MAD About Speech

Everyone understands that the First Amendment restrains only government actions, not social pressures being brought to bear. There is an allied question, however, about those social pressures. The First Amendment uses government itself to restrain government from interfering with free expression. The People, insofar as they are properly thought of as acting through the state, are therefore using an aspect of their common will to restrain itself.

Why shouldn't social pressures be brought to bear against social pressures in the same way? If a group attempts to use social pressure to get someone fired for saying things they find objectionable, shouldn't those people themselves be pursued (and their employers subject to demands that they be fired at once)?

That sounds like a pretty unpleasant place to live. Those calling for civility are doubtless thinking of that. I wonder if the proper analogy, though, isn't to nuclear war. Mutually-Assured Destruction proved an effective restraint, just because a post-war world would have been such an unpleasant place to live.

In the current moment we see not only organizations but ad-hoc movements engaged in a sort of blood-lust, in love with the unrestrained power to destroy. There is no legal recourse against them, because the government only properly restrains the government. It is society that must restrain society.

I yield to none in my respect for courtesy. Certainly I have no desire to live in the kind of world in which our every expression is carefully watched by our ideological enemies in the hope that some public expression of religion, some joke, some interview should produce an opportunity to destroy our lives.

There are only two roads to avoid that world, though, and the first road is to avoid all public expressions of religion, all jokes, or the giving of interviews. The other is to make clear that this is a two-way street, if they insist upon it. Hopefully the cataclysm can be avoided, but clearly it will not be avoided out of the plain goodness of peoples' hearts.

33 comments:

E Hines said...

One of the things that made MAD work was that nuclear weapons had actually been employed, thus demonstrating both their power and the willingness of at least one possessor to go that route.

That has yet to be tried in the private speech public opprobrium arena; although that might be beginning to change with the social pressure of market economics having been applied, successfully, to Cracker Barrel.

Eric Hines

Anonymous said...

Feel the love:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/our-god-given-constitutional-right-to-a-television-show/282599/

Makes y'all proud, don' it just? You betcha!

Cass said...

"Social pressure" has existed since the dawn of time, and often it is relentless, cruel, and deeply unfair.

As to this, I could not possibly disagree more:

There are only two roads to avoid that world, though, and the first road is to avoid all public expressions of religion, all jokes, or the giving of interviews. The other is to make clear that this is a two-way street, if they insist upon it.

Saying that the only two roads are opposite extremes strikes me as pretty much invalid on its face, as I can think of all sorts of others quite easily.

People can decline to provide public answers to inflammatory questions if they're not willing to live with the consequences. I have gone my whole life without either knowing or caring what Phil Robertson thinks about buttsex, so I'm pretty sure I could survive not knowing for a few more years :p

Or, if people want to talk about those things on national or cable TV, they could simply accept that such talk upsets others, often disproportionately.

People could accept that public figures are more closely scrutinized than private ones and accept that such scrutiny (and it can be just horrifying) is part of the price of fame.

Or public figures could accept that the private employers and corporate sponsors who are paying them tons of money care about their reputations and are - to put it mildly - risk averse and prone to shoot the messenger.

None of these things happened here. Robertson had a perfect right to say what he said, I can understand why some people were offended (but cannot understand why anyone was surprised), and he's a big boy and someone I don't happen to feel particularly sorry for.

He's certainly not a victim, and all the references to communist purges are (IMO) overwrought. Defining "re-education camps" down is pretty shameless, too. Millions of real people died and have been tortured in such camps.

That's not what has happened to Robertson. Not even close.

And yes, I find GLAAD utterly reprehensible and their reactions silly far beyond my ability to ridicule them. The answer to your question, "Why shouldn't social pressures be brought to bear against social pressures in the same way? If a group attempts to use social pressure to get someone fired for saying things they find objectionable, shouldn't those people themselves be pursued (and their employers subject to demands that they be fired at once)?" is that two wrongs don't make a right.

Grim said...

