The Heckler's Veto
... In The Age Of Offensensitivity
Words hurt, and feelings matter. Or, so goes a guiding philosophy of modern social justice. We bear witness to it, domestically, in the disinvitation of speakers at college campuses, in the establishment of safe spaces, in the rise of hate-crime and hate-speech legislation, in the "evolution" and policing of language pertaining to race, gender, and sexual orientation, and in the rapidity with which rebuttals to controversial or unpopular opinions turn vicious and personal. We bear witness to it, internationally, in the censoring of band play lists as a condition for performing, country-specific editing of movies (see: Xi’s China), in blasphemy laws (and not just in Muslim/Sharia countries), in excessive libel laws, in death fatwas against heretics and apostates, and in the "they should have known better" non-defense of free speech in cases such as the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
It came to pass, sometime in the past few years or decades, that being offended - or claiming to be offended - became actionable.
The pitfalls of this are obvious:
If I can, by declaring offense, impose my will on others, what's to stop me from simply leveraging that power for personal gain, regardless of whether I'm actually offended or not?
Society's response to this has been to decide which offenses are legitimate, which are not, who has a legitimate right to claim offense, and who does not. All this does, unfortunately, is restrict the power of offended-ness to preferred identity groups. This, in turn, breeds resentment among those who feel that this power is being unfairly used against them, when they have done nothing that can be justly deemed offensive. And, so, society fractures, tribalism and discord replace any possibility of harmony, and hardened multiculturalist divisions replace any possibility of melting-pot societal evolution (as to that last bit, consider the rise of the cultural appropriation scolds).
There is a deep, long-term danger in this. In establishing offended-ness as a norm, as a "right," as something that some can use against others, a framework by which the core of our society can be destroyed is established. Saul Alinsky's fourth Rule for Radicals reads:
Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
If being offended is established as a legitimate way to stifle another's words or actions, those with nefarious intent towards our free and liberal society will, without doubt, use it to impose their contrary ideas and philosophies.
The obvious examples of this are the aforementioned disinvitations of heterodox speakers to college campuses. Usually, these occur via a form of the heckler's veto. People who don't like the invited speaker, or who disagree with the speaker's public opinions, decide they don't want others to hear what the speaker has to say.
So, they protest, they demand disinvitation, they hint that there might be violence, or they attend the speech in order to disrupt it by shouting endlessly. They will defend their actions as "free speech," ignoring the fact that they are abridging the free speech rights of another and the free-association and free-assembly rights of those who want to hear the speaker. They assert that their offended-ness trumps others' rights.
This infringement on free speech and the free exchange of ideas extends far beyond college campuses. Consider a story about comedian Stephen Fry. Fry, a couple years ago, made some comments about religion and belief in God that apparently ran afoul of Ireland's blasphemy laws. While the matter was eventually dropped, the mere existence of blasphemy laws, and the fact that someone’s offended-ness complaint was entertained, could be sufficient to dampen the freedom of expression that others might have when it comes to religious matters. While this case ultimately led to a referendum repealing the blasphemy law, the greater, more overt example of this lies in the sharia and other blasphemy laws in many Muslim nations. Those do punish people for blasphemy, and atheism is punishable by death in thirteen nations.
Obviously, we do not have blasphemy laws in America. Nor, despite a lot of hyperventilation from the Right, is sharia about to be codified into American secular law. Nor, despite an interlude of vapors on the Left triggered by the television version of The Handmaid’s Tale, are we about to turn into an oppressive theocracy. We have a First Amendment that stands in the way.
We do, unfortunately and dangerously, have the foundation for the equivalent. We have the heckler's veto, we have the social justice warrior's white-knighting on behalf of preferred identity groups, we have hate-speech laws, we have hate-crime laws, and we have the societal pressures that can impose massive penalties for uttering certain words, no matter context or intent.
We have those same societal pressures that establish permitted speech and behavior based on one's skin color, gender, ethnicity, and other demographic markers. At the individual level, we have the reflexive desire to use government to punish those who say stuff we don't like (and if you think this is limited to the Left, look at the Right's response a Stephen Colbert monologue). We have people who would ban flag burning. We have people who would shut down web sites and media outlets they deem offensive or "fake." We have organized boycotts and demands for corporate divestment of artists who choose to voice political opinions unpalatable to the hecklers. We have attempts to “cancel” Joe Rogan for being too popular.
It may very well be that the vast majority of people who believe that offended-ness is a thing are good people with good intent. They themselves may never dream of using the heckler's veto for base or ignoble purposes, and feel that their way is a way to a better, healthier, friendlier, more tolerant and more polite society. These are the people who naively ignore the fact that others are less altruistic, and in doing so empower bad actors to use the power of offended-ness for illiberal purpose.
Even these altruistic folks, the proper-thinking, empathetic, progressive, "woke" members of society break from their good and noble ways and employ the heckler's veto when transgressions occur. Even (and perhaps especially) when one of their own seems to do so.
