Henry Farrell concludes that Jonathan Chait “is a very talented troll of the second magnitude.” In other words, Chait is good at pissing people off and does so quite intentionally.
I think he just likes being contrarian and relishes stirring up debate, but if it works to bring eyeballs to New York magazine, I supposed this is a distinction without a difference.
To me, this has been a debate that has been mostly misdirected because it conflates things that ought to be kept separate. To the degree that the issues raised by Chait’s articles can be treated coherently, they must be confined to the academy. And that’s because there is a legitimate reason for institutions of higher learning to have a different, more widely tolerant view of intolerant opinions than the culture at large.
There should be exactly no controversy about the right of individual citizens to loudly disapprove of opinions they do not like. Nor should it be even minimally troublesome to anyone that citizens might organize to boycott organizations and corporations that engage in speech or policies that they kind offensive or oppressive.
It’s only in an academic setting where there is a countervailing moral imperative that all sides be heard with equal respect and without fear of crippling repercussions. I see no reason why someone who opposes gay marriage or even tolerance of homosexuality should be prevented from speaking on a campus. That doesn’t mean that they should be paid for it. It doesn’t mean that they should give a commencement address. It doesn’t mean that they should be offered a position on the faculty. But, even in those instances, there’s a slippery slope once you decide that certain opinions are verboten.
Once you leave the academy, however, it’s completely appropriate for citizens to argue about ideas in a political rather than academic manner. You have the right to think gay parents are a threat to the culture or that Latino immigration is undermining the character and fabric of our society, but we have the right not to shop at your store or eat in your restaurants. We have the right to boycott the organizations that sponsor your speech, including universities if they’re throwing money at you.
And it’s pure foolishness to think that the political struggles to end Jim Crow and get workplace equality and to win and expand gay rights could be understood without reference to the battles over what words mean and what does and does not constitute bigotry and intolerance. We talk about racism all the time, and everyone seems to agree these days that it’s horrible to be accused of racism. That’s the victory right there.
Because, in the 1960’s, half the country was fighting to preserve the right to be racist. Half the country was arguing in favor of having a racist society. They saw that as a good and honorable thing that could be defended in the pages of the National Review, in academia, on the airwaves, and in the streets with dogs, truncheons and firehoses.
We fought that mentality until they gave up on the idea that open defenses of racism were socially acceptable or politically sustainable. We’re trying to do that same thing with homophobia.
Now, this idea that no one can ever be exposed to intolerant speech is indeed bullshit, as are all the trigger warnings that are going around. In an academic setting, that whole movement should be ridiculed out of existence. But there are no trigger warnings off campus in real life. Instead, there is a cultural and political battle, and Chait is simply wrong that bigots gain sustenance by being increasingly shunned and marginalized. His example of actual communists benefitting from McCarthyism is ludicrous. Say what you want about McCarthyism, but it completely succeeded in making communism a thoroughly disreputable and untenable position in this country. If we’re restricting ourselves to talking about the effectiveness of a political correctness campaign, McCarthyism was one of the most successful campaigns in our nation’s history, irrespective of the backlash from the left.
If we’re talking strictly about effectiveness, dropping even heavier and less discriminate bombs on the slightest hints of racism and homophobia would likely to be the most effective political strategy for stamping out those sentiments in the populace. But, of course, that would indeed be a very illiberal approach. And it isn’t occurring nor is it necessary.
The lesson here is that colleges should guard against political activism shutting down debate, but the same simply isn’t true in the wider culture. It’s a brawl. Get in it or watch from the sidelines but don’t try to enforce your stupid rules because they won’t be obeyed.