The argument you're trying to frame is the accusation of a false dichotomy, but both of your options are along the first path (i.e., shutting up about it if you don't want to be driven out of public life). If it's a false dichotomy, there has to be a third option. :)

As for two wrongs not making a right, that isn't always true; and it's also totally irrelevant to this case. :)

It isn't true because we do take it to be right. If it is wrong to enslave someone, the fact that someone has done it (as by kidnapping a woman) doesn't make it wrong to do it to him in return (as by imprisoning him at hard labor). This is commonly said to be justice.

We tend to like to distinguish between what it is wrong for an individual to do, versus what it is wrong for a group of individuals organized as a government to do. That's why it's wrong to steal, but perfectly right to punitively tax "to ensure income equality." It's not clear that our dodge into allowing "authority" to do it can actually make it right.

But it isn't relevant because the second act isn't wrong. If we value free expression enough to protect it, then in acting against GLAAD (or the ad-hoc online militia that decided to hunt down and destroy the career of that young woman the other day) we are doing something right.

If, that is, we have a common value to defend. If we don't, then there isn't really a "society" with a right to act, any more than the government can be said to be a legitimate expression of the common will. Both need to be recognized as the fictions that they are, and removed from positions of power.

Grim said...

That may even be happening, in the case of Cracker Barrel. It sounds like they've realized that their customers don't belong to the society of people who demanded he be driven out of public life. Their customers belong to a different society, by and large, to whom Cracker Barrel has now apologized. Presumably the one society will exercise no more power there; may they quickly be driven out of other places as well.

Grim said...

In any case, I'm not interested in the specifics of the Robertson case. I don't know that much about him, and I'm not going to go back and watch his TV show or examine his products to be sure that I do.

What I'm interested in here is the universal, not the particular. There's a value we used to say we held in common -- we used to even say that Westboro Baptist Church deserved to be free not only from government action, but many social pressures (e.g., we provide them with police protection to ensure the counterprotests don't cross the line into outright intimidation).

Now we say "Well, you had it coming for being rude or provocative." But the quality of what it means to be "rude" or "provocative" keeps getting pushed back. The substance of GLAAD's complaint is that he likened homosexuality to bestiality, and that should be utterly beyond the pale. But that is done much more explicitly in Kant, and in the Summa Theologiae. The philosophical argument for their similarity is solid. One doesn't have to agree with it, and even if one does one doesn't have to agree that the state therefore ought to ban homosexuality by law. But it isn't a radical position, nor is it based on thoughtless fundamentalism: in Kant's case, the argument is entirely irreligious, and follows from his claims about the nature of rationality.

Cass said...

I think this is quite possibly the dumbest controversy, ever.

I don't really care about defending anyone's right to publicly discuss the relative virtues of using various orifices for sex.

As for the two wrongs making a right, it isn't irrelevant at all. The question you asked was, " If a group attempts to use social pressure to get someone fired for saying things they find objectionable, shouldn't those people themselves be pursued (and their employers subject to demands that they be fired at once)?

There isn't a more clear case of two wrongs a right. If the original calls for firing are wrong, so is responding in kind.

There isn't enough lipstick to make that pig look better, Grim. You're advocating doing something wrong because it's OK when you do it in defense of something you want to defend.

Grim said...

"I don't really care about defending anyone's right to publicly discuss the relative virtues of using various orifices for sex."

That's a more substantial concession than you may realize. It means giving up the right to talk "in public" about many moral and philosophical questions, unless you are careful to align yourself with the popular opinion. That's not ground I'm willing to concede, for what strike me as very good reasons (including some self-interested ones, as someone who thinks and writes about medieval and ancient as well as Enlightenment philosophy).

"There isn't enough lipstick to make that pig look better, Grim. You're advocating doing something wrong because it's OK when you do it in defense of something you want to defend."

The point of the prison example is that it is often right to punish "eye for an eye" a genuine wrong. Sometimes slavery is exactly the just punishment for someone who enslaved another. I don't think we get there merely by using collective action (like a government), because of the tax/theft example. Rather, I think it has to be punitive for a wrong already done.

Therefore, I don't take it to be wrong as a punishment for having done it.

Anonymous said...

