Response to the shootings by Le Plus cartoonist JM:o

The horrific attacks on Charlie Hebdo  have brought forth a defence of free expression from politicians, journalists, and ordinary citizens. But the outpouring of support is an exception in a broader pattern of events. The French President tries to call for a national unity that seems little more than a distant memory. Satirists across Europe convey their shock and grief – but everyone is rightfully nervous about republishing the Muhammad cartoons which put Charlie Hebdo on the radical Islamist death list. As Foreign Policy magazine and Reason.com have both pointed out, we are not all Charlie Hebdo, and not a few Western outlets once condemned them for using the same freedoms they now defend. FP recalls a victim-blaming Time article written after Charlie Hebdo’s offices were firebombed. Author Bruce Crumley wondered how the common good could possibly be served by “tempting belligerent reaction”. The most disgusting response following the shootings came from a Financial Times writer who accused the magazine of “Muslim-baiting”. Despite generating a negative reaction, these articles seem to reflect the general trend of free speech more accurately than the vigils currently being held across the world. And even with #JeSuisCharlie trending, there is little reason to think that this will change.

As I’ve written elsewhere, the principle of free speech seems to be losing support among up-and-coming Western brahmins. Would the university which forbade students from discussing ideas the student union didn’t like ever allow cartoons attacking protected religions? Charlie Hebdo’s commitment to intellectual freedom is at odds with Harvard leftists who don’t believe that it should extend to violating their social activist forms of “justice”. One wonders how many of the speech codes which at least 60% of American universities now have would have banned it altogether. But is that the whole story? If these trends in academia and media were reversed, would free and open expression be secured? I submit that there is no reason to believe this is true. The key to understanding why lies in the nature of order in diverse societies.

Let’s look at a non-Western state known for being a cultural hub. Singapore is extremely diverse as a country. The three-quarter Chinese majority lives alongside Malays, Indians, and Western expats. English, Mandarin and other Chinese dialects, Malay, and other languages are widely spoken. Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and traditional Chinese beliefs are practiced. Yet Singapore’s stable and orderly society has been carefully engineered by its leaders and comes with tradeoffs. Free speech in Singapore is a very different thing. The constitution sets limits: citizens must respect the judiciary, and threats to racial or religious harmony are dealt with severely. To quote a 2013 report by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy:

“A person who promotes ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore can be convicted under the Sedition Act, and be fined up to $5,000 or jailed up to three years, or both…In recent years, the Sedition Act has been invoked on several occasions.”

The report details these occasions, and most include Chinese citizens making racist comments about Malays and Muslims. In one case, a Christian couple was punished for distributing anti-Islamic and anti-Catholic literature. Punishments range from community service to jail time. Singapore is constantly wary of the social consequences of their investment policies. From cultural differences in the rising Filipino population to the management of foreign workers, its leaders keep the country well away from the brink of conflict.

This helps us understand why Singapore employs the stringent laws it is famous for. Singapore enforces harsh punishments on minor infractions in hopes of avoiding greater disorder. When you can get caned for vandalizing a building, you aren’t going to start fomenting physical violence. It’s essentially a broken-window approach to racial and religious cohesion. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani employed a similar philosophy against petty offences while in office, known as a period when crime rapidly decreased.

Swedish Artist Dan Park responds to protesters. The sign says “degenerate art”, a term used by the Nazis. Via sydsvenskan.se

Hate speech laws in the West have much the same purpose. They are intended to keep ethnic, religious, and other minorities from feeling threatened by speech which could incite violence. Hate speech laws intended to fight political extremists become more widely used to ensure social cohesion as diversity increases. Flemming Rose, the man who originally published the fateful Muhammad cartoons at Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, knows this rather well. In a recent article, he recounts some of the most shocking examples. Did you know that in 2014 the Swedish government not only jailed an artist for his work, but also destroyed the offending pieces? In his book, Rose argues that such laws reduce humans to mere objects. Those who condemned the cartoons as inciting violence essentially painted Muslims as agency-less automatons, unable to resist waging Jihad against anyone who dares mock their religion. Or so Rose would say. And yet the reality is that the nature of the mob is very different than the nature of the individual. Gustave le Bon, the man who wrote some of the first work on crowd psychology, put it very eloquently:

“It is [because the crowd is more than just a collection of individuals] that juries are seen to deliver verdicts of which each individual juror would disapprove, that parliamentary assemblies adopt laws and measures of which each of their members would disapprove in his own person. Taken separately, the men of the Convention were bourgeoisie of peaceful habits. United in a crowd, they did not hesitate, under the influence of some leaders, to send the most manifestly innocent people to the guillotine.”

