I’m not one of those wacky free speech absolutists. I am generally in favor of free speech, but I do think there are also obligations and responsibilities. Let me give you a few examples.
There have been a few instances where I was scheduled to speak somewhere, and officials tried to get me kicked out. That’s inappropriate. They also failed in every case, probably because I’m not as scary as Maryam Namazie. But it’s not right in her case, either.
I’ve had people picket and protest at a few of my talks. I thought that was cool — I encourage my critics to exercise their free speech privileges. My response is usually to talk to picketers and invite them to come inside and listen. Maryam Namazie isn’t one to back down from an argument, either.
I’ve never had anyone threaten to riot if I dared to speak, but that has happened to Maryam Namazie. In those cases, though, whose demands should be respected, the one who is giving a non-violent talk, or the ones who will turn violent if someone disagrees with them?
If someone is truly awful, these events can be a wonderful opportunity to deflate the bad guy. Back in 2004, David Horowitz, complaining about campus speech codes and censorship, gave a talk at St. John’s University. Yes, it was ironic that he was bitterly whining about how universities censor him while speaking at a university. But even more ironically, in part of his speech he railed against the Peace Studies course that was apparently inimical to his ideology…and students spoke up and said that they were taking that course, and that the instructor had given them class time off to specifically attend the Horowitz lecture. Imagine if Maryam Namazie’s opposition to Islamism could have been addressed by thoughtful, peaceful Islamist students showing up to listen attentively. (No, I know, wasn’t going to happen.)
There are limits to what we should tolerate on campus, though. For example, in the case of Condoleeza Rice being disinvited from the University of Minnesota campus a few years ago, I approved. I thought it was great that students were campaigning actively to stop her, because they were exercising their right to free speech, too. But mainly, there were two reasons I thought Rice should have been booted from campus. First, she’s part of an administration that was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and I don’t think war criminals deserve respect. How many people is Maryam Namazie responsible for murdering? Second, the university was going to pay her $150,000 for an abbreviated lecture, a gross waste of money. How much does Maryam Namazie get paid?
But otherwise, you may disagree with Maryam Namazie, in which case you should be out protesting and making your case, but to pretend that speech by someone with whom you disagree will cause some kind of imaginary harm puts you in the same boat with Saudi fundamentalists.
Now I don’t know how you’d draw the distinction between David Horowitz and Condoleeza Rice, other than the official commencement speaker status. But if that’s the case, I really hate to see it framed as “…limits to what we should tolerate on campus.” I would hope, if she were invited by some student-organized group, she would have every much a right to the public forum as the much more racist Horowitz. (and I hope there would be no problem in refusing to invite Horowitz as the commencement speaker)
And there’s also the issue of MRA student groups inviting their favorite folks to give a talk. In Toronto, there was an incident where counter-MRA activists blocked the building entrance, tried to make as much noise in the hall outside as possible, and finally pulled the fire alarm. I suppose whether or not you sympathize with the protesters’ tactics depends on whether you think MRA speakers are more like Horowitz or Rice in this situation.
It ain’t free speech at $150K a pop.
Your last paragraph is a spot on.
I think that’s all I want to say.
Philip A @ 1
So much shit can happen if you pull a fire alarm that could get people hurt, especially in a crowded area with a lot of guests, so don’t do it unless it will protect people. That’s why it’s generally not covered under protected speech. So, I don’t care who you are protesting, that is uncalled for and bloody stupid.
And these people.
@Becca
Not to mention the Boy Who Cried Wolf effect
Phillip A@1
There’s also the point that Rice bears responsibility for international crimes that led to hundreds of thousands killed. I think that puts her in a different category from people you just strongly disagree with.
Warwick has reversed the decision; she’s speaking.
https://www.warwicksu.com/news/article/warwicksu/Warwick-SU-to-host-Maryam-Namazie-as-an-External-Speaker/
The Saudi reference is somewhat out of date, (1 April 2014, April Fool’s day), but I think it was for real. Their newish king is named Salman.
But, Saudi Arabia, is a country run for centuries by a ruthless criminal family masquerading as “royalty,” where people are executed for witchcraft and women are not allowed to drive. It is now a leading representative of the five-member UN Human Rights Council panel.
You couldn’t make it up!
I suspect there will be a few Muslims in the audience who are there to hear what she has to say. A hijab-wearing Muslim friend of mine attended an atheist convention in Australia and reported on it. She issued no fatwas and made not threats. She just listened to the arguments and talked to people.
