"While Free Speech Is Important..."
...It's not "important" enough to be allowed to people on campus or coming to campus who don't toe the left's party line.
The Williams College newspaper just came out -- yes, really -- against free speech.
Because that's really so absurd, I'll say it again: The students running a newspaper just came out against free speech.
Here's a message from their editorial board:
Uncomfortable Learning scheduled and later cancelled a talk by Suzanne Venker, founder of Women for Men, a news and opinion website that claims that the feminist movement results in female privilege and discrimination against men. While we at the Record believe Venker's views are wrong, offensive and unacceptable, it is difficult to determine whether or not there would have been enough educational value in her lecture to justify an appearance, given that her presence on campus would have hurt students who face sexist and homophobic stereotypes.Though Venker's speech is legally protected, the College, as a private institution, has its own set of rules about what discourse is acceptable. In general, the College should not allow speech that challenges fundamental human rights and devalues people based on identity markers, like being a woman. Much of what Venker has said online, in her books and in interviews falls into this category. While free speech is important and there are problems with deeming speech unacceptable, students must not be unduly exposed to harmful stereotypes in order to live and learn here without suffering emotional injury. It is possible that some speech is too harmful to invite to campus. The College should be a safe space for students, a place where people respect others' identities. Venker's appearance would have been an invasion of that space.
Greg Lukianoff writes in Freedom from Speech about the conflation of physical safety and emotional safety, and the "expectation of confirmation" -- the notion that a speaker is unacceptable unless they confirm the students' views.
Here's Lukianoff in the WSJ:
And while students should certainly feel "safe," it is important to recognize that these days the word has wandered far from its literal meaning. Feeling "safe" on college campuses means something closer to being completely comfortable, physically and intellectually. Boundary-pushing comedian Lenny Bruce, a hero to the Free Speech Movement, wouldn't have lasted a minute in front of today's college kids....As John Stuart Mill noted in "On Liberty" in 1859, calls for civility are often a tool to enforce conformity.
...After decades of campus censorship, students have been taught not to appreciate freedom of speech, but rather to expect freedom from speech. This unnerving development can be seen in the rash of episodes last spring when students and even faculty pushed to bar commencement speakers and other public figures with whom they disagree.
This is no way to advance thought; in fact, it does just the opposite.
A commenter at the Williams college paper:
Melissa
This is a weak justification for shutting out a speaker because she takes a contrarian position on Feminism.You write, "Arguing with a speaker with whom one shares no common ground could amount to nothing more than each side validating its own views." Without contrarian opinions, there is no opportunity for growth or challenges.
Does one argue with a novel taught in class? Hardly. You read the novel and then discuss what it had to say. By banning a book, you deprive yourself and others the opportunity to consider its words - which is really the goal of those who protested Venker's speech. It's no different from those who protested the teaching of Evolution, or books by Vonnegut, Twain, and Salinger in high school curricula (yes, this happens).
This editorial basically accepts that once people have developed a world view, they should not permit arguments and ideas counter to that view. What some Williams students could not accept is others in the community hearing a different opinion on Feminism than what they want them to think.
What's lost in this pursuit of conceptual monoculture is the exercise of testing and improving ideas. At a University, that approach should be abhorrent to students and faculty alike.
As I've said before, free speech is especially important for bigots, assholes, and people saying uncomfortable things. (Nobody needs free speech to say "Have a nice day!") To maintain free speech, it's necessary for all of us to support the open airing of the ugliest speech -- or simply speech we vigorously disagree with.
Oh, and hilariously, the speaker series is called "Uncomfortable Learning."
Wait -- I get it -- they invite people they totally agree with and then listen to them speak while sitting in overly-hard chairs.
via @AdamKissel
"I completely support Free Speech as long as it doesn't offend me and I agree with it."
/sarc
mer at October 22, 2015 3:34 AM
Looks like the 'Flat Earth' Society is back.
Bob in Texas at October 22, 2015 4:30 AM
The whole student article was horseshit, but I guess this portion is as good as any to use as my starting point.
On the contrary, college is the best place in the world to present and be exposed to ideas that might be deemed offensive. You pay for the privilege of attending, so there's no real world consequence for speaking your mind. As for emotional injury, get over it. It's the perfect opportunity for gays and women (since that's what the brain-damaged editors of the student newspaper are so concerned about) to cultivate poise and confidence in the face of bigotry directed against them.
I've heard a lot of people, mostly anti-gun zealots, suggest that it's time to revisit the Constitution and perhaps make a new one, as the current one supposedly no longer serves us well. I shudder to think of what the First Amendment would be reduced to. Can you imagine what sort of speech would be criminalized if feminists were allowed to decide the issue?
