Holden
Holden
Aug 8, 2017 · 3 min read

The Internet Un-Liberal Activities Committee has been busy lately. We started with Elizabeth Nolan Brown from Reason signal boosting a Twitter user who made a sandwich joke in the expressed hopes of hurting his chances to get hired in the future. Followed up with Lena Dunham contacting American Airlines to report “anti-trans” speech she overheard by some of their employees. Culminating with a Google employee fired for sharing a memo outlining his thoughts on the disparity between men and women in tech fields.

Whether these are good or bad ideas that have merit to them is beside the point. A “sammich” joke can be funny in the right context. The right context being an audience that knows you’re only joking and not making a heartfelt statement about women’s role in society. I would not tweet an off-color joke to strangers who don’t know me and expect them to know my intentions. These incidents have good arguments on both sides for why they’re right or wrong. There is a place for those who disagree with the validity or propriety of these ideas to point them out and argue against them. The problem is that’s not what any of these people did. Instead of saying “Sandwich jokes are offensive and we shouldn’t tell them” Nolan Brown tried to orchestrate an online lynch mob to go after an individual. Dunham didn’t explain how all children deserve to be cared for and loved, she reported the private conversation to their employer for discipline, if not termination. Google didn’t refute its employee’s thoughts with opposing ideas or research to prove him wrong, they fired him.

The common thread here is the failure to engage with the topic on their merits in order to prove their error. The preferred mode of attack consists of identifying the wrongthinker, and causing pain in his personal life. Not for the purpose of changing his mind, but to shut him up. To make an example out of them to anyone who dares challenge the orthodoxy. If your approach to debating ideas in the public space is to scare your opponent into not saying them then you are doing discourse wrong. The goal for all of us should be to change minds, not silence them. I doubt this is how anyone taking part in the lynch mob wants to be engaged in a dispute.

I am pro-life. I oppose Planned Parenthood. But I do it by highlighting the horrors of abortion. I don’t do it by calling Cecille Richards a monster who secretly hates babies and kicks puppies when no one’s looking. In fact, I make sure to never mention her at all unless I need to. I don’t wish grief for her or anyone. Were I to bring about crushing ruin upon her to the extent she’s forced to resign from Planned Parenthood, or leave public life altogether, would not change one single mind about abortion. She would be quickly replaced and the battle would start all over again without having gained any new ground.

“Discuss ideas, not people” is a good maxim to follow. If you find yourself often debating the motivations or character of people in public life that you don’t know personally then it’s a good sign you’re engaging in character assassination, not having a healthy exchange of ideas. This is evident in the regularly occurring news piece on what a horrible person Betsy Devos is. Advocates ideologically opposed to her regularly opt to tar her personally as a proxy for the policies she stands for. It’s a lazy, but effective, means of fighting against school choice or limiting the Department of Education’s control on local management, without having to research or persuade anyone about the merits of these positions. This tactic also has the added benefit of associating ideas to bad character traits to further dissuade anyone from taking them up.

We are a large diverse nation that is never going to agree on everything. We need to have a healthy mechanism by which we synthesize diverse viewpoints and come to a compromise. My side doesn’t always win on every argument, but if I can change one mind then I’ve done my part. Having a population that’s scared to speak is going to break down the churn of ideas that we rely on to keep intellectual innovation moving. I don’t want those who disagree with me to feel afraid to say so. I may be wrong and without anyone to tell me I’m wrong my thinking will never evolve.