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Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought
Tracing attacks on free speech from Plato's Republic to America's campuses and newsrooms, Jonathan Rauch provides an engaging and provocative attack on those who would limit free thought by restricting free speech. Rauch explores how the system for producing knowledge works in a liberal society, and why it has now become the object of a powerful ideological attack. Moving beyond the First Amendment, he defends the morality, rather than the legality, of an intellectual regime that relies on unfettered and often hurtful criticism. Kindly Inquisitors is a refreshing and vibrant essay, casting a provocative light on the raging debates over political correctness and multiculturalism.
"Fiercely argued. . . . What sets his study apart is his attempt to situate recent developments in a long-range historical perspective and to defend the system of free intellectual inquiry as a socially productive method of channeling prejudice."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
"Like no other, this book restates the core of our freedom and demonstrates how great, and disregarded, the peril to that freedom has become."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune
"The philosophical defense of free speech and free thought that seems to have been forgotten. . . . A powerful argument."—Diane Ravitch, Wall Street Journal
"Fiercely argued. . . . What sets his study apart is his attempt to situate recent developments in a long-range historical perspective and to defend the system of free intellectual inquiry as a socially productive method of channeling prejudice."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
"Like no other, this book restates the core of our freedom and demonstrates how great, and disregarded, the peril to that freedom has become."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune
"The philosophical defense of free speech and free thought that seems to have been forgotten. . . . A powerful argument."—Diane Ravitch, Wall Street Journal
187 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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July 16, 2020
This is a gem of a book. It is the most thorough and well argued stance in favor of free speech I have so far encountered. Originally published in 1993, it is still (again?) very relevant.
It is easy to lose oneself in the ridiculousness that is Twitter, and that might be entertaining if only it stayed there, instead of spilling out all over the world.
Jonathan Rauch's book managed to put both my thinking about what free speech is (for), and my half baked intuitions about what is right and what is absolutely essential, in order, and infuse them with rationality and clarity. This is not to say that I managed to separate myself from the pessimistic side - at best, my belief is that it will get (much) worse before it gets better, and if.
It is easy to lose oneself in the ridiculousness that is Twitter, and that might be entertaining if only it stayed there, instead of spilling out all over the world.
Jonathan Rauch's book managed to put both my thinking about what free speech is (for), and my half baked intuitions about what is right and what is absolutely essential, in order, and infuse them with rationality and clarity. This is not to say that I managed to separate myself from the pessimistic side - at best, my belief is that it will get (much) worse before it gets better, and if.
May 7, 2018
This book was strong - I would recommend it to anyone, and despite being written 25 years ago (the book was originally penned in 1993), the book felt critically relevant. Ostensively about free speech, the book is probably more appropriately viewed through an epistemic lens, with Rauch viewing epistemology as deeply intertwined with politics. His crisp language cuts deeply at the core of questions that remain relevant to this day: does the identity of a speaker tarnish the validity of that speech? How do we maintain our right to fight against ideas we find repugnant without suppression and censorship? Who has the right to bless speech, and with it, the ideas that we find acceptable in polite society?
Overall, the book was well worth the read. Quick and to the point, it was a solid primer on epistemology and made me think a lot about how I adjudicate truth in my own life.
The crux of this book is highlighted in the quote below, and we would do well to think hard about where we fall on the spectrum:
"What should be society’s principle for raising and settling differences of opinion? In other words, what is the right way, or at least the best way, to make decisions as to who is right (thus having knowledge) and who is wrong (thus having mere opinion)?
To the central question of how to sort true beliefs from the “lunatic” ones, here are five answers, five decision-making principles—not the only principles by any means, but the most important contenders right now:
- The Fundamentalist Principle: Those who know the truth should decide who is right.
- The Simple Egalitarian Principle: All sincere persons’ beliefs have equal claims to respect.
- The Radical Egalitarian Principle: Like the simple egalitarian principle, but the beliefs of persons in historically oppressed classes or groups get special consideration.
- The Humanitarian Principle: Any of the above, but with the condition that the first priority be to cause no hurt.
- The Liberal Principle: Checking of each by each through public criticism is the only legitimate way to decide who is right.
The argument of this book is that the last principle is the only one which is acceptable, but that it is now losing ground to the others, and that this development is extremely dangerous. Impelled by the notions that science is oppression and criticism is violence, the central regulation of debate and inquiry is returning to respectability — this time in a humanitarian disguise.
Overall, the book was well worth the read. Quick and to the point, it was a solid primer on epistemology and made me think a lot about how I adjudicate truth in my own life.
The crux of this book is highlighted in the quote below, and we would do well to think hard about where we fall on the spectrum:
"What should be society’s principle for raising and settling differences of opinion? In other words, what is the right way, or at least the best way, to make decisions as to who is right (thus having knowledge) and who is wrong (thus having mere opinion)?
To the central question of how to sort true beliefs from the “lunatic” ones, here are five answers, five decision-making principles—not the only principles by any means, but the most important contenders right now:
- The Fundamentalist Principle: Those who know the truth should decide who is right.
- The Simple Egalitarian Principle: All sincere persons’ beliefs have equal claims to respect.
- The Radical Egalitarian Principle: Like the simple egalitarian principle, but the beliefs of persons in historically oppressed classes or groups get special consideration.
- The Humanitarian Principle: Any of the above, but with the condition that the first priority be to cause no hurt.
- The Liberal Principle: Checking of each by each through public criticism is the only legitimate way to decide who is right.
The argument of this book is that the last principle is the only one which is acceptable, but that it is now losing ground to the others, and that this development is extremely dangerous. Impelled by the notions that science is oppression and criticism is violence, the central regulation of debate and inquiry is returning to respectability — this time in a humanitarian disguise.
June 14, 2014
Given modern culture's leanings towards "political correctness" and the constant discourse between the "freedom of speech" and the "right to offend," I found myself searching for a book that explores this topic. These essays held my interest from the title's Inquisition allusion to the closing words. Jonathan Rauch defends free thought by dissecting numerous case studies on the attack of free speech. He frames his argument as a defense of liberal science and dives into this defense through the context of epistemology, a topic I was not very familiar with before reading this book. I found myself highlighting quotes and passages every 5-10 pages or so and the book answered many of the questions/internal debates I had on the topic. However, I am still conflicted when it comes to the interaction of free speech and economic decisions. I agree with most every argument in favor of liberal science's defense of thought, but I feel the "vote with your pocketbook" idea is at odds with the argument to never punish someone for their ideas. This conflict is not explored within the book, at least to my satisfaction. Still, it is an excellently written book and worth a read if the topic interests you.
