By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.
-Lord Acton
From "Schooling, sex, and segregation" in The Economist's "Erasmus" blog:
In some ways, campus politics in Britain are merely a rather tepid version of what goes on at American colleges, where battles over what can be said on campus, about matters like faith, sex and sexual orientation, have been raging harder and for much longer. What's missing from the British scene is the purist libertarian voice which protects the right of individuals and sub-groups to air all manner of controversial views, from militant atheism to religious conservatism, so long as they do not harm others (as segregation might well do) or incite people to violence. That is something Britain could learn from.
The liberal value of free speech is not about allowing people to say what has the backing of science or what has the backing of conventional norms; instead, it is about establishing individuals’ ability to say what they believe. Free speech is not about ensuring that the truth is spoken. It is about ensuring that falsity may be spoken without threat of reprisal. Whether it is the Westboro Baptist Church or Kurt Westergaard’s controversial cartoons, people should be free to express whatever opinion they want.
However, there are those who seek to ban certain forms of speech in order to prevent the offense that they can inflict upon others, but the problems with such schemes is that they ensure that there will be political conflicts about what should be an acceptable form of speech. B.C.’s hope that there can be a pure libertarian voice in the problem of religion on British campuses is thus a hope that there can be grammatical rules of free speech applied there so that conflicts about religion and identity can be restricted to civil society.
On the issue of free speech, we can see that there is a divergence in the understanding of what is mean by the term which can largely be identified between a conflict between the classical liberal and the social democratic view. Useful here is Adam Smith’s discussion of two different types of rules: a type which is grammatical whereas another which is compositional. He defined the difference in The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
The rules of justice may be compared to the rules of grammar; the rules of the other virtues, to the rules which critics lay down for the attainment of what is sublime and elegant in composition. The one, are precise, accurate, and indispensable. The other, are loose, vague, and indeterminate, and present us rather with a general idea of the perfection we ought to aim at, than afford us any certain and infallible directions for acquiring it. A man may learn to write grammatically by rule, with the most absolute infallibility; and so, perhaps, he may be taught to act justly. But there are no rules whose observance will infallibly lead us to the attainment of elegance or sublimity in writing; though there are some which may help us, in some measure, to correct and ascertain the vague ideas which we might otherwise have entertained of those perfections. And there are no rules by the knowledge of which we can infallibly be taught to act upon all occasions with prudence, with just magnanimity, or proper beneficence: though there are some which may enable us to correct and ascertain, in several respects, the imperfect ideas which we might otherwise have entertained of those virtues. (TMS, III.6.11)
The divergence between classical liberalism and of social democracy can be best expressed by looking at the ways that the two handle the rules of free speech. Whereas classical liberalism approaches free speech from a grammatical point of view, social democracy approaches free speech from a compositional point of view.
The tension between the classical liberal view and the social democratic view, when the two doctrines had yet to fully diverge from one another and were allied against the aristocracy and absolutism, are evident in two different statements of free speech within the American Constitution, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The American Constitution’s First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The Article 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen reads: "The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law."
For classical liberals, what matters is that certain rules are followed: That the law should have no authority to suppress any speech, and that private citizens ought to respect other people’s speech within civil society, though the classical liberal view no doubt emphasizes the former. The American First Amendment expresses this grammatical view with the simple clause “Congress shall pass no law…” That is a rule which is grammatical in nature, and there is no vagueness within its expression which allows for Congress to act in the matter. It is a rule which simply directs Congress to act in a way which can be perfected by its no interfering in “abridging the freedom of speech.” For classical liberals, what matters is that Congress, or any other legislative body, adheres to the rule of not interfering with the freedom of speech.
For social democrats, what matters is a environment of toleration, and there therefore must be room for speech which harms that environment to be banned. Within The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, there is room for the National Constituent Assembly to define “abuses of speech” for reasons of that body’s deliberation. Freedom of speech is therefore not grammatical, but “loose, vague, and indeterminate.” The manner in which the legislative body may constrain the freedom of speech is left undefined, and thereby provides no rules by which that body may infallibly act towards the general welfare. The government may therefore suppress certain forms of speech, “hate speech,” in order to protect the value of toleration. In order to prevent the offense that a group like the Westboro Baptist Church or a National Socialist party may inflict upon others minding their own business in society, the government may suppress certain forms of speech. Examples include Canada’s government preventing the Westboro Baptist Church from protesting within its jurisdiction, and the German government’s suppression of NSDAP in all its forms.
Overall, the difference between the ways that the First Amendment and Article 11 define the freedom of speech displays the two different ways in which both classical liberals and social democrats think about freedom of speech. The classically liberal First Amendment simply prevents Congress from making any law regulating speech in the grammatical “Congress shall make no law…,” and thereby provides a grammatical rule which can be perfectly put into action. The socially democratic Article 11, on the other hand, allows for the National Constituent Assembly to define abuses of speech which may then be suppressed, and thus for judgement calls to be made as to what should exactly be protected by free speech.
If freedom of speech is to be “loose, vague, and in determinant” and if there are to be judgment calls about what it exactly means, then there is going to be conflict in society about defining it. These conflicts are not simply a matter of people having heterogenous preferences. Instead, these conflicts shall be a matter, as they actually are, about conflicting identities. In the article from “Erasmus,” we see those conflicts about identity boil over in Great Britain’s universities as people try to enforce their own identities as the proper identity of society at large by trying to enforce them. There are necessarily going to be political winners and losers once the conflicts have been resolved, and it is uncertain whether society at large shall even benefit from that resolution.