What about diversity and its impact? Historically we see that the societies with the strongest traditions of free speech were also some of the most ethnically, religiously, and culturally homogeneous. Finland, Norway, and the Netherlands lead the Press Freedom Index, a fact that Reporters Without Borders attributes to “a real culture of individual freedoms, a culture that is more integrated than in southern Europe.” Also near the top are Luxembourg, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Denmark, Iceland, and New Zealand. The highest-ranking non-Western countries include Jamaica, Costa Rica, Namibia, Cape Verde, Uruguay, and Ghana. But wait, aren’t some of these countries pretty multicultural? In fact, although Namibia is ethnically diverse, its population is only 2.1 million and the country is 80-90% Christian. Most other ethnically diverse countries show similar trends of small populations, religious homogeneity, and economic stability. The exception is Ghana, which has made tremendous gains in education and press freedom despite having large Islamic and Christian populations, in addition to nine widely spoken languages. All in all, the contribution of culture cannot be understated, as evidenced by the country at the very top of the Index:

“The country that has headed the index since 2008, Finland, paradoxically evinces two obstacles to the development of a benign environment for freedom of information: defamation is punishable by imprisonment in certain circumstances, and just three companies own virtually almost all the national media. In practice, however, it is extremely rare for journalists to receive jail terms for what they write and there is a great deal of media pluralism despite the concentrated ownership. In a country where print is resisting digital well, the media are self-regulated through the Council for Mass Media, an independent body based on the voluntary membership of news media and journalists’ associations and funded mainly by member contributions.”

Given these patterns, the question before Western countries is inescapable. The new diversity brings tradeoffs. In countries with large populations, rapidly increasing minorities, and uncertain economies, one of those tradeoffs is between social cohesion and free expression. Governments in Europe, Canada, Australia, and the US are in the midst of historically unprecedented immigration flows. Europe now has a large Muslim population, Canada and Australia experience an increasing Asian presence, and the US has its expanding Hispanic population. If UKIP, the Front National, and all the other nationalist or right-wing parties were elected tomorrow, they would still need to contend with these factors – even if they managed to cut future immigration to historic lows.

As of this writing, there have already been several violent responses to the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Foreign Policy reports that shots and even grenades have been used to attack two mosques in response, and a bomb was used in the eastern region of the country. The dream of the Western liberal was of a cosmopolitan, multicultural, free, and tolerant world. Unfortunately for them, the mass immigration that they supported may ultimately undermine the values they once prized. In Australia, a recent study showed only that 53% of citizens would choose a good democracy to a strong economy – and Australia’s economy is currently pretty good.

History indicates that that number decreases quite a bit when the economy tanks and conflict rises. Flemming Rose himself notes that Weimar Germany was characterized by lax enforcement of laws prohibiting violence. Whether by unwillingness or inability, the results were the same: those who promised order carried the day.  If populations tend towards order over and above freedom in times of strife, then it will be all the easier for governments to curb traditional rights in favour of social cohesion. Charlie Hebdo publisher Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier is reported as having declared that he would rather die on his feet then live on his knees. The words were tragically prophetic. The death of the values which Charlie Hebdo stood for will likely prove far less heroic.

The post #JeSuisCharlie Won’t Save Free Speech appeared first on Social Matter.

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

That phrase contains all the hope and promise of political freedom of speech. One pictures intellectuals and workingmen alike discussing ideas unhindered. There is no idea so sacred, no value so widely held, that it is beyond critique. Without the power of the state guarding some official truth, only reason and logic can test their strength.

That’s the theory, anyway. But the theory and the real history of free speech are very different. The modern era institutionalized free speech as a safeguard, not as an ideal. Acemoglu and Robinson are two economists specializing in institutional development. In How Nations Fail, they discuss how various interests vied for power following Britain’s Glorious Revolution. Agreements between these factions to uphold the rule of law were self-serving. After all, the emergency powers you allow your friends one day are ones your enemies can usurp the next. Further studies seem to show the same behaviour at work. Democracy and its freedoms are “a way of committing to reforms when the likely alternative is the guillotine or the firing squad.”