Consider the story of philosophy professor Rebecca Tuvel, who wrote an essay titled In Defense of Transracialism. Tuvel presented a case that "trans-racialism" (e.g. Rachel Dolezal) rested upon the same philosophical footing as transgenderism (e.g. Caitlyn Jenner). In doing so, she sought to validate transracialism, not invalidate transgenderism, but for her troubles (turns out, transracialism is not an accepted concept in the progressive/woke world) was beset upon, vociferously, viciously, and personally in what even the liberal New York magazine calls a witch hunt. Some who privately agreed with her conclusion or sympathized with her position reportedly felt the need to publicly remain silent as she was eviscerated, or actually join in the bashing, lest, it is safe to presume, their silence be read by others of the tribe as an insufficient response to an obvious outrage.
People not of that tribe, i.e. conservatives, libertarians, moderates, Republicans, et al, might wave this off as an internecine squabble in a small and insular world, or enjoy the schadenfreude of progressives eating their own. Many progressives may simply put their heads down and dismiss this as the embarrassing antics of crazy relatives. This stuff should, however, scare the everliving shit out of all of us. This is pure Lord of the Flies mob mentality, and it's a fertile playground for extremists to bend society to their will and destroy its core principles in the process.
If left unchecked, it will grow. If offended-ness is allowed to become a "right," it will grow like a cancer and subsume all other rights. Since offended-ness is purely internal and wholly subjective (no matter the attempts to establish consensus, it's ultimately in the eye of the beholder), it has no natural limits. Since offended-ness is something one must declare in order to receive redress, it encourages loudness and fervor. Since redress for offense requires someone else alter his or her behavior, it breeds competition of the worst sort. Since offended-ness rewards those who speak out and does nothing for those who don't, people who are tolerant, who are accommodating, who don't wish to offend, who give others the benefit of the doubt, and who are generally "nice" are going to end up at the bottom of the heap. Offended-ness rewards the worst behaviors and encourages outrage over, well, everything. Those who are the equivalent of hecklers will be paid the most heed and will reap the greatest rewards.
The peril isn't just to free speech, or to the marketplace of ideas, or to religious discussion or dissent. Human knowledge is itself at peril. As the heckler's veto becomes more institutionalized, people whose work points in a direction other than the "correct" one may feel hesitant to continue or publish their work. Those who fund research and the pursuit of human knowledge may feel pressure to be selective in their funding. Academic tenure may be withheld from those who dissent. The notion of a redux of Lysenkoism is, to me, a real threat. Already, we have people who have a flawed, warped or flat-out-wrong view of "science" marching in favor of "science" and putting forth a subtext that there are truths in certain already-politicized fields that must not even be questioned, let alone rebutted. Already, we see a replication crisis in research, a crisis that suggests the peer-review process has been broken by the emergence of the heckler's veto and the pressure to conform or produce the "correct" conclusions. Already, we see voices of dissent attacked personally rather than with facts or logic. One commenter on the Rebecca Tuvel article cited above asked what can be done to reform "academic fascism," a term that is proving increasingly apt and accurate.
This empowerment of the offended, this ceding of power to the loudest and most demanding voices, this kow-towing to the hecklers, the angry and the (often spuriously) outraged, is the foundation for the destruction of individual liberty in our society. While the Left carries on about the purportedly fascist ways of the new President and those who support him, it ignores the illiberality in its own front and back yards. And, while the Right properly derides the Left's trampling of free speech and liberty, it, too, has shown itself ready to demand limits on liberty when its own sacred cows are gored.
What's the answer? First, everyone needs to come to grips with the cold, hard fact that there is no such thing as a right to be offended. You can feel offended, but that offended-ness draws no protection, authority, weight or actionability, and every one of us must accept that as truth. Second, we have to police our own. No one is going to listen to the other side's complaints about the illegitimacy of offended-ness, so it's up to each "side" to push back against the excesses of its own zealots. Third, we need to recognize that, like any tool in a toolbox, offended-ness is something that will be misused and abused if we allow it. Fourth, academic fascism needs to be challenged robustly, and that includes both the politicization of the peer-review process and the homogeneity of thought on college campuses. Fifth, this business of institutionalized "safe spaces" has to end. Any adult is more than capable of removing him or herself from a situation that creates the sort of mental discomfort the “safe-space” movement fixates on; people don't need some mommy or daddy figure to arrange it for them. Finally, we need to shut down the heckler's veto. We need to tell those who'd stifle others' rights, for whatever cockamamie reason they concoct, to themselves STFU and give others the respect they demand for themselves.
In legitimizing the purported right to be offended, we have institutionalized the heckler's veto. The peril this poses to our liberties cannot be overstated.
A version of this article originally appeared at The Roots of Liberty on May 12, 2017.
The credit for “offensensitivity” belongs to Berkeley Breathed, he of the magnificent Bloom County comic, who coined it nearly FORTY years ago (November 14, 1982, to be precise).
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