Seriously, think about that. What sort of language would be punished by fines and/or imprisonment if the third-wave feminists (or, as I prefer to call them, "pseudo-feminists") had their way?
I saw a very funny meme on Twitter. A very simple drawing of three glasses, half-full. Under the first glass, it said, "Optimist: the glass is half full." Under the second, it said, "Pessimist: the glass is half-empty." Under the third glass, it said, "Feminist: the glass is being raped."
Patrick at October 22, 2015 4:58 AM
This coddled generation in colleges now is showing their upbringing. They believe that speech should be tailored to trauma victims rather than what used to be the case -- that if you had some mental condition that kept you from functioning in society, you'd go off and get help until you could function. You would not demand that the world conform to your needs.
Amy Alkon at October 22, 2015 6:07 AM
Believe the rational expressed could also define "cult".
Bob in Texas at October 22, 2015 6:16 AM
If in ones defense of free speech you use a "but", you're not actually in favor of free speech.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 22, 2015 6:26 AM
I've heard a lot of people, mostly anti-gun zealots, suggest that it's time to revisit the Constitution and perhaps make a new one, as the current one supposedly no longer serves us well. I shudder to think of what the First Amendment would be reduced to. Can you imagine what sort of speech would be criminalized if feminists were allowed to decide the issue?
Good, I'm glad the zealots will focus their attention on repealing the 2nd, as that is their actual goal. I want them to be honest about their intentions.
But as for letting the feminists write a new constitution? they'll end up with a 3/5ths solution. Men will be counted as 3/5ths of the population, and be denied the vote.
I would be glad to see them try, as again they will be revealing their intentions in a plain, unmistakable way.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 22, 2015 6:30 AM
"Safe" used to mean not getting mugged on the way back to the dorm; now it means "I don't want those people around me."
Oh, what spoiled brats!
charles at October 22, 2015 6:33 AM
Amy, it's worse than that. They not only want language to be tailored to trauma victims. They want to claim virtually everyone is a trauma victim.
Trigger warnings are not for ordinary students. Trigger warnings were created only for PTSD patients. If you don't have PTSD, you don't have triggers. It's that simple.
But these feminists somehow learned of trigger warnings, and said, "Oh, how lovely! I'll take those!"
You want to talk cultural appropriation? Talk of feminists appropriating trigger warnings from PTSD patients. As a veteran, I find this grossly insulting. It truly belittles the suffering of PTSD patients to have these inconsiderate feminists parading triggers around like it's the latest fashion trend.
You want to claim trauma victim because your classmates once called you a nasty name? Be real. It might be upsetting, but it hardly compares to what real patients of PTSD have endured.
It's important to realize, also, that war veterans are not only PTSD patients. If you, for instance, were caught in a house fire and suffered burns over most of your body and/or watched your love ones burned alive and you told me you suffered from PTSD, I'd have no trouble believing that.
I cannot demonize these thoughtless "trigger happy" idiots enough. It is as reprehensible and insulting as any form of bigotry. Yes, one or two unfortunate college students might truly suffer from PTSD and might have triggers. But, as you point out, Amy, trauma victims normally seek out help and are working religiously to conform to the world, not forcing the world to conform to them.
Patrick at October 22, 2015 6:42 AM
Here's another example: Suzanne Venker disinvited from speaking at Williams College. A taste:
A paraphrase of a comment I made yesterday, if you hold the "wrong" view point, you are also considered evil.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 22, 2015 6:58 AM
Darth, it's particularly egregious because their argument against Venker's positions consists entirely of name-calling and gainsaying. This is dirty-little-secret reason they don't want to engage in a debate with her: because in their heart of hearts, they know that their position is intellectually bankrupt. They have absolutely nothing to back up their assertiions.
"Oh, and hilariously, the speaker series is called 'Uncomfortable Learning.'"
Yep, and it will now become yet another mask for Marxist agitprop: "The purpose of the series is to make while males uncomfortable!" One wonders if this wasn't the intent all along, and all the rest was merely to put the victim off guard for the sucker punch.
Cousin Dave at October 22, 2015 7:16 AM
What's really a shame is that these people want to do away with one of the best parts of college -- challenging speakers you disagree with -- in person!
Ann Coulter came to my campus when I was in school. During the Q&A portion of her talk, a student went up to the mic and read a passage from her book and accused her of mishandling statistics. Ann sputtered. Ann stalled. Ann threw a little tantrum and refused to answer his question. It was amazing. She looked really really bad. This was before social media, but, today, it would have resulted in some embarrassing videos of her.
If you think a campus speaker is truly vile, do your research and take the opportunity to challenge them in person.
sofar at October 22, 2015 7:35 AM
There is no learning involved.
MarkD at October 22, 2015 7:52 AM
"emotional injury."