Years ago I went to the Queen Mary University talk where Maryam spoke. That was where the first one (given by her then colleague Anne-Marie Waters) had been cancelled when a man made violent threats to the audience.
The rescheduled event had a huge audience with both Maryam and Anne-Marie as speakers. Plenty of Muslims came along but those that did said that the Islam of the sharia courts was not the true Islam. The organisers said that they encouraged the more hardline Islamists at the university to come and debate but none did so.
I suspect that much of the fear of giving offence is actually fear of terrorists turning up and killing people. However, if that is there reason they should say so.
Agree mostly, but not about supporting the dis-invite of Condoleeza Rice. In a case such as hers I admit it is difficult — very difficult — to let free speech happen, but such things are where testing your free speech principals are actually tested. Sorry, but I do not think you passed that test. Either you are for ALL free speech (excepting speech that incites violence) our you are not.
Shorter PZ: I’m for free campus speech, as long as it is speech I agree with. Amazing that such backward, antiquated thought can come from a professional educator.
Wrong. Campus is the last place speech should be curtailed. You think Condoleeza Rice is a war criminal? She should be invited to speak on every campus in the country and either asked to debate Iraq or be followed by a speaker who will take her to task. College students should watch the debate unfold and then, if the situation is as clear cut as PZ asserts, they should very easily come to the conclusion that she should be arrested and charged.
But the situation isn’t that clear cut – in fact it’s almost exactly the opposite of what PZ describes. Ms. Rice was not responible, for example, for the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra which ignited a religious civil war in the country in 2006. She is not responsible for the hatred that exists between Shia and Sunni, and it is that hatred which is responsible for the vast majority of civilian deaths in Iraq.
And this is why authoritarians MUST control speech – they don’t want anyone scrutinizing their ideas. Islamists want to ban speech that doesn’t conform with their ideology – PZ wants the same on campus – precisely because people would be swayed by that speech. Totally free speech is the only antidote to this. You think X? Fine, support and defend your ideas in competition with someone who thinks Y who is equally free to support and defend their ideas. Only the authoritarian thinks: Y is dangerous and we shouldn’t let anyone hear it.
What happens when PZ isn’t around to tell us what speech should be allowed (Maryam Namazie) and what speech shouldn’t be allowed (Condoleeza Rice)? Here’s a simple solution: allow them both to speak and let the students make up their own minds.
I’m all for free speech too but the war criminal called Condoleeza Rice was charging $150,000 to speak. That is hardly free.
Is it me, or are they being misleading in their first paragraph?
The debate and concern don’t seem to me to have been about the application (made by the society), rather about the rejection of the application by the Student Union.
PZ, the problem with restricting speech is that those restrictions are typically used to silence those in the minority and maintain the status quo. For example, anti-blasphemy laws are invariably used to persecute religious minorities and non-believers.
@11
Particularly since the whole ordeal is patronizing to people who happen to be Muslim. Yes there are terrorists and people who get worked up over blasphemy, but I assume there are enough who know how to act like fucking adults.
@13
When you’re giving a commencement speech, that isn’t “totally free speech”. I’d go farther than PZ to say that I’m a little leery of the concept of commencement speeches, and I really don’t think the speakers should be paid any more than a compensation for travel and board. I’m even a little uncomfortable that Morris had Franken as a speaker. And I really like Franken.
It isn’t free speech like the asshole preachers on campus, or a student group inviting a controversial figure. It’s a person with a captive audience. This day is about these students, so they have the right to decide collectively who they think is appropriate for their speaker. I never understand people pleading free speech in this case, telling students to shut up and listen to authority, on the day celebrating them for intellectual achievement.
The students did. They wanted Condi to stay the hell out of their graduation ceremony.
Raucous Indignation, #16
Why does it have to be an all or nothing approach? I wouldn’t argue for a law that keeps Rice from speaking at colleges.
For example, if someone like Dick Cheney, Roosh V, or Bill Cosby were invited to my university to speak, I’d try to persuade the administration to disinvite them. And I’d try to get other students to join me.
Not wanting Dick Cheney to speak at your college and get paid for it is not silencing someone speaking for a marginalized group (as would be in the case of Namazie). Dick Cheney doesn’t represent a group who is oppressed or in danger of being unjustly silenced in society. Namazie does.
