The worst enemies of
a controversial opinion are not those who use facts and logic against
it. If the opinion has any value, such opposition will only make the
opinion stronger and better by provoking better arguments in its
favor, or by leading its proponents to to revise it so that it
becomes a more nuanced and fully-rounded picture of reality. John
Stuart Mill pointed this out long ago, in On Liberty.
No, a much more
damaging opponent is the proponent whose behavior is so venal and
hypocritical that it gives the impression that people who defend the
view have ulterior motives or do not mean what they say. This can
bring on a phenomenon that I call “turning off the microphone”:
proponents can talk and talk but people will not hear their words.
The words will be perceived as a cover for something else, which what
is really going on. Turning off the microphone can be a much more
effective way to silence an opinion than threatening proponents with
legal punishments.
Jordan Peterson is
the most conspicuous proponent of free speech in the mass media right
now -- unfortunately. He recently discredited himself as a proponent by launching one law suit
and threatening another – for things professors have said about
him! He even tells one interviewer that his motive it to get
professors “to be a bit more careful with what they say.” This
of course has been the motive of censors throughout history. Watch
what you say, buddy!
Thus he strengthens the case for the old Stanley Fish line that nobody really cares about how much freedom of speech there is, they only care about how it is distributed. It tends to justify the attitude that was pilloried in the title of Nat Hentoff's classic book, Free Speech for Me, but Not for Thee.
His justifications
for this behavior reveal his cluelessness as to what freedom of
speech is. In one interview he gives two
explanations for why his law suits are not inconsistent with his
status as a champion and standard-bearer for free speech. First, he claims that the
professors who compared his views to those of Hitler “were
breaking the law” in doing so. This is an almost incredibly lame
argument. As any bright freshman would notice right away, it
begs the question – obviously! – of whether the law in question, and his use of it, are themselves violations of the right of free speech. He seems
oblivious to this obvious point. His second explanation is
marginally less lame:
But there’s always risk in every decision, there’s the risk of
doing something, and there’s the risk of not doing something. Both
of those risks are usually catastrophic in every decision that you
make in life. So I weighed up the risks and I thought, no, the risk
here of not doing something is greater than the risk of doing
something.
Once again, this is
the point of view of the opponents of free speech. Any time you hear
someone say that they are going to have to “weigh” or “balance”
your freedom of speech against some other value, you can bet that
they are going to favor violating your right of free speech. A
freedom as fundamental as speech is not about weighing or balancing
or compromising anything.
The most familiar
argument for the contrary idea fails completely to support it: this
is the idea that you can't yell fire in a crowded theater – because
it is just too risky. As Alan Dershowitz pointed out once in a
lecture, this case is actually not about speech at all. I would be
committing exactly the same offense if I simply hit the fire alarm
switch, saying absolutely nothing. If someone randomly murders
several people by deliberately causing a panic, we will not prosecute
them for expressing bad ideas or harmful attitudes. The charge will
be some sort of homicide. Some acts that violate rights involve the use of words and some do not. What is legitimately a crime is not a viewpoint expressed by the words but the act of which they are a part.
To judge by his behavior, Peterson's advocacy of free speech seems to be an attempt to get something he wants -- for himself and people who agree with him. That he views it as a right possessed by everyone, even those who say things that he finds abhorrent, is very doubtful at this point.
Advocates of freedom of speech who think that Peterson is their ally should turn their backs on him. You are known by your associations, and association with him can only contaminate you.
