Remember: as a principle, only one side regularly demands systematic censorship. They no longer have the cultural heft to pull it off... but conservatives are NOT calling people to be banned from Twitter for popular opinions, or run out of academia, or fired from their corporate jobs.
Free speech is extremely important. That tells me that we should be honest about the asymmetry here. It's not just about power. Conservatives will soon have real leverage in multiple major media companies. Universities are springing up. I HIGHLY doubt that anyone will be mobbed or bullied or accused of creating unsafe work environments... because they defend public education, or feminist scholarships. That literally is how crazy much of the institutional left was for a time - and the moderates never pushed back. Perhaps that's because if they didn't join in, THEY would be threatened. It's disgusting behavior, regardless of who does it. The ideologues are deranged, the go-along-to-get-along types are worthless cowards. Together, they represent upwards of 95% of the members of many liberal institutions.
As a principle, perhaps, but not as a reality. Why are some people so unwilling to engage with the central argument of the article, that there is a major threat coming from both sides? Does it really matter if one side does it more than the other (although the current administration is clearly trying to correct your perceived asymmetry)?
False. Conservatives are getting comedians fired, prosecuting people who spoke out against Trump, trying to get people fired for any negative comments about Charlie Kirk, ETC ETC.
I am a (near) free speech absolutist, but I still believe there is a line that should never be crossed: treating violence as an acceptable response to speech. That is not a regular difference of opinion that we should have to tolerate. Just because it was wrong to fire people for being insufficiently progressive, that doesn’t mean conservative employees should have to work next to someone who openly wants them dead.
Originalism makes no sense either. The Constitution is drafted broadly, setting parameters on government. It is a text, which has meaning. Departing from reasonably intersubjective meaning unmoors Constitutional jurisprudence and threatens judicial credibility.
Much as it disgusts me to make this argument contributing to a political climate which makes political violence a reality isn't the same as calling for the death of a specific individual.
I also hate that people celebrated Charlie Kirk, and abhor that men of the cloth are making the argument that Charlie Kirk was a vile person right here on substack. Of course, most of the defamatory speech relates to remarks taken out of context, and ignore the fact that he had numerous gay and lesbian friends, or invested time and money mentoring young Black and Latino conservatives.
I also disagree with Charlie Kirk on Michelle Obama and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Jackson's dissents may occasionally lead with rhetoric over legal substance and represent a complete untethering from Constitutional doctrine, substantiating concepts like discriminatory equity over flawed, but anti-discriminatory colorblindness, into law, but legally they are quite brilliant.
I would however stipulate that grieving families should probably be able to sue for defamation under British liable law:)
The real problem is defence as a pretext for violence. The belief that psychological harms can represent a form of physical violence could only lead to one logical conclusion, the justification for physical force. The only individual justification for physical violence is the right to self-defence from immediate physical harm, defence of others from immediate physical harm, or defence of property.
Unfortunately, academia entirely conceded the argument when it mattered. They abrogated their duties as adults and scholars, in order to please adolescents really needed CBT counselling. Everything since has been downhill all the way.
Some of this is quite good. The defense of Jackson’s dissents is nonsense. After all, they often are “rhetoric” rather than substance, “represent a complete untethering from Constitutional doctrine” - and text - and elevate “equity” (whatever THAT means) over Constitutionally and statutorily mandated non discrimination, and ignores inconvenient factual portions of the record. She and her dissents are not legally brilliant.
Well, I did mean brilliant in a narrow sense, through the pursuit of novel legal theories. As courtroom lawyer and in terms of drafting legal arguments she had a pretty competent record, both in terms of due process challenges and in civil cases. Apart from anything else, disparate treatment claims require a fairly good understanding of statistical maths to challenge counter arguments.
I may have overstated though:)
I imagine you're not keen about her even further departure from originalism. Courts weren't designed to produce equality of outcome, only to be as fair and just as practical in an imperfect world.
One other thing, and it is not unique to Justice Jackson. Most judges don't understand the meaning of causal inference from statistical associations. For example, finding a statistically significant variations from some baseline should begin the inquiry, not end it. Especially when the baseline may reflect incorrect notions of regularity or normative judgments. It takes some sophistication to understand statistical error meaning, but substantial subject matter and statistical sophistication to discern the meaning of seeming statical anomalies. Justice Jackson appears to lack the tools.
