Michael Huemer on the costs of suppressing speech

The American philosopher Michael Huemer writes on why it's a bad idea to try suppressing speech that we disagree with. Early in this piece, Huemer makes the following insightful comments; I think this is, with one caveat, spot on:

[T]oday we’re seeing an unusual kind of speech suppression. Traditionally, you get suppression of ideas when there is a single dominant ideological faction in society. Some faction defined by controversial philosophical, religious, or political views manages to take control of society, and then they use the power of the state to suppress challenges to their ideas.

But what we have today is a situation where there remain competing factions with comparable levels of power in our society – neither the left nor the right has gained overall control of the society – and yet one faction is still trying to suppress dissent from their main ideas. Normally, this doesn’t happen because you simply don’t have the power to suppress dissent unless you have a very dominant position in society. And since you know this, normally, you don’t even attempt it.

But people are doing it today because our society has become highly ideologically segregated. There are particular institutions or segments of society that are extremely dominated by a particular ideological faction (the woke/SJW left), even though that faction is a minority in the larger society. So this faction tries to suppress dissent using the institutions that they control. They also use the much greater emotional commitment and activist tendencies of their faction’s members to persecute the other side, e.g., starting petitions, email campaigns, etc., to try to cause personal harm to blasphemers. (It’s hard to organize an activist campaign among conservatives, and even harder among moderates.)

Exactly so - with that one caveat. The conservative faction does seem to be getting better at organizing similar campaigns, as with the recent campaign against the movie Cuties and everyone associated with it.

In any event, this means that your speech might be suppressed within your own world, where you hang out mainly with people from your own faction. Within that world, you'd be prudent not to express dissent from what the people around you are saying and seem to be thinking. The "other side" might want to hear these dissenting views, but probably for its own propaganda purposes rather than because it will take your overall worldview or value system seriously. The effect is that nuanced, complex, "hybrid" views - views that don't fit with whatever packages are currently endorsed by one or other of the main competing factions - tend to be squeezed out of public, and even private, discussion.

That is intellectually disastrous. It is worth noting that the packages on offer from the existing factions are not the natural result of which ideas are most coherent with each other (even if there's some element of that), but mainly the result of historical processes of alliance-forming, of the ideas of certain charismatic individuals being taken up by their disciples, etc. People who adopt one or other off-the-shelf package of ideas do so for largely non-rational, non-principled reasons, such as wanting to share the commitments of people whom they admire, or simply of their peer group.

Thus, we end up with factions who adhere to radically opposed packages of ideas, and who talk past each other while suppressing internal dissent. There is little room for people who are more principled and consistent in their reasoning to develop intellectually attractive alternatives to the off-the-shelf ideologies. Indeed, such people might be silenced, at least in respect of any dissenting thoughts, because it is not worth their while to stick their heads above the parapet in public discussion. They might even bite their tongues much of the time in private discussion with all except their very closest and most trusted friends.

Huemer makes points that are broadly consistent with this, but worth consulting in their own right, as his emphasis is slightly different from mine; it is not inconsistent with mine, as far as I can see, but he has his own set of priorities. He concludes with thoughtful comments about what happens if a generally left-leaning Western academia (together with left-leaning journalists and broadcasters, and others with large platforms) makes assiduous efforts to suppress the ideas of the "other side", i.e. ideas that tend to be held by political conservatives. In a polarized environment, the suppression might be locally successful, but it will not be successful within the broader society. Instead, a very large proportion of the society - maybe about half - will come to see left-leaning Western academia as not only wrong but actually evil, given its apparent wish to suppress opposing views. As a result, Huemer says, a very large proportion of society will reject out of hand whatever comes out of academia. That is also disastrous:

[T]hey draw the conclusion that one can’t trust anything coming from [what they see as] the libtard academic and media elites.

This creates obvious problems. What if the academics find some important information that people really need to know? They try to tell the public, but half the public assumes that it’s just part of some partisan agenda. The mainstream media reports on it, but again, half the public distrusts anything they say (that isn’t confirmed by their preferred sources).

