Objectivity: Ford and Kavanaugh

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I have a friend who teaches Gender Studies at a university back east. As you can imagine we have very different ways of looking at things. So different that when I tried to share a few posts with him, he claimed he couldn’t even talk to me about them without understanding my frame of reference and audience. (Also, he may have been trying to figure out how to call me a Nazi without using the word “Nazi”.) Given these difficulties (and the other various frustrations) after several awkward emails back and forth I decided that we should probably not try to talk about it. I suppose he felt similarly. Though, as it turns out, unlike me, he did manage to get some benefit out of the exchange. I found out last month that he was using some of my posts as examples in the classes he teaches. At the time he didn’t get into the details (and based on my previous resolve I didn’t press him on it) but it was clear that my posts were presented as an example of what not to do. Sort of, “Can you believe how clueless this guy is!” Though when I imagine it, I see him standing in front of his class shaking a printout of my writings and yelling, “This is what the patriarchy looks like!”

Of course, he could be entirely correct, it’s possible I’m just as clueless as he claims. As I have said repeatedly, I could be wrong, about everything. And if there was an area I was going to be wrong about it could definitely be everything I say with respect to the current social justice movement. Certainly there are an awful lot of people who think anyone who’s even remotely conservative is not only wrong about most things but hateful to boot, and I think it’s fair to say I’m at least “remotely conservative”. That said, no one is forcing anyone to read my stuff. (The same cannot be said for the millions of students who are daily forced to read whatever passes for the current progressive manifesto.) And much of what I write is just me thinking out loud, and I guess let he who has never had a bad thought cast the first stone?

As you can imagine all of this is leading up to another post which (if my friend reads it) will probably make it into his next class on feminism, as yet another example of my cluelessness, or my privilege, or something similar. But, if I have done poorly in the past, I am going to attempt to do better, or at least do a better job of considering as many viewpoints as possible. And on that note, I’m going to dive into the current political crisis: the Kavanaugh confirmation and the allegations of sexual assault by Ford and Rodriguez. Though before we begin I need to take a slight detour through my process. I work on my weekly post every morning for a couple of hours. Which means that what I’m writing right now was written on Monday the 24th, and so, by the time I publish this on Saturday the 29th, any number of things might have happened. In particular while Ford will have presumably testified by the time this is published, she hasn’t at the time of this writing. Also at this point the Rodriguez accusations are still pretty fresh, and I guess (now it’s the morning of the 25th) last night Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti has announced that there’s a third accuser? All of which is to say that some of the things I say may be out of date by the time I get around to actually publishing this.

With all that out of the way let’s talk about Kavanaugh, though I guess yet one more preface is in order before I do. It should be stated that I write from the standpoint of someone with absolutely zero influence on whether he’s confirmed or not. This is enormously comforting. Also, as much as I might try to imagine my mindset if I did have an impact, it’s not the same, which means I will probably be too flippant and too confident. There are obviously things going on in the Senate which I am only dimly aware of. Whatever I say has no power to change the course of this confirmation hearing. I can’t delay it until the FBI investigates, nor can I push it through despite the evidence, but, all those caveats aside, it is my intention to approach things from the standpoint of someone who does have some impact in that matter and needs to decide what to do.

Join with me in imagining that you’re a member of the Judiciary Committee or just a Senator, period, and you’re trying to decide whether to confirm Kavanaugh. Let’s further assume that you were going to confirm him up until the Ford revelations, and you’re now trying to decide whether to change your vote based on those revelations. Ideally it would be nice to just know, with 100% certainty whether they’re true or not, in which case your decision is easy. But 100% certainty is not going to be possible in this case. You’ve got to make an absolute decision one way or the other despite the lack of any absolutes in the evidence. Needless to say, you’re operating under serious uncertainty.

For those who may not have been following it closely here are some things which might incline someone to favor one side or the other. All the things which appear to preclude absolute certainty, particularly for someone with an initial inclination to confirm Kavanaugh. Also, it should be mentioned, there are definitely people following this more closely than I, so I may miss something big. To be clear, these lists are not meant to be exhaustive.