The thing about this model is that the incentives are different. In the idealist vision, people commit to free speech because they desire a tolerant, liberal society. In the latter one, it’s because people don’t want to risk being silenced themselves. Problem is, it only takes one bastard who thinks they can get away with it to tear the whole thing down. The conditions which foster free speech on a political and cultural level are fragile indeed. As we’ve seen here at Social Matter, we’ve got a whole gang of bastards at it this time. The internet has been a haven for free speech. Campaigns have been fought to protect those freedoms from governments and businesses alike. Who’d have thought that its well-established denizens would be the ones using the internet to limit speech?

Free speech doesn’t just function as a constitutional right; it also defines the great game of politics. It introduces a rule which players in the game have to follow. Those on the top can’t use their power to limit what their opponents say about them. Those trying to get to the top can’t use silencing tactics on their way up. Like any game, there are a variety of strategies which players – parties, political leaders, activists, etc – can use to try and gain political power. What are some of them, and how does each strategy affect the resiliency of free speech?

First, each player could agree to respect free speech norms. That means that no one undermines anyone else’s rights to free speech. No rallies howling for the silencing of the enemy, no secret plans to invoke emergency powers. Each player incurs a cost upon gaining power because their opponents will be able to criticize them. But the benefit is that no other player will be able to silence them either. That’s pretty big, especially since the majority of people usually don’t hold political power directly. Free speech remains stable. The system functions.

What happens when a player stops following the rules? Well, that depends. In stable democracies, openly saying you oppose free speech erases any hope of gaining power. That’s why politicians have to play a careful game. It’s common to hear that certain speech infringes on other rights: it’s racist, it offends religious rights, it undermines national security, and so on. Even Communists and Fascists invoke the security of the state or the people. It takes a pretty ballsy authoritarian to straight up deny the right to speak. In stable liberal democracies, destroying your chance to gain power is a huge cost. In unstable regimes, like Britain during 1688, Weimar Germany, or Greece today, the game is a bit different. If things get bad enough, you might find yourself being the only one willing to stand up for free speech. In that case, the costs to you are high (since your enemies can speak against you) but the benefits are low (you will be silenced if you lose power). In Britain, players took this into account and stabilized the situation by accepting open criticism. In Germany, radical groups ended up battling it out until Hitler and his allies emerged victorious in 1933. Greece’s ultimate fate is yet to be determined, but it doesn’t look great.

None of this is radical thinking. But here’s where it gets interesting. Since it’s in no one’s favour to oppose free speech, how can one avoid the costs of free speech without openly opposing it? Let’s look at Berkeley, where the Free Speech Movement (FSM) helped spark the student movements of the 1960’s. Their vision of free speech was certainly not restricted to the government. This was the dawn of the New Left. As Jacobin Mag explains, the Old Left was never a fan of “bourgeois freedoms” like speech. It reeked of the capitalist liberal democracy they sought to overthrow. So the very name of this student-led rebirth of Left-wing theory seemed to repudiate the old militancy. Nevertheless, strong ties remained between the student movements and the Old Left. Barbara Kay recounts the history of Bettina Aptheker, former Communist Party USA member, radical left activist, and student leader of the FSM. She was raised in a radical home, where “Party line” was a serious matter. Her father believed in Comrade Stalin and became his staunchest defender on the American Left. Despite supporting free speech in America, she was by her own admission not such a fan when it came to free speech for the USSR. For the record, the CPUSA was one of those critics of “bourgeois freedoms”. From a former member:

“Discipline in the Communist Party is voluntary, but in the silent background is the sword of excommunication. Without the power and religiosity of expulsion, the Communist Party could not exist as it is. Before the moment of the Khrushchev secret speech, expulsion from the Communist Party was akin to eternal damnation, the body alive but the soul already dead for eternity; and so powerful had this conviction of the membership become, and so widely and sincerely had they promulgated it, that millions of non-Communists considered anyone who bore the label of expulsion from the Party as a lost and damned soul, a corrupt and dangerous human being who no longer owned the right of admission to the society of men of good will. To a sincere and devoted Communist, expulsion was almost as bad as death – and sometimes worse.”

Fast-forward to 2014. The long march through the institutions is complete. One study found a third of faculty members admitting they would discriminate against people with conservative political views. Nicholas Dirks, Chancellor at Berkeley, now warns against “division and divisiveness that undermine a community’s foundation”…during his FSM 50 year anniversary talk, no less. The idea that “we can only exercise our right to free speech insofar as we feel safe and respected in doing so” (Dirk) has overturned “defending to the death” your enemy’s right to speak. Now, in our model of the game of politics, this attitude should incur a great cost. Isn’t the agreement that everyone must respect free speech?