Wow, that's really annoying! I was just playing with Grok again. I wanted to know both what's behind America's incredibly high recidivism rate and I could smell shite on the claim that gang involved homicides are actually quite low. It's never just damn statistics, measurement also plays a role.
On the gun crime, only ~13% of all homicides (gun + non-gun) are coded "gang-motivated." But 81% of homicides are gun-related, and ~45% of gun homicides in urban areas tie to gangs (FBI 2023).
However, the oft-cited 83% recidivism rate is also bullshit. The figure includes payroll violations, failures to appear and minor infractions. I know system watch is necessary for the 'or else' factor, but the state shouldn't be unnecessarily coercive even with former offenders. And including bureaucratic violations is just plain dishonest, meant to paint a bleak picture aimed at tough justice.
Some corrections officers admit that prison systems for the worst offenders tend to be split 50/50 between bad people doing bad things, and the stupid, the angry and the mislead. I'm all for being tough on the former category, but not the latter. A Justice system should at aim to be humane where possible.
Real recidivism is probably around 50-60%. 40% for those who get caught, and accounting for those who don't. My estimate was pretty good- stable employment ten years out is 30-40%. People also die, experience critical or permanent illness, etc.
So, I'll tell you a little story about that. A while back I looked into COMPAS. It helped correct for judges bias. Humans are great at perceiving threat, but terrible at evaluating risk. Incentives are also important, because there are/were worse consequences for excessive leniency. Anyway COMPAS also appeared to produce racially biased results. I thought it was just associative factors of living in difficult neighbourhoods, which can be subject to targeted policing to reduce crime- a form of necessary feedback if you will, given COMPSTATs proven ability to halve violent crime, repeated in many, many major European cities, I might add, historically speaking (the real problem removing judicial discretion and congressional interface in the judicial process, as well as judicial electoral incentives- harsh sentences don’t work, but catching criminals does).
After the Michael Moore documentary I was dubious about the Norwegian claims about recidivism rates. It's about how far out you measure. You can't really look at recidivism without measuring 9 to 10 years out, which the Norwegians were not doing. Varying the measurement scale of time, the rate of recidivism rate varies from 13% to around 45-48%.
Anyway, what I also found was what that the Norwegians themselves admitted they had a problem with gang recidivism, but they didn't actually publish the data. It's probably is a bit of both difficult neighbourhoods and gang, but I suspect the pull of the latter is stronger. The friendships we forge in the teen years are powerful, far deeper than in later life.
It's a bit like the opposite of the Jewish gem dealer comparative advantage. If a Jewish gem dealer steals or embezzles, he faces far direr consequences than any justice system can impose. He is basically ostracised by his community, including his immediate family. That means an unbeatable cost saving on security. No need for the normal panopticon and less need for private security.
With gang involvement the pull is reversed. In order to 'go straight' the gang involved often need to give up the most intense friendships of their lives, as in some cases, even their family. It's a thorny problem. The only thing I could think of was a neutral ground approach, where the system exercised compassion so that people could keep in contact without risking temptation. I would only suggest it as a small, long range trial project though. COMPAS is a good system though, much maligned and misunderstood.
One of the really useful things you can do with many studies is ask AI to perform an R-squared analysis on the data. If you're lucky and the Ai isn't programmed towards progressive instincts on the subject matter it might ever offer hypothetical explanations for low values.
Grok is OK, but it's up against the massive Left advantage in information centres. Hopefully, innate scepticism will follow.
Free speech is impossible to discuss if we want to discuss speech that is often approved of for censorship transcending political orientation. Who remembers George Carlin? And his invocation of 10 dirty words. Yes, he was referring to words banned on TV, and, of course, some of the most important discourses occurred on TV then and now. Some of the words that were bleeped from Jimmy Kimmel occurred on his return show and no one complained.
Speech can still be banned and accepted in the United States if it is sexual and viewed as offensive. Speech is censored even in the context of “polite” discourse relating to sexuality. As a sex researcher and educator, I took great risks if I lectured publicly about sexuality matters and used sexual terms. Until the 1960s, The NY Times banned the usage of the term homosexual, but it was ok to use the term sexual pervert. And prior to the 6os, the US post office seized materials that used the term homosexual. And it was not too long ago that the public usage of the term masturbation could lead one to be censured, possibly canceled, self-pollution was an OK term. Of course in the past, one could talk about homosexuals but used instead the term bachelors. I wonder if I could have an acceptable non-censored public analysis of The Story of O.
