Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

But who is “pressuring”? Fox, Breitbart, Drudge, Reason are, like it or not, participating voices in the culture, part of the cultural conversation.

Whether to “self-censor to avoid negative publicity” might also be described as speaking with an eye to, and prepared for, likely responses from other corners of the culture (wider culture or campus itself). No speech is self-contained or self-sufficient. Right-wing media no more & no less “pressure self-censorship” on progressive activists, than progressive media “pressure self-censorship” on conservative activists.

To speak politically is to incur the consequence of countervailing negative speech. The point is not to self-censor, but to prudentially judge and at least be *aware* of, the effect & consequences of your speech, how it’s likely to be (mis)interpreted by others, on campus or in the wider world. To shelter campus activists from that wider world and potential negative responses to their speech— a futile and imo counterproductive fantasy— is not going make them more effective activists, more effective participants in the cultural conversation, when they get *out* of campus.

There are at least two sources of pressure - the right-wing elements setting the attack dogs on 19-y-o students for expressing an opinion and the semi-sympathetic liberals who think they're making the cause look bad. These students will clearly have considered and been prepared for pushback from within the campus community. I'm not going to criticise them for failing to anticipate hot takes from half the news outlets in the U.S.

The prudent / pragmatic course of action for minorities, most of the time, is to keep their heads down and say nothing. The more negative signal boosting the far right does when they fail to follow that path, the more prudent and pragmatic that becomes. These are not the normal consequences of free speech.

In your example, ryan, it's exactly the majority who needs free speech - without it, the minorities might revolt.

isn't it kind of antidemocratic to feel like you need to protect the heathens from hearing the wrong ideas? like these students could've seen the american sniper movie as an opportunity to write op-eds to the student paper, run counter-programming, have a guest speaker address the film -- like if you were really committed you could make it more painful to show the film for ppl w/ an ideological axe to grind, than to not show the film. is anyone concerned that a college showing birth of a nation today would be courting sympathy w/ the KKK? and if the argument is that birth of a nation has already become ideologically toxic but american sniper has not - isn't the way to remedy that by demonstrating in yr speech over and over why american sniper is ideologically toxic? not showing the film really only capitulates to the pov of the ideology - american sniper is too dangerous to be shown. nb the students as far as i can tell were arguing that showing the film was dangerous to their safety. idk whether it's a realistic concern that screening american sniper on a college campus is threatening to students but ok, even if we say it is, anyone can go to a movie theater or rent the flick on their own. you aren't even effectively censoring anyone. what exactly is accomplished besides amplifying yr belief that there's something enticing/seductive about american sniper's ideology?

double nb i haven't seen american sniper but nothing has made me want to see it more than the controversy lol

you're posing a certain (marxist?) ideological critique of "free speech" here and that's true as far as it goes, but the thing about that critique is that it has a really hard time accounting for real empirically verifiable instances of oppositional speech (unless you re-define oppositional so far as to be without content). majoritarian speech isn't totalizing and identical to itself. oppositional tendencies are always already there for the taking--and this is not to minimize the real oppression effects of power, but to suggest that the fact that power has to oppress at all gives the game away.

xposts to Frederick

@ Mordy: You get to watch paddington bear instead?

Xps to Mordy,

It's fundamentally important to recognise the difference between a university administration as a participatory, self-regulating entity capable of taking moral / political stands and prohibited speech in the wider sense. The university can not restrict access to American Sniper, a film that will be playing in theatres all over Michigan and probably be on Netflix in a few months. It can decide that it won't form part of an administration-sponsored event.

bc the problem isn't even that the speech is dangerous. it's that you want to demonstrate your political pov by banning it. it's the worst kind of anti-free speech since it's entirely toothless + only meant to demonstrate righteousness.

What if they knew it wouldn't be banned and they went ahead anyways because the message of not everyone being alright w this movie is more important than them winning the Free Speech olympics?

