Smith College Protest: my take May 7, 2008
Posted by Evil Bender in Morality, News and politics, bigotry, wingnuts.trackback
Most of my readers are probably already aware of recent events at Smith College, where a particularly odious speaker was shouted down by protesters. An email to Pam explains what happened:
The Smith College Republicans sponsored a speaking event featuring Ryan Sorba, author of the upcoming book The Born Gay Hoax. After about twenty minutes he was forced to abandon his speech after protesters forced their way into the room and drowned him out.
For other commentary on the matter, see Positive Liberty, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, and Shakesville. A quick summary: some bloggers have applauded the protesters for their actions, and others have suggested such actions are counterproductive and dangerously anti-free speech.
I’m most inclined to agree with Pam’s own take:
I haven’t been in this thread since I posted it, and it’s interesting to see the steelcage match going on in here. I personally think that shouting down someone like Sorba isn’t particularly useful; I’d rather hear the speech and rip on it after the fact, simply because you’ll get the ex-gay crowd making statements about free speech and suppression of their beliefs. After all, we wouldn’t have that completely unhinged speech of Sorba’s from Cali if he had been shouted down.
I’ll share my own similar reasons for objecting to this protest below the fold (danger: my comments may well anger some readers):
There are two reasons I think “protests” that involve silencing or shouting down a speaker are a bad idea. First, such protests aren’t the best way of fighting bigotry. As Pam points out, the best tool we have for fighting bad ideas is revealing them for what they are. We’re far, far better served to let bigots and hate-mongers say what they really believe, and then reveal how wrongheaded those beliefs are, than we are by silencing them. You see, whether we’re LGBT or straight allies, we have by far the better argument. We stand up for individual liberty and for love. We talk about family and devotion and the Golden Rule, and our opponents shout OMG GROSS UR GOIN TO HEL FAG!!!1!. We win the argument on its merits. Shouting down the opposition does nothing but make it seem we have something to fear from their ideas, and we don’t: we want them to reveal themselves publicly as bigots, so we can speak out against them and show why they’re wrong. Bigotry is best exposed by the light of day, and bad ideas best refuted by good ones.
The second reason I’m not thrilled with this protest tactic is that those of us with the (currently) less popular position stand to loose in the long run. We can’t afford to get into a shouting war with bigots: there are a lot of them, and they have a lot of well-meaning but horribly misguided friends to back them. We can isolate them from those friends by pointing out how odious are their ideas, but we only make the bigots look more attractive by shouting them down. And we then give them an excuse to do the same thing in reverse.* We don’t want ideas to be a shouting match, because then the loudest (and often the most odious) claims win out. I’ve never been shy about speaking out for LGBT rights on this blog, and neither have the vast majority of my readers. But there are those who would silence us, those who don’t care about the free exchange of ideas, who hate us and would love to make us go away. We can’t win against them by adopting their tactics: we must understand that the right to free expression includes–and most essentially protects–those whose ideas are unpopular. As hate-filled as Sorba’s ideas are, we must defend his right to speak in the same way we would defend the rights of one of us: only by defending even odious speech can we continue to secure free speech at all.
Well, that’s my two cents: what’s your take?
*Not that they need an excuse, obviously: many of them are experts at silencing tactics. All the more reason we should be wary of such things.
Excellent take on this issue. While I applaud the idea of the LGBT community attending the discussion, I believe they would have been better served to engage questions/debate that forces the speaker’s bigotry to show through his answers.
I learned in 2001 while attending the WTO/World bank Protests that protesting to silence someone or something isn’t always the best solution. It paints people as radicals that refuse to engage in a continued discourse that will eventually lead to reason (is that left in America?) taking over.
I very much agree with Pam, but it’s also hard to disagree with Sarah (in this post) when she says:
Still, I feel like going to an (evidently indoor) event just to shout down the speaker sets a precedent for our side that makes me uncomfortable. Yes, fundies come to pride events with megaphones attempting to shout down the festivities. Are those really the tactics we want to take up?