What I find, well, (amusing is not the right word. Perplexing is better) perplexing about this is that GLAAD's spokespeople act surprised that other people might get upset with their pronouncements. For a group that sees so much opposition and hostility still lurking in society, their recent statements sound as if they are shocked that some people reacted with hostility.

OK, so Mr. Robertson has his beliefs. GLAAD has theirs. They don't agree. Since Mr. Robertson is not calling for anyone to do physical or financial injury to homosexuals, he has the right to his words and thoughts. GLAAD has the right to express a different opinion. IMHO it should have stopped there. *shrug*

LittleRed1

raven said...

Interesting how the gay activists leave the Muslims alone....

Going after someones livelihood because his statements are deemed objectionable is illustrative of the mindset of the opposition- they want to destroy the person, rather than contest an idea-so exactly when is it legitimate to push back? After you lose your job? After a six year old is suspended from school for some perceived insult?
Bullies push, until they meet resistance. Street thug to "activist" to nation-state- same thing. Show no resistance, and you end up with a boot on your neck. Or, eventually, in a hole.

Used to be, in every school yard, kids learned how to deal with bullies, and how to shrug off insults, perceived or actual.

Jethro Tull "Bring me my broadsword and clear understanding".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGgWLyAxzBI






Cass said...

Since Mr. Robertson is not calling for anyone to do physical or financial injury to homosexuals, he has the right to his words and thoughts. GLAAD has the right to express a different opinion. IMHO it should have stopped there. *shrug*

BINGO :p

Bullies push, until they meet resistance. Street thug to "activist" to nation-state- same thing. Show no resistance, and you end up with a boot on your neck. Or, eventually, in a hole.

There are lots of kinds of resistance. The idea that anyone has said Robinson can't "resist" is patently untrue.

The idea that, if you're just willing to do whatever "the other side" does to you, somehow you'll stop people from trying to bully you is also untrue.

Either what GLAAD has done is wrong, or it's not wrong. The very fact that conservative orgs do exactly the same thing all the time (call for liberals to be fired or sanctioned for trampling right-leaning sacred oxen) suggests to me that some conservatives see nothing whatsoever wrong with the tactic. They're willing to do it - they just don't want it done back to them.

They can dish it out, but can't take it.

Now Grim seems to be saying the same thing "It's not really wrong because it's special and shiny when *I* do it."

Two wrongs make a right, and the end justifies the means.

There are lots of legitimate ways to resist, and as Grim already noted, the pushback has already resulted in CrackerBarrell changing their ill advised decision to pull the Duck Dynasty mdse. from their shelves

Or we can just be impatient and do the thing we have been howling in outrage over because patience is haaaaaard.

Sorry, no sale.

Texan99 said...

I'm surprised to find myself agreeing with nearly everything E.J. Dionne has to say here, which has got to be a first:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-duck-dynasty-meet-pope-francis/2013/12/22/a147af9c-69ae-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html

That's on the doctrinal controversy. On the question of publicly freaking out over civilly expressed opinions that don't incite anyone to caste hatred, I'm with LR1. Yes, this is less serious by far than HUAC, but it has the same unpleasant tinge of "thought purity" in it, and it's legitimate to consider where these trends go if unchecked. It's silly for GLAAD to equate personal disapproval with dangerous hatred. It's sillier to throw around accusations of "telling lies" about a community or misrepresenting true Christian teaching -- as if the big problem with Phil Robertson's views were that they were religious heresy.

Disagreements about morality always seem to get most hysterical when the subject is sex. But I don't see how sex can ever be disentangled from thorny moral considerations: it's too rooted in our deepest passions, and too consequential in our lives and our impact on others. For eons, people have been wrestling with whether it's dangerous to treat sex as a toy, whether in the context of homosexuality, or promiscuity, or (most recently) birth control. I don't agree with the strictest views on all these subjects, but I'm far from willing to discount the concerns that serious people have about them.

Cass said...

That's a more substantial concession than you may realize. It means giving up the right to talk "in public" about many moral and philosophical questions, unless you are careful to align yourself with the popular opinion.

