Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is often credited with the concept of "the marketplace of ideas", although he neither used that phrase nor did he invent the concept. It dates back to Socrates, and can clearly be found in 18th and 19th century writers like Thomas Jefferson and John Stuart Mills. It is one of our nation's core principles, and the rationale for the Free Press and Free Speech Clauses of our First Amendment.
But do we still believe in it? And if not, what are the alternatives?
More below the fold....
Why Bother to Talk?
Nonpartisan wrote an interesting diary last night titled Obama, John Rawls, and a Defense of the Unreasonable. If you haven't seen it, it's worth the time to read because it crystallizes a perspective I see often, not only here at DailyKos but elsewhere in our political discourse: that the "marketplace of ideas" is not a sufficient basis for governing a nation.
Specifically, after an excellent description of the liberal theory espoused by John Rawls, Nonpartisan makes this argument:
By doing away with the concepts of right and wrong, Rawls has ensured that the de facto "right" is what most people in power think at any one time. A government based on overlapping consensus operates within the Overton window -- the range of generally acceptable alternatives on any given issue. The problem isn't just that alternatives outside the Overton window are automatically devalued; it's that for some issues the objective truth lies outside the Overton window. Global warming is an excellent example. Most reasonable people (by the Rawlsian definition) agree that the range of possible alternatives ranges from no action (the Bush administration's choice) to the 5-7% carbon emissions reductions proposed by the Kyoto Protocol (at least theoretically Obama's choice). But the science clearly shows that only a 50% or greater reduction can stave off environmental holocaust. In the Rawlsian bizarro-world, the science is wrong because it disagrees with the overlapping consensus. Rawls gives us no way to move beyond the practical in order to achieve the necessary.
Setting scientific criticisms aside - some of the articles I've read suggest we're past the "tipping point" and global climate change is irreversible - the central argument asks how a democratic society should respond when "truth lies outside the Overton window."
Or is that "objective truth?"
I omitted the word "objective" in framing that central argument, and some may argue I'm unreasonable or unfair in doing so. Nonpartisan seems to assume that science reveals "objective truth," but that's not a universal opinion even among scientists. Physicist Henry Margenau disagreed, for example, writing with Lawrence Leshan in Einstein's Space and Van Gogh's Sky that science can reveal "intersubjective truth," phenomena that can be experienced empirically by multiple subjective observers. They argue that to what extent those experiences map to an objective reality - if such a reality exists - is beyond knowing as we can't step outside our subjectivity to verify it. Whether science in fact reveals "objective truth" is an epistemological issue that can and does fill volumes.
But whether one believes science reveals "objective truth" is a political issue. If one believes science does, then if science and Rawls' "overlapping consensus" ("the marketplace of ideas") disagree, the logical implication is that the "overlapping consensus" must defer to science. Yet democratically elected politicians can and often do reject the advice of scientists. Is that an argument against democracy, Rawls' "overlapping consensus," and the "marketplace of ideas?" If if "truth lies outside the Overton window," what then?
We talk in order to move the Overton window.
Any form of government premised on some group - even scientists - having a monopoly of "objective truth" opens the very can of messy worms that led to the murders of Raul Flores and his 9-year-old daughter Bresinia in Arizona, Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Army recruiter William Long in Little Rock, and D.C. Holocaust Museum security guard Stephen T. Johns. All of those murders were committed by people convinced they knew "objective truth" and determined to act on that truth when government wouldn't comply.
Is science important? Absolutely. That's an excellent defense for advocating science in "the marketplace of ideas" and trying to move the Overton window until scientific consensus falls within the "overlapping consensus." But Rawls' premise is that we must do that reasonably, by talking. We keep talking, making our arguments, persuading, and when that seems to be failing, we do it more.
The alternative to moving the Overton window by persuasion is to demand that society defer to one's source for "objective truth" and shut those who disagree out of the dialogue. If they won't or can't be shut out of the dialogue - or if having been shut out they can't get attention any other way - get a gun and open fire. That's Unreasonable. And it's indefensible.
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Happy Saturday!