And I see no danger of this attitude silencing minorities. When a black feminist woman gets invited to speak, I wouldn’t try to get her disinvited. Same for a Muslim man who wants to address misconceptions about Muslims in America. It’s a pretty easy and clear distinction to me (and to almost all readers of this blog I bet).
What’s wrong with that?
@19
What about Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Lots of progressives worked themselves into a lather about her honorary degree from Brandeis University, and she is a black feminist athiest woman.
Ali is also a compulsive liar and when she addressed a right wing conservative stink tank in Australia she also stated that all creationists should be executed.
Penny @13, @20,
There’s a difference between a university allowing a person to speak on campus and a university endorsing a person’s speech by paying them $150,000 to speak at commencement or giving them an honorary degree. One of those situations is a right, one is a privilege.
Penny L, #20
Was that opposition to her degree because she is a black feminist atheist woman?
Does free speech entitle me to an honorary degree (or 150k USD)? What about a knighthood?
garydargan @21,
“All creationists should be executed?” Holy shit, Ayaan Hirsi Ali really said that? Can you please share a link or reference to that remark?
This is the type of thing that really needs to be passed around and amplified to make clear to a wider audience what kind of rhetoric we are dealing with here.
Penny L @13,
But all Professor Myers and others did was to exercise their own free speech in calling for Condoleeza Rice to be to no platformed. Protesting or calling for someone to be disinvited is itself a form of free expression.
You can’t turn around and call foul just because the right people were persuaded by those calls. What you are suggesting amounts to saying that if someone is invited to speak then everyone else should have their right to free expression curtailed for the sake of false balance. Give up your right to free assembly and don’t protest, give up your right to have your voice heard, all because someone else sent an invite?
Also if you just fling the doors of debate wide open then what’s to stop all the fringe groups from grabbing the stage? Creationists, homeopaths, vaccine-denialists, 9/11 truthers, MRAs, etc., etc., etc. You’re suggesting none of it should be curtailed.
Not just the authoritarian thinks this. Also those suitably familiar with the ways, means and effects of harmful propaganda. Impressionable minds can be harmed by dangerous propaganda especially when many of them don’t yet have the tools to deal with it in the proper context.
I didn’t heat her say it but was in the audience at another panel discussion she was taking part in. A friend who was sitting next to me pointed out that she had stated this at a previous appearance. She denied it but he claimed to have a recording of her and was prepared to supply it. I have known him for years and he is not in the habit of fabricating something like that. Incidentally her writing is not of the best standard either. Over here a postgrad student did her Masters looking at the work of Muslim feminists. She compared Ali’s work to a number of others. Ali’s came off very poorly. The student did a surgical dissection of it and showed it was riddled with errors.
Condi Rice had lots of platforms from which to speak. If she wanted to she could have set up a soap box and just started saying whatever she wanted too. The objection was to endorsement of and payment for her speech.
I never said those students shouldn’t be allowed to protest. But Professor Myers wanted the heckler’s veto to win for speech he doesn’t like (Ms. Rice) and doesn’t want the heckler’s veto to win for speech he does like. This is no way to run a society, and it’s definitely not the way to run a university campus.
Also, this idea of “false balance” is extremely sinister, and in my opinion athiests/skeptics should temper its usage. There is no such thing as “false balance” in the political arena, there are always competing sides and many times they have equally valid value systems.
So who decides what is propaganda? Would Ms. Rice have been propogating it during her talk? Does Professor Myers engage in it on this blog? The only antidote to propaganda is truth – not suppression. Propaganda is most effective in an environment where other speech has been suppressed/outlawed. The feeling I get from Professor Myers is that as long as the “right people” are doing the suppressing, then its ok. I most wholeheartedly disagree.
PZ
The wording is very disheartening to me. Does it mean that being a free speech absolutist is necessarily making one wacky? Because insisting that one’s voice be heard wherever is of course wacky and has a lot to do with absolutism and actually little to do with free speech, even be it free speech absolutism. Free speech is not the obligation to spout or throw up the alternative argument, it is only the possibility to tell it some place, elsewhere if needed but somewherever. Where this right does not exist, power that be has full control over whatever issues, and that’s why there’s no way free speech be nuanced or toned down. It cannot possibly work unless be total. It comes at the cost of free bullshit but that’s beside the point.
