Comment by dnissley
5 years ago
I guess I don't see the problem of the preferred first speaker in practice.
Let's take the examples in question: I've never seen either Murray or Pinker come out of the gates swinging with poorly framed appeals to genetic determinism (if they make reference to such things at all it's almost always in response to criticism, and it never seems to be more than very light handed considered speculation). I've also never seen them lob insults, outright support mob justice, or make a targeted cherry-picked attempt to discredit a particular individual (admittedly I'm only so plugged in so it's possible I'm missing something). Yet their critics seem frequently guilty of this.
In other words, I don't think I'm holding them to a lower standard for having spoken first. Am I misunderstanding the argument? Or am I actually doing this and I'm just not aware of it?
Edit: Perhaps it's also worth stating that I do hold these two people in high regard which definitely lowers my defenses when it comes to quickly evaluating their various claims. Mainly based on how they have engaged in good faith. That said, I disagree with both of them a lot. Recently I've put a lot of effort into identifying a group of folks that I disagree with but respect, since it seems like almost nobody does that and it seems like a big problem that people only respect those they agree with.
You are as free to stick up for Pinker (and Murray) as I am to condemn them, which is the beauty of the system. Nobody is, or should be, immune to "public shaming". But those are the plain words the letter uses! It's a bit rich, coming as it does from people like JK Rowling, who have threatened to sue strangers for their Twitter opinions.
(I strongly disagree with your take on Pinker and Murray! But that's neither here nor there as far as my argument goes.)
The claim is not that anyone should be immune to public shaming. The claim is that as a culture, we are reaching for public shaming far more often than we should.
Imagine there are two college campuses. On campus A, when students disagree, the students in the majority say they felt unsafe, demand that the students in the minority be expelled, and on occasion succeed. On campus B, when students disagree, they... talk about the issue at hand with each other.
There is free speech on both campuses - after all, the government isn't involved here. Yet I think it's safe to say that orthodox thought (whatever it happens to be at the time of lock-in) is more secure at campus A than campus B. And I think it's reasonable to talk about the difference between the cultures, and advocate for one over the other.