ShariVari has a good point, we keep mentioning Free Speech and completely ignoring the FREE part of that. This is the highest grossing movie of 2014, an Oscar-winning film that is the highest grossing war movie of all time, directed by a man given complete free reign during prime time at the 2012 RNC.

nothing is more important than winning the free speech olympics

We can argue all day about what the students should have done or not should have done but I'm guessing they probably spent some time thinking about it themselves and decided the overall message it sent to outside society was more important than being ideologically pure. Talking of the students "shutting out the conversation" by banning the film is overshadowing the conversation they are having with society at large by confronting the film in the first place.

The university was actively encouraging students to come and see it as an alternative to partying on a Friday night. It's entirely reasonable for students who (rightly or wrongly) perceive the film as likely to increase hostility / the possibility of physical harm towards them to ask the administration to show something else instead. It would also be reasonable for the university to take the political / moral stance that their fear outweighed the benefits of showing that particular film.

Xps

i got a flier in the mail today that said Ayaan Hirsi Ali is speaking here soon. i think i'll go. i had never even heard of her until brandeis withheld her honorary degree bc students didn't like her opinions

bc the problem isn't even that the speech is dangerous. it's that you want to demonstrate your political pov by banning it. it's the worst kind of anti-free speech since it's entirely toothless + only meant to demonstrate righteousness.

agree with that fwiw, the fact that a film like American PsychoSniper was even made and considered releasable means the horse has bolted and lol amerikkka, any meaningful sort of campus radicalism would have to got a lot further than just being reluctant to show the film.

i think both those decisions are unreasonable. speech shouldn't be suppressed unless it is a direct call to violence. i'm a nat hentoff absolutist on this. xxp

The prudent / pragmatic course of action for minorities, most of the time, is to keep their heads down and say nothing. The more negative signal boosting the far right does when they fail to follow that path, the more prudent and pragmatic that becomes. These are not the normal consequences of free speech.

I'm not sure what you mean by "minorities" here, but i just don't think that's true, at least not on campus. In our culture, campus activism (including even attendant negative publicity, especially if it's from the right) is often a way to *gain* cultural capital-- scholarships, political internships, media interviews, etc.

Furthermore, the fact that in a particular case, criticism may come from the right (or be publicized on the right) does not *by itself* invalidate the criticism in that particular case. I don't see things as monolithically and as directed (always left bloc vs. right bloc) as you present them. I think these are normal consequences of free speech-- there are analogues affecting speech on the right as well as left. Which is not to say there aren't societal asymmetries-- but these assymetries are not as clearcut or unilateral as you suggest.

"These students will clearly have considered and been prepared for pushback from within the campus community. "

lol students cmon

The other part not mentioned in the references to "universities" is whether it's public. If so, it can't suppress speech.

"It's entirely reasonable for students who (rightly or wrongly) perceive the film as likely to increase hostility / the possibility of physical harm towards them to ask the administration to show something else instead. It would also be reasonable for the university to take the political / moral stance that their fear outweighed the benefits of showing that particular film."

no its not!

I'm a college media adviser btw and this question comes up all the time at my public state university.

lol @ Cap'n Saveapieceoshitfascistmovie tendency. Keep fighting the good fight u guys

this is definitely that

also even if american sniper is a clear-cut case of dangerous reactionary anti-minority violence ideology (ok i'm a bit skeptical of this, but even if), u know how the left is. they can pretty much demonstrate that anything implicitly reifies the violent hegemony that represses the workers/women/racial group. maybe have one of those guys on every board but force them to sit next to an intense deconstructionist who can just as easily demonstrate how even american sniper is resisting the hegemony and in various lacuna waging a revolutionary critique of capitalism/racism/imperialism/etc

"It's entirely reasonable for students who (rightly or wrongly) perceive the film as likely to increase hostility / the possibility of physical harm towards them to ask the administration to show something else instead.

yes, it's reasonable, given that they're students.