No, I'm not. Unlike you, I happen to believe that just as I have a perfect right to say what I wish (NOTHING has been conceded here), so others have a perfect right to object to what I say.

Recharacterizing what I've said in such a way that it is no longer what I said is not an argument.

That's not ground I'm willing to concede, for what strike me as very good reasons (including some self-interested ones, as someone who thinks and writes about medieval and ancient as well as Enlightenment philosophy).

No one has asked you to concede anything. I do think adults should be willing to deal with the real world consequences of what they say and HOW they say it. If you choose to piss people off, accept that you have chosen to do that and that they are pissed off.

This is such a bizarre debate. The guy hasn't been fired, and he hasn't been silenced. In fact, his words have been broadcast far beyond the original speaking of them and people everywhere are talking about this openly (you know, that whole "what happens in a free society as opposed to communist Russia or China" thing).

But somehow, this is intolerable tyranny? Seriously? How far we have fallen as a nation and as a people.

And a mere suggestion by GLAAD, that they have absolutely no power to enforce is likened to communist reeducation camps where people were died and tortured?

This is hyperbole, pure and simple, and it deserves to be dismissed on the merits.

GLAAD's speech has been countered by LOTS of opposing speech. Robertson hasn't been fired - not even close. And people are discussing his words openly and many support him.

And there is lots of pushback (and not people demanding anyone be fired) that is working. Which pretty much refutes your suggestion here:

There are only two roads to avoid that world, though, and the first road is to avoid all public expressions of religion, all jokes, or the giving of interviews. The other is to make clear that this is a two-way street, if they insist upon it.

There are lots of ways to push back without doing what we have claimed was wrong in the first place. If we lack the stomach (or the patience) for that fight, we are no better than they are.

Elise said...

Dionne's essay sounds kind and reasonable but it suffers from a little data drop-out. First, Dionne seems to have missed that Robertson said pretty much what the Pope said although just a bit more crudely. In Robertson's initial statement:

We never, ever judge someone on who's going to heaven, hell. That's the Almighty's job. We just love 'em, give 'em the good news about Jesus—whether they're homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort 'em out later, you see what I'm saying?

In a statement released after he was criticized:

I myself am a product of the 60s; I centered my life around sex, drugs and rock and roll until I hit rock bottom and accepted Jesus as my Savior. My mission today is to go forth and tell people about why I follow Christ and also what the Bible teaches, and part of that teaching is that women and men are meant to be together. However, I would never treat anyone with disrespect just because they are different from me. We are all created by the Almighty and like Him, I love all of humanity. We would all be better off if we loved God and loved each other.

From The Gospel Coalition Blog

Dionne also presents the Pope's statement as something new to consider. It isn't. As 'Puter over at The Gormogons says:

The Roman Catholic Church does not hate gays. It is, and will remain, staunchly against gay marriage. However, it expressly notes in its Catechism that Catholics are called to treat gays with respect and with dignity. 'Puter tries to live up to his faith's mandate and to treat all people as creations of God.

Catechism § 2358 expressly instructs Catholics as follows: "[Homosexuals] must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided."

Cass said...

Does anyone besides me find it incredibly amusing that all of a sudden, Democrats are using the Pope as the ultimate appeal to [religious] authority?

Except they keep leaving out that whole "hate the sin/love the sinner" part, which is repeated over and over again in the New Testament and modeled by none other than Jesus.

IOW, what Elise said :p

Grim said...

Now Grim seems to be saying the same thing "It's not really wrong because it's special and shiny when *I* do it."

It's not wrong because it's an act of punishment, in return for an act of aggression. The same distinction underlies the whole justice system. It's neither special nor shiny; it is just that you can earn treatment worse than a person ordinarily deserves if you behave aggressively.

I know you're a very smart woman, so since I've said this three times and you're apparently still translating it into "special and shiny," I have to assume there's some unspoken assumption that is coloring how the argument reads. Whether that assumption is yours or mine I couldn't say, but we clearly aren't communicating here.

Recharacterizing what I've said in such a way that it is no longer what I said is not an argument.

Yes, precisely. :)

Grim said...