So much for freedom of speech when it comes to sexual matters.
A sharp, necessary piece. It cuts straight through the partisan fog to expose what’s really happening: the instrumental use of “free speech” as a tool of convenience rather than conviction. The power theory feels uncomfortably accurate—both sides have learned how to weaponize consequence. What’s left is the principle itself, fragile but still essential, defended now mostly by those outside the partisan machinery. A sober, clear-eyed reminder that rights only matter when we defend them for people we disagree with.
The power theory makes sense to me. Just the nature of the human beast. It seems like whenever people get in power, core values of all kinds slide away. “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” All the more reason for those of us with not in power to uphold the value of free speech.
You are sorely mistaken when you define robust free speech as speech that wont be threatened by the “loss of your job or social ostracism”
This is not what the first amendment is about. It is about preventing the government from placing its ‘thumb on the scale’ of acceptable speech — the first amendment is not about societal norms. Societal norms always play an underestimated role in every society. But that is not what the first amendment is about.
I’m very surprised that you, of all people, are conflating the two! I guess this is an example of how easy it is to lose sight of the true understanding of the first amendment.
Upholding free speech as a cultural value is important globally, well beyond the first amendment in the US, which concerns government interference. I think it is this cultural value that Yascha is discussing.
I’ve often wondered where the idea came from that restrictions on speech only relate to free speech if the government is doing the restricting.
It's unconstitutional for the government to control what you say, but it’s also immoral for you to control what others say; both are restrictions on your right to free speech, even if only one of them violates the First Amendment.
This is an interesting point. Certainly if controlling what others say involves physically restraining them or sabotaging their Internet. But what about social ostracism? If people with power and resources stop publicly supporting you because they don’t like what you are saying, is that control?
If you are restricting what people can say, you are restricting their free speech. But there are degrees of punishment.
If your company fires you for calling your boss a wanker, that’s different from firing you because you said that transwomen should not be allowed in women’s bathrooms. It’s different from firing you for making a stupid joke on the internet.
There is a difference between withdrawing someone's funding and banning them from your pizza restaurants because their politics are different from yours. There is a difference between refusing to hire someone and campaigning to make sure they never work again.
There is a difference between ending a friendship and making sure they lose all their friends.
There are degrees of bad speech too. Marching in support of fascism is different from marching in support of restricting immigration and different again from saying that people with blond hair should not be hired.
No, it is not immoral to 'control" what others say, because that is not possible. It is important to draw lines, to make judgements, to note when speech is unproductive and reflects poorly on it's speaker. In a profession like education, where the speech and worldview of the teachers is important and the job description is to speak and and reason as a model for children, it is necessary to judge whether some speech proves they are unfit for the role. how do you think these people got hired in the first place.
It's one thing for a school to direct its teachers to teach its children a certain way. It's quite a different thing to campaign for a company to fire its employees for saying the wrong thing about Ferguson or trans politics or their opinions on the war in Gaza.
What Elizabeth said. You're conflating government regulation of speech with free speech as a cultural value. Yascha is talking mostly about the latter, just as John Stuart Mill and George Orwell talked a lot about. FIRE also emphasizes the cultural value of free speech, arguing that we need to make expressions like "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me" popular again.
I think overtly supporting a USG-designated terrorist group (namely Hamas) and encouraging others to do so—as Mahmoud Khalil did, for instance—is something more than merely engaging in “disfavored political expression.” It’s a violation of a pledge that foreign nationals make on visa applications in order to be admitted as guests in this country. It’s part of the 2002 expansion to the 1952 Immigration Act.
Question: To what extent does the right to free speech in a society depend, in practice, on actually exercising it in the face of disapproval? We often talk about how important it is not to punish people for expressing their heartfelt opinions. The other side of the equation, it seems to me, is that individuals must be brave enough to speak their minds. In a free, self-governing society, people will disagree. They need not only the right to speak, but also the strength of character to do so, right?
Yes but even if one's character is strong, preference falsification can be necessary to preserve your job. For all my academic career, from grad school to becoming a professor, I never felt the slightest pressure on my speech--until the beginning of what we now call the cancel culture era. And I had been quite the contrarian.
