Comment by tptacek
5 years ago
No, the fact that you're not welcome to speak in my house does not enjoin you against speaking ill of me outside of my house. I can't even comprehend the argument you're trying to make. The norms of HN don't bind on the whole world.
Let me try to restate.
As I understand it, you're saying that people are advocating for the free expression of ideas - and yet, when people use that freedom to insult them call for their termination, they get mad. This seems contradictory and unfair to you. If I want the right to say whatever I want, then I have to accept that some people will choose to use that right to say things like "enoch_r is a despicable human being and his employer, family, and friends should all know about it immediately." Is that an accurate summary of your views?
In response, I am saying that norms like we have on HN (such as the principle of charity) contribute to the free expression of ideas. If we didn't have those norms, people wouldn't feel free to investigate controversial ideas, or have discussions like this one, and the intellectual climate would be impoverished.
Similar norms contribute to the free exchange of ideas in academia.
The letter advocates for such norms to be defended in academia.
It is reasonable to carve out spaces where particular norms apply, especially when those places have idiosyncratic goals, like HN's goal of "gratifying intellectual curiosity".
It is not reasonable to export those norms outside of those spaces to other spaces that don't share those idiosyncracies.
Some calls to terminate people are, in my judgement, bad. David Shor is a good example. I will use my freedom of expression to say that the people who called for his ouster made a grave and self-defeating error and should be ashamed of themselves.
Some calls to terminate people are not, in my judgement, bad.
HN might, along with the authors of this Letter, hope for a blanket norm against calling for anyone's ouster. They can ask for it; that's their right. But it's not a reasonable expectation, and they can't honestly pretend the norm already exists or that others are obligated to adhere to it because they want it.
I completely agree that some calls to terminate people are good, and others are bad.
I think you're interpreting my comments, and the letter, as saying "there should be a blanket norm against calling for anyone's ouster for their opinions, no matter how vile." I'm not, and I don't think the letter is either.
I'm saying, and I believe the letter is saying, that we have become overly quick to reach for the tools of suppression in response to opposing views. That the spectrum of views which we interpret charitably is shrinking, and the spectrum of views that we view as fireable offenses is growing. It's not simply that the overton window has shifted and previously acceptable views are no longer okay (though I think that's clearly part of it). It's that the overton window has shrunk dramatically, even as we've moved towards much more brutal enforcement of it.
Anyway: thanks for the interesting discussion - I'm glad we've carved out this space for it! ;)