B.C.’s lament that there is no “purist libertarian voice” within the conflict makes the most sense when considered through the perspective of free speech preventing the need for political winners and losers on topics of speech. The purist libertarian voice being the classical liberal view I’ve identified above of establishing freedom of speech as a matter of “precise, accurate, and indispensable” rules. “Congress shall pass no law…” on the matter of what speech is allowed in society, and so the conflict within civil society on questions of identity cannot be waged within Congress largely protecting those minding their own business from the consequences of those questions. There is therefore nothing to be fought there on the issues, and nothing to demarcate winners and losers on the issue besides what people voluntarily choose to do.
Very few people, for instance, had their lives changed by the recent scandal over free speech and “Duck Dynasty,” and there was no need to call judgment from Congress to interfere with the decision. Some may have been upset at the decision, but they were free to make their concern heard, and to cut off their own connections with those who had made the decision. Everything was contain and handled outside of Congress’ jurisdiction without any reference to political power.
Please Leave Off the Shopkeepers
Source.
Another month, another problem with police brutality in America. The flavor of the month is Freddie Gray dying a week after being arrested of a fatal spinal-cord injury. How a twenty-five year old man could have sustained such an injury in the course of an arrest boggles the mind. In a news conference, Police Commissioner Anthony Bratts admitted that "We know our police employees failed to get him medical attention in a timely manner multiple times.” You see, when the police do well in America, they’re heroes deserving a place of honor in society. When they do wrong, they’re merely employees, no different than the cashier I walked past at the grocery store today. But I digress, matters became a bit more heated in Baltimore today when rioting broke out across the city following a protest and as I am typing, the mayor has declared a curfew.
The riot in Baltimore is an unfortunate reminder—if we didn’t already have enough around us—that society is hard. The difficulty of getting people with widely disparate beliefs and ambitions to cooperate with each other in a social order is immense. Thankfully, the fair-weather structure of incentives in the liberal society we live in today ensures that it is expedient for people to occupy a role within that social order and to play it out in their interaction with strangers. Everyone is made better and everyone is left free to go home to pursue their own amusement. Quid pro quo reigns and it wraps itself in the glory of apathy.
The fair-weather incentives can only last in the face of fair-weather injustice. Usually, it's the type of injustice that, say, happens to some poor, black kid in the ghetto. Usually. However, these are the days of #BlackLivesMatter and Freddie Gray fits perfectly into that narrative.
In Baltimore today, people aren’t apathetic and they aren’t satisfied with merely going home to pursue their own individual merriment. Instead, they’re marching. Unfortunately, the very same emotion that led someone to be willing to virtuously take a stand against a corrupt society has also motivated violence. People with grievances get fed up and strike out. The problem is that they strike out against innocent people.
The 1992 Los Angeles riots is another variation on this theme. A much larger variation, but still a variation. People recognized they live in a kleptocratic society, got indignant, felt justified in being fed up and then so proceed to strike out against innocent people. They did so all while feeling that warm glow that their wrath is just. That warm glow broke the apathy our wider society is based on. Worse, it broke that apathy while giving the rioters the feeling that they could destroy, even if innocent people were harmed. The sight of Koreatown shopkeepers keeping watch over their property after their part of the town was abandoned by the LAPD really does make one think, if just for a second, that a Hobbesian state of nature still threatens our existence today.
It should be a foregone conclusion that the United States has a police brutality problem. For far too long, civilian police departments have gotten away with putting the absolute safety of officers beyond serving the public interest. America slept as towns of a few thousand got SWAT teams armed to the teeth and as every officer began walking around as if he were in Iraq or Syria, with a gun at their waist and body armor around their torsos. Whatever the police may have been twenty, thirty or however long ago you wish to go back, they are certainly not civilian today. They are a paramilitary force and everyone is reminded of that every single time that they interact with the soldiers masquerading as civilians.
Alas, the riots in Baltimore only give credence to the belief that a thin blue line is all that stands between civilization and barbarism. It only takes the spotlight away from the institutional disparity between poor blacks, most of whose ancestors were hauled to this continent as cargo, and the rest of America. At a time when the protest in wake of Freddie Gray’s death needed to be collected and civil, a few savages decided to take advantage of the situation and, in doing so, only helping to make the Baltimore police look ever more sympathetic.
It feels good to be fed up. It feels good to take action against the oppressors above and to demand that the entire machine must grind to a halt if that is what justice demands. There is no denying that. But at what cost? Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus is a tempting creed, but one that ultimately undermines human flourishing. It conveniently ignores the multitudes whose worlds would suddenly end. Those people just trying to live out their lives in the situation that they find themselves in. They are the ones, much like the Koreatown shopkeepers, who are lost in the crossfire when the civic struggle for reform devolves into an egocentric orgy of violence.
In Baltimore, there are people who will return to their shops and find them looted. They will continue on with their professions whatever happens to the Baltimore police department. They are the meek of the earth and, ultimately, the foundation of the social order that we all are enriched by. Any movement that would hurt them reveals its barbarism the first moment it lifts its fists. Rage against the machine all you want, but do respect the sacred rules of society.
Posted by Harrison Searles on 04/28/2015 at 12:29 AM in Commentary, Conflict, The State of Nature | Permalink | Comments (0)
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