There are lots of ways to push back without doing what we have claimed was wrong in the first place.

I read that as part of the "two-way street" horn: threatening private profits in order to force corporate behavior comply with social preferences. This is what GLAAD did to A&E, and it's what Cracker Barrel's customers are doing to Cracker Barrel. It's ad hoc rather than organized, but so what?

The only obvious difference between the cases makes the Cracker Barrel case worse, not better: in GLAAD's case, they went after one discrete individual they wanted to punish by stripping him of employment, but in Cracker Barrel's case the threatened reduced profits would cause lots of innocent people to lose their jobs.

Far better to target the offender directly rather than to widely punish low-wage workers who don't deserve to be caught up in the fight at all. In this respect, what GLAAD is doing is better than what 'our side' is doing.

Cass said...

Far better to target the offender directly rather than to widely punish low-wage workers who don't deserve to be caught up in the fight at all. In this respect, what GLAAD is doing is better than what 'our side' is doing.

I'm glad you see that. It's an important point, and it puts some folks in the right squarely in the wrong, pun fully intended :p

Like I said earlier, their own moral rationale seems to be "punch back twice as hard".

As for this:

It's not wrong because it's an act of punishment, in return for an act of aggression. The same distinction underlies the whole justice system. It's neither special nor shiny; it is just that you can earn treatment worse than a person ordinarily deserves if you behave aggressively.

If you can't see the difference between laws debated over and passed by elected representatives and some ad hoc system in which people arbitrarily justify whatever they feel like doing, no matter how destructive or malicious, by saying "Someone else did it first!" than this discussion cannot really continue because we have no place where we can meet or agree on anything.

I reject that idea utterly. You are attempting to erase the distinction between two things that are profoundly different. Which is not to say that the law is perfectly just or perfectly wise. It is not, because humans are not perfectly just nor perfectly wise, but at least there are some checks built into the system to temper human passions and foolishness.

We are discussing what is right, or perhaps only I am discussing what is right and you are discussing what is effective. You understand perfectly well where your path leads, and it is nowhere good.

You seem stuck in some "How can we stop human nature from happening?" loop. You can't stop it. There are already many mechanisms in place to deal with it, both formal and informal. Robertson hasn't been fired. People have suggested things they have no power to make happen.

This is between him and his employer. It's not the second coming of Soviet Russia or anything so dire. It's just life.

Cass said...

And on the recharacterizing front, once again this is what you wrote:

If a group attempts to use social pressure to get someone fired for saying things they find objectionable, shouldn't those people themselves be pursued (and their employers subject to demands that they be fired at once)?

An eye for an eye - demands for firing with demands for firing. there's no wiggle room there. If the demands for firing are morally wrong when GLAAD makes them, they're morally wrong when you make them.

Period. There's no "but I have appointed myself judge and high executioner" exemption. That's exactly how GLAAD see themselves. They're justified, for the same reason you justify yourself.

Grim said...

The frame for the discussion was the limits on the First Amendment as a protection for free expression. We use government to protect us from government here (but not from society); why should we not use society to protect us from society?

Thus the proper response isn't a new law, but some balancing social pressure. A new law would really be unconstitutional anyway; so is the answer merely submission to the demands being brought via social institutions, or is there not some way to resist?

I think the aggression/defense distinction is valid and important, here as elsewhere. A huge amount hangs on whether you use force (of any kind) in the way Saddam used it against Kuwait, or in the way Kuwait used it against Saddam.

The Aristotelian way of talking about that is to say that the two acts are distinct, in spite of surface similarities, because they have different ends. The aggressive act is intended to force people to abide by proposition X; the defensive act is merely intended to force people to stop trying to force people.

As for the majesty of the law, I have lost faith in it. I continue to regard government as a necessary evil, but I don't believe that the enactment of the law by representatives in any degree improves an act. This is because of the corruption that is endemic to democracy, so that reliably democratic governments are acting in pursuit of the interests that have bought them. The proper consideration is how to limit government to acting only in those cases where it is indispensable -- and there are a few -- rather than to endow it with some sense of overarching legitimacy. The laws it makes will be products of its corruption.