Pro-Kavanaugh

1. The events involved in the accusations happened a long time ago: It would be nice if everyone had a photographic memory of everything that ever happened to them but we don’t. Memory is fallible, and as much as we would like to believe Ford, you do have to take into account that it was 36 years ago. Also if he was a true predator you would expect more recent accusations.
2. There are no contemporaneous witnesses: As far as I know there is no one (with either of the accusations) who is willing to come forward and say, I remember Ford telling me about it at the time. Yes, if it happened, not telling anyone at the time is totally forgivable on Ford’s part, but it makes things less certain now.
3. The 65 women who signed a statement in defense of Kavanaugh: You certainly can’t imagine something similar happening with Weinstein, so I’d be inclined to give it some weight, though I’m not sure how much. (A statement which really applies to all these points.)
4. The stakes of the whole thing: I’ve talked in the past about how the Supreme Court might be considered the true power in the United States, and given that Kavanaugh is likely to be more conservative than Kennedy, this hearing may be as consequential as a presidential election. And if Roe v. Wade is overturned (I don’t think it will be.) Then it would be more consequential. Lying about sexual assault is a rare and extraordinary act, but this is a rare and extraordinary situation.

Anti-Kavanaugh

1. The vast majority of sexual assault allegations are true: It’s estimated that false rape allegations make up only 2% to 10% of all allegations. Now that’s rape, not sexual assault, but I assume the numbers (which in any case aren’t incredibly precise) are similar.
2. Ford has sworn statements from people who say she told them about Kavanaugh’s assault before the nomination: three women and Ford’s husband have signed sworn statements saying they remember her mentioning the assault. The first instance of this was in 2012.
3. The enormous cost of coming forward: Ford has suffered numerous death threats and had to go into hiding. I imagine (particularly if Kavanaugh is not confirmed) that this vitriol will continue for many years.
4. Circumstantial evidence: Alcohol and partying seemed to be a big part of Kavanaugh’s life. Lots of people have in particular pointed at his statement in his high school yearbook with all sorts of references to drinking and sex. This apparently continued into college. Finally he was a clerk for Kozinski who was embroiled in his own scandal recently and ended up resigning.

Beyond what I’ve said above there are currently thousands of pages of commentary on each item. To say nothing of the motivations of the various secondary actors. (I haven’t mentioned Judge, or any of the senators.) But this should at least give you a taste of the muddy waters of uncertainty we’re jumping into. And here, approximately halfway through things, we’re finally ready to look at the various ways for approaching this uncertainty.

I’d like to start with a method I hope my friend the gender studies professor would appreciate, though it could just as easily fill him with rage. We’ll call it:

The Folded Paper System: Imagine that you take a piece of paper and you fold it. Now imagine that after it’s been folded for a long time you decide that folding it was bad idea and now you want the paper to lie flat. If you just unfold it and set it down the paper will still bend in the direction it was originally folded. It’s only if you fold it aggressively in the other direction that it will actually lie flat. This can be viewed as a metaphor for past injustice. It’s indisputable that in the past men got away with a lot more sexual harassment than they should have. Or to put it another way, in situations of he said-she said, the “he” was believed a lot more often than the “she”. Or to put it yet another way, the standard of evidence for accusations was tilted against women. All of this is the original fold.

Now we want the paper to lie flat. We want everyone to be believed equally, all evidence weighed equally, and a gender-blind justice to prevail. But in order to get to that point we have to instead fold the paper the other way. We have to give women the benefit of the doubt, in cases of he said/she said we have to believe the “she” more often than the “he”, we have to tilt the standard of evidence in favor of women. That in areas of massive uncertainty, like with the Kavanaugh nomination, we should believe the woman.

I’m sympathetic to this system, and the folded paper metaphor is arresting, but I think it only takes you so far. Culture is not a piece of paper, and when you bend stuff back the other way, you’re implicitly saying that unfairness in one direction is going to make up for unfairness in the other direction when in reality you have just compounded the injustice.

The “What’s going to get me re-elected” System: On the one hand you would hope that this isn’t the system any of the Senators are using and on the other hand it’s probably the system they’re most likely to use. For Republicans my guess is that they’re getting a lot of feedback from their base along the lines of, “Ford is lying and if you’re too stupid to see it or to spineless to push ahead regardless then you won’t be getting my vote in the next election.”  (Possibly with several additional profanities thrown in.) And on the Democratic side of things I assume they’re getting something similar, but in the opposite direction.

