Hobbes, Chp. 18 & 19

 A few things stand out from the last few chapters of Hobbes:

Chapter 18, Paragraph 9: It is the right of the sovereign to decide what speech is permissible. Of course I recoil from this...but he's not wrong. I say that not to really excuse infringements of speech rights, but to note that even respecting speech rights is a choice. We say it isn't a choice, we say it isn't something the government gets to decide, but they do. And not just in the "fire in a crowded theater" sense and related matters, not just in those edge cases. The choice to respect laws and constitutional rights and court rulings is ultimately a choice. In a free society it's a choice that the government makes frequently and without much argument, but it's a choice. When you dig deep into the nature of power, that fact is inescapable.

And we saw on January 6 that respecting the foundations of a liberal society really is a choice, and it's a choice that the powerful don't always make, and neither do their supporters. We saw that some leaders choose illiberally, and ultimately their resistance failed only because other people in key places resisted them. How great or small you think the threat ultimately was, it was a threat, and it was a threat that was averted by choices.

Chapter 19, paragraph 4: Hobbes argues that monarchy is the best form of government because it ties the monarch's personal interests to the state and people. This is of course entirely incorrect, as plenty of leaders put their own interests ahead of their people's. However, leaders who put themselves too obviously ahead of their people tend to run pariah states. Perhaps we can say that a liberal and affluent society is more likely to be one where the leader sees the affluence and prestige of their state on the world stage as being in their own personal interests, and they thereby foster a dynamics and free society.

Of course that's idealistic, but the point of ideals is to ask what direction to push in.

I think there's a lesson for leadership: If your organization is one that everyone wants to be a part of, you and your organization will thrive. If you just want to get your own piece of the pie at the expense of others, you will hurt the place.

Chapter 19, paragraph 23: The Romans built a stable empire by bringing people in the provinces under the umbrella of Roman citizenship and rights. This gives some context with the modern interest in inclusion.

Next book: The Demon in Democracy

The next book that I'll blog about will be The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies by Polish philosopher Ryszard Legutko.  I am reading it because a public lecture by Legutko was called off by Middlebury College in the face of protests (though he did eventually manage to give a guest lecture in a class).  The students stated that they were offended by, among other things, his homophobic views.  I don't know much about him, but if he is indeed a homophobe then I am also deeply offended by him.  Nonetheless, I'm also offended by people who try to shut down speech, so I will read one of his books as a counter-protest.  I have no idea if this book is any good, or if it addresses his views on gay rights, but a friend of a friend said something nice about the book, so let's see what it's about.  Maybe I'll love it, maybe I'll hate it, maybe I simply won't find much either way, but if somebody tries to get the speech canceled that's an easy way to get me to read the book.

Next book: The Beginnings of Western Science

My next book for this blog will be The Beginnings of Western Science by David C. Lindberg.  I'm only a couple pages in, but I like that he begins by dispensing with the question of what is or isn't science and when precisely it began.  I've seen people argue that the first scientist was Ibn Al Haytham a thousand years ago, Galileo 400 years ago, or someone even later, but everyone would agree that even if those guys weren't (by whatever notion) scientists, they were at least part of a tradition of ideas that built toward science as we now know and practice it.

On a different note, last night I saw "Avenue Q" on my campus, a musical that is full of offensive speech and stereotypes.  I've spent a lot of time recently complaining about the new wave of political correctness in higher education, so it's only fair that I balance that by pointing out what's going right.

Now I ain't sayin' they're a speech suppressor...

I'm posting this a few months late, but free speech is on my mind since watching this debate last night. Also, God help me, I never thought I would go to the mat for the right to emulate a Kardashian, but here goes:

Last fall students at UCLA held a frat party at which they dressed up as Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, and people associated with them (e.g. some women dressed as gold miners, in reference to one of West's catchier songs). Student activists claimed that this is racially insensitive.

Let me start by saying that blackface is clearly offensive and outside of acceptable norms of good taste. If a white person does that, social sanction, peer pressure, and so forth are entirely proportionate responses.

Let me also note that no photos of white students in blackface have been produced. In 2015. We live in an era where my students actually take selfies in class (presumably to provide supporting evidence for how little work they did, strengthening my case when it comes time for me to assign a bad grade), and yet nobody was able to produce a cell phone photo with anyone in blackface? Really? Nobody can find selfies of objectively racist make-up at a frat party in 2015? Not a photo taken by an idiot who thought this was worth documenting? Not a photo taken by a (justifiably) offended bystander? The lack of evidence here does not pass the smell test.

