagreed with the op-ed and thought it was irresponsible to publish it, but what I thought was possibly worse was Bennet's failure to explain adequately why he thought it was a good idea to publish it in the first place. As an editor, I think one has to be prepared to explain what one was thinking at the time the decision was made, and to be prepared to be enlightened if that reasoning proves faulty, as it was shown to be, in ways one did not anticipate. What was missing was a sense of thoughtfulness in the approach. I don't know whether sloppiness was a pretext, though it was sloppy. Nor do I know whether a sloppy uncontroversial topic would have led to a different outcome--maybe this incident was preceded by other editorial "sloppiness" that did not become public. We just don't know. By its nature, an op-ed should be somewhat controversial, shouldn't it? If everyone agreed there would be no need to make an argument in the first place. But there's a line between controversy and irresponsibility, and it was irresponsible to publish that op-ed.
What was irresponsible about publishing that opinion piece?
By the paper's own admission after the original publication, they allowed assertions to pass as fact. See their note: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html. The writer had to make false claims in order to back up his call to invoke the Insurrection Act. The piece seems like a cover to justify violence against citizens exercising their right to protest, much like what we're seeing right now in Portland.
I don’t see what was the problem with the Tom Cotton editorial. He’s a sitting Senator, with all the legitimacy of the office, however unworthy he is to hold it. Running it in the NYT didn’t give elevation to a fringe element, and it didn’t imply that the paper agreed with him. It was the stated opinion of an elected official.
And, more to the point, don’t you think we the people needed to know what’s going on in his head? He has the power to influence legislation and he’s positioning himself as a successor to Trump. We need to know if he’s agitating for violence against people exercising their first amendment rights. I don’t want the NYT deciding what is safe for me to hear, but it seems to be what they wish they’d done with the Cotton editorial and what they will do more of in the future. They’re treating their readers like sheep, shaping the news to fit our view of the world as we see it, not challenging us to see the world as it is.
Yes, of course I think people need to know what a senator believes and what he's likely to advocate for. (Not that I think this op-ed stance was any surprise to Cotton's constituents.) The problem with it was it was a deeply flawed piece of writing, whether one agrees with the argument presented or not.
The NYT revision mentions that the piece 'represents a newsworthy part of the current debate'. The rest of the editors note was simply chaff to try to minimize fallout. I personally find whats in the op-ed ridiculous and frightening, but it represents an opinion that is sadly relevant in this country. Print the op-ed and let readers discuss it in response. Pretending the authoritarians aren't there doesn't make them go away, and in fact it makes them stronger. It was irresponsible to withdraw the op-ed, not to publish it.
I certainly see your point. At the same time, I wouldn't equate a decision not to publish this particular piece with pretending the opinion does not exist or that its existence should not be discussed in the NYT. This piece is not the only avenue for holding those conversations in the paper. It could have been done differently and more effectively, and accurately.
keep in mind that an "Opinion" piece is just that - opinion, and the views expressed are not required to be justified by fact. It is up to the readers to understand this and investigate if they so choose.
Any assertion that the protests in Portland are peaceful is laughable. Have you seen any video?
I don't think we're going to agree on this. To me, the NYT "own admission" is as credible as any that emerges from a struggle session. They faced rebellion within their ranks and decided to capitulate. The larger issue is the narrowing of acceptable discourse within a (formerly) liberal institution. I think the Bari Weiss resignation is illustrative. Kathleen Kingsbury's offer to protect her own journalists from "any piece of Opinion jounalism...that gives you the slightest pause" is probably intended to ease concerns about "putting lives at risk", although if pressed I would not be surpised to hear her claim that she was referencing factual inaccuracies.
I have not engaged in this exercise, but it would interesting to go through editorials that flatter the prejudices of the NYT editors to see if you can find "factual inaccuracies" of the same magnitude as those in the Cotton editorial. Did anyone lose their job at any newspaper over the torqued and inaccurate coverage of the Convington kids? Was that sloppy? (N.B.: I have not looked specifically at the NYT coverage, this is a general point. And it's a comment section, so I'm going from memory.)
If you don't see this as an institutional problem, then honestly I don't think the problem is very signficant. People get fired for superfluous reasons every day. The David Shor example wouldn't have made the Twitter news if people didn't feel it was emblematic of something larger. Perhaps you have some other institutional examples in mind, but if David Shor is our largest worry then I don't think there is much to worry about. (But he's not and there is.)
Regarding previous controversial op-Ed pieces, I expect you would find plenty of factual inaccuracies in the Taliban editorial published by the NYT back in February. They just let all of Haqqani’s claims stand unchallenged, with only their standard disclaimer about publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Which apparently includes not warning readers that the person writing about peace and harmony is responsible for the deaths of dozens of US soldiers and atrocities against civilians. It’s a pure propaganda piece written by an enemy.
They took some heat for it, but nobody got fired. The drama over the Cotton piece looks hypocritical in this context.
Link to wapo story about the story if you’re interested:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/21/nyt-taliban-haqqani/
Interesting link and a good illustration. Thanks.
Thank you for pointing this out. I don't think the Cotton editorial was unique in the NYT in being the object of inadequate oversight. I'm sure there are other examples. Imo, this underlines my point--Bennet was not doing his job as an editor. If I were (as an editor) to run a piece like either of these, I would send the author through rounds of serious revision in order to make sure the logic and facts in the writing stood up and supported the argument, whether or not I personally agreed with it.
We do agree on something--on your last comment--there is more to worry about! And, I agree that the narrowing of acceptable discourse is problematic.
Appreciate the conversation.