September 14, 2023
I’ll keep it short and sweet: This book is a lucid, compelling defense of free thought and free speech. In fact, it’s the best defense of free speech I’ve ever read. And even though it was published 30 years ago, its arguments are even more pertinent today. I simply cannot overstate how important the ideas expounded in this book are in order to have a truly free society. Mark this one as an absolute must-read. Highest recommendation.
July 9, 2021
Although this book was originally published in 1993, it is totally relevant in today's world as free speech and the marketplace of ideas are under attack by the illiberal woke mob.
Kindly Inquisitors is a must-read for everyone.
Kindly Inquisitors is a must-read for everyone.
November 14, 2020
A very good, fairly short book that fuses thinkers like Mill and Popper and applies them to the modern day. Rauch's argument is that modern liberalism has 3 products that all operate by similar principles. The first 2 are liberal democracy and capitalism. However, in a decentralized, free system, there's always the problem of knowledge: how, without authorities telling us, do we actually create reliable knowledge?
Rauch's answer is the system of "liberal science," an open-ended, decentralized system of inquiry based on the principle of the public checking and verification of ideas and evidence. This would apply to not just science but other disciplines, like history, where you submit your work to public criticism, blind peer review, and other mechanisms of checking. In this system, no one has special authority to say what is true or not and no one gets special treatment or exemption. Of course, if you want to go on believing something without evidence, you may, but if that knowledge is rejected by the processes of liberal science, you don't get respect, and your knowledge is not "knowledge" in the public sense. He argues, with good evidence, that this is the best system ever devised for creating reliable, evidence-based knowledge, especially when compared to other forms of knowledge.
One special contribution of this book is that Rauch realized in the early 1990s that the right and the left were using very similar arguments to try to get exemptions from liberal science or to try to overthrow it. They were both arguing that liberal science is hurtful (Rauch freely admits that it is) to deeply held beliefs and experiences. They both argued for "fairness," as in, our excluded beliefs (creationism or Afrocentric history) should be included in curriculum to provide "balance." They both argue that liberal science was exclusionary and, in the left's case, white and male, even though anyone can submit their claims for checking, at least in the modern world. Rauch admits that liberal science will always be unpopular, as it forces us to put our hard work and sincere beliefs into the public blender, where they will always be modified and corrected if not rejected totally. It does not admit of respect for tradition nor of the "special knowledge" of marginalized groups.
Rauch sees 2 big threat to liberal science in the 1990s: the first is fundamentalism, which holds that knowledge is issues by those with special access to truth. In his day, the Ayatollah Khomenei was the perfect example, as he claimed perfect infallibility for his proclamations. The other, and in many ways more powerful, danger was the humanitarian principle, which is that we should avoid speech that harms people emotionally (some went further and argued that words ARE violence). This is the source of hate speech laws, campus speech codes, and the generally censorious atmosphere of some of campus life, especially regarding the treatment of minority groups. Rauch flips the latter argument on its head and makes an Ida B. Wells style case that free speech and unfettered inquiry is absolutely essential for the marginalized to advance and make their cases for equality and dignity to the larger society. He is gay, and in a persuasive attitude he applies this concept to the radical shift in public opinion about LGBT people in the last few decades.
Rauch should be read mainly for the concept of liberal science, which is his most original contribution. Overall, the book is tightly argued, fair-minded, and persuasive. However, I want to push back on his argument about minorities and knowledge. He believes that no one has special knowledge, but, of course, a black person or gay person does have significant knowledge about what it is like to be black or gay and what it is like to suffer oppression or suspicion or discrimination on that basis. That, of course, is relevant to larger questions like the level of racism in our society; those who experience that racism or sexism, etc, should of course try to present it in a way that can be "checked" by liberal science, but that is both really hard to do (as many of these instances are experiences that can't always be recorded) and an added burden (it is really frustrating, obviously, to have to prove this stuff repeatedly). Rauch's argument is valid when it comes to "different epistomologies" of different racial/ethnic groups (a nonsense idea), but less so with the different experiences of these groups. That's a puzzle our society is still trying to resolve, and I think Rauch could have tackled it more directly.
I'd say this is worth reading for those who enjoy Mill or Popper but want something a bit more accessible. Of course, Mill is still the master of the subject of free expression, and I don't think he will ever be eclipsed.
Rauch's answer is the system of "liberal science," an open-ended, decentralized system of inquiry based on the principle of the public checking and verification of ideas and evidence. This would apply to not just science but other disciplines, like history, where you submit your work to public criticism, blind peer review, and other mechanisms of checking. In this system, no one has special authority to say what is true or not and no one gets special treatment or exemption. Of course, if you want to go on believing something without evidence, you may, but if that knowledge is rejected by the processes of liberal science, you don't get respect, and your knowledge is not "knowledge" in the public sense. He argues, with good evidence, that this is the best system ever devised for creating reliable, evidence-based knowledge, especially when compared to other forms of knowledge.
One special contribution of this book is that Rauch realized in the early 1990s that the right and the left were using very similar arguments to try to get exemptions from liberal science or to try to overthrow it. They were both arguing that liberal science is hurtful (Rauch freely admits that it is) to deeply held beliefs and experiences. They both argued for "fairness," as in, our excluded beliefs (creationism or Afrocentric history) should be included in curriculum to provide "balance." They both argue that liberal science was exclusionary and, in the left's case, white and male, even though anyone can submit their claims for checking, at least in the modern world. Rauch admits that liberal science will always be unpopular, as it forces us to put our hard work and sincere beliefs into the public blender, where they will always be modified and corrected if not rejected totally. It does not admit of respect for tradition nor of the "special knowledge" of marginalized groups.
Rauch sees 2 big threat to liberal science in the 1990s: the first is fundamentalism, which holds that knowledge is issues by those with special access to truth. In his day, the Ayatollah Khomenei was the perfect example, as he claimed perfect infallibility for his proclamations. The other, and in many ways more powerful, danger was the humanitarian principle, which is that we should avoid speech that harms people emotionally (some went further and argued that words ARE violence). This is the source of hate speech laws, campus speech codes, and the generally censorious atmosphere of some of campus life, especially regarding the treatment of minority groups. Rauch flips the latter argument on its head and makes an Ida B. Wells style case that free speech and unfettered inquiry is absolutely essential for the marginalized to advance and make their cases for equality and dignity to the larger society. He is gay, and in a persuasive attitude he applies this concept to the radical shift in public opinion about LGBT people in the last few decades.