As you say, human nature can't be avoided -- we agree on that, though you think I'm worried about it. That means that the corruption attending democratic forms is to be expected now as it was in the Politics, and if we have faith in the government, we should have faith that it is untrustworthy and corrupt. The last thing I want is to endorse a view that regards actions as having special majesty when they come from a government. Such actions are at least as suspect as any others.

Texan99 said...

I don't have any problem with boycotts, formal or informal. I reserve the right to object to the grounds for a boycott, if they're silly, petty, or intrusive.

I'd be sorry if people concluded they had no right to act individually or in concert to snub poor behavior, just because it didn't rise to the level of a criminal offense for which the state's power ought to be invoked. In general I favor private institutions over public ones when the private ones can do the trick.

Cass said...

I'd be sorry if people concluded they had no right to act individually or in concert to snub poor behavior, just because it didn't rise to the level of a criminal offense for which the state's power ought to be invoked.

So would I, but then I'd also think anyone who reached that conclusion wasn't really thinking very hard. You're conflating acting at all with acting in such a way that you do the very thing you claim to be so offended about and then claim the wrongness of the original act as the justification of your own repetition of the same act.

My point is simply that if it's wrong, appointing yourself The Punisher doesn't make you not wrong for doing the same thing.

Texan99 said...

If I understand you, you think I'm calling two wrongs a right, but I believe you mistake me. I don't object to A&E's firing a pseudo-spokesman because they find his views offensive: I consider that on a level with boycotting, which is OK with me. It's the substance of their position, not their tactics, that alienates me.

They have a right to their opinion, and I have a right to consider it silly, strained, provincial, and slavishly fashionable. I'll cheer the Robertson family in its attempts to disentangle itself from A&E contractually rather than knuckle under to the demand to airbrush the family patriarch out of a popular show about the family. I'll laugh at A&E if it complains about the commercial impact. If A&E turns out to be taking a principled stand and doesn't mind losing a valuable property over it, well, good for them. There probably should be more of that.

We disagree sharply, it seems, on the question of whether the state has a legitimate monopoly on the power of punishment. I think any person or group has an obligation to be just and fair in responding to any misdeed, and the more power he or they have, the more care is called for in judging the misdeed--which only means that the state usually should be the most careful of all, which is one excellent reason for the Bill of Rights.

Cass said...

We disagree sharply, it seems, on the question of whether the state has a legitimate monopoly on the power of punishment.

I suspect we've been talking past each other (or else I just failed to express myself clearly and misunderstood your position). I don't see where I've said anything that implies that only the state can take action against offensive speech. I began by arguing that there are tons of ways for them to do so.

First of all, I don't think the state has the power to try to get anyone fired for speaking in Unapproved Ways. I'm not saying that only the state can punish in that way because I've never thought it would be right for the State to do try to get anyone fired for offending others by voicing an opinion. It would in fact be worse (as well as unconstitutional) for the State to do that.

My comment above wasn't intended to suggest that people can't respond at all (I've already argued that there are LOTS of ways they *can* respond that fall short of retaliating in kind). Just that if they choose to respond by doing the very thing they claim to be so offended by, they have put themselves in the wrong. Worse, they have undermined the argument they're trying to make - that it is beyond the pale to try and get someone fired for saying something that offends someone else.

This part of your comment is what I was responding to:

I'd be sorry if people concluded they had no right to act individually or in concert to snub poor behavior, just because it didn't rise to the level of a criminal offense for which the state's power ought to be invoked.

What I meant to say was that I'd be sorry too, but I can't see any reasonable way to reach the conclusion that ordinary people have no right to criticize the speech of others unless that speech is criminal, or to conclude that only the government has the right to punish speech.

Sorry if I was unclear. My Dad has been back in the hospital and I'm probably not thinking as clearly as usual.

Cass said...

If I understand you, you think I'm calling two wrongs a right, but I believe you mistake me.

I didn't think that, but can see how my wording and my use of "you" (meant to be generic, but very unclear) wasn't helpful here. Sorry!

I just meant that I couldn't see any way to reach the conclusion you mentioned without conflating the two.