But when cancel culture hit, when I would use my normal analytical mind on stuff like DEI or Covid restrictions, I got such virulent pushback that I decided it was better to not say anything at all--at least at my university, and at least not about particular topics. There were also cancellations at my school of people who had said things similar to what I would say. So the writing was on the wall. It sort of still is.
Luckily I've still got friends and family I can speak my mind with, and ironically my students are less woke now so I can be more provocative with them in the classroom than I can with other faculty.
I was regular faculty for 17 years and my experience comports with yours. I agree with you that to protect speech, we need for institutions to protect it and for individuals to tolerate it. That's very much an appropriate focus right now and it's finally getting better. (a) But is that sufficient?
(b) In your (and my) case, how much of our increasing comfort is due to an increase in tolerance for free speech, and how much is due to changes in belief about what deserves disapproval? It's a mixture, right?
(c) It think what your comment illustrates is that institutions and individuals can make the cost of freely expressing one's opinions too high. And this may be all of a piece. A strong character is also what allows one to retain some healthy uncertainty about one's positions and to tolerate speech that makes one uncomfortable.
(d) Surely we don't want to do away with all disapproval and shaming. So where are the lines we need to draw?
(e) You'll agree, won't you, that strong character is often necessary to speak, and to voice disapproval of others' speech? We can't expect people to commit career suicide, particularly if one can see that it won't do any good anyhow. But in that case one ought to work to change the system, right? For example, work in coordination with other people...join FIRE or Heterodox Academy.
Yes, I hope my previous note didn't suggest I don't agree with the general point about character--it's absolutely important, and historical examples abound, from Galileo to MLK.
Where to draw the line is the million dollar question, but it's also a bit of a motte and bailey because the left for many years now has drawn the line at "you criticized DEI" or "you said a man and woman are different" (and so forth). One of the few cases I agreed with from the cancel culture era was Amy Wax being prevented from teaching undergrads based on what she had said about Black students and statistics. The line isn't easy, but in some cases it's obvious.
Yes, agreed that changing the system is the best route if one doesn't want to get fired for their direct speech. I'm already a member of both FIRE and HxA. But what's funny is that many academic leftists see even these organizations as right wing (falsely). That said, I've thought for the last couple of years of starting an HxA chapter at my university, and I know there are some sympathetic colleagues.
I believe there is a moral and cultural crossing line when literal death and murder are at hand, regardless of free speech legality, and which seems far more understandable than pretty much anything on the left. I don't believe these are as comparable as people make them out to be.
What happens to the concepts of “truth” or “facts” in this discussion of free speech. I understand that people should be free to speak their own point of view, belief or position on any subject. But what about when I say that “the sky is purple not blue”, that “3 plus 3 equals 7’? Are we really going to accept the notion of “alternative facts”? Shouldn’t there be some form of regulation to try to protect against purposeful lying, deep fakes and other forms of speech that knowingly distort or flat out state untruths? If we can’t agree on some concept of truth or facts, how can democratic society function?
I have this same question. You seem to be talking about the “consequence” part of consequence culture, I.e. how can we protect other Americans from the actual consequences of unprincipled speech said by people acting in bad faith? I actually wonder if “consequence culture” has existed long before today’s political figures started using it for their own ends. Maybe that’s one of the bedrocks of our democracy because it reflects how life is simply not free of consequences?
I lived in Singapore for a year, where one's freedom of speech is slightly circumscribed, for instance, speech that incites religious or ethnic intolerance. And of course the People's Action Party (PAP) sometimes sues critics for libel. Just commenting, it works for them, not advocating these policies for the USA.
For those of us with a heavily underlined version of the original "Identity Trap," could you post the new Afterword? Or you could have Amazon make it part of the free sample. It might prove to be a good teaser for selling the book.
Remember: as a principle, only one side regularly demands systematic censorship. They no longer have the cultural heft to pull it off... but conservatives are NOT calling people to be banned from Twitter for popular opinions, or run out of academia, or fired from their corporate jobs.