The academic and media solution: Keep repeating “People should listen to us, and if you don’t, you’re being stupid and partisan.” How well do you suppose that works? Right, it just backfires and pushes people further into their bubbles. There’s nothing for the academics and mainstream reporters to say, because the well has already been poisoned – anything those sources say is just going to be interpreted as more partisan manipulation.

While I'm most worried about suppression of worthwhile, but unfashionable, ideas within the broadly-defined academic and cultural Left, Huemer is describing a somewhat different, yet readily recognizable, phenomenon.

For both reasons, efforts to suppress ideas, carried out within the academic and cultural Left - or on its home turf, such as on university campuses, at literary festivals, and in left-leaning media outlets - end up being unhealthy. They hinder intellectual progress and prevent a valuable intellectual ferment within the Left, causing potentially worthwhile contributors to feel silenced and alienated. (I can report that there is plenty of this around, because some people know my concerns about all this, and that gives them the confidence to confide in me.) At the same time, it makes the dreaded "other side" think we're simply evil, not just misguided or sincerely wrong, all adding further to the polarization and dumbing down of society.

Audiobook of Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination

An audiobook version of Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination: Visions, Minds, Ethics is now available. Check it out if interested. 

The book is read by John Lescault, who is an excellent actor with a beautiful speaking voice, and he took great trouble to get everything right. In my dealings with him I was impressed by his work methods and work ethic. Thanks, John! I'm sure the end result will be great.

This version of Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination is now arguably the most definitive one, as it corrects a handful or so of small errors in the print versions.

Heading into the unknowable

My colleagues at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies have published an edited and abridged extract from At the Dawn of a Great Transition under the title "Into The Unknowable".

The book itself is slightly more "academic" than this extract adapted from its opening pages: i.e., it uses more formal notes, citations, etc., and in places it becomes more densely argued as I wrestle with the philosophical pros and cons of radical human enhancement. But I've gone to some trouble throughout to make the text as accessible, and perhaps even entertaining, as possible. With that caveat duly provided, the extract gives you a good idea of my topic, approach, and style. Check it out if interested!

At the Dawn of a Great Transition has been published

 

My new book, At the Dawn of a Great Transition: The Question of Radical Enhancement, has now been published by the venerable academic publisher Schwabe Verlag, based in Basel, Switzerland. It is part of Schwabe Verlag's Posthuman Studies series. At this stage, it is available in hardcover and e-book pdf formats. I expect that a paperback version will become available at some point, and at that stage I'll advise. Most people would probably want to get their university libraries to order in the hardback, rather than buying it for themselves, but I won't be ungrateful for personal sales made to sufficiently interested individuals.

At the Dawn of a Great Transition is available directly from the publisher or in the usual ways such as through Amazon.

To pique your interest, the book's blurb states as follows:

"Radical enhancement would employ technology to extend human capacities far beyond anything yet seen or experienced. Imagine, for example, easily outrunning any Olympic athlete while being dramatically smarter than Albert Einstein. Or imagine living for hundreds or thousands of years, making today’s super-centenarians seem like mayflies. Soon – perhaps some time this century – we may have the technology for this. But if we had it, should we use it? Radical enhancement might seem like a gift, but could it become, as its critics warn, a poisoned chalice for individuals and a curse for human societies? In this fascinating book, Russell Blackford examines the pros and cons, bringing good humour, philosophical insight, and historical perspective to this most modern of modern debates."

Interview with A.C. Grayling

I recently interviewed A.C. Grayling for the Newcastle Writers Festival's Stories to You podcast.

A little blurb that I wrote about it to pique your interest: Dr Russell Blackford, Conjoint Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Newcastle, interviews A.C. Grayling about his new book, The Frontiers of Knowledge: What We Now Know About Science, History, and the Mind. Professor Grayling is an eminent philosopher, author of many books, and Master of the New College of the Humanities, in London. They discuss fields of knowledge that have opened up with new methods and tools of inquiry – including cutting-edge physics, humanity’s very ancient history before Greece and Rome, and what we now know about the mind and the brain. Professor Grayling explains how we reached this point and the challenges for future progress in these fields. Their conversation turns to the important task of communicating knowledge to the public, and to the continued need for liberal education and the traditional humanities in a political environment that is often hostile to them.