As I said I hope this isn’t the primary consideration of any of the Senators, but I’m not naive enough to assume that’s actually the case. And even if, by some extraordinary exercise of ethics it’s not the primary consideration it has to be among the considerations. And unfortunately this is not a bug in our system, this is a feature. A feature that may have unfortunate effects in situations of high emotion and polarization, but we also definitely don’t want the reverse, where our representatives never take our opinions into account.

The Wisdom of the Crowds System: Closely related to the above, we could take a broader sample of things. There are various polls and prediction markets with their own take on the accusations. And insofar as these represent a broader snapshot of public opinion than just listening to the most vocal members of the two parties, it could be argued that they’re preferable. On this count we have the favorability of Kavanaugh on steady decline and places like fivethirtyeight.com advising Republicans that the least bad option is for Kavanaugh to withdraw as soon as possible. On the prediction market side of things I don’t see anyone actually predicting whether Ford is telling the truth, but we do have one for whether Kavanaugh will be confirmed which after surging to over 50% on Tuesday dropped to 40% after the latest accusations (The Avenatti/Swetnick accusations, I’ll get to those, before the end.)

Robin Hanson (who coincidentally) invented prediction markets, went a step beyond that and posted a poll on his twitter account. The question was:

What fraction of women assaulted by a nominee for Supreme Court in high school would wait to publicly accuse him not just 30 yrs, but after Congress hearings & just before Congress vote?

He gave people the options of:

1. < 1%
2. 1-5%
3. 5-20%
4. >20%

The most popular response, with 62% of the vote was “<1%”. Of course he also got many responses claiming that he was “pro-rape” for even asking that question. Though being fairly familiar with Robin Hanson (I just finished Age of Em which I’ll talk about sometime in the next few posts, also I we did meet once, briefly) I don’t think that’s what was going on. He claims he genuinely didn’t know what the response would be. And was surprised to see such a huge percentage in the less than 1% category. I believe him on this point, and I also think that something like this should be a valid question.

We all have an opinion on whether something is likely, but perhaps we’re horribly biased on that question in ways we don’t even realize. And being able to ask a large group of people whether it’s just you or if X seems unusual, should be perfectly acceptable, particularly when it’s consequential. Now the appropriateness of asking the question is separate from the utility of the answers. I totally agree that it was appropriate to ask the question, but I also don’t think twitter polls should carry a huge amount of weight, though if I was a Senator and I came across it, I probably wouldn’t give it zero weight either.

A System of Strict Utilitarianism: While all of the systems I already covered have some degree of utilitarianism to them, this system imagines a Senator making his decision entirely based on long term machiavellian calculus that has nothing to do with the actual accusation. Perhaps it’s a Republican senator who feels so strongly that abortion is wrong, that despite believing Ford and her accusations, votes to confirm Kavanaugh anyway based on the chance that he could be instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade.

On the other hand you might also have a Senator that firmly believes Kavanaugh, but thinks that elevating him to the Supreme Court would fatally undermine the court and by extension the entire nation leading to some future catastrophe. Or that it would create an immediate catastrophe in the form of widespread civil strife.

I either case the utilitarian calculus could move them to vote against their present best guess of the facts in the favor of some greater payoff later.

Antifragility: I talk a lot about antifragility in this space. Which may appear to be another form of long term machiavellian calculus, though with more focus on embracing short term pain and less focus on any kind of future knowledge, than the previous options. Also with a greater focus on long-term norms. So how would an antifragilist vote? What criteria would they use?

Frankly I’m not sure, the whole situation is a giant mess. It’s kind of hard not to feel that things are definitely off the rails, and it’s far too late and there’s far too much momentum for the actions of any one Senator or group of Senators to avoid a large negative outcome. (Speaking of any one Senator, it’s now Friday morning and I just saw where Flake has agreed to vote for Kavanaugh at least at the committee level.)

I do think there have been a lot of decisions which seemed great in the short term but which had long term costs which are only now becoming apparent. The list of things which contributed to the current debacle include, but are not limited to:

• Merrick Garland
• Bill Clinton’s various sex scandals and the lack of any consequences
• Bush v. Gore
• The Bork Nomination
• Roe v. Wade

At this point, I think the best we could hope for is a backroom deal where the Republicans agree to withdraw Kavanaugh in exchange for the Democrats agreeing to confirm Amy Coney Barrett even if the Senate changes hands in November. I can’t see such a deal being made at this point, and maybe even this idea would be just another short term bandaid with long term costs.