The central issue, though, is that the proper response to an offensive party theme is shunning. Whether this party is within the bounds of acceptable social norms is debatable, and it is precisely BECAUSE it is debatable that institutions should not squash it via administrative fiat. By its very nature, the charge does not merit investigation. It probably DOES merit advising for the fraternity (the whole purpose of an adviser in an educational institution is to advise people, and one of things that social organizations exist to promote is social skills and a level of understanding necessary to navigate social norms), but by its very nature there is nothing that merits an investigation for the purpose of pursuing punitive action.

I will close by noting that dressing up as Kim Kardashian is just so objectively in bad taste that it bears no further comment, and that Kanye West's ego is so big that the only people who could hope to pull off a convincing imitation are all tenured faculty, not frat boys. (Note to self: Lose some weight so I can attend a party dressed as Kanye West.)

The most painful compromise of my academic career thus far

The Cal State system has done many things that deeply offend me, and the CSU has forced me to make many compromises, but the very worst compromise that the CSU has ever pushed me into is defending a smarmy little shit like Ben Shapiro. He had been invited to give a speech to a student organization at Cal State LA (our sister campus), but the campus president canceled his speech because he's an obnoxious firebrand who says offensive things. If the CSU were properly upholding the value of free expression I wouldn't have to say one damn word in defense of Ben Shapiro. I could simply do what I was planning to do, which is to ignore him. Instead, I now feel a responsibility to say that Ben Shapiro is in the right and academics are in the wrong. WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME DO THIS?????

You think I like defending Ben Shapiro? Believe me, I don't, but we live in a world with academic values, and those values need to be guarded by people with convictions. Who's gonna do it? You? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for being offended, and you curse academic traditionalists. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Shapiro's speech, while repugnant, is necessary for free expression to thrive. And my stance, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, makes spaces safer than you'll ever make them. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about in safe spaces, you want me in that committee, you need me in that committee. We use words like academic freedom, debate, and free expression. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a slur. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a scholar who reads and writes under the blanket of the very academic freedom that I am trying to defend, and then questions in the manner in which I defend it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you donate to FIRE. Either way, I don't give a damn what sort of space you think you're entitled to.

Erika Christakis, the Yale faculty member who attracted massive protests for a very nuanced email on hard questions of speech and offense, has decided to leave the classroom.  Do read her email; it would be hard for any reasonable reader to find anything "unsafe" in what she wrote.  A reasonable person might take issue with some of her conclusions or prescriptions, or even her equivocations, but there is absolutely nothing threatening about what she wrote.  It is deeply ironic that the protesters who claimed to feel so unsafe decided to confront Dr. Christakis' husband (also a Yale faculty member and also a faculty Master in the same residential college as her) instead of her.  They may claim to be modern and progressive and egalitarian, but when a woman spoke out of line they demanded that her husband correct her.

I'm old enough to remember a time when it was the conservatives who were demanding that kids shut up and stop saying offensive things. Well, the kids made one big mistake: They actually listened to their elders. And in the process they became their elders. So now we have the lefty kids running around saying that they feel unsafe when somebody says something about being cautious about going after people for their costumes.

The only good news is that the lefty kids are still offending their conservative elders. Personally, I'd prefer that they did it with rap music and heavy metal and graphic music videos, but I'm to the right of the median academic, so I guess that offending me with this babyish "safe space" talk is half of the point. I do find it strange, though, that the stances that put me to the right of the median academic are also the stances that are most in line with the ACLU. I'm also old enough to remember when "card-carrying member of the ACLU" was a slur used by none other than a member of the Bush dynasty.

I am triggered by people who fear books and speech

Given that my current reading project is a book that was actually banned on the grounds that it offended people's religious beliefs, I should say something about the current discussion of touchy students in higher ed.  I will begin by noting the current mania for "trigger warnings" and whatnot is hardly universal.  Much of it is certainly the work of a few touchy and over-sheltered types.  Moreover, while the current dialogue is largely focused on touchy liberals who try to live up to neo-Victorian stereotypes of being so fragile that they need fainting couches, the conservative side of the culture war has its own share of whiners who are afraid to touch books that offend their beliefs.  And it is almost certainly true that the biggest problem is not students who are too touchy to read, but rather the perennial problem of students who are too lazy to read, or faculty who assign less and less reading not because they are afraid of complaints but because it is easier to run a simple class and give multiple-choice tests.

(Oh, and before you tell me that when I question trigger warnings I'm being insensitive to people with PTSD, I will refer you to an article by a psychiatrist finishing her residency.  The rhetoric from the pro-trigger camp does not match the clinical reality of PTSD.)

That said, the problem is not one of numbers but rather the powers available to a minority of whiners and the ass-covering tendencies of those in power.  For instance, Laura Kipnis:  I disagree with a great many things that Kipnis said in her controversial March essay.  I have no particular desire to defend what she said.  I think she has a blinkered view of what can go wrong in sexual relationships between people on different rungs of the same hierarchy, and I would not want to translate her views into policy in any institution that I would be affiliated with.

