On Free Speech and College Campuses

Summary to date: student group invites an apparent white supremacist to speak on campus at my alma mater, students react, alum start to react, college president cancels the appearance, now time for the Monday-morning quarterbacking

I've been thinking a lot about free speech (as a value, not as a legal right) and wanted to record some thoughts.

• I believe that there are lines where inviting a speaker just ain't worth it. The most basic and obvious line relates to personal conduct - a speaker that sexually harasses students, threatens students, or refuses to answer audience questions may not be worth inviting.

• I believe that the test to *stop* a speaker gets progressively higher through the following list:
• Issuing an invitation for a mandatory event like a class
• Issuing an invitation from college institutional leadership
• Issuing an invitation from the college faculty/staff
• Issuing an invitation from a student or student group
• A student group canceling an invitation
• The college canceling an invitation from faculty/staff or leadership
• The college canceling an invitation from a student or student group

This means that I would push back on the college issuing an invitation to an objectionable speaker, but will give students more leeway to pursue their own speakers, and that the highest bar for action is canceling an invitation on behalf of a student or student group.

In other words, I believe that President Falk's decision merits the highest scrutiny, most particularly because it blocked an invitation from someone in the "aggrieved" class (in this case, black) and falk is himself White.

I agree with Falk that there's a line; for example, in inviting a flat-earther, psychic, or astrologist in any context except allowing students to interact with someone pushing psuedo-science. I'm not sure that this crosses it. Racism is a real social organism in today's world, and students deserve a chance to confront it as they decide how they will embark into the world

Zach Wood, the organizer, says (1):

To many, Derbyshire’s views might not be worth trying to thoroughly understand. To me, they are worth the intellectual investment of interrogating and dismantling principally because that is the only way in which it may ever be conclusively decided upon that his racist views are invalid.

I also think there are a variety of steps a college can take to make a lecture like this useful. It could hold trainings on productive confrontation, counter-programming on the same topic, or even feature the college president to speak for the Academy and repudiate the views of the speaker. I'm not sure which of these is the best option. For some students dealing with racism at Williams, a speaker like this is (at minimum) unhelpful, and possibly harmful. I am not a student that would be harmed, and would want to listen to the student group about the best way to mitigate that.

I also think that I might be wrong. A former professor wrote eloquently on the lack of education value in some statements, and I think he's correct that there's a line where speech becomes harassment and that Williams has no obligation to "support" racist speech, though I'm not sure that providing a venue constitutes true support.

I especially agree with this (2):

Given the unusual circumstances of this case, the lack of prior community consideration of the invitation and the short time frames involved, his choice was reasonable. 

If I was a black student looking to apply to colleges, articles about invited speakers like this one without counterbalance could well give me pause when deciding which colleges deserve my time and energy. I know racism exists; I lived it growing up, and there are better ways to engage it than by inviting speakers like this one.

Its very possible the harm to recruiting made the dis-invitation worth it; I don't know enough to say, and I think the disruption of such a speaker is worth consideration. For me, a one-time invite is worth the one-time disruption, but a weekly "today's racist" series would not be.

In general, the trend of censorship demanded by students on campus is a little disturbing, and deserves its own scrutiny (though this came from the college president) (3):

More to the point, the world is not a safe place. It is extremely dangerous, flawed, full of bloodshed and corruption. By sheltering ourselves from its harshness we are doing nothing meaningful to change it. If we are serious about confronting power we must throw ourselves into the danger and hurt that so many people have no choice but to live with. While self-care is necessary to sustain us in the long run, avoiding the darkness entirely is nothing more than a cop out.

Williams doesn't have to support racist speech, but if students seek to engage with it, what better place to be exposed than at a college, with professors and fellow students to help unpack a viewpoint?

References:

1. https://www.thefire.org/williams-colleges-zachary-r-wood-racism-is-a-pathetic-excuse-for-disinviting-a-speaker-from-campus/
2. http://uselesstree.typepad.com/useless_tree/2016/02/a-williams-college-education-doesnt-require-random-acts-of-racist-speech-.html
3. https://medium.com/@UptheCypherPunx/why-this-radical-leftist-is-disillusioned-by-leftist-culture-63419aa85a58#.1mygn29ng

Muslims have always been part of America

From a recent speech by Barack Obama:

Back then, Muslims were often called Mahometans.  And Thomas Jefferson explained that the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom he wrote was designed to protect all faiths -- and I’m quoting Thomas Jefferson now -- “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan.”  (Applause.)

Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies of the Koran. Benjamin Franklin wrote that “even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.”  (Applause.)  So this is not a new thing.

Generations of Muslim Americans helped to build our nation. They were part of the flow of immigrants who became farmers and merchants.  They built America’s first mosque, surprisingly enough, in North Dakota.  (Laughter.)  America’s oldest surviving mosque is in Iowa.  The first Islamic center in New York City was built in the 1890s.  Muslim Americans worked on Henry Ford’s assembly line, cranking out cars.  A Muslim American designed the skyscrapers of Chicago. 

The Conscience of a Conman

Interstellar's "No Time for Caution," remastered

The Progress of Humanity

Humans are irrevocably flawed. We default to communication silos, we often steal when we can, we exploit each other. Wikipedia's list of ongoing conflicts is depressingly long.

And yet, we are less violent today as a species than at any point in our world's history - Steven Pinker's book on the subject is both sobering in revealing violent history and uplifting in showing how many fewer people are massacred these days. Some who dispute Steven Pinker's argument remind us that the deterrent of nuclear weapons might have a lot to do with this, but they concede that the overall numbers are down. In addition, increased global trade has drawn countries together in a way that makes true war impossible between an increasingly large world community.

This is not the state of humanity that all desire. ISIL and its peers seek an apocolyptic world of warlords, where violence and death are a regular part of life. They dream of a mass regression of humanity to an earlier, more brutal time when families were split and sunders by the whim of kings and dictators.

When attacks come out of this ideology - made events that seek to awaken our "reptile brains" and make us fear each other - it's a mistake to think of counter-pushes as "weak." On the contrary, our greatest warriors dreamed of creative days of peace, and maintaining peace is harder than creating way. Anyone can destroy, shoot a gun, or create chaos. Order, peace, and stability take work.

That's the cause that we dedicate ourselves to each time we vote in an election, or yell at each other on social media instead of doing violence, or help out a stranger only tied to us by our shared humanity. That's the dream of so many warriors in years past, and its why I have no doubt that ISIL and its peers will fall apart. However, there will always be others to take their place - the flaw isn't something we can eradicate.

We just have to keep proving each day that it's better to live in peace than to dream of war.

On recent events and their designation "Terrorism"

Terrorism is "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims."

These days, I worry that we misuse the term. A killing spree caused by anger against the world isn't terrorism - it's mass murder. And mass murder is just as bad as terrorism - both take life, and both do harm to our communities, families, selves. The recent Colorado Springs shooting and San Bernardino massacre are both important data points in the ongoing struggle against mass killings in the United States.

However, I don't think we should call either "terrorism" at this point.

The added dynamic of terrorism is that someone is doing it to cause a political reaction, or to change the behavior of a population. The targets of terrorism are not the direct victims of gunfire - they are us, the "everyone else" who might have been at that store, or at that party. Even if the shootings in recent events were motivated by political statements, that doesn't make them terrorism because they weren't going after our minds.

Now, should the non-designation change our response?

I would say no. The designation of terrorism is tactical - it calls us to be on guard against manipulation of society through violence. For example, the recent suspicions of Syrian refugees after the Paris attacks (committed by people who were neither Syrian nor refugees, but who apparently carried a passport from a refugee to ruse us) was a successful result of that terrorist action. A public murder, such as the killing of a reporter and cameraman in Virginia, may not have those same attempted manipulations, but it demands our response just like any act of terrorism.

The DC Sniper Attacks are my counter-example - they were committed over a period of days with the goal of terrorizing a population to "shut things down" in the United States. The clear targets were not the random victims (known to the killers in 2/3 cases above), but instead the rest of us. That did demand a calculated response - taking all actions to catch the murderers, and knowing that they sought to create fear and therefore taking counter actions (like putting more police in schools).

The words we use to label things matter. Let's not muddy the waters of "terrorism" by assigning it to every killing with a political connection.

EDIT on 1/3/16:

Now we have some militiamen in Oregon occupying a Federal building and a lot of questions about if this action is "Terrorism." While it matches my dictionary definition, I don't think they occupation is being done to scare other Americans or (and I don't see a threat that anyone will be taken hostage). They also aren't doing this to change the original prison sentences - the Hammond family doesn't welcome this occupation. I'm still struggling, though, to create a clear definition.