Free speech is extremely important. That tells me that we should be honest about the asymmetry here. It's not just about power. Conservatives will soon have real leverage in multiple major media companies. Universities are springing up. I HIGHLY doubt that anyone will be mobbed or bullied or accused of creating unsafe work environments... because they defend public education, or feminist scholarships. That literally is how crazy much of the institutional left was for a time - and the moderates never pushed back. Perhaps that's because if they didn't join in, THEY would be threatened. It's disgusting behavior, regardless of who does it. The ideologues are deranged, the go-along-to-get-along types are worthless cowards. Together, they represent upwards of 95% of the members of many liberal institutions.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/archives-of-leftist-excess-2
As a principle, perhaps, but not as a reality. Why are some people so unwilling to engage with the central argument of the article, that there is a major threat coming from both sides? Does it really matter if one side does it more than the other (although the current administration is clearly trying to correct your perceived asymmetry)?
False. Conservatives are getting comedians fired, prosecuting people who spoke out against Trump, trying to get people fired for any negative comments about Charlie Kirk, ETC ETC.
I am a (near) free speech absolutist, but I still believe there is a line that should never be crossed: treating violence as an acceptable response to speech. That is not a regular difference of opinion that we should have to tolerate. Just because it was wrong to fire people for being insufficiently progressive, that doesn’t mean conservative employees should have to work next to someone who openly wants them dead.
Originalism makes no sense either. The Constitution is drafted broadly, setting parameters on government. It is a text, which has meaning. Departing from reasonably intersubjective meaning unmoors Constitutional jurisprudence and threatens judicial credibility.
Much as it disgusts me to make this argument contributing to a political climate which makes political violence a reality isn't the same as calling for the death of a specific individual.
I also hate that people celebrated Charlie Kirk, and abhor that men of the cloth are making the argument that Charlie Kirk was a vile person right here on substack. Of course, most of the defamatory speech relates to remarks taken out of context, and ignore the fact that he had numerous gay and lesbian friends, or invested time and money mentoring young Black and Latino conservatives.
I also disagree with Charlie Kirk on Michelle Obama and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Jackson's dissents may occasionally lead with rhetoric over legal substance and represent a complete untethering from Constitutional doctrine, substantiating concepts like discriminatory equity over flawed, but anti-discriminatory colorblindness, into law, but legally they are quite brilliant.
I would however stipulate that grieving families should probably be able to sue for defamation under British liable law:)
The real problem is defence as a pretext for violence. The belief that psychological harms can represent a form of physical violence could only lead to one logical conclusion, the justification for physical force. The only individual justification for physical violence is the right to self-defence from immediate physical harm, defence of others from immediate physical harm, or defence of property.
Unfortunately, academia entirely conceded the argument when it mattered. They abrogated their duties as adults and scholars, in order to please adolescents really needed CBT counselling. Everything since has been downhill all the way.
Some of this is quite good. The defense of Jackson’s dissents is nonsense. After all, they often are “rhetoric” rather than substance, “represent a complete untethering from Constitutional doctrine” - and text - and elevate “equity” (whatever THAT means) over Constitutionally and statutorily mandated non discrimination, and ignores inconvenient factual portions of the record. She and her dissents are not legally brilliant.
Well, I did mean brilliant in a narrow sense, through the pursuit of novel legal theories. As courtroom lawyer and in terms of drafting legal arguments she had a pretty competent record, both in terms of due process challenges and in civil cases. Apart from anything else, disparate treatment claims require a fairly good understanding of statistical maths to challenge counter arguments.
I may have overstated though:)
I imagine you're not keen about her even further departure from originalism. Courts weren't designed to produce equality of outcome, only to be as fair and just as practical in an imperfect world.
One other thing, and it is not unique to Justice Jackson. Most judges don't understand the meaning of causal inference from statistical associations. For example, finding a statistically significant variations from some baseline should begin the inquiry, not end it. Especially when the baseline may reflect incorrect notions of regularity or normative judgments. It takes some sophistication to understand statistical error meaning, but substantial subject matter and statistical sophistication to discern the meaning of seeming statical anomalies. Justice Jackson appears to lack the tools.
Wow, that's really annoying! I was just playing with Grok again. I wanted to know both what's behind America's incredibly high recidivism rate and I could smell shite on the claim that gang involved homicides are actually quite low. It's never just damn statistics, measurement also plays a role.