Beyond what I’ve just discussed, there are, of course, many other systems you might use. And some might in theory be based on the evidence. Perhaps you’re convinced, after listening to Ford and Kavanaugh, that it’s obvious that one of them is lying and the other is telling the truth. Perhaps you think the evidence shows that women never lie about these sorts of things (I don’t think it does, which makes this more of a folded paper system, but that’s just me.) But I think most such, supposedly evidence-based systems, are just covers for one of the systems I mentioned above, and most likely a cover for the “What’s going to get me re-elected” System. You may have noticed that there was really no new evidence of any substance during Thursday’s hearing and yet everyone seemed more convinced of whichever position they had before the hearing started. Meaning whatever system they were using it wasn’t based on the accumulation of evidence.

In conclusion I’d like to offer up a few miscellaneous observations:

Observation 1- As an example of people following their biases rather than the evidence. We’ve reached the point where how you feel about the credibility of an accusation is entirely based on the party of the accused. From the American Conservative:

According to a recent YouGov poll, 53 percent of Democrats consider Ford’s allegations credible, compared to only 4 percent of Republicans. Ah! Yes! Down with the evil, misogynistic GOP—the “party of rape,” as I’ve seen them called on Twitter.

But wait. Meanwhile, in Minnesota, Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison is currently favored to be elected as the state’s next attorney general despite ex-girlfriend Karen Monahan’s allegations of sustained “emotional and physical abuse.” One poll shows that, while 42 percent of Republicans believe Monahan, only 5 percent of Democrats do.

Observation 2- For a long time people have been complaining that worthwhile candidates for high government office are being discouraged from accepting nominations because of the media circus which immediately ensues. This is certainly not limited to just one side or the other, and it’s hard to see how the Kavanaugh hearing won’t make this problem (whatever it’s actual impact) worse.

Observation 3- There has been a push recently to extend or entirely eliminate the statute of limitation on things like rape, sexual assault, attempted rape, etc. I know that sounds like a good idea, and I totally understand why people want to do it that way. But you can apply the same logic to essentially any crime. Why should any criminal be able to get away with it just because enough time has passed. This is one of those long-term norms I’m talking about. Statutes of limitation date back to Roman Times, Now of course the Senate wouldn’t care about the statute of limitation even if there was one, I’m just making a related but not directly applicable observation.

Observation 4- I’m sorry, I’m calling BS on the Avenatti/Swetnick accusation. It just sounds too much like what people imagine happens at a drunken high school party with evil dudebros. Also Avenatti does not have the best track record on this sort of thing. Finally, I would expect this to be the kind of thing that is so outrageous that it should be easy to verify. And given that this is the first we’re hearing of it despite all the attention, I’m declaring, that this, at least, didn’t happen.

As I end, Kavanaugh has made it out of committee, and Flake has called for an FBI investigation before the full vote. I suspect that means we’ll get one. I think that’s a good thing. Certainly not sufficient to calm anyone down, but I think that’s what I probably would have done as well. Though as I said in the beginning, the biggest takeaway here is that I’m glad I’m not the one deciding.

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The Founders, Civility, and Godzilla

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Last Friday (the 20th) I went to the 2018 Moral & Ethical Leadership Conference, put on by the BYU Management Society. They had a pretty impressive lineup of speakers, including Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona, or as he liked to joke, the “other senator” from Arizona, given that he has been overshadowed by John McCain the entire time he’s been in the Senate. And as it turns out, this is unlikely to change since Senator Flake has decided not to run for re-election (also McCain died recently.) He didn’t get into his reasons during his speech, but most people agree the biggest was that he was unlikely to win the Republican primary. And why was that? Well despite both of them, in theory, being Republicans, Flake and Trump do not get along, at all. And for good or bad (probably bad) these days it’s difficult to win a Republican primary if you’re anti-Trump. Which Flake definitely is, and, unlike most Republicans, has not been shy about expressing, going so far as to write a book, Conscience of a Conservative, where he declares Trump to be a domestic and international menace.