Religion at Work in Bioethics and Biopolicy

 With my friend and collaborator Udo Schüklenk, I have a new article in the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy.

The citation is Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk, "Religion at Work in Bioethics and Biopolicy: Christian Bioethicists, Secular Language, Suspicious Orthodoxy." Journal of Medicine and Philosophy  46(2) (April 2021): 165-187.    

 

Freedom For the Speech We Oppose

This piece from 2015, published by The Philosophers' Magazine, is something of a blast from the past, but it still seems to me to be about right. It also gives a taste of what my book, The Tyranny of Opinion, is about. It responds to the issue at the time when an anti-abortion campaigner from the US, Troy Newman, was denied entry to Australia, with the perverse effect that his views were actually given more publicity than if he'd simply been allowed to go about his business and give his talks quietly. As it turned out, then, he was not silenced, but this was nonetheless an attempt (a very counterproductive one) to hinder his ability to present his views to Australians. I'd rather spend my time arguing against "pro-life" advocates, especially such extreme ones, than arguing for their right to express their views. Increasingly, however, many debates are shifting away from disagreements about which views are correct, or would form the best basis for public policy, and which views should be permitted at all.

An open letter in support of free inquiry and open discussion

I am proud to have signed this open letter, arising from recent attempts to punish the "gender critical feminist" philosopher Professor Kathleen Stock. Signing the letter does not mean that I necessarily agree with all or any of Professor Stock's substantive views. That's a separate issue from whether she is entitled to express them without a large number of her colleagues in the academy mobilizing against her and trying to make her and/or her views beyond the pale of toleration. Whatever I might ultimately think about her philosophical views and/or her policy proposals, or about her more general values and attitudes, she should have every right to express them within the academy without hindrance or punishment. She only needs to conform to some very broad standards of rationality and civility - standards that she has more than met, since she's has gone out of her way to be measured and reasoned, and even conciliatory to the extent that anyone could plausibly expect.

It's very pleasing to see so many people signing the letter, including some high-profile individuals within the discipline of philosophy (e.g. Peter Singer as one  of the original signatories and Timothy Williamson as one of the many people who've signed since).

I have reservations about open letters, but they mostly apply to letters that involve numerous people ganging up on a colleague with whom they are in substantive disagreement. There's a huge difference between that and an open letter objecting to exactly that practice and offering support, in an hour of need, to an individual who its victim. In the latter case, I'm always open to signing, provided, of course that I agree with the specific detail of what I'm asked to sign up to.

Kudos to Professor Daniel Kaufman who took on the task of organizing this. Organizing academics to do anything - perhaps especially philosophers - is notoriously like herding cats, but Dan did a wonderful job and deserves recognition for it.

Another new interview - this time with Richard Marshall

This new interview is with Richard Marshall for his "End Times" series of interviews with philosophers. It's a long-form interview covering a wide range of topics from a lengthy (I hope not too rambling) autobiographical answer to the question of how I became a philosopher, to discussion of issues relating to toleration and freedom of speech, through to the emergence of China as a global superpower of the 21st century. Check it out!

A couple of interviews

A couple of recent interviews.

1. This one is with American philosopher Dan Kaufman, and we discuss my newest book, The Tyranny of Opinion, with more general discussion of call-out/cancel culture, identity politics, political polarization, and a bit about experience to date with COVID-19 and attempts to contain it. If you're at all interested in the issues discussed in The Tyranny of Opinion you'll probably find the back-and-forth between us worthwhile.

2. The second is with Jordan C. Myers from the Plato's Cave podcast. Listen here, or you can go here for a version on YouTube. It's a wide-ranging discussion about the idea, value, and social role of philosophy, though mainly focused on my co-edited book (with Damien Broderick) Philosophy's Future: The Problem of Philosophical Progress. The book has a new paperback edition, by the way, so you can now buy it (or get your library to) at an affordable price. A lot of work went into the book, and we ended up with an extraordinarily strong set of contributors, so please consider at least checking it out if you're at all interested in philosophy.