I don't object to A&E's firing a pseudo-spokesman because they find his views offensive: I consider that on a level with boycotting, which is OK with me. It's the substance of their position, not their tactics, that alienates me.

I would really like to see what's in the contract for the show before deciding what I think of A&E. I think the "suspension" is kind of a chicken-sh** response - they aren't firing him outright, so it's really pretty meaningless as a gesture. That's part of why the outrage on the right seems so overblown to me. This is really only a slap on the wrist, if that.

They have a right to their opinion, and I have a right to consider it silly, strained, provincial, and slavishly fashionable. I'll cheer the Robertson family in its attempts to disentangle itself from A&E contractually rather than knuckle under to the demand to airbrush the family patriarch out of a popular show about the family. I'll laugh at A&E if it complains about the commercial impact. If A&E turns out to be taking a principled stand and doesn't mind losing a valuable property over it, well, good for them. There probably should be more of that.

I agree with every words of this :p

Cass said...

The last thing I want is to endorse a view that regards actions as having special majesty when they come from a government. Such actions are at least as suspect as any others.

No, they aren't "at least as suspect" at all. And it's not a question of "majesty". It's a question of formality or legitimacy or checks and balances. It's a question of transparency, however imperfect. And accountability.

If I do some thing that harms you (or you think I have) and you decide to retaliate against me in kind, you seem to think that's just as good a process as holding an actual trial to determine the facts and having third parties who have no vested interest hold me in jail - or alternately, decide I'm no threat to the general community and let me out on bail (posted to the community, not the victim) - and let me go home pending a determination of the facts and sentence.

Sorry, I'm not buying off on that.

I think the presence of formal standards for determining guilt or innocence is better than people acting in the heat of passion when they may well be wrong or even just as criminal as the alleged offender (and often are, as many lynching victims or people killed in honor killings could testify, were they still alive).

How do we hold a faceless mob accountable for their actions? All humans and human institutions are fallible and none is perfect. But the rule of law is vastly preferable to its absence and it alarms me that you seem determined to run it down because it's not perfect.

Especially in this case, where the alleged "victim" hasn't even been "fired".

Grim said...

If I do some thing that harms you (or you think I have) and you decide to retaliate against me in kind, you seem to think that's just as good a process as holding an actual trial to determine the facts and having third parties who have no vested interest hold me in jail - or alternately, decide I'm no threat to the general community and let me out on bail (posted to the community, not the victim) - and let me go home pending a determination of the facts and sentence. Sorry, I'm not buying off on that.

Is that what I said, do you think? We're talking about "social" functions, which is broader than an individual -- and in an area where the law isn't appropriate (because it would be an unconstitutional violation of the 1A to attempt to address these issues with the state or the law).

One person acting as a "society" doesn't accomplish anything, even if he's the President of the United States. It's only in places where there is a "society" to speak of that a movement of the type I'm discussing could occur.

I'm not talking chiefly or only about the one case. I'm talking about the general move to use social pressure try to drive people out of work if they say or do something with which you disagree. In principle, because of the 1A, there's no legal way to restrain this.

It must either be submitted to, or restrained by social pressure. Well, I suppose it could be restrained by violent action (but not using legal agencies, who lack the right); but that's not under discussion here.

Cass said...

I'm talking about the general move to use social pressure try to drive people out of work if they say or do something with which you disagree. In principle, because of the 1A, there's no legal way to restrain this.

Why do you feel the need to restrain it? I suspect actually you mean "punish", not "restrain".

But perhaps more importantly, what general move are you talking about? Is there a "general movement" to pressure employers to fire people for offending others? I see no signs of that.

How has this general movement manifested itself? A few people (or one of literally hundreds of thousands of organizations) do not a general movement make.

And it seems in this case that GLAAD has not managed to get anyone fired. So what needs to be remedied, here? That some group did some thing we don't like?

That's just life. Again, this makes no sense to me:

I'm talking about the general move to use social pressure try to drive people out of work if they say or do something with which you disagree. In principle, because of the 1A, there's no legal way to restrain this.