I picked up a copy of Flake’s book while I was at the conference, though I haven’t a chance to read it yet, so I can only speak to what I heard him say, and his primary theme seemed to boil down to a call for greater civility. In fact I would hazard to say that the need for greater civility was the unofficial theme for the conference as a whole. Given the nation’s current political climate and leadership, this is not exactly surprising. Of course, if Flake’s call for civility was entirely unobjectionable he wouldn’t need to give a speech defending it, let alone write a whole book on the subject. But lately, even this principal is controversial, and under attack. I thought that looking into why might make a good topic for a post.

To start, let’s look at the area Senator Flake presumably knows the most about, congress. What does civility look like in congress? Is it just people saying things like, “I graciously yield my time to the Honorable Senator from Kentucky”? I suppose that this sort of etiquette is a small part of it, but only a very small part. No, I think civility in congress, as Senator Flake described it, is more about people calmly working together despite having very different ideologies.

That does seem to be an admirable goal, but unless all members of congress are saints (which clearly isn’t the case), then in order for this type of civility to be present it has to provide some benefit. In the past it may have been enough that it made them look noble and statesman like. But these days, at least among the base, it does the exact opposite, and makes them look traitorous and cowardly. In the past it might also have been driven by a sense of duty, a duty to put aside differences and work together for the good of the country, but the general concept of duty has been on a long slow decline since the early 1800’s (at least according to the Google Ngram Viewer.)

No, getting members of the two parties to work together, no longer makes them look good, and it’s definitely going to require something a lot more concrete than the fading idea of duty. It’s going to require something like money, money for something they want, something that will make the people back home happy, and which will, in turn, help them get elected. Maybe something in a bill? Something set aside specifically to this purpose? Something... “earmarked”?

This history of earmarks is interesting. You can find things which fit the basic criteria going all the way back to 1789, though initially such things were definitely rare. By the end of the 1800’s the practice was common enough that it started to be called pork-barrel politics, but apparently things really took off between 1994 and 2005 (the most memorable example being the Bridge to Nowhere). As you might imagine some people took issue with the practice and in 2010 they were banned (though not for non-profits). And who lead the charge on that? Who was the most ferocious opponent of earmarks? As it turns out, it was Senator Flake. Here’s the relevant section from Wikipedia:

Flake is "known for his ardent opposition to earmarks."He has been called an "anti-earmark crusader," and frequently challenges earmarks proposed by other members of Congress. Since May 2006, he has become prominent with the "Flake Hour," a tradition at the end of spending bill debates in which he asks earmark sponsors to come to the house floor and justify why taxpayers should pay for their "pet projects." He is credited with prompting House rule changes to require earmark sponsors to identify themselves.

Until September 2010, Flake issued a press release listing an "egregious earmark of the week" every Friday. Usually the earmark will be followed by Flake making a humorous comment; as an example, Rep. Flake once said of Congressman Jose Serrano's $150,000 earmark to fix plumbing in Italian restaurants, "I would argue this is one cannoli the taxpayer doesn't want to take a bite of." The "earmark of the week" releases were ended and replaced with the "So Just How Broke Are We?" series of releases. In March 2010, the House Appropriations Committee implemented rules to ban earmarks to for-profit corporations, a change Flake supported. "This is the best day we've had in a while," he said to the New York Times, which reported that approximately 1,000 such earmarks were authorized in the previous year, worth $1.7 billion.

Senator Flake’s opposition to earmarks is not only easy to understand, it’s laudable. But in retrospect, some people have started wondering whether it might be part of the reason why congress has become so “uncivil”. Their theory is straightforward: Earmarks were one more thing that could be offered as part of the negotiation for a congress member’s vote. One that’s particularly useful when you’re crossing party lines and the member is otherwise opposed to or at least unsure about the bill. You overcome their reluctance by, in essence, offering to “pay” them if it passed. It’s a basic law of economics that you get more of what you pay for and so naturally you ended up with more bipartisan support for bills which contained earmarks. Eliminate earmarks and you have less bipartisan support. And if civility means working together across party lines, that means you have less civility.

Now, I’m not here to say that earmarks are actually good. Or that banning them is solely responsible for the breakdown in civility and working across the aisle. Or to make any insinuation that Flake is a hypocrite, or that he screwed up. Rather, what I want to do is point out how complicated even a simple call for civility ends up being.

As I said, civility seemed to be the unofficial theme of the conference, so what did other people have to say on the subject? Well I just got done asserting that it was complicated, so I guess I should move to the speaker who offered a very simple definition of civility. This was Eric Dowdle, an artist who specializes in drawing very interesting landscapes and cityscapes and then selling them as puzzles. He defined civility as character plus diversity.

