The Democratic Paradox

A few years ago a huge debate erupted on-line about whether or not people should physically fight against the re-emergence of fascism as a political ideal in society. The debate centred around an open white supremicist named Richard Spencer who was "sucker punched" while giving an interview on a sidewalk.

People argued back and forth on this issue using a variety of different starting points.

Some argued that freedom of speech should be an absolute with no exceptions, which means that no one should attack someone else simply because of what they say or advocated. This has more traction in the US than here, simply because Canada---like many countries---has hate speech laws that make it illegal for anyone to advocate certain ideas in public.

There are three separate hatred-related offences: section 318 (advocating genocide), section 319 (publicly inciting hatred likely to lead to a breach of the peace), and section 319 (wilfully promoting hatred).  

(Quoted from the Wikipedia article linked to above)

In contrast, the USA is a tradition of free speech absolutism, which means that they do not allow any infringement on freedom of speech---period. And, as a general rule most American citizens are also free speech absolutists, which I can attest to from conversations with my American wife and her friends. Most of them are somewhat appalled by our hate speech laws and see them as a tremendous assault on personal liberty.

Another dividing line in the discussion centres not on the ideal of free speech but rather on the tactical issue of whether or not it is good politics to punch out fascists. The argument is that while it might be legitimate on a moral basis to physically attack them, it will alienate any bystanders who might be sympathetic to your overall political agenda. It will also make the NAZIs more sympathetic to them because they will then use images of this attack over and over again to point out the hypocrisy of their opponents.

On the other side, people argue that if society doesn't vigorously oppose this ideology every time it becomes visible a process of "normalization" starts to take place. Ideas that were once "beyond the pale" become things that are now open to "legitimate discourse". And people who advocate them start to become important "news-makers" that can play reporters against one another for "access". (If you watch the YouTube clip I've put in above you might notice how Spencer is working very hard to "normalize" himself with the reporter doing the on-street interview. No "frothing at the mouth", just a regular guy trying to express his own, "legitimate" belief system.)

While this process often only goes so far in terms of making certain ideas acceptable to ordinary citizens, it can have a tremendous impact on the ability of organizations supporting these extreme views to reach out to that small fraction of the public who are predisposed to accept them. This is an important point to understand as these groups already understand that they will never constitute a majority point of view in society. Indeed, one of the memes that they bandy about is calling themselves "the three percenters". The reference is to the idea that only three percent of citizens supported the American revolution. If you advocate an authoritarian, armed revolution you don't need to have majority support---just enough armed thugs to force everyone else to accept it.

The philosopher Karl Popper (who lived and suffered through the rise of the NAZIs in Europe) wrote about this issue and called it "The Paradox of Tolerance". Instead of trying to explain the issue myself, I'll use the following cartoon which is widely copied on the Web.

Sorry, I couldn't find an original source for this---even though it has been copied over
and over again. The "Pictoline.com" caption is just a repository of images without attribution.

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Popper's "paradox of tolerance" is probably the best argument for anti-hate speech legislation. It suggests that experience shows that there have to be limits to tolerance in order for it to protect itself. If you accept this idea, then the next stage is to ask yourself what the concerned citizen should do if the state steadfastly refuses to pass and enforce anti-hate speech laws?

There are people who call themselves "Antifa" (ie: Anti-Fascist) who have been trying to shut-down and "deplatform" specific speakers. To understand what is going on, it is important to remember the specific context. There are a class of inflammatory speakers (such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Faith Goldy) who have built a business model around the following formula:  get a small student group to book you as a speaker at a university campus, say as much outrageous nonsense as possible in order to bait students opposed to said nonsense into trying to shut down the event, then plead "censorship" to the media. 

It's important to remember that they are exploiting a couple weaknesses "baked into" a specific place: university campuses. Universities usually have a policy of providing subsidized spaces to campus clubs that they can use to bring in speakers. This means that a small group of radicals on a campus can rent a venue that they could never get (either because of price or beliefs of the owners) if they were trying to book in someone like Yiannopoulos or Goldy through the private sector.

Secondly, universities tend to have an internal culture of free speech absolutism. This comes about because academics tend think in theoretical instead of practical terms, and, research is based on the free flow of ideas. This means that any administration that tried to ban right-wing shit-disturbers from the campus would have to deal with emotional opposition from inside the community. In contrast, businesses and churches that provide most of the venues off campus have totally different motivations---their responsibility is to protect their "brand", which would be tarnished if it became associated with alt-right provocateurs.

Finally, as a group, journalists (the people who report all of this to the general public) also tend to be free speech absolutists who have zero understanding of the sort of issues that Popper deals with in his paradox of tolerance.

Creating a media frenzy through having your public "lecture" disrupted will give you lots and lots of free publicity, which people like Yiannopoulos and Goldy then convert into support from the "three percent" crowd. This support can be mobilized in several ways:  financial (especially for "security" and "legal fees"), names on a list that can then be sold to various nefarious groups looking for the "three percenters", and, book sales. If you look at the clip below, it has all the elements described above. Please note that a "Republican club" booked Milo into a campus hall in Berkeley---an area of the country that is so known to be a hotbed of left-wing thinking that it is called "the people's republic of Berkeley". This venue choice means that the point wasn't to connect with the audience, it was to create a conflict on the streets.  Consider, if you will, how valuable the news clip below is to Yiannopoulos in his quest to connect with "the three percent".  You couldn't buy advertising this good even if you were a billionaire.

Does this mean that the antifa is wrong and that their battle to stop "normalizing" the alt-right is back-firing because it just creates more publicity for them? Not necessarily. It turns out that both Yiannopoulos and Goldy have been banned from using Patreon to raise money for their antics. If you want to know how important this is, consider another---admittedly far less crude---alt-right "star", Jordan Peterson. He has almost 8,500 subscribers on Patreon and rumour has it that he gets $80,000/month off it. In addition, if enough pressure is exerted on college campuses they may rethink the policies that are being exploited by provocateurs. Moreover, news editors might eventually get the message and stop allowing these jerks to "play them like a fiddle" for free publicity.

The secret to "deplatforming" seems to be three-fold:  convince college campuses to stop providing subsidized venues for fascist provocateurs, get the media to stop "normalizing" them in their coverage, and, cut off their access to money through crowd-funding sites like Patreon. This isn't the total answer to dealing with neo-fascism---there are a lot of other elements to our current crazy situation---but it does seem like a logical program to deal with one particular aspect.

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This raises an important point that we need to consider. What is it about "the three percent" crowd that allows it to create such chaos in society far beyond their numbers would indicate? I'd suggest that it's because they are highly motivated. This is why they are far more willing to pull out their credit cards and support their people on Patreon than "progressives". This is also something that needs to change. If you want to read news that actually informs instead of confuses, you have to be willing to pay for it. And this brings me to my usual "beg". Writing this blog is a lot of work. I have a day job (at least until I retire---which will be soon I hope), but if we want young people to have careers in journalism people have get into the habit of paying for content. So what's stopping you from signing up with Patreon? Even as little as a dollar a month will support the model if enough people pony up. A one-time payment in the tip jar is also appreciated.

In addition, don't forget to share posts on your social media! Word-of-mouth is the only way I get the word out about "the Back-Grounder".

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This is enough for one week's op-ed. I hope to go on and talk about the issues I've identified above and how they relate to climate change denial. I think that they are related.