What does the first amendment have to do with this, and why on earth would we want a legal remedy for it anyway (even if one were available?) Seems like swatting a gnat with a sledgehammer. Why is it so upsetting to you that people can say things you don't like?

It must either be submitted to, or restrained by social pressure.

Seems to me there has been plenty of "social pressure" (albeit way short of retaliating in kind) to date. I really don't understand the urgent need to do anything about this.

Grim said...

If it was just one case -- especially the one you're talking about, where the conflict is between someone very rich and a network that can easily be replaced -- I wouldn't be on about it at all. It ran the same day as the young woman who made a public comment that some found racist, so an ad hoc movement sprang up to get her fired. She's just some woman, who has family to care for and responsibilities, and she's just been hounded out of employment in the worst economy in 70 years. Why? Because she suddenly became a lightning rod for other people, who stood to lose nothing for the fun of destroying her.

How many of these things have we seen? We can't restrain the bad behavior by law -- everyone has a 1A right to write a letter, or an email, asking for someone to be fired; and unless the employer is the government, firing is a private matter. Nevertheless, it's creating a very ugly, predatory, 'isn't it fun to tear them apart?' kind of society.

I really don't want to punish people, but I do want to put the brakes on this kind of behavior. I just don't know what will restrain except for some fear of punishment. What I think might work is a kind of MAD strategy so that anyone who went after someone's employment for political reasons would have to fear people going after their employment. Not for any other reason, and not for 'our side' or 'their side,' but in general to make the point that it can be done to you if you do it to someone else. You won't like it, so don't do it.

Grim said...

I mean, this girl is 'not my kind' to be sure: I generally find people like her insufferable. I didn't think the joke was funny or in good taste either.

But I'm still bothered by the joy people took in tearing up her life before she could even get off the plane and answer questions.

Cass said...

I really don't want to punish people, but I do want to put the brakes on this kind of behavior.

So do I, but you don't put breaks on it by committing or condoning the very act you wish to discourage.

Grim said...

That's well-traveled ground by now; I think sometimes it is just (as well as educational) to apply eye-for-an-eye justice. I've given the examples of theft and slavery, but it applies even to childhood offenses like name-calling or hitting (i.e., ordinarily Mom said you shouldn't hit someone; but if you did hit another child, she'd give you a good spanking with a wooden paddle so you'd understand what it was like and rethink your choices).

Here's Kant's bit on the nature of retributive justice as it applies to that most serious offense, murder, from 6:333 of The Metaphysics of Morals:

"If, however, he has committed murder he must die. Here there is no substitute that will satisfy justice. There is no similarity between life, however wretched it may be, and death, hence no likeness between the crime and the retribution unless death is judicially carried out upon the wrongdoer, although it [the execution] must still be freed from any mistreatment that could make the humanity in the person suffering it into something abominable. -- Even if a civil society were to be dissolved by the consent of all its members (e.g., if a people inhabiting an island decided to separate and disperse throughout the world), the last murderer remaining in prison would first have to be executed, so that each has done to him what his deeds deserve and blood guilt does not cling to the people for not having insisted on this punishment; for otherwise the people can be regarded as collaborators in this public violation of justice."

Now here he's talking specifically about the state (as viewed as an arm of public will, so that a public that fails to will that "each has done to him what his deeds deserve" can be thought of as being themselves guilty of blood guilt). He's also talking about murder. For lesser offenses he's willing to accept substitutes for perfect reciprocity, but only if they achieve a balance between what was done and what is done in reprisal -- for example, he thinks a nobleman might be punished for striking a poor man both by being beaten and by being imprisoned, because he has inflicted both a beating and a humiliation on the poor man.

Cass said...

You make me despair, Grim.

I didn't think I'd ever say that, but I am to the point of despairing when I hear arguments like this.

I guess I'd better stock up on my guns because we have a long and bloody devolution into savagery ahead of us. When all it takes is a few splashy news stories to dissolve centuries of human experience about why we don't just let every person take the law into their own hands, we are headed for a dog eat dog world in which the collateral carnage will eclipse anything we've ever known.

God help the weak.