On the other hand, though, this was an event at a private college, paid for by college money. I feel pretty confident saying that Sorba’s views are supported only by a very small fraction of Smith students, and if I were a Smith student, I’d be piiiiiiiiiiissed that some of the money I’d paid to the school was going to line this douchebag’s pockets. So even if I don’t think shouting Sorba down was the best way of addressing his viewpoint, I can’t really blame the Smith students for doing so.
I’m curious, as someone who just found your site and having read the Phyllis Schlafly post how you would contrast your argument for needing evidence with this piece? You stated that you want to give your “reasons” but are those “reasons” or just “thoughts”. In other words, can those statements be backed up?
> As Pam points out, the best tool we have for fighting bad ideas is revealing them for what they are.
A popular sentiment, and one I may have stated myself before actually talking with anti-racism and queer activists. Turns out in their experience confronting and shouting down bigotry is one of the most effective ways to fight bad ideas. We could talk a lot about the psychology involved, that it shows a strength and conviction in a set of views, that those who are publicly ostracized lose conviction in their beliefs and desire to keep speaking in the face of confrontations, and far more than I’d care to write.
> those of us with the (currently) less popular position stand to loose in the long run.
Hasn’t all social progress in the US begun as unpopular positions? Hasn’t such progress not just involved shouting people down, but also property destruction, theft, violence, and warfare? Whether we talk of the abolition movement, civil rights, women’s rights, workers rights, or any other social struggle I think it’s important to reflect today on how we feel about the tactics used in those movements. You might ask, what of John Brown? If he was wrong was the civil war wrong? Should people have just the let slave-owners reveal their “bad ideas” for what they were? My apologies for the hyperbole, but I simply feel that statements like, “Bigotry is best exposed by the light of day, and bad ideas best refuted by good ones” is fine for the barroom (and the blog), but not for the classroom.
> Are those really the tactics we want to take up?
What if those are the tactics that are effective?
Turns out in their experience confronting and shouting down bigotry is one of the most effective ways to fight bad ideas.
It seems to me this is one of the best ways to make sure your ideas win, not to fight bad ideas–shouting down the opposition does nothing to ensure that the best ideas are adopted. And it tends to ensure the loudest people win. It is therefore not a reliable way to ensure a positive result, except for those who would rather “win” an argument that arrive at a positive result.
You might ask, what of John Brown? If he was wrong was the civil war wrong?
First of all, John Brown was clearly wrong. He was a murderer who used terror to enforce his will. I would hope we could agree that is unacceptable behavior.
Beyond that, your comparison is flawed. When we’re discussing the best way to deal with a bigoted speaker, asking if there are just wars misses the point. Furthermore, it encourages us to adopt a metaphor of violence in our analysis, which will affect our conclusions.
“Bigotry is best exposed by the light of day, and bad ideas best refuted by good ones” is fine for the barroom (and the blog), but not for the classroom.
With respect, we’re not talking about the classroom. We’re talking about a public forum and a public protest. You seem to be reading into my argument things which aren’t there.
What if those are the tactics that are effective?
Again, those tactics are not healthy ones for a democracy to engage them. Even if we could demonstrate they work, that would not demonstrate they were wise, or even that they were beneficial in the long run.
I’m reminded of Fredrick Douglass writing about how his illicit education led him to learn the word “abolition” and then to escape slavery and become free. It wasn’t some pie-in-the-sky barroom nonsense that motivated him, it was being enlightened about the conflict and the ideas underpinning that conflict.
I fail to see how silencing alternative viewpoints can be a long-term good for a progressive. Certainly it cannot be for one who accepts the assumptions of democracy.
EB,
Again, those tactics are not healthy ones for a democracy to engage them.
I like your response. There are rabble-rousers on both sides.
Propriety is often mistaken as veracity, but insolence rarely is. Regardless, shouting matches are nasty things.
> I fail to see how silencing alternative viewpoints can be a long-term good for a progressive. Certainly it cannot be for one who accepts the assumptions of democracy.
Strange that you should choose to silence my alternative viewpoint then, isn’t it?
Interesting that you take disagreement as an attempt at silencing.