…Is equally a disheartening argument. I read something in the same lines as, say:
I am generally in favor of anti-racism, but…
I am generally in favor of feminism, but…
At the very core of free speech construct, there’s the idea that it doesn’t matter what is expressed. As Voltaire did put it “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This is all about free speech. There’s no possible but. Even when you* think you* get everything right anytime.
Penny L @29
This is wrong, there is nothing like equally valid value systems in the sense you argue for. There may be casual undecidable proposals, where several competing sides can coexist without consensus possibly emerging. The issue of free speech is not that “systems are equal” and should coexist, it is that where one cannot express disagreement there’s the risk that ill take over and no way to prevent it.
Saad @19
Free speech is special it seems. I hope you realise it cannot escape the paradox of a binary. There’s no half-way immunisation against misconstruct.
When did PZ get all these superpowers?
Did I miss a memo?
Yes.
You don’t have the right to say anything you want in any place you want. There are rules and regulations present to maintain order.
Nobody but the government must listen to you either. Absolutists think they must be listened to by everybody.
Free speech absolutists seem to forget about being responsible for what they say. They hurt people, then hide behind “free speech”.
I disagree. I was speaking specifically of politics, and in the US right now there are two broadly defined political value systems, one on the right and one on the left. Both are equally valid in that they are backed up by reasoned arguments. If we neck that down to a policy example, the right generally prefers smaller government and the left generally prefers larger government. These, again, are equally valid value judgements. Which way is best? There’s no way to know because the choice involves trade-offs each group values differently.
My objection is to a political content-based approach to supressing speech on campus. Educators should not suppress political value judgements of which they do not approve. Professor Myers doesn’t like Ms. Rice because of her political (in this case foreign policy) ideas, therefore he advocated that she not speak on campus. In fact he slanders her by calling her a war criminal. No doubt Christopher Hitchens would have taken issue with that assessment.
Trolling, trolling, trolling…
chigau (違う) @35
^5^5
“De-platforming” has got to be the stupidest neologism since “lifehack.” How did X or Y fancypants speaker-person get an invite to speak, at a podium, with a microphone, at a university, in the first place, hmm? Is it because someone, somewhere, had to use some criteria to determine the worthiness of their speech? Or were they simply the first person waiting in line? Right…
So obviously this is not an issue of free speech, because it is impossible to provide a podium and captive audience to every single person requesting such. We can haggle over the details used to determine worthiness, but this is not about constitutional rights– this is about entitlement. Don’t point to the Constitution to justify your demands for a microphone and a captive audience. Go to the student union and speak your mind. Surely your speech is so precious that it will compel an audience on its own merits.
Penney L #33
Definitely trolling. Reasoning based on idiotology is not reasoned, which requires an evidence based argument. Only one side has that.
But all Professor Myers and others did was to exercise their own free speech in calling for Condoleeza Rice to be to no platformed. Protesting or calling for someone to be disinvited is itself a form of free expression.
No, it isn’t. That’s like saying calling for Condoleeza Rice to be drawn and quartered is an expression of free speech, “and you can’t cry foul just because someone was persuaded by those calls.” This is an attempt to censor ideas they disagree with.
What you are suggesting amounts to saying that if someone is invited to speak then everyone else should have their right to free expression curtailed for the sake of false balance.
No, what they are suggesting is that attempting to get a speaker removed is more than merely expressing oneself, it’s *silencing someone else.* The intent of free expression is not to bully others into submission, but to make yourself heard. No one said they can’t picket and protest a speaker; what they said was that calls to have that speaker removed (or “no platformed”) is a step too far.
Also if you just fling the doors of debate wide open then what’s to stop all the fringe groups from grabbing the stage? Creationists, homeopaths, vaccine-denialists, 9/11 truthers, MRAs, etc., etc., etc.
Slippery slope fallacy. This isn’t Open Mic Night at the Chuckle Hut, it’s an invitation-only speaking gig at a university.
You’re suggesting none of it should be curtailed.
Of course it shouldn’t be curtailed. If you’re really that afraid of people being won over to a way of thinking you disagree with, perhaps you should reconsider your own way of thinking.
Not just the authoritarian thinks this. Also those suitably familiar with the ways, means and effects of harmful propaganda. Impressionable minds can be harmed by dangerous propaganda especially when many of them don’t yet have the tools to deal with it in the proper context.
And where better to give the proper context than a university?
Forgive my previous post, I’m new to WordPress.
