I was reading a frustrating Twitter thread the other day. Some students had complained that their white professor used the n-word while reciting a speech from Martin Luther King Jr.
I'm all for free speech, but this isn't a hill I want to die on. But some people will. And on that day, Conor Friedersdorf was that person.
Conor's issue wasn't about whether or not it was okay for the professor to use the n-word but that the college should not investigate any situation involving free speech. He took issue with even having the conversation.
People like Isaac Bailey and Mansa Keita argued that you should never deny due process and this is a topic that we should not avoid. Black students had a right not to hear that word and there should be some process to deal with this grievance.
My general feel is that the professor should be afforded free speech but that the college should also have a chat with him about not using that word, like ever. But that doesn't feel like a consistent moral principle, which is what Conor appears to be trying to do.
This conversation really gave me better insight into the emotional perspective of civil libertarians like Conor. I can see Arnold Kling's languages of politics bubbling up. I usually say traditional conservatives are the ones who view civilization as a thin veneer that could easily fall without its safeguards. But rather than police holding up civilization, people like Conor see the principles of the Enlightenment upholding civilization, freedom of speech chief among them.
I think Conor sees free speech as a mighty dam. It protects the villages below from a flood (authoritarianism) but if you prod at it long enough (challenge a professor's right to free speech), you can poke a hole and some water will pass through. That amount of water might be a benign thought, like "white people are never allowed to use the n-word." But what worries Conor is not how harmless that water is that got through, but that it's passing is going to widen the hole, weaken the dam, and eventually it will give way and destroy the villages downstream.
I can understand how African Americans don't give a shit about upholding civilization because they feel it never did anything for them. And saying "free speech protects us all" in this context just sounds like Southerners using Jim Crow to oppress African Americans or the current GOP using "voter security" to disenfranchise poor black voters.
I can also understand how African Americans see a history of being downstream from the flood. They've slowly built up a small dam with norms like "it's not okay for white people to use the n-word," and now a person in a position of power is using "freedom of speech" to poke a hole in their dam that isn't very strong to begin with. Is the hole harmless or will it lead to the dismantling of the entire dam?
Liberalism solved the religious wars of European nations, but it never solved the issue of slavery. In fact, it probably prolonged slavery in the U.S. and it took Lincoln's stroke of authoritarianism (war) to solve it. This is a problematic fact for me because it was absolutely the right choice and I don't know how to integrate that into my worldview, how to carve out exceptions for authoritarianism. I have to admit that authoritarianism can work if the right person is in charge, but I think we got lucky with Lincoln and things usually don't work out for the best when you use coercion or concentrate power to enact change against the unwilling.
Liberalism is the best idea we have until it isn't. And I think the greatest existential challenge we face today is acknowledging that the flood of authoritarianism held back by the dam of liberalism has externalities that disproportionately impact African Americans. And I do think that tearing down Conor's dam will be worse for everyone but I also think the status quo is not enough.
It's up to us to build something better and I don't think the Successor Ideology has any good ideas but at least they are trying.
The challenge for Conor is to convince the antiracists that two liberalism-approved core policies are antiracist: YIMBYism and ending the war on drugs.
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