Marcuse: architect of our age?

As Radish has shown, these trends aren’t the product of over-zealousness or misguided idealism. Herbert Marcuse, philosopher of the Frankfurt School and the New Left, went into detail about the nature of political toleration. He believed that freedom was only useful in the service of Social Progress and political liberation. This demands “intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left”. A feminist professor physically assaulting female pro-life students (including a minor) is a pretty good metaphor for the whole thing. Roger Nash Baldwin, co-founder of the ACLU, summed up this sentiment in an infamous quote:

“I believe in non-violent methods of struggle as most effective in the long run for building up successful working class power. Where they cannot be followed or where they are not even permitted by the ruling class, obviously only violent tactics remain. I champion civil liberty as the best of the non-violent means of building the power on which workers’ rule must be based. If I aid the reactionaries to get free speech now and then, if I go outside the class struggle to fight against censorship, it is only because those liberties help to create a more hospitable atmosphere for working class liberties. The class struggle is the central conflict of the world; all others are incidental. When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever. Dictatorship is the obvious means in a world of enemies, at home and abroad.”

I won’t re-print the entire Radish article, but I encourage everyone to read it. The use of political freedom as a strategy to gain power is nothing new. This is the third strategy which our game must consider. In the democracies which these movements operate in, they want to avoid the costs incurred by opposing free speech. By necessity, this requires them to officially favour free speech, and other democratic rights. As Baldwin so eloquently shows, this is entryism: the player pretends to agree with the commitment to free speech in order to be accepted. Moreover, the player continues to uphold this official commitment to political rights once they have gained power. However, through slow re-definitions of those rights and freedoms, they are able to silence opponents over time. Of course we all want free speech, but can we really turn the university into an unsafe space? After all, when your ideology has not only political but also cultural dominance, your power increases exponentially. We saw above how Communist Party influence extended far beyond Party members. We’re living in a time where most people accept the values of Social Progress, tolerance, and equality. If activists and philosophers want to re-assess those terms, who’s going to say no? Isn’t that their job? Once you can get people to advocate equality of rights in the same breath they use to advocate revoking rights from certain groups, you’ve pretty much won.

This strategy is the most threatening of all to free speech. When a group openly opposes free speech, people can ally against them. The battle is in the open. But in the face of the entryist strategy above, the challenge is more difficult. One has to fight to reveal the hypocrisy of the player employing this strategy. Until their actions become too blatant to ignore, this treads a fine line between conspiracy theory and fact. When the player holds the weight of moral authority, as the Social Justice movement does for many progressives and youth, defense becomes even harder. If large numbers of people see you as a “bad person”, whose rights can be revoked without any threat to the freedom of “decent people“, then they have no reason to protest. The player avoids all the costs of openly opposing free speech while gaining many of the benefits over the long term. This would make the strategy very attractive to political actors who can pull it off. Once the facade no longer holds, cultural and political power are strong enough that it no longer matters. If you’re really lucky, maybe you can even get people to admit that free speech was a bad idea. After all, look how many bad people were able to subject decent people to their bile through exercising that right.

The most recent victory of this strategy was at 4chan. The haven/sewer of internet free speech appears to have been successfully purged of many of its moderators. Given the seductiveness of the entryist strategy, the question is how to guard against it. Those liberals and progressives truly committed to free speech must begin to examine who they have allied with. Those committed to free speech for other reasons need to consider their situation as well. Above all, pursuit of Truth – scientific, philosophical, and intellectual – demands free speech because it requires inquiry and criticism. If the game includes rights to free speech, then players have the incentive to use the entryist strategy. Therefore, new rules and protections need to be built to guard against it. Some are trying to do just that. Created in the wake of events at 4chan, 8chan is experimenting with allowing anyone to make their own board. Following the principle of free exit, if people become unhappy with the direction of one board, they can just switch to a new one. This makes it difficult for anyone to silence opponents through restrictions and purges. Even a small minority can just escape to their own board. It’s an option almost no minority  – ethnic, political, or otherwise – has in real life. It also reduces the benefits of the entryist strategy. After all, once your motives become obvious, people will just leave. That’s one solution, and others are doubtless forthcoming.

More than anything else, the internet may have made the entryist strategy much harder to employ. Whether this is enough to overcome it completely remains to be seen. If one thing is certain, it’s that we are moving into a new phase in a conflict as old as politics. The game has changed.

The post Devil’s Game: Free Speech and the Entryist Strategy appeared first on Social Matter.