On the gun crime, only ~13% of all homicides (gun + non-gun) are coded "gang-motivated." But 81% of homicides are gun-related, and ~45% of gun homicides in urban areas tie to gangs (FBI 2023).
However, the oft-cited 83% recidivism rate is also bullshit. The figure includes payroll violations, failures to appear and minor infractions. I know system watch is necessary for the 'or else' factor, but the state shouldn't be unnecessarily coercive even with former offenders. And including bureaucratic violations is just plain dishonest, meant to paint a bleak picture aimed at tough justice.
Some corrections officers admit that prison systems for the worst offenders tend to be split 50/50 between bad people doing bad things, and the stupid, the angry and the mislead. I'm all for being tough on the former category, but not the latter. A Justice system should at aim to be humane where possible.
Real recidivism is probably around 50-60%. 40% for those who get caught, and accounting for those who don't. My estimate was pretty good- stable employment ten years out is 30-40%. People also die, experience critical or permanent illness, etc.
So, I'll tell you a little story about that. A while back I looked into COMPAS. It helped correct for judges bias. Humans are great at perceiving threat, but terrible at evaluating risk. Incentives are also important, because there are/were worse consequences for excessive leniency. Anyway COMPAS also appeared to produce racially biased results. I thought it was just associative factors of living in difficult neighbourhoods, which can be subject to targeted policing to reduce crime- a form of necessary feedback if you will, given COMPSTATs proven ability to halve violent crime, repeated in many, many major European cities, I might add, historically speaking (the real problem removing judicial discretion and congressional interface in the judicial process, as well as judicial electoral incentives- harsh sentences don’t work, but catching criminals does).
After the Michael Moore documentary I was dubious about the Norwegian claims about recidivism rates. It's about how far out you measure. You can't really look at recidivism without measuring 9 to 10 years out, which the Norwegians were not doing. Varying the measurement scale of time, the rate of recidivism rate varies from 13% to around 45-48%.
Anyway, what I also found was what that the Norwegians themselves admitted they had a problem with gang recidivism, but they didn't actually publish the data. It's probably is a bit of both difficult neighbourhoods and gang, but I suspect the pull of the latter is stronger. The friendships we forge in the teen years are powerful, far deeper than in later life.
It's a bit like the opposite of the Jewish gem dealer comparative advantage. If a Jewish gem dealer steals or embezzles, he faces far direr consequences than any justice system can impose. He is basically ostracised by his community, including his immediate family. That means an unbeatable cost saving on security. No need for the normal panopticon and less need for private security.
With gang involvement the pull is reversed. In order to 'go straight' the gang involved often need to give up the most intense friendships of their lives, as in some cases, even their family. It's a thorny problem. The only thing I could think of was a neutral ground approach, where the system exercised compassion so that people could keep in contact without risking temptation. I would only suggest it as a small, long range trial project though. COMPAS is a good system though, much maligned and misunderstood.
One of the really useful things you can do with many studies is ask AI to perform an R-squared analysis on the data. If you're lucky and the Ai isn't programmed towards progressive instincts on the subject matter it might ever offer hypothetical explanations for low values.
Grok is OK, but it's up against the massive Left advantage in information centres. Hopefully, innate scepticism will follow.
Spare a thought for UK freedom of expression
Free speech is impossible to discuss if we want to discuss speech that is often approved of for censorship transcending political orientation. Who remembers George Carlin? And his invocation of 10 dirty words. Yes, he was referring to words banned on TV, and, of course, some of the most important discourses occurred on TV then and now. Some of the words that were bleeped from Jimmy Kimmel occurred on his return show and no one complained.
Speech can still be banned and accepted in the United States if it is sexual and viewed as offensive. Speech is censored even in the context of “polite” discourse relating to sexuality. As a sex researcher and educator, I took great risks if I lectured publicly about sexuality matters and used sexual terms. Until the 1960s, The NY Times banned the usage of the term homosexual, but it was ok to use the term sexual pervert. And prior to the 6os, the US post office seized materials that used the term homosexual. And it was not too long ago that the public usage of the term masturbation could lead one to be censured, possibly canceled, self-pollution was an OK term. Of course in the past, one could talk about homosexuals but used instead the term bachelors. I wonder if I could have an acceptable non-censored public analysis of The Story of O.
So much for freedom of speech when it comes to sexual matters.