Patrick pulls the perfect paragraph... which contains the crux of the problem...
It gives a certain amount of power to conflate physical injury with emotional injury, in a way that would never have been accepted until recently... which allows you to talk about emotional VIOLENCE, in a concrete way, as if it was physical.
Once you control the words in such a way, you can bend the ideas to mean whatever.
Add on the layers of safe spaces, trigger warnings and such?
Words now mean precisely what you, yourself say they mean. No more, no less.
That's how you can bare your chest in public, and if I were to look, I am engaging in patriarchal violence against you.
AS has been written numerous other places now, a major issue with this worldview is that the relativism not only brings the lesser thing up, but also the major thing down.
Special snowflakes don't seem to realize where this will lead. If merely looking at you the wrong way is some kind of violence, then how seriously is is taken when actual, physical violence happens. The assumption is that this will be treated as it always has been, but that is probably incorrect.
Just like speech you don't agree with. The assumption is that your in-group will always be in power, so if you suppress speech, it will NEVER be your speech.
The college does them no favors by caving on this, because eventually there comes a time when these snowflakes will be given to the storm, not special anymore.
OTOH, there is the potential that these sorts of special snowflakes will triumph in the end... it's astonishing how many of them go in to HR departments, so that they can "make a difference."
They are the ones who rewrite your worker manual, so that you avoid telling anyone how nice they look today, regardless of who they are. You never know who might be listening, and would take offense. They are the ones that join your team and are completely worthless, but never get called on it, because there is a mandate to have a certain participation rate.
This kicks up the participation cost of women in general in the business, while driving cohesion into the ground. What's going to happen? Eventually there will be quota laws on how many you have to hire and what position they have to fill...
And since a lot of really smart women don't ACTUALLY want to be CEO, or whatever... you will end up with the lowest quality candidates, taking advantage of the govt. big stick.
Damn, staring to sound apocalyptic this morning. must need coffee.
SwissArmyD at October 22, 2015 8:47 AM
My point was, and I guess I didn't make it, is that these special snowflakes, with their lovely appropriated trigger warnings, don't just need to be laughed at. They need to shamed and excoriated, and possibly legally penalized.
They are insulting and belittling the suffering of our veterans, among others, with real issues, real problems, real trauma.
While the comments on this board appropriately ostracize these entitled idiots, I feel the level of outrage needs to be turned up a notch. Or several.
Patrick at October 22, 2015 9:36 AM
College should be "safe?" Define "safe."
If by "safe," you mean a place where all student can express themselves (including opinions some students don't like), then yes, it should be a "safe" place.
If by "safe," you mean a place where only approved opinions can be expressed and no offending anyone is allowed, then no. That runs contrary to the mission of a college.
College is supposed to be where one tests the mettle of one's opinions and broadens one's outlook (meeting fellow students of other races, cultures, and, even, of other opinions; studying subjects once thought taboo; letting objectivity and rationality overrule superstition and custom; etc.).
College is designed for the clash of ideas. Academia is meant to be the place where people go to navel gaze, where debating esoteric points of a particular discipline is an encouraged activity.
There are entire disciplines of study in colleges that don't exist outside the ivy-covered walls. Who outside of the television industry or a bar late at night debates the sociological impact of The Simpsons? Who outside of those venues even cares? Interesting? Yes. Of practical value in the world? No.
To discourage or prohibit a particular school of thought because it falls outside the accepted orthodoxy is totalitarianism, not education.
And no, no one is saying that inviting the American Nazi Party to speak on campus should be considered the same as inviting a well-known feminist. Nor, however, is inviting Ann Coulter equivalent of inviting the American Nazi Party.
The editorial board here is confusing education with indoctrination.
There's always an educational value in hearing dissenting opinions, even if it offends someone.
Hearing dissenting opinions makes it difficult to indoctrinate someone. And that is what bothers them about it, that someone may walk away from the lecture with a new idea germinating in their head.
Conan the Grammarian at October 22, 2015 10:42 AM
"Whether" implies "or not" so in the interest of efficiency, the sentence should have read, "...to determine whether there would have been...."
Just in case we're bustin' out the academic nit-picking ninja skills. But what do I know. I don't sit on the editorial board of a student newspaper for a pretentious private liberal arts college.
Conan the Grammarian at October 22, 2015 11:00 AM
You can't give a free performance space to every cockamany idea that comes along, so colleges do have to do some selection. You're not going to have creationists come address your paleontology department.
That said, beyond that, differing views should be invited to speak.
NicoleK at October 22, 2015 1:03 PM
My point was, and I guess I didn't make it, is that these special snowflakes, with their lovely appropriated trigger warnings, don't just need to be laughed at. They need to shamed and excoriated, and possibly legally penalized.