You may wonder what qualifies him to make such a definitive proclamation. (Though as a blogger with no especial qualifications myself, I don’t.) Or at least you may wonder what prompted the invitation to speak from BYU Management Society. Well Dowdle, in addition to being an artist, is the founder and chairman of the board for the proposed George Washington Museum of American History. This is an effort to assemble an exhibition of the 250 “Greatest Moments in American History” and then take them on tour of all 50 states in 2026 (the 250th year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence). After which it will have a permanent home in Utah. As you can imagine the Museum has many goals from increasing historical literacy, to a celebration of the Founders, but included in there is a goal to educate people on, what Dowdle feels, are the twin pillars of America: character and diversity. Which, when combined, create civility.

As you can imagine he is also worried about the ills of the nation and the increasing polarization. And he hopes that by educating people about these twin pillars that he will help bring about a return to civility, much like Senator Flake. And, once again, this is another clearly laudable goal, though I’m not sure that his definition entirely captures the full nuance of what civility is. That said, I nevertheless think that it captures something important about what civility means at the present political moment.

I’m a big fan of “character”, but I think it’s place in the equation leads to some weird conclusions. Would he say that people who push diversity, while ignoring civility, must therefore lack character? If so that would be a fairly incendiary claim, and if true would immediately lead to a question of what sort of character do they lack? What aspect of character is not present in their advocacy for diversity? Does character equal a respect for a certain set of ethics? Could it be extended to mean respect for the rule of law? On the other hand, and probably even more inflammatory, are we meant to conclude that people who civilly rail against diversity do it because they have a lot of character? It is interesting to ask what ramifications this equation has if taken to its extreme, but, unfortunately, I think it breaks down pretty quickly.

If we leave aside character, then I still think he makes an important point about the connection between diversity and civility, and the need for increasing civility as society becomes increasingly diverse. (In fact, if we hold character constant then this is certainly one way to read his formula.) And it’s also interesting to draw inspiration, as he clearly is, from the founding of the country. So much of what made it into the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was designed to create civility among diverse groups. In that vein, allow me to offer another equation, one that might have been on the minds of the founders: diversity minus civility equals violence. Before the American Revolution there was a lot of violence generated by ideological diversity, something which would have been on the minds of the founders. I refer you to the European Wars of Religion:

The conflicts began with the Knights' Revolt (1522), a minor war in the Holy Roman Empire. Warfare intensified after the Catholic Church began the Counter-Reformation in 1545 to counter the growth of Protestantism. The conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which devastated Germany and killed one-third of its population. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) put an end to the war by recognising three separate Christian traditions in the Holy Roman Empire: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism. Although many European leaders were 'sickened' by the religious bloodshed by 1648, religious wars continued to be waged in the post-Westphalian period until the 1710s.

I understand the explicitly religious wars were over by the time of the Revolution, but if you draw a graph from “killing one third of the population”, through continued bloodshed up until 1710, and zero it out at the election of JFK, who won despite people wondering if he was going to take orders from the Pope you’ll see that in 1776, things were still pretty heated, and the founders knew that the only way to avoid violence in the diverse republic they were creating was to bake a lot of rules for civility right into the Constitution.

This is not to say that we’ve always been civil, or that there hasn’t been violence, for example you may have heard of a little thing called the Civil War (which, despite its title was very uncivil). Further, this doesn’t mean that the rules the Founders added were perfect, or that they were were always followed. And it most especially doesn’t mean that there weren’t any trade-offs. A subject I’ll be returning to shortly. But, I think if you look back on things, especially relative to other nations at the same point in history. The US did pretty well at accommodating a diversity of nations and peoples and ideologies with a minimum of violence. In fact, it may be argued, we did so well that people no longer see the need for some of the rules the Founders came up with, in particular Freedom of Speech.

I’ve talked about free speech a lot in this space, and while I tend to be pretty vigorous in it’s defense, I can also acknowledge that much like the other two endeavors we’ve considered, defending free speech is laudable, but, particularly in this day and age, can be complicated as well. This also takes me to another of the speakers from the conference, McKay Coppins, a columnist for the Atlantic. I also picked up his book, The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House, and even had him sign it, though, once again, I haven’t had time to read it.