No, it isn’t. That’s like saying calling for Condoleeza Rice to be drawn and quartered is an expression of free speech, “and you can’t cry foul just because someone was persuaded by those calls.” This is an attempt to censor ideas they disagree with.
No, what they are suggesting is that attempting to get a speaker removed is more than merely expressing oneself, it’s *silencing someone else.* The intent of free expression is not to bully others into submission, but to make yourself heard. No one said they can’t picket and protest a speaker; what they said was that calls to have that speaker removed (or “no platformed”) is a step too far.
Slippery slope fallacy. This isn’t Open Mic Night at the Chuckle Hut, it’s an invitation-only speaking gig at a university.
Of course it shouldn’t be curtailed. If you’re really that afraid of people being won over to a way of thinking you disagree with, perhaps you should reconsider your own way of thinking.
And where better to give the proper context than a university?
Drawing and quartering Condie. What a great idea. I’ll bring the pencils if you supply the paper.
Nope, you lie. Rice has no problem finding a microphone, and you know that. She oversaw some bad policies. One venue for a PAID speech was denied to her. She could speak elsewhere.
I should add to #41 that often commencement speakers receive an honorary doctorate as part of the ceremonies. The university at that point is giving validation to the bad policies that she oversaw. And that is a legitimate complaint about her speaking, and something the university needs to think carefully about.
Even if you think I’m wrong, that doesn’t mean I lied. Try to find better words, Nerd.
Irrelevant. The attempt was to prevent people at the university from hearing her speak. Censorship does not have to be absolute to be censorship, just as free speech doesn’t have to be absolute to be free speech. And I think you’re aware of this.
In our opinion, yes. In any case, that’s no reason to keep someone from speaking.
Completely separate issue, and a red herring to boot. This is about not allowing someone they disagree with politically to speak at their school, not about the person receiving an honorary doctorate. If that were the case, they could have protested THAT matter, rather than the fact that she was speaking there.
“I don’t think war criminals deserve respect.”
I don’t believe Rice deserves any respect. Her presence on the Dropbox board of directors is why I use box.com, but throw Fritz Haber a few crumbs despite his war crimes conviction. There are a few billion people alive today thanks to his non-war crime work. Even his great rival in nitrogen fixation, Chaim Weitzman, tried to help him out when the Nazis threw him out of Germany. Aside from Haber, I’ll agree with you.
I was talking about politics, not science. There are evidence based arguments on both sides of the political debate and to suggest that one side has a monopoly on either reason or evidence is not just wrong it is stupid and counterproductive. To take my example above, there are advantages and disadvantages to government programs for which the left advocates and the right wants to eliminate. There can be no debate if you straightforwardly assert (without reason yourself, I might add) one side uses ” idiotology.”
Damn, now I feel awful for preventing a child molesting relative from giving a speech at a wedding.
So was I. For example, there is solid evidence that tax cuts don’t stimulate the economy.
Why don’t the Rethugs ever show their evidence from academic sources, and not from sources bought and paid for by the Koch Family?
Your argument is ideologically based, not evidence based.
Those peope have a fundamental misconception what “inciting violence” means: It’s when you say something that motivates others to become violent against a third party. It is not when you say something and therefore somebody else becomes violent against YOU.
And no, “free speech” doesn’t mean you’re entitled to a micro (and a nice amount of money). Saying “you’re an asshole, your politics are shitty and I don’t think you should therefore be invited to our university” does not infringe on somebody’s free speech, not even if the university says “in retrospect we have to agree, this person is not worthy to speak at an official ceremony of ours.”
@47
Should government try to stimulate the economy? What tax rates are you talking about? Sales? Property? Income? Social Security? Tarrifs? What level should tax rates be? For which income levels? How accurate are economists’ predictions? There are so many built in assumptions to your assertion that it renders it useless (if it’s not completely wrong to begin with). My point was not to argue a specific policy issue, my point is that there are valid policy positions on either side of almost every political debate – the question is where your values lie and what trade-offs you want to accept.
To suggest, as you do, that the only valid political positions come from the left is ludicrous. We may not agree with the right, but that is an entirely different question.
My argument could not be LESS ideological. I’m not taking a position on any political question other than college professors should not advocate to suppress speech they don’t like. I’m saying there are pros and cons to each side – you’re the one saying only the left’s arugments are valid.
Can’t get any more ideological than that.