Rauch should be read mainly for the concept of liberal science, which is his most original contribution. Overall, the book is tightly argued, fair-minded, and persuasive. However, I want to push back on his argument about minorities and knowledge. He believes that no one has special knowledge, but, of course, a black person or gay person does have significant knowledge about what it is like to be black or gay and what it is like to suffer oppression or suspicion or discrimination on that basis. That, of course, is relevant to larger questions like the level of racism in our society; those who experience that racism or sexism, etc, should of course try to present it in a way that can be "checked" by liberal science, but that is both really hard to do (as many of these instances are experiences that can't always be recorded) and an added burden (it is really frustrating, obviously, to have to prove this stuff repeatedly). Rauch's argument is valid when it comes to "different epistomologies" of different racial/ethnic groups (a nonsense idea), but less so with the different experiences of these groups. That's a puzzle our society is still trying to resolve, and I think Rauch could have tackled it more directly.
I'd say this is worth reading for those who enjoy Mill or Popper but want something a bit more accessible. Of course, Mill is still the master of the subject of free expression, and I don't think he will ever be eclipsed.
July 19, 2020
(Review from second read, July 2020)
Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought is a book about liberal society, its enemies, and why we should defend it. Although it was published in 1993 it feels especially relevant in 2020 and along with Martin Gurri's Revolt of the Public is among the books that has most influenced my perspective on the events of the past ~3 months.
Rauch begins by telling us about liberal society. A liberal society is one where knowledge is determined through iterative debate, abiding by two rules:
(1) No one gets the final say -- sincere criticism is always legitimate. On a side note, this is actually the the motto of the Royal Society (Nullius in verba), a powerful criticism of papal infallibility in the 17th century.
(2) No one has personal authority -- no one can claim to have unique authority to finally adjudicate truth. [46]
This tradition has deep roots in the West and Rauch highlights Descartes and Hume as particularly influential [44]. This process of truth seeking also aligns well with Karl Popper's views and David Deutsch as outlined in The Beginning of Infinity. (The bogeyman for all these authors is, of course, Plato).
Liberalism has many opponents: it's the Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie (for offending Islamic sensibilities) and it's the creationists who lobby against teaching Darwin's theory of evolution because it disrespects god. In 2020 it is in no uncertain terms the left that harasses and assaults those who challenge its orthodoxies. In each of these cases you have the suppression of a viewpoint on the basis of authority or offensiveness or otherwise. In each of these cases you have someone saying that words must be banned because those words offend.
Well, news for you: "somehow the idea has grown up that 'liberal' means 'nice,' that the liberal intellectual system fosters sensitivity, toleration, [and] self-esteem ... The truth is that liberal science ... does not give a damn about your feelings and happily tramples them in the name of finding truth. It allows and sometimes encourages offense. Self-esteem, sensitivity, respect for others' beliefs .. are incompatible with the peaceful and productive advancement of human knowledge. To advance knowledge we must all sometimes suffer." [19]
Well wait, if liberalism results in offense then why is it so important to defend? Do we want to defend a system that offends? Rauch's answer and my own is a resounding: Yes! There is an argument about creativity and technological progress but I think it isn't the most important one [127] -- though I do believe liberal society and scientific progress go hand in hand. The best argument is that the only possible outcome of an illiberal society is inquisition [123]. It's violence by the authority against the dissenters. When a difference cannot be resolved through debate, it can only be resolved through policing and punishment [131]. And so if you want to live in 15th century Spain or authoritarian China, be my guest. But the next time someone decries an opinion as taboo you should think long and hard about what kind of world they are creating. At the limit, their logic is no different from the Ayatollah, King Ferdinand, and Queen Isabella.
Rauch ends on an optimistic note in a 2013 epilogue. We did not make progress on gay rights as a society by shuffling off all the opponents to a reeducation camp. Gay rights won because Americans changed their minds.
How many people like being told what to do? If you are going to try and a change a society, start with honey not vinegar.
Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought is a book about liberal society, its enemies, and why we should defend it. Although it was published in 1993 it feels especially relevant in 2020 and along with Martin Gurri's Revolt of the Public is among the books that has most influenced my perspective on the events of the past ~3 months.
Rauch begins by telling us about liberal society. A liberal society is one where knowledge is determined through iterative debate, abiding by two rules:
(1) No one gets the final say -- sincere criticism is always legitimate. On a side note, this is actually the the motto of the Royal Society (Nullius in verba), a powerful criticism of papal infallibility in the 17th century.
(2) No one has personal authority -- no one can claim to have unique authority to finally adjudicate truth. [46]
This tradition has deep roots in the West and Rauch highlights Descartes and Hume as particularly influential [44]. This process of truth seeking also aligns well with Karl Popper's views and David Deutsch as outlined in The Beginning of Infinity. (The bogeyman for all these authors is, of course, Plato).
Liberalism has many opponents: it's the Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie (for offending Islamic sensibilities) and it's the creationists who lobby against teaching Darwin's theory of evolution because it disrespects god. In 2020 it is in no uncertain terms the left that harasses and assaults those who challenge its orthodoxies. In each of these cases you have the suppression of a viewpoint on the basis of authority or offensiveness or otherwise. In each of these cases you have someone saying that words must be banned because those words offend.
Well, news for you: "somehow the idea has grown up that 'liberal' means 'nice,' that the liberal intellectual system fosters sensitivity, toleration, [and] self-esteem ... The truth is that liberal science ... does not give a damn about your feelings and happily tramples them in the name of finding truth. It allows and sometimes encourages offense. Self-esteem, sensitivity, respect for others' beliefs .. are incompatible with the peaceful and productive advancement of human knowledge. To advance knowledge we must all sometimes suffer." [19]
Well wait, if liberalism results in offense then why is it so important to defend? Do we want to defend a system that offends? Rauch's answer and my own is a resounding: Yes! There is an argument about creativity and technological progress but I think it isn't the most important one [127] -- though I do believe liberal society and scientific progress go hand in hand. The best argument is that the only possible outcome of an illiberal society is inquisition [123]. It's violence by the authority against the dissenters. When a difference cannot be resolved through debate, it can only be resolved through policing and punishment [131]. And so if you want to live in 15th century Spain or authoritarian China, be my guest. But the next time someone decries an opinion as taboo you should think long and hard about what kind of world they are creating. At the limit, their logic is no different from the Ayatollah, King Ferdinand, and Queen Isabella.
