The editors of The New York Times have apparently decided that their mastery of both-sides tut-tutting entitles them to carry out a full-scale redefinition of freedom of speech. Yes, yes, they acknowledge somewhere around paragraph 14 (in a fine display of priorities) that the First Amendment’s right to freedom of speech is about freedom from government limits on speech. But isn’t the real problem—they argue at interminable length—that people feel like they can’t speak freely? And aren’t both sides equally(ish) to blame for that?
“The political left and the right are caught in a destructive loop of condemnation and recrimination around ‘cancel culture,’” the Times editors argue. Here’s how the loop operates: ”Many on the left refuse to acknowledge that cancel culture exists at all, believing that those who complain about it are offering cover for bigots to peddle hate speech. Many on the right, for all their braying about cancel culture, have embraced an even more extreme version of censoriousness as a bulwark against a rapidly changing society, with laws that would ban books, stifle teachers and discourage open discussion in classrooms.”
Let’s get this straight: The equivalence is between passing laws banning books and silencing teachers on the one hand and … I’m sorry, what are they even saying here? “Many on the left refuse to acknowledge that cancel culture exists at all,” the editorial board complains. How is that supposed to be equivalent to banning books and threatening teachers with firing if they teach about race?
I guess if you wave your hands hard enough while chanting “Both sides do it” three times, it might make sense? (Nah, it still doesn’t. That takes stronger drugs.)
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Deciding on the weakest point in this morass of poor argumentation and fudged evidence is a true challenge. Is the weakest point how the Times’ editors, its assembled intellectual firepower, brandish a poll claiming that “46 percent of respondents said they felt less free to talk about politics compared to a decade ago”? This is not the kind of question a poll can accurately measure. People’s memories of how they felt about something a decade ago are not reliable, and they are strongly influenced by things like a media environment in which “cancel culture” is a buzzword. If they had a poll that had over a period of years asked people how free they felt to talk about politics and it showed a decline, it would at least have a chance of tracking something real. But “how do you think you felt a decade ago” is a useless question that the Times’ pollster should be ashamed for having asked.
Is it this sentence? “Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.” Literally, the editorial board of The New York Times objects not just to public shaming for offensive speech, but to shunning. You are not allowed to silently walk away from people who say hateful, harmful things without being dangerous to the rights of a free country. But you are also not allowed to shame people for saying hateful, harmful things. What response is allowed here?
We’re always told that the answer to offensive speech is more speech. Then people rise up and speak out in response to offensive speech, and here comes the Times to say, “Not like that, that’s shaming and we can’t have shaming. But also you can’t silently refuse to engage with the offenders, because that’s shunning and we can’t have shunning.”
Those are some outrageously weak points to this editorial. But no, the weakest things are even bigger ones.
It’s the abject failure to demonstrate the stakes beyond “people feel.” If this is such a big problem, the editorial board should be able to summon specific examples and explain how and why they caused harm. And it should grapple with the harm being done by threats to school board members that many powerful Republicans are defending as simple, innocent free speech.
Relatedly, if you demonstrate the harm being done, you have to be up-front about who’s doing it. There’s that little hint about how the right is passing laws banning books and stifling teachers, but if you’re going to take literally thousands of words to fret about the decline of free speech and the rise of retaliation and harsh reactions to speech, maybe, just maybe, grapple with the overall balance of harm. If what the Times is complaining about is that on the one hand liberals are being mean on Twitter while conservatives are remaking state laws to limit what teachers can teach and students can read, the editorial board needs to be honest about and try to defend that position rather than dodging and weaving and pretending the harm is coming evenly from both sides.
The problem is also the abject failure to consider power and its operation. What are the actual consequences of different kinds of unpopular or risky or problematic speech, and on whom are they falling? What institutions and financing are being brought to bear to enforce silence on what issues? Because, again, if what we’re talking about are powerful lawmakers on one hand and Twitter randos on the other, then there are two different phenomena that should be talked about in two different ways, their harms assessed separately.
People feel there’s a problem? Polls say there’s a problem? Fine. Take a real hard look at it. Pull apart the components of the problem. Weigh the specific harms being done by the specific actions of specific groups of people. Consider what kinds of power are being exercised by whom and upon whom. But nearly 3,000 words of sweeping moralism that stays extremely vague about what actually is happening and who’s doing it? It may be peak New York Times, but please, spare us.
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