The political stance these people are taking seems to be "it is the right of the people to occupy an empty federal building."

What it means to "use" Whiteness for good

Posted by Upworthy on Tuesday, December 1, 2015

The seductive temptation of inaction

Think of any recent news of political action or decision and you will find quotes in opposition. That's normal and expected - the easy, non-controversial decisions don't get coverage. However, it's much easier to oppose - to support inaction - than it is to take action. The person acting must take responsibility for outcomes. Those pushing for inaction have no responsibility. The easier side to be on is inaction/opposition, and many commentators have discussed this in recent years.

I want to highlight another tendency to inaction that is sneakier and a sibling to righteous opposition: the showcasing of a harmful outcome to someone involved in a policy.

We see news articles all of the time about the people harmed be various government policies. Many times, they feature people suffer from unjust gov't decisions or results, and put a human face on those harmed by poor decisions or policies. This sentiment is valuable, and I'm glad to see these types of stories, but they also represent risk.

The third character we don't see in these stories is the status quo, which has no face and no new victims to showcase. We get used to the constant pain of bad policies, especially when the pain comes from complexity or faceless bureaucracies that can't be easily placed in an article, and the victims are more collective than singular. It becomes hard to compare the harm of action and inaction, but without a good way to find or weigh the beneficiaries of a new policy against those harmed, inaction is easier.

I suppose the same problem applies in budgeting - the benefits of targeting spending may shine brighter than the collective pain of slightly hire taxes. Individual stories are easy - collective benefits are harder to see. Both matter.

Not Allowed at the Party

I like politics where lots of "stuff" happens because the nature of political governance is that lots of "stuff" happens - small and large. The ridiculous charade that we collectively put candidates through mirrors much of the scrutiny and complexity of actual office, though the stakes of "what shall this tweet reply say?" are much less than "what's the best way to implement the Iran Deal?"

A static race with unchanging narratives does not accomplish this purpose. Indeed, the shuffling, sorting and surfacing of new candidates that we saw in the Republican 2012 primary was a handy way to apply scrutiny to a wide group of candidates. I worry that right now, I'm not seeing a path for this process on one side of the political spectrum, but rather a long and slow burn towards a general election that's already being planned.

Strong candidates that want the best for the country should welcome other strong candidates from their party, even as they seek to rise above each other. Campaigns provide platforms for messages and visibility, and the universal dominance of one candidate in media coverage has a subtle choking effect on other candidates, especially those with valuable contributions to the national political conversation.

That's why, in general, whenever I see articles or coverage to the effect that someone or some group is trying to silence someone else, politically, I'm disappointed. Give voice to the argument from someone else, then win it. I want to get my mind changed by an argument I hear from a candidate, and I'm not sure that's ever truly happened. Let's hear from more voices, as many as possible. The votes of the people will winnow the field.

Congress Is Making Life Harder for Economics - Bloomberg View

Congress Is Making Life Harder for Economics - Bloomberg View: "Whatever the reason, the BLS reductions are part of two dismaying trends in our legislative priorities -- cuts to research funding, and a disregard for the importance of social science. In the case of the BLS, it would be a mistake to further hobble an agency that does so much to aid our very understanding of the economy around us.

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'via Blog this'

For the First Time in History, Less than 10% of Humanity Lives in Extreme Poverty | Foundation for Economic Education

For the First Time in History, Less than 10% of Humanity Lives in Extreme Poverty | Foundation for Economic Education: "According to the World Bank, for the first time in human history, “less than 10 percent of the world’s population will be living in extreme poverty by the end of 2015.”

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'via Blog this'

Joy in the audience

Tonight, I met the perfect audience person. There's a rare joy in performing when you know - know - that you've nailed a part, or a piece, or a phrase, or a "thing" that helps make a song what it is. (Example: skip to 1:15, watch his face for a radiant grin at 1:56) Then there's a second joy when the crowd "gets it" in a way you don't expect; see the embedded video at 1:28 for Lea Salonga getting that feeling from rowdy bar.

 

The third feeling is when you see it in a particular person. It can happen in speaking as well - when you know that your words have reached and changed a person, but in music - it's the feeling of creating something beautiful and watching someone else immerse themselves in the music. I didn't start singing tonight with the intention of making that connection, but once I noticed it, I couldn't completely ignore it - how this person sang under her breath, eyes closed, breathing in the music and experiencing more fully than I typically can.

It was lovely.