As a columnist you might imagine he is a strong supporter of free speech and opened his talk with a Thomas Jefferson quote that’s a favorite of journalists everywhere. (Back to the Founders!)

The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro’ the channel of the public papers, & to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

As I recall he only recited the last bit, but I think it’s worth quoting the first part, since one of the things which has definitely changed since the time of Jefferson is what “full information” means, what “channel” they get that through, and the way it “penetrates”. Which is to say, would Jefferson be as confident in saying, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without social media or social media without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” I suspect he might not.

As I said things have become more complicated, and Coppins did acknowledge that in his speech. In particular he talked about fake news, and the waning power of the larger media outlets. To combat this he urged us all to be individual media outlets. To civilly work to combat misinformation when we see it, and help move the national conversation in the direction of the truth. The Jeffersonian idea that more speech is preferable to less speech and that if we encourage as many people as possible to speak that this will create the “full information” necessary for truth to triumph.

I currently agree with Coppins that this strategy is probably the best way forward, but I also know that when presented with this strategy many people argue that it’s largely a continuation of the status quo and as such will allow those with the biggest microphone to continue to dominate the discussion, and that whatever power imbalance which currently exists will continue to exist. Given the overlap in our proposed strategy I was curious to get Coppins take on it, and asked him about it during the question and answer period. He pointed out that when you’re encouraging more speech you’re also encouraging those who haven’t had much of a voice. In fact, you may even offer them more encouragement, and that hopefully as this process continues it won’t be the same individuals and organizations doing all the talking.

All of this finally takes us to the arguments against civility. As I already mentioned, there are those, traditionally on the left, who feel that civility is just an excuse to continue to silence and oppress those who are already powerless. For example this quote my friend Stuart Parker, who’s running for office in British Columbia:

I read a post by a fellow socialist running for office today and I feel I need to make a point about calls for civility: liberalism is about civility. Socialism is not. Socialism is about meeting people who are being screwed-over by the system and hearing them out. And a crucial part of hearing them out is hearing their anger.

And we, as socialists, should share that anger. A full debate, a debate that encompasses the global extinction event, the affordability crisis and the opioid epidemic is a debate that confronts pain, death and loss. It confronts injustice. Our discourse today should not seek to suppress people's justified rage but to channel it, to hone it, to express it with precision without losing one iota of the urgency and conviction it contains.

British Columbians are outraged. And they are seeking candidates to articulate their rage for them. Let's not let them down.

Instinctively you’ve got to have sympathy for this position. But as he points out, liberalism, particularly classical liberalism, the liberalism of the Founders, does place a high degree of importance on civility, and I don’t think we should casually toss that aside. It’s been a long time since we’ve experienced true incivility, and as I pointed out in a previous post, we imagine that we can tolerate small amounts of incivility, and censorship and it won’t lead to violence or repression. Or that if it does it will be righteous violence and repression of only evil people. But that’s not how it works. Rather once things start it’s less like a righteous cleansing and more like Godzilla trudging back and forth through your city. In other words, once those norms get broken it becomes difficult to draw a line. I think this is the lesson the founders had learned from the several hundred years before the revolution, and it’s the lesson they tried to impart to us.

To be fair, it is not only people on the left that have turned against civility. It’s also happening on the right, particularly the alt-right, who insofar as they have a point, believe that conservatives have very civilly and very politely lost every single battle in the culture war. Whether or not this is true (though I’ve already written about how it’s basically true) it doesn’t necessarily mean that we should abandon civility. (Though, i guess, there’s always a chance it might mean that…) In fact if it means anything I would opine that it means we need to be more civil and less censorious, especially with respect to the typical Trump supporter, lest we inadvertently confirm this exact belief, the idea that there is no point in being civil. Of course, as far as I can tell this is the exact opposite of the direction we’re headed. In fact, I just barely saw that apparently James Woods has been locked out of Twitter. (Though, as usual with stuff that just happened this may turn out later to be incorrect.)

Putting everything I’ve said together I suppose my central point is that the current situation is more complicated than it may at first appear, and that a simple return to civility may be more difficult and less effective than people think. But, that we should push for it anyway, because the alternative has the potential to be much, much worse.

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Every week I try to civilly and with humor ask for donations, but perhaps the week I write about civility should be the one week I abandon all that and just say, “GIVE ME MONEY!” Or maybe not.