So what?  She still has the right to say it, and the mere fact that she is wrong does not make her dangerous to individual health and well-being. There was no reason to drag her though a Title IX investigation for a mere article. It might be dangerous to an institution if her views were turned into policy, but I hear all sorts of dumb ideas in meetings, ideas that would probably be horrible for the institution if translated into policy.  Merely mentioning those ideas is not the sort of danger from which I am entitled to some sort of protection, and we don't drag people in front of an investigator for airing those ideas in meetings.  The only harm that they might do by merely speaking is to elevate my blood pressure, and my institution already provides me with health insurance to cover my stress tests and headache medication. If I wish to defend myself from more than speech, and work against the implementation of those ideas, it is my responsibility to get involved in institutional governance, and so I do.  Given this distinction between speech and action, it is inexcusable that Kipnis was dragged through a Kafkaesque bureaucracy (at great excuse to the institution) just because some whiners complained that her column made them feel unsafe.  Unsafe?  Because of a column in the Chronicle?  I cannot think of a more benign venue in which to publish!  (Indeed, I have published my own bit of heresy there.)  And then the same process was inflicted on an academic Senator who spoke in her defense?  This is not the creation of a supportive environment for victims of assault and harassment.

If it were just one person being dragged before one investigator because of one institution gone a bit silly, well, lots of really bad things happen, but not all of them are trends.  What makes me take this latest wave a bit more seriously is that a vocal minority can effect policy.  For instance, why would the student government at UCSB (the school from which I got my PhD, a school that I dearly love) pass resolutions for trigger warnings?  Are they that fragile?  Now, I can assure you that your average UCSB student is NOT lobbying for trigger warnings.  They're too busy partying and surfing.  However, it appears that among those with political skills and ambitions, the neo-Victorian influence is significant.  I don't fear the average undergrad, but I do fear movements with talented organizers.

For that matter, while I actually think there are some good guidelines in these documents (e.g. don't make assumptions about people's backgrounds), I am disturbed by some of the guidelines that go to expression of personal opinion rather than false assumptions about other people.  In particular, the document urges people to not call America "The land of opportunity."  Now, I agree there are enough injustices in the US to merit a rebuttal to "land of opportunity" statements.  At the same time, I know that there are reasonable and informed people who have nonetheless offered statements like that in the course of their academic duties.  Not too long ago I was in a presentation by a business professor who is a woman of color (i.e. not a person who is unaffected by discrimination) and she said something similar in the context of the climate for entrepreneurship in the US.  Now, perhaps you disagree with her.  Perhaps you even have an evidence-based case for disagreeing with her (e.g. an analysis of data on class mobility).  You should make that case.  You should challenge her.  You should debate with her.  But she should not be judged guilty of some sort of harm to others merely for offering that controversial opinion.

Again, academia is not crawling with people looking to ruin the career of anyone who says "land of opportunity."  We don't have to keep AAUP Committee A on speed-dial in our daily work.  But it is disconcerting that when the touchy types show up they aren't always mere shouters on Twitter.  (Seriously, stay away from Twitter.  140 characters aren't conducive to intellectual discourse.)  Rather, they are often close to levers of power.  That should frighten us.  That should move us to speak passionately and defiantly and under our real names.

What prompted me to write this long post full of ire?  This morning I read an op-ed co-authored by the President of Northwestern University, Morton Schapiro.  He wrote in defense of the millenials calling for greater sensitivity.  I will state up front that I personally respect him.  Although I have never met him, when I was an undergraduate at USC he was the Dean of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, and it was well known that he taught a freshman GE course.  I greatly admired that even then, and as I have gone on in higher ed I have come to appreciate how rare it is for the people on the higher rungs to keep a foot in the classroom, and hence maintain first-hand exposure to what is actually happening.  So I admire him as a person.  I will even go so far as to say that he has good points about millenials pushing for people to be more respectful in their interactions with others.  However, when these respectable impulses for inclusion morph into fear of speech, and even calls for censorship, they go too far.

But why am I singling him out when this matter has been discussed by a great many people?  Because he's the President of Northwestern, the same school that dragged Laura Kipnis through an inexcusable process and then tried to censor a journal issue on bioethics edited by Alice Dreger, a former Northwestern faculty  member who resigned in protest.  It is clear that Northwestern has a beam in its eye on the matter of free speech, and yet it is trying to point to the speck in other people's discourses.  (And, yes, I just quoted another book that people have tried to ban.)  Go ahead and consider the valid points made in that op-ed, but don't forget that it is something of a smoke screen.