A sharp, necessary piece. It cuts straight through the partisan fog to expose what’s really happening: the instrumental use of “free speech” as a tool of convenience rather than conviction. The power theory feels uncomfortably accurate—both sides have learned how to weaponize consequence. What’s left is the principle itself, fragile but still essential, defended now mostly by those outside the partisan machinery. A sober, clear-eyed reminder that rights only matter when we defend them for people we disagree with.
The power theory makes sense to me. Just the nature of the human beast. It seems like whenever people get in power, core values of all kinds slide away. “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” All the more reason for those of us with not in power to uphold the value of free speech.
You are sorely mistaken when you define robust free speech as speech that wont be threatened by the “loss of your job or social ostracism”
This is not what the first amendment is about. It is about preventing the government from placing its ‘thumb on the scale’ of acceptable speech — the first amendment is not about societal norms. Societal norms always play an underestimated role in every society. But that is not what the first amendment is about.
I’m very surprised that you, of all people, are conflating the two! I guess this is an example of how easy it is to lose sight of the true understanding of the first amendment.
Upholding free speech as a cultural value is important globally, well beyond the first amendment in the US, which concerns government interference. I think it is this cultural value that Yascha is discussing.
I’ve often wondered where the idea came from that restrictions on speech only relate to free speech if the government is doing the restricting.
It's unconstitutional for the government to control what you say, but it’s also immoral for you to control what others say; both are restrictions on your right to free speech, even if only one of them violates the First Amendment.
Orwell talked elegantly about both government and cultural suppression of speech in an originally unpublished forward to Animal Farm: https://www.marxists.org/archive/orwell/1945/preface.htm
Luke Cuddy. I Loved the link re George Orwell’s unpublished forward. I’d never seen it before.
It was excellent and expresses well your point of view. Thank you.
Right? I've been meaning to write an article on it myself. He makes the point so clearly.
This is an interesting point. Certainly if controlling what others say involves physically restraining them or sabotaging their Internet. But what about social ostracism? If people with power and resources stop publicly supporting you because they don’t like what you are saying, is that control?
If you are restricting what people can say, you are restricting their free speech. But there are degrees of punishment.
If your company fires you for calling your boss a wanker, that’s different from firing you because you said that transwomen should not be allowed in women’s bathrooms. It’s different from firing you for making a stupid joke on the internet.
There is a difference between withdrawing someone's funding and banning them from your pizza restaurants because their politics are different from yours. There is a difference between refusing to hire someone and campaigning to make sure they never work again.
There is a difference between ending a friendship and making sure they lose all their friends.
There are degrees of bad speech too. Marching in support of fascism is different from marching in support of restricting immigration and different again from saying that people with blond hair should not be hired.
No, it is not immoral to 'control" what others say, because that is not possible. It is important to draw lines, to make judgements, to note when speech is unproductive and reflects poorly on it's speaker. In a profession like education, where the speech and worldview of the teachers is important and the job description is to speak and and reason as a model for children, it is necessary to judge whether some speech proves they are unfit for the role. how do you think these people got hired in the first place.
It's one thing for a school to direct its teachers to teach its children a certain way. It's quite a different thing to campaign for a company to fire its employees for saying the wrong thing about Ferguson or trans politics or their opinions on the war in Gaza.
What Elizabeth said. You're conflating government regulation of speech with free speech as a cultural value. Yascha is talking mostly about the latter, just as John Stuart Mill and George Orwell talked a lot about. FIRE also emphasizes the cultural value of free speech, arguing that we need to make expressions like "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me" popular again.
I think overtly supporting a USG-designated terrorist group (namely Hamas) and encouraging others to do so—as Mahmoud Khalil did, for instance—is something more than merely engaging in “disfavored political expression.” It’s a violation of a pledge that foreign nationals make on visa applications in order to be admitted as guests in this country. It’s part of the 2002 expansion to the 1952 Immigration Act.
And what is that pledge?
Not to enounce support for U.S. Government-designated foreign terrorist groups or to encourage others to do so.
Question: To what extent does the right to free speech in a society depend, in practice, on actually exercising it in the face of disapproval? We often talk about how important it is not to punish people for expressing their heartfelt opinions. The other side of the equation, it seems to me, is that individuals must be brave enough to speak their minds. In a free, self-governing society, people will disagree. They need not only the right to speak, but also the strength of character to do so, right?