It would also be reasonable for the university to take the political / moral stance that their fear outweighed the benefits of showing that particular film."

a public university that did this would not only open itself to a (deserved) lawsuit, but is eschewing its mission.

lol @ Cap'n Saveapieceoshitfascistmovie tendency. Keep fighting the good fight u guys

― 'come around to your house and fuck your ho' (paraphrase) (Bananaman Begins),

I've seen the movie: it's close to a piece of shit. What are you trying to say?

posting to ILX either way is not only not "fighting a fight" good or bad it is probably not even as much use as thinking about this stuff all alone in ones head without the adverserial impulse or noise

nb I'm only here for the adversaries, noisier the better

I'm here because I know you will all realize I'm right in just a moment.

certainty can be a useful insulator bytimes

http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/files/2010/09/Secret_Adversary_First_Edition_Cover_1922.jpg

To be perfectly honest, I don't care about the movie or whether or not it should be shown. I'm here because I got annoyed at the idea of 'marketplace of free ideas' as some 'classic' ideal that has actually ever existed. Minorites used to have their voice surpressed quite effectively. Now they have so much voice that they can say things that might at times be stupid, at which time they will be punished a billion times harsher than non-minorities in same situation.

lol dropping out of the fight for now

nb haven't see film, little interest in doing so but i guess i'll get around to it at some point

a billion

the good news punchline in all the cases in this thread is that this is still the provence of a very tiny ineffective minority in american cultural life. bananaman is right that american sniper is all over the culture already and there's no threat to it going away anytime soon. no matter how much some ppl on the far left may wish otherwise. if anything, this thread is really a chance for their pov to gain some possible traction in broader intellectual circles, bc it certainly can't be marginalizing anti-free speech reactionaries any more than they've already marginalized themselves.

Xps to Mordy - if the university had banned American Sniper from an independent campus film club I'd see that as more of a curb on freedom of speech than rethinking the wisdom of showing it at a major administration-backed event.

Xps to drash - idk how much cultural capital you're going to generate on campus by getting American Sniper pulled in favour of Paddington but I guess it might depend on the university. Certainly anything relating to race that goes viral via Fox / Drudge is as likely to get you death threats / doxxed (as happened here and in the recent Pitchfork farrago) as it is to enhance your political standing. Perhaps that has to be considered the normal consequences of free speech now, idk. Unless these kids actively want to attract that kind of attention and plan a lifetime of dealing with it it would be much easier to say nothing.

I've seen the movie: it's close to a piece of shit. What are you trying to say?

I'm trying to say hold that thought that its a piece of shit, and think on the implications of its production and huge success, rather than getting bogged down in the pretty irrelevant equivocations of some college film night.

To be perfectly honest, I don't care about the movie or whether or not it should be shown. I'm here because I got annoyed at the idea of 'marketplace of free ideas' as some 'classic' ideal that has actually ever existed. Minorites used to have their voice surpressed quite effectively. Now they have so much voice that they can say things that might at times be stupid, at which time they will be punished a billion times harsher than non-minorities in same situation.

This is quite true and I hadn't started thinking about these ideas until a few year ago, but it's different in the United States, in which the Bill of Rights is supposed to act as protection against government and majoritarianism.

isn't a certain level of martyrdom necessarily to gaining political capital? like you have to demonstrate how loathed you are by yr ideological enemies to really demonstrate how loyal you are to your ideological friends.

bananaman is right that american sniper is all over the culture already and there's no threat to it going away anytime soon. no matter how much some ppl on the far left may wish otherwise.

yeh well done everyone

I'm trying to say hold that thought that its a piece of shit, and think on the implications of its production and huge success, rather than getting bogged down in the pretty irrelevant equivocations of some college film night.

I think the distinction in the Michigan case is that students elected to remove the film, not the university. I have less problems with that. Whether you or I think the film is a piece of shit is irrelevant.

wait who cancelled it? i thought it was cancelled by the university? it looks like it was cancelled by the center for campus involvement: http://campusinvolvement.umich.edu is yr distinction that the org is run by students + not adults so it's not a university decision?

just glancing at their webpage it looks like there's a lot of adults working at the cci

If faculty advisers or vice presidents for student affairs or something had made the call to pull the film, then there's a problem.

Or might be. Nothing may come of this.

Is it the same 'adults' who recommended Paddington the Bear to be a suitable alternative?

nb I would censor thus thread to Ryan drash and mordy rn fwiw
--post you had fecund thoughts about (darraghmac)

they're all arguing the same pt

paddington bear as a suitable alternative is such a good troll btw

They should have made the switch, but kept it a secret to the audience.