They need to be mocked, early and often. Mocking is a form of shaming and excoriation.
I'm much less comfortable with the legally penalized part. They should have the right to say "I'm a special little snowflake! fear me!" without fear of legal retribution.
Just as I should have a right to ask said special little snowflake "how would you like to suck my balls?"
Should they cross a valid legal line, then by all means prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law with great zeal.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 22, 2015 1:34 PM
You can't entirely blame the students, this is a generation that's been helicoptered to incoherence, the school need to step up and let these kids experience things in all their messiness and not be protecting their fee fees.
I really don't agree with Suzanne Venker, but like the above poster's experience with Ann Coulter, one can attack Venker's arguments and have this be an actual learning experience.
Janet C at October 22, 2015 2:04 PM
I think the questions "Is Speaker X worth listening to?" and, per Janet C's last paragraph, "How do we get the most learning from this?" are critical.
IMO Anne Coulter's vacuity is matched only by her intrinsic evil. I could only invite her anywhere as comic relief, and my only objection to her would be that she brings nothing to the table - an opinion.
It's opinions all the way down. As long as free speech isn't brutalized and the answers to the critical questions add value, then either outcome - invite or not? - is defensible.
DaveG at October 22, 2015 2:46 PM
I R A Darth Aggie, it might fall into the realms of fraud, if they attempt to claim benefits from it. Claiming you have triggers is effectively claiming you have PTSD. It prompts questions like, "When were you diagnosed?" or "War veteran, or was this a stateside catastrophe?"
Patrick at October 22, 2015 3:28 PM
"the College, as a private institution, has its own set of rules about what discourse is acceptable."
The left pushed title 9 and a hundred other rules onto universities if they received a penny form the gov't but deny the rights of the Bill of Rights.
Joe J at October 22, 2015 7:11 PM
"IMO Anne Coulter's vacuity is matched only by her intrinsic evil."
Given the topic, the irony is dripping from this one.
Radwaste at October 23, 2015 1:17 AM
The issue with censorship and moderating speech is that no one will ever agree on what is allowed and what is not because everyone is sensitive to different types of speech, if we simply take the lowest common denominator then what we'd find is that no one can say anything in fear of upsetting at least someone.
Instead free speech as part of the bedrock of modern society says that speech (outside of threats) is not harmful and so free expression in public places is allowed.
The moment you try and make it "Free speech except..." then you open the flood gates for banning all kinds of speech.
Like it or not, you don't have any kind of legal or moral right to be sheltered against speech that personally upsets you. Speech on its own is harmless and if you're triggered because of some event in your past then you need to seek help from a therapist and deal with those personal issues, it's not the burden of the rest of society to tip toe around everyone else.
The saddest part is that radical feminists abuse these notions in order to suppress criticisms of feminist ideology in order to protect it against counter evidence, it's extremely intellectually dishonest and exactly the opposite of what is expected at educational institutions where people expect evidence and reason to support ideas and not blocking out counter discussion, this makes a lot of modern 3rd wave feminism rotten to the core and a threat to the quality of the educational system.
Frosty at October 23, 2015 1:33 AM
"... if we simply take the lowest common denominator then what we'd find is that no one can say anything in fear of upsetting at least someone."
No one favors that. It will always be okay to offend white male heterosexual christians.
Sometimes it's mandatory.
dee nile at October 23, 2015 4:55 AM
"You're not going to have creationists come address your paleontology department."
Why not? It's a great way to demonstrate to students why creationionism doesn't work and isn't scientific.
Cousin Dave at October 23, 2015 7:53 AM
Dear godsess
wow your're still around, I used to comment on your blog for about 10 yrs ago. You have that rare combination of brilliant, and idiotic post. Stopped following you because of some post I found idiotic and because life happened time. (or I stopped going to sites that linked to yours).
In the final analysis, I am glad you are still around, I don't even remember what the posts I did not like were about. After seeing the article Williams College, I glad there are still people like you on the web, someone people can both agree with with and at time disagree with.
ps, nice pictures, how old are they... no need to answer. I'm just being a little shit and having a bit of fun
jean dumas at October 23, 2015 5:52 PM
After they've protected the poor dears from any speech that might hurt their feelings at college, just what are these over-sensitive types going to do once they are graduated and have to go out and work in the real world?
Did you know that the real world isn't always a nice place? There are, Heaven forfend! people who use homosexuality as an insult; can they handle that, or are they going to curl up in a corner and die? There are people out in the real world who will judge people by their appearance -- written as though this never happens in college! :) -- and some of the hypersensitive ones are going to have a hard time with that. The students will encounter, in the real world, people who not only have opinions similar to Mrs Venkers, but who will have supervisory, and possibly economic, authority over them.
Dana at October 29, 2015 1:40 PM
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