Yes but even if one's character is strong, preference falsification can be necessary to preserve your job. For all my academic career, from grad school to becoming a professor, I never felt the slightest pressure on my speech--until the beginning of what we now call the cancel culture era. And I had been quite the contrarian.
But when cancel culture hit, when I would use my normal analytical mind on stuff like DEI or Covid restrictions, I got such virulent pushback that I decided it was better to not say anything at all--at least at my university, and at least not about particular topics. There were also cancellations at my school of people who had said things similar to what I would say. So the writing was on the wall. It sort of still is.
Luckily I've still got friends and family I can speak my mind with, and ironically my students are less woke now so I can be more provocative with them in the classroom than I can with other faculty.
I was regular faculty for 17 years and my experience comports with yours. I agree with you that to protect speech, we need for institutions to protect it and for individuals to tolerate it. That's very much an appropriate focus right now and it's finally getting better. (a) But is that sufficient?
(b) In your (and my) case, how much of our increasing comfort is due to an increase in tolerance for free speech, and how much is due to changes in belief about what deserves disapproval? It's a mixture, right?
(c) It think what your comment illustrates is that institutions and individuals can make the cost of freely expressing one's opinions too high. And this may be all of a piece. A strong character is also what allows one to retain some healthy uncertainty about one's positions and to tolerate speech that makes one uncomfortable.
(d) Surely we don't want to do away with all disapproval and shaming. So where are the lines we need to draw?
(e) You'll agree, won't you, that strong character is often necessary to speak, and to voice disapproval of others' speech? We can't expect people to commit career suicide, particularly if one can see that it won't do any good anyhow. But in that case one ought to work to change the system, right? For example, work in coordination with other people...join FIRE or Heterodox Academy.
Yes, I hope my previous note didn't suggest I don't agree with the general point about character--it's absolutely important, and historical examples abound, from Galileo to MLK.
Where to draw the line is the million dollar question, but it's also a bit of a motte and bailey because the left for many years now has drawn the line at "you criticized DEI" or "you said a man and woman are different" (and so forth). One of the few cases I agreed with from the cancel culture era was Amy Wax being prevented from teaching undergrads based on what she had said about Black students and statistics. The line isn't easy, but in some cases it's obvious.
Yes, agreed that changing the system is the best route if one doesn't want to get fired for their direct speech. I'm already a member of both FIRE and HxA. But what's funny is that many academic leftists see even these organizations as right wing (falsely). That said, I've thought for the last couple of years of starting an HxA chapter at my university, and I know there are some sympathetic colleagues.
I believe there is a moral and cultural crossing line when literal death and murder are at hand, regardless of free speech legality, and which seems far more understandable than pretty much anything on the left. I don't believe these are as comparable as people make them out to be.
What happens to the concepts of “truth” or “facts” in this discussion of free speech. I understand that people should be free to speak their own point of view, belief or position on any subject. But what about when I say that “the sky is purple not blue”, that “3 plus 3 equals 7’? Are we really going to accept the notion of “alternative facts”? Shouldn’t there be some form of regulation to try to protect against purposeful lying, deep fakes and other forms of speech that knowingly distort or flat out state untruths? If we can’t agree on some concept of truth or facts, how can democratic society function?
I have this same question. You seem to be talking about the “consequence” part of consequence culture, I.e. how can we protect other Americans from the actual consequences of unprincipled speech said by people acting in bad faith? I actually wonder if “consequence culture” has existed long before today’s political figures started using it for their own ends. Maybe that’s one of the bedrocks of our democracy because it reflects how life is simply not free of consequences?
Identify this comment and hook me up, Penguin. I’m a 25 year customer!
As Robert Caro stated "Power Reveals".
I lived in Singapore for a year, where one's freedom of speech is slightly circumscribed, for instance, speech that incites religious or ethnic intolerance. And of course the People's Action Party (PAP) sometimes sues critics for libel. Just commenting, it works for them, not advocating these policies for the USA.
Looking forward to reading the book!
For those of us with a heavily underlined version of the original "Identity Trap," could you post the new Afterword? Or you could have Amazon make it part of the free sample. It might prove to be a good teaser for selling the book.
I cannot afford any more Substack subscriptions, but I really appreciate your writing.