Rauch ends on an optimistic note in a 2013 epilogue. We did not make progress on gay rights as a society by shuffling off all the opponents to a reeducation camp. Gay rights won because Americans changed their minds.
How many people like being told what to do? If you are going to try and a change a society, start with honey not vinegar.
September 25, 2017
Jonathan Rauch forcefully defends freedom of speech and liberal science in his short and crisp "Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought". Originally published in 1993, the book is even more relevant today than it was back then, resulting in an expanded edition in 2013. With brisk and efficient clarity, Rauch exposes the authoritarian intellectual underpinnings of the nominally liberal thought police that hold sway over America's universities. He goes further and argues that these initiatives - although carried out with the best of intentions - pose a grave danger to the very foundations of the liberal system. Ultimately, he says, "The answer to the question “Why tolerate hateful or misguided opinions?” has been the same ever since Plato unveiled his ghastly utopia: because the alternative is worse."
The book's tone is captured nicely by one of Rauch's incendiary passages:
The book is full of little gems like those above - sentences that crystallize ideas that have been amorphously floating around in my brain all year. Rauch writes beautifully, tracing the genealogy of liberal thought and synthesizing millenia of Western history to make the case for why we must prevent restrictions on free speech and free thought. He recoils in horror from Plato's intellectually authoritarian regime. He rejoices in the skepticism of Montaigne. He whips us through a tour of major Enlightenment philosophers and ends with our good friend Sir Karl Popper.
Rauch then extends our intellectual journey up to the controversy over Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses". Rushdie's searingly controversial novel earned him a big target on his back - in the form of a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. For Rauch, this represented a defining moment in Western intellectual history:
The book's tone is captured nicely by one of Rauch's incendiary passages:
If you are inclined to equate verbal offense with physical violence, think again about the logic of your position. If hurtful opinions are violence, then painful criticism is violence. In other words, on the humanitarian premise, science itself is a form of violence. What do you do about violence? You establish policing authorities — public or private — to stop it and to punish the perpetrators. You set up authorities empowered to weed out hurtful ideas and speech. In other words: an inquisition... It is bad enough to have to remind people that there is no right not to be offended, and that criticism is not the same as violence. It is deeply embarrassing to have to deliver this reminder to people at the center of American intellectual life.The core of Rauch's argument is that "Epistemology — one’s view of who can have knowledge and when — is politics." That line could very well be the tagline for my 2017 reading theme on the integrity of Western science. This book gifted me a clear statement of how all of the philosophy of science reading I've been doing relates to larger political questions. Rauch has an explicitly Popperian view on the philosophy of science: "you may claim that a statement is established as knowledge only if it can be debunked, in principle, and only insofar as it withstands attempts to debunk it." For Rauch, skepticism and empricism are the pillars of the liberal system. I'm a bit concerned about how his overall argument holds up in the face of the holes that the modern philospher Godfrey-Smith pokes in Popper's theories, but to be fair, none of the critiques of free speech that I've ever heard have contested Popperian epistemology!
The book is full of little gems like those above - sentences that crystallize ideas that have been amorphously floating around in my brain all year. Rauch writes beautifully, tracing the genealogy of liberal thought and synthesizing millenia of Western history to make the case for why we must prevent restrictions on free speech and free thought. He recoils in horror from Plato's intellectually authoritarian regime. He rejoices in the skepticism of Montaigne. He whips us through a tour of major Enlightenment philosophers and ends with our good friend Sir Karl Popper.
Rauch then extends our intellectual journey up to the controversy over Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses". Rushdie's searingly controversial novel earned him a big target on his back - in the form of a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. For Rauch, this represented a defining moment in Western intellectual history:
It showed how readily Westerners could be backed away from a fundamental principle of intellectual liberalism, namely that there is nothing whatever wrong with offending — hurting people’s feelings — in pursuit of truth. That principle seemed to have been displaced by a belief in the right not to be offended, which was quickly gaining currency in America.Rauch covers an astonishing amount of ground in this book and I felt like I highlighted about half the book as I tore through it. His principled, clearly argued position on free speech was just the antidote I needed for the philosophical morass I got sucked into during undergrad. I'll close with another one of my favorite quotes - some practical advice for free-speech campaigners in the hostile territory of the modern academic postmodern left:
The standard answer to people who say they are offended should be: “Is there any casualty other than your feelings? Are you or others being threatened with violence or vandalism? No? Then it’s a shame your feelings are hurt, but that’s too bad. You’ll live.” If one is going to enjoy the benefits of living in a liberal society without being shamelessly hypocritical, one must try to be thick-skinned, since the way we make knowledge is by rubbing against one another.Full review and highlights at https://books.max-nova.com/kindly-inquisitors
November 1, 2020
This book could be described as a defence of freedom of speech, but I think that would be underselling it. It's more about how we, as a liberal and modern society, decide what is true and what is false.
In a short and extremely accessible introduction he explains how we have approached this problem through the ages, from the Greek Philosophers (who so nearly got it right) through the Catholic Inquisition (who got it oh so wrong!) before emerging after the Renaissance with enlightened tools like the scientific method and freedom of speech.
It challenges the reader first with questions which (these days) are fairly simple: why don't we give equal time to teach creationism as an alternative to evolution for example. Before moving into more challenging territory.
Written nearly 30 years ago, I can only see how this book has got more relevant. With a President that openly relies on "alternative facts"; conspiracy theories about COVID going mainstream; and an online culture where debate is settled by identity politics, we could all do with being reminded there is better way.
My only criticism of this book is that in places I found it overly repetitive. But other than that, I haven't come across a more complete, satisfying and unpolitical summary of why freedom of speech is so important for real meaningful progress.
In a short and extremely accessible introduction he explains how we have approached this problem through the ages, from the Greek Philosophers (who so nearly got it right) through the Catholic Inquisition (who got it oh so wrong!) before emerging after the Renaissance with enlightened tools like the scientific method and freedom of speech.
It challenges the reader first with questions which (these days) are fairly simple: why don't we give equal time to teach creationism as an alternative to evolution for example. Before moving into more challenging territory.
Written nearly 30 years ago, I can only see how this book has got more relevant. With a President that openly relies on "alternative facts"; conspiracy theories about COVID going mainstream; and an online culture where debate is settled by identity politics, we could all do with being reminded there is better way.
My only criticism of this book is that in places I found it overly repetitive. But other than that, I haven't come across a more complete, satisfying and unpolitical summary of why freedom of speech is so important for real meaningful progress.
November 19, 2021
Expanded edition on audiobook, Penn Jillette as narrator.
Chapter 1: New Threats to Free Thought / 1
7/10
No final say, no special authority.
I try to keep up with all intellectual debates in 2021 and one of the main debates is about free speech and how progressive values and laws created to protect “vulnerable” groups are going against free speech. Unfortunately most popular modern books on this topic are from the Intellectual Dark Web and largely about academia, students and at times left-wing media. So Gad Saad’s book on the topic is for example about US universities, which is fine, but US academia is a very small part of just one country. Gad Saad is a good writer, but the topic was just way too narrow in scope to explain what free speech is and how it works in the wider world. The same can be said about Heather Mac Donald’s book on the topic. It’s also about US university students. And frankly US academia is a topic we already know enough about. Sure many professors are fired for what they say and think, but if that’s the only issue then it’s not a huge deal - it’s just not the only issue. These professors are often writers and can easily find new jobs compared to many other workers.
This chapter on the other hand is about overall free speech concepts and ideas. It’s very well written and fun to read/listen to. The ideas are clear and we fluently go from one point to another without any confusing logic. It’s a very strong intro to the topic. On the other hand it is stuff I both agree with and largely already deeply understand so it’s not really all new to me. Some arguments are very strong, the law examples are great and I liked arguments like the point about race creationism stories being like creationism. Since creationism is not taught with evolution in schools we also have a right to not teach other such fringe theories.
I really liked how calm and intellectual it all was. Gad Saad for example is constantly angry and even defends his anger in his book saying it’s a war and fight and that he has a right to offend people in the battle. Heather Mac Donald also focuses on making you angry about unfair firings in academia. I like this calm logical approach way more as I can slowly rationalize each idea and understand it to a greater extent.
Chapter 2: The Rise of Liberal Science / 31
10/10
Amazing intro to the topic of how we are getting to facts via liberal science.
If something is your own experience and no one else can see or test it, that's still an opinion that should be held up to the same level of scrutiny as everything else - and then it will fail. No matter how rich, powerful, or what race or gender you are you should be able to test the statements. If the statements hold up you will come to the same conclusion independently.
He uses Plato’s ideas about putting the wise in power to illustrate how they needed to do it before the advancement of liberal science and the scientific method overall that is free to use for all. I do have a lot of questions. Like what is truth and when does a claim become so true that we should basically block/ban counter-claims in school settings? I guess all testable claims are welcome in some ways? But that means you can push a ton of pseudoscience into schools and universities. I’m sure he explained it in some way, but I just missed it. I guess you could kinda assume and conclude what is true or not based on evidence, but then how would ideologically biased universities and science groups get away from their huge personal biases to instead present facts only? I’d assume about 95% of social science textbooks contain large parts pseudoscientific ideology. If his method of free independent thinking is so powerful then why do we have whole scientific fields that are still 95% bullshit and how are they going to fix themselves?
Overall it’s a beautiful read and just fun to listen to no matter the message. The arguments are just that clear and direct. I do wish the book was more clear on the logical points though. It’s all very holistic and all concept focused so it says a lot without saying anything.
Chapter 3: The Politics of Liberal Science / 57
7,5/10
Strong chapter. It’s a deeper dive into the idea of free speech via scientific exploration, free scientific inquiry. Here free speech is supported, pretty much, fully with various clear arguments to make his main idea completely clear.
Hate speech should not be banned. We have social tools to deal with such hateful people. There are natural social punishments. There is also a good point about why students in academia want to ban various words and ideas. They want to help and just don’t know how so this is their power.
The chapters are text heavy though. It’s argument after argument and largely the same main point so it’s hard to stay focused. It’s clear stuff, but it’s not like a story constantly evolving. We circle back to the main claim constantly and it can be hard to read more than a few pages at a time before your brain explodes.
Chapter 4: The Fundamentalist Threat / 89
7/10
About intellectuals who refuse to change their minds on certain topics. For example, some economists just see the state economy a certain way and refuse to accept that they can be wrong on this issue even though they do agree they may be wrong on anything else. And that’s despite the issue being overly complicated and hard to prove either way.
He calls them fundamentalists. Basically religious people following spiritual texts that are seen as being above any other research and cannot be altered.
He again says that fundamentalists are anti free speech and anti exploration and are wrong. I felt like I knew these ideas already. In the other chapters there were plenty of shock factors where he presented ideas I had never even heard before. This feels like an overly safe chapter about free speech and anti-religion. This is the sort of stuff you see any regular atheist say daily. The book is not easy to listen to. It does get dry super fast and you have to focus 100% to get all the main ideas. But it’s worth it.
Chapter 5: The Humanitarian Threat / 111
7/10
Belief vs. knowledge. He says that everyone may believe everything, but knowledge is the scientific findings we can present in schools. And it’s totally different from belief.
“We should never teach anything as knowledge because it serves someone's political needs. We should teach only what has checked out.”
Liberal system channels conflict instead of cancelling it. If you are offended by an idea the best thing is to ignore the speaker. If offense gives you the right to cancel speech and claim your ideas are more valuable, people will just compete over who is most offended and first offended to get these extra rights. Basically, the competition will move from good ideas winning out to offended people winning out.
Chapter 6: Et Exspecto Resurrectionem / 155
6/10
A very short chapter on the Salman Rushdie case that made him write the book. Quite curiou that a case so extremely obvious made him write it. Today you have professors getting fired for nothing. So cases that are not even created from an offense, but a perceived future offense for some other group. Like: “These specific people may hate you tomorrow so we fire you today”. It’s much harder to explain free speech if this is your experience with it. It’s people getting fired without a word. Not like the Salman Rushdie case where everything was out in the open.
Afterword: Minorities, Moral Knowledge, and the Uses of Hate Speech / 165
5,5/10
All people are allowed to investigate claims, not just researchers and universities.
Moral ideas work just like any other science. You get to the best claims by discussing all ideas.
Laws and hate speech laws don’t change society. It’s the other way around. Society changes then laws change way later. When you have enough power to change a law in your direction you already have enough power before the law is implemented.
The afterwords is just largely extra info about gay rights and is not relevant to the main topic. This is basically a very long ad for his 2004 book and it appeals to more modern understandings of liberalism where progressives are seen as pure and good and old liberals are seen as part of the old evil system. Jonathan Rauch tells us how he fights for gay rights as a gay man and appeals to identity politics. The rest of the book felt philosophical and impersonal. It was about universal ideas and concepts not about one man and his “fights”. It’s also a lot of singular stories about a gay man being fired. Not really illustrating that this was common in any way as there are no stats to back up any of the claims. Instead he says that he as a gay man feels this all worked this way which unfortunately is untestable. It’s not even clear this firing was unfair as we only hear one side. There are A LOT of assumptions I have to make to believe all of this is true. No matter what you think about this specific topic the chapter feels irrelevant to the book which is a shame. I’m sure the idea is largely from his 2004 book and would feel relevant as a chapter there.
My main point is that these new cancel culture arguments are just not as appealing to me. I went over this in my review of the first chapter. It’s often either IDW people complaining and creating outrage or progressive people using identity politics arguments. I feel like the book would have been stronger without making it personal and politically ideological.
My final opinion on the book
Penn Jillette is a great narrator for sure even though it does feel like shouting initially. There are a lot of extra recordings where his voice changes completely for a sentence, but it’s not any great issue. Jonathan Rauch only made a few thousand bucks on the book even though it was a smash hit as no one would publish it so he had to sell the rights to a conservative mass publishing company, CATO. And I assume the audiobook is made with the same cheapness in mind. Just a small cheap paperback/audiobook making no money.
It ends on a mediocre note. His point about cultural free speech is very simple. So the idea is already fully explored in the first 4 chapters. Chapter 5 is just the summary of the idea. The added on afterwords make the book less than ideal as a fast good intro to the topic of free speech as it becomes too long. But since the main idea is so amazing and so well-explained this is a classic in my view.
Remove the afterwords and the last chapter and this is easily a masterpiece and one of the most important books of the 20th century. It’s a book you must read. There is no way around it. I feel like I had to read this 15 years ago. It contains ideas I have been trying to explore and explain for that long, but never really could. This explains the ideas in clear English. It’s one of the best philosophy books I have read. Have I been stupid for not having read it until now? Yeah, but then I can’t really know what books are amazing and what books are more whining about cancel culture. I’m doing my best. Even the non-whining books can be extremely dry and pointless. Only very little philosophy is fun to read and I refuse to read boring books.
Chapter 1: New Threats to Free Thought / 1
7/10
No final say, no special authority.
I try to keep up with all intellectual debates in 2021 and one of the main debates is about free speech and how progressive values and laws created to protect “vulnerable” groups are going against free speech. Unfortunately most popular modern books on this topic are from the Intellectual Dark Web and largely about academia, students and at times left-wing media. So Gad Saad’s book on the topic is for example about US universities, which is fine, but US academia is a very small part of just one country. Gad Saad is a good writer, but the topic was just way too narrow in scope to explain what free speech is and how it works in the wider world. The same can be said about Heather Mac Donald’s book on the topic. It’s also about US university students. And frankly US academia is a topic we already know enough about. Sure many professors are fired for what they say and think, but if that’s the only issue then it’s not a huge deal - it’s just not the only issue. These professors are often writers and can easily find new jobs compared to many other workers.
This chapter on the other hand is about overall free speech concepts and ideas. It’s very well written and fun to read/listen to. The ideas are clear and we fluently go from one point to another without any confusing logic. It’s a very strong intro to the topic. On the other hand it is stuff I both agree with and largely already deeply understand so it’s not really all new to me. Some arguments are very strong, the law examples are great and I liked arguments like the point about race creationism stories being like creationism. Since creationism is not taught with evolution in schools we also have a right to not teach other such fringe theories.
I really liked how calm and intellectual it all was. Gad Saad for example is constantly angry and even defends his anger in his book saying it’s a war and fight and that he has a right to offend people in the battle. Heather Mac Donald also focuses on making you angry about unfair firings in academia. I like this calm logical approach way more as I can slowly rationalize each idea and understand it to a greater extent.
Chapter 2: The Rise of Liberal Science / 31
10/10
Amazing intro to the topic of how we are getting to facts via liberal science.
If something is your own experience and no one else can see or test it, that's still an opinion that should be held up to the same level of scrutiny as everything else - and then it will fail. No matter how rich, powerful, or what race or gender you are you should be able to test the statements. If the statements hold up you will come to the same conclusion independently.
He uses Plato’s ideas about putting the wise in power to illustrate how they needed to do it before the advancement of liberal science and the scientific method overall that is free to use for all. I do have a lot of questions. Like what is truth and when does a claim become so true that we should basically block/ban counter-claims in school settings? I guess all testable claims are welcome in some ways? But that means you can push a ton of pseudoscience into schools and universities. I’m sure he explained it in some way, but I just missed it. I guess you could kinda assume and conclude what is true or not based on evidence, but then how would ideologically biased universities and science groups get away from their huge personal biases to instead present facts only? I’d assume about 95% of social science textbooks contain large parts pseudoscientific ideology. If his method of free independent thinking is so powerful then why do we have whole scientific fields that are still 95% bullshit and how are they going to fix themselves?
Overall it’s a beautiful read and just fun to listen to no matter the message. The arguments are just that clear and direct. I do wish the book was more clear on the logical points though. It’s all very holistic and all concept focused so it says a lot without saying anything.
Chapter 3: The Politics of Liberal Science / 57
7,5/10
Strong chapter. It’s a deeper dive into the idea of free speech via scientific exploration, free scientific inquiry. Here free speech is supported, pretty much, fully with various clear arguments to make his main idea completely clear.
Hate speech should not be banned. We have social tools to deal with such hateful people. There are natural social punishments. There is also a good point about why students in academia want to ban various words and ideas. They want to help and just don’t know how so this is their power.
The chapters are text heavy though. It’s argument after argument and largely the same main point so it’s hard to stay focused. It’s clear stuff, but it’s not like a story constantly evolving. We circle back to the main claim constantly and it can be hard to read more than a few pages at a time before your brain explodes.
Chapter 4: The Fundamentalist Threat / 89
7/10
About intellectuals who refuse to change their minds on certain topics. For example, some economists just see the state economy a certain way and refuse to accept that they can be wrong on this issue even though they do agree they may be wrong on anything else. And that’s despite the issue being overly complicated and hard to prove either way.
He calls them fundamentalists. Basically religious people following spiritual texts that are seen as being above any other research and cannot be altered.
He again says that fundamentalists are anti free speech and anti exploration and are wrong. I felt like I knew these ideas already. In the other chapters there were plenty of shock factors where he presented ideas I had never even heard before. This feels like an overly safe chapter about free speech and anti-religion. This is the sort of stuff you see any regular atheist say daily. The book is not easy to listen to. It does get dry super fast and you have to focus 100% to get all the main ideas. But it’s worth it.
Chapter 5: The Humanitarian Threat / 111
7/10
Belief vs. knowledge. He says that everyone may believe everything, but knowledge is the scientific findings we can present in schools. And it’s totally different from belief.
“We should never teach anything as knowledge because it serves someone's political needs. We should teach only what has checked out.”
Liberal system channels conflict instead of cancelling it. If you are offended by an idea the best thing is to ignore the speaker. If offense gives you the right to cancel speech and claim your ideas are more valuable, people will just compete over who is most offended and first offended to get these extra rights. Basically, the competition will move from good ideas winning out to offended people winning out.
Chapter 6: Et Exspecto Resurrectionem / 155
6/10
A very short chapter on the Salman Rushdie case that made him write the book. Quite curiou that a case so extremely obvious made him write it. Today you have professors getting fired for nothing. So cases that are not even created from an offense, but a perceived future offense for some other group. Like: “These specific people may hate you tomorrow so we fire you today”. It’s much harder to explain free speech if this is your experience with it. It’s people getting fired without a word. Not like the Salman Rushdie case where everything was out in the open.
Afterword: Minorities, Moral Knowledge, and the Uses of Hate Speech / 165
5,5/10
All people are allowed to investigate claims, not just researchers and universities.
Moral ideas work just like any other science. You get to the best claims by discussing all ideas.
Laws and hate speech laws don’t change society. It’s the other way around. Society changes then laws change way later. When you have enough power to change a law in your direction you already have enough power before the law is implemented.
The afterwords is just largely extra info about gay rights and is not relevant to the main topic. This is basically a very long ad for his 2004 book and it appeals to more modern understandings of liberalism where progressives are seen as pure and good and old liberals are seen as part of the old evil system. Jonathan Rauch tells us how he fights for gay rights as a gay man and appeals to identity politics. The rest of the book felt philosophical and impersonal. It was about universal ideas and concepts not about one man and his “fights”. It’s also a lot of singular stories about a gay man being fired. Not really illustrating that this was common in any way as there are no stats to back up any of the claims. Instead he says that he as a gay man feels this all worked this way which unfortunately is untestable. It’s not even clear this firing was unfair as we only hear one side. There are A LOT of assumptions I have to make to believe all of this is true. No matter what you think about this specific topic the chapter feels irrelevant to the book which is a shame. I’m sure the idea is largely from his 2004 book and would feel relevant as a chapter there.
My main point is that these new cancel culture arguments are just not as appealing to me. I went over this in my review of the first chapter. It’s often either IDW people complaining and creating outrage or progressive people using identity politics arguments. I feel like the book would have been stronger without making it personal and politically ideological.
My final opinion on the book
Penn Jillette is a great narrator for sure even though it does feel like shouting initially. There are a lot of extra recordings where his voice changes completely for a sentence, but it’s not any great issue. Jonathan Rauch only made a few thousand bucks on the book even though it was a smash hit as no one would publish it so he had to sell the rights to a conservative mass publishing company, CATO. And I assume the audiobook is made with the same cheapness in mind. Just a small cheap paperback/audiobook making no money.
It ends on a mediocre note. His point about cultural free speech is very simple. So the idea is already fully explored in the first 4 chapters. Chapter 5 is just the summary of the idea. The added on afterwords make the book less than ideal as a fast good intro to the topic of free speech as it becomes too long. But since the main idea is so amazing and so well-explained this is a classic in my view.
Remove the afterwords and the last chapter and this is easily a masterpiece and one of the most important books of the 20th century. It’s a book you must read. There is no way around it. I feel like I had to read this 15 years ago. It contains ideas I have been trying to explore and explain for that long, but never really could. This explains the ideas in clear English. It’s one of the best philosophy books I have read. Have I been stupid for not having read it until now? Yeah, but then I can’t really know what books are amazing and what books are more whining about cancel culture. I’m doing my best. Even the non-whining books can be extremely dry and pointless. Only very little philosophy is fun to read and I refuse to read boring books.
October 17, 2020
Для начала: в России книга называется «Добрые инквизиторы: Власть против свободы». Привет издательству Корпус, Рауш вообще не затрагивает власть в своей книге - ну, может, за редким исключением. В остальном его текст 1993 года читается дико, но зато становится понятно, почему он подписал летом 2020-го открытое письмо с осуждением культуры отмены.
Дело в том, что Рауш писал свою книгу до социальных сетей, и вряд ли представлял, насколько его постулат «оскорбления это нормально» превратится в ежедневные потоки говн в фейсбуке или твиттере. Он адепт критики, но в наше время критика становится чуть ли не опасной — почитайте, как реагируют на тексты Марии Кувшиновой, там всегда будет переход на личность, а не критика точки зрения.
Периодически у Рауша возникают абсолютно бредовые на мой взгляд идеи — вся глава под названием «Угроза человеколюбия» какой-то пир либертарианского духа. «Ответ на вопрос «Зачем терпеть полные ненависти и ошибочные мнения» не менялся с тех пор, как Платон представил миру свою леденящую кровь утопию: затем, что иначе будет хуже». Рауш забывает при этом отметить, кому именно будет хуже. Дальше он рассуждает об оскорбительных словах и подытоживает: «методичка по обидным словам быстро потеряет актуальность».
Но, как мы видим, ситуация в мире складывается иначе. Честно говоря, я не верю в объективность, считаю, что у каждого своя правда (моральный релятивизм? Maybe.), да и получив вагон и маленькую тележку оскорблений не думаю, что осудившие меня люди были готовы к хоть какому бы то ни было диалогу.
Иными словами - хотите, читайте, но я вас предупредила.
Дело в том, что Рауш писал свою книгу до социальных сетей, и вряд ли представлял, насколько его постулат «оскорбления это нормально» превратится в ежедневные потоки говн в фейсбуке или твиттере. Он адепт критики, но в наше время критика становится чуть ли не опасной — почитайте, как реагируют на тексты Марии Кувшиновой, там всегда будет переход на личность, а не критика точки зрения.
Периодически у Рауша возникают абсолютно бредовые на мой взгляд идеи — вся глава под названием «Угроза человеколюбия» какой-то пир либертарианского духа. «Ответ на вопрос «Зачем терпеть полные ненависти и ошибочные мнения» не менялся с тех пор, как Платон представил миру свою леденящую кровь утопию: затем, что иначе будет хуже». Рауш забывает при этом отметить, кому именно будет хуже. Дальше он рассуждает об оскорбительных словах и подытоживает: «методичка по обидным словам быстро потеряет актуальность».
Но, как мы видим, ситуация в мире складывается иначе. Честно говоря, я не верю в объективность, считаю, что у каждого своя правда (моральный релятивизм? Maybe.), да и получив вагон и маленькую тележку оскорблений не думаю, что осудившие меня люди были готовы к хоть какому бы то ни было диалогу.
Иными словами - хотите, читайте, но я вас предупредила.
November 22, 2022
Hard to believe this was written in 1993.
April 27, 2024
I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a pure polemic, but good gosh. I will probably never listen to another book narrated by Penn Jillette. I'd like to say that I merely felt like he was yelling me at certain points, but he was *literally yelling* at certain points. There are plenty of contemporary works that would be a better and more nuanced read than this diatribe.
March 1, 2017
By page 4 I was already enthralled:
"A very dangerous principle is now being established as a social right: Thou shall not hurt others with words. This principle is a menace -and not just to civil liberties. At bottom it threatens liberal inquiry -that is, science itself.
...in English we have a word for the empanelment of tribunals--public or private, but in any case prestigious and powerful--to identify and penalize false and socially dangerous opinions...The word has been out of general use for many years. It is 'inquisition'".
I want to mark up, highlight, make signage of so many quotes from this book!
And then it nosedives into obscure, philosophy. I tried, I really tried but real situations and direct writing does not resume until the very last chapter and by then I was mentally exhausted. Disappointed.
"A very dangerous principle is now being established as a social right: Thou shall not hurt others with words. This principle is a menace -and not just to civil liberties. At bottom it threatens liberal inquiry -that is, science itself.
...in English we have a word for the empanelment of tribunals--public or private, but in any case prestigious and powerful--to identify and penalize false and socially dangerous opinions...The word has been out of general use for many years. It is 'inquisition'".
I want to mark up, highlight, make signage of so many quotes from this book!
And then it nosedives into obscure, philosophy. I tried, I really tried but real situations and direct writing does not resume until the very last chapter and by then I was mentally exhausted. Disappointed.
May 27, 2020
Highly repetitive, and lacking in intellectual depth. While Rauch is a good writer, he spends most of his time repeating himself chapter after chapter without ever developing the ideas beyond their basic inception. Interesting concept and idea (it happens to be one that I more or less agree with) however, it was very sad to see such an interesting topic go to waste on a poorly developed book.
January 29, 2020
i’ve had my issues with rauch’s argument throughout the books, but i found his final epilogue really compelling? overall i think i agree with him but i think he’s very hypocritical in how he chooses to implement his ideas.
July 1, 2021
Hindsight is 20/20, but it's pretty amazing that this book was written in 1993, because now it looks almost prophetic outlining the attacks on liberal science and where this would lead. This book is excellent for a number of reasons, it's a clear, well-structured outline of the tenets of liberal science and the intellectual and philosophical traditions it is founded on. Rauch then steadily visits each attempt to undermine this system and elucidates the problems. I particularly liked that he didn't make a straw man argument out of any opposing views, he treats them with fundamental respect though ultimately discrediting them. This book is incredibly well reasoned and informative. Why do we need to defend liberal science? Because it's basically the best idea humans have come up with yet, and the alternative is very, very bad.
My only compliant comes with the addendum chapter that was added in the 2013 version. It unfortunately kinda goes off track with a version of moral evolution that feels kinda fluffy and metaphysical. Don't get me wrong, I'm a card-carrying Christian so I totally buy into transcendental morality. I just think if you're going to come at it from an materialist framework, then you can't also be teleological about it. Evolution is directionless, it simply rewards what works and discards what doesn't. By that same token, if morality is adaptive, then it's also directionless and simply adapting to environments and culture and selective pressures. We're not on some proverbial escalator of progress or human betterment, no matter how much it might feel that way, or how much we would like to be self-congratulatory about it. I know human's "moral evolution" is popular now with Pinker and Shermer and a bunch of these guys, but it feels to me a bit like they have wandered off the hard-line materialist path. We can't transcend our biology or rise above our biology, if you're sticking to the atheistic sandbox. So it's a bit too bad that he added in that chapter, but overall didn't spoil the book for me.
My only compliant comes with the addendum chapter that was added in the 2013 version. It unfortunately kinda goes off track with a version of moral evolution that feels kinda fluffy and metaphysical. Don't get me wrong, I'm a card-carrying Christian so I totally buy into transcendental morality. I just think if you're going to come at it from an materialist framework, then you can't also be teleological about it. Evolution is directionless, it simply rewards what works and discards what doesn't. By that same token, if morality is adaptive, then it's also directionless and simply adapting to environments and culture and selective pressures. We're not on some proverbial escalator of progress or human betterment, no matter how much it might feel that way, or how much we would like to be self-congratulatory about it. I know human's "moral evolution" is popular now with Pinker and Shermer and a bunch of these guys, but it feels to me a bit like they have wandered off the hard-line materialist path. We can't transcend our biology or rise above our biology, if you're sticking to the atheistic sandbox. So it's a bit too bad that he added in that chapter, but overall didn't spoil the book for me.
September 6, 2021
Rauch's The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth isn't as dated, but this book, even though it dates back to the early 90s, feels like an ominous warning about how we need to structure our political discourse.
"Those who claim hurt by words must be lead to expect nothing as compensation. Otherwise, once they learn they can get something by claiming to be hurt, they will go into the business of being offended."
This isn't just financial business, but the business of social currency and attention. This sentence captured much of what I find troubling about the discourse in today's world.
"Those who claim hurt by words must be lead to expect nothing as compensation. Otherwise, once they learn they can get something by claiming to be hurt, they will go into the business of being offended."
This isn't just financial business, but the business of social currency and attention. This sentence captured much of what I find troubling about the discourse in today's world.
October 3, 2021
Thought provoking and prescient
June 9, 2021
Argