The effort to prevent alt-right or other “deplorables” from speaking on college campuses is a major mistake on at least three levels. I write from some experience. I was in the Free Speech Movement at Cal in 1964 and in a host of other actions that followed.
Tactical: It produces negative coverage, especially when violent, that loses supporters who are upset by what the President is doing. In addition, it encourages the notion that there is some kind of equivalency between increasing attacks on minorities and resistance to right-wing speakers. It could become the Reichstag Fire incident that Bannon and his cohort may be waiting for, an excuse to crack down on free expression. I think it possible that Bannon and friends are trying to induce a terrorist act as the Reichstag fire moment, but a series of violent campus protests will do.
Strategic: Trump’s overarching motivation may be nothing other than temporarily alleviating his insatiable craving for attention and approval, but he has had one long rhetorical strand during his campaign and brief time in office. He attacks institutions that provide information that makes him feel “sad.” The press, the networks, the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the courts, the intelligence agencies and his opponents have all been targets. He denounces what he calls “political correctness,” which he sees as essentially the liberal agenda. Lyin’ Ted did indeed tell some whoppers; still, Cruz remains an amateur next to pathological liar Trump. These attacks on information, on facts, on evidence, on rational discourse, and his threat to make it easier to sue the media have been part of his act for a long time. His mode of argument is straight out of Ring Lardner: “Shut up, he explained.” Or was that Bannon?
Now, standing up for facts, for truth as opposed to falsehood, for evidence-based arguments, is a long-standing and crucial element of the Enlightenment project, of which genuine higher education has been a major part. Free speech, the ability of people with differing positions to obtain a hearing, is essential to this project. Open societies protect the rights of people to be heard, not merely the rights of those with acceptable positions. It is a betrayal of this project to shut down speakers, however odious their positions, on some grounds that don’t bare scrutiny. Let them talk. Argue with them, ridicule them, boycott them, demonstrate against them, but let them talk. John Milton, a revolutionary and a Christian, understood the importance of open dialogue. Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? He may have been naively optimistic about every outcome of these contests, but any other stance is worse. We should not be the censors deciding what can be said and what cannot.
Existential: “Who are you going to believe? Me or your two lying eyes?” We stand for reason, for evidence, for open inquiry, for debate and resolution, for testing hypotheses and rejecting falsehoods. Progress depends on holding this position. We cannot abandon it because some talk makes us uncomfortable or even enrages us. Our feelings are secondary. What is primary is our commitment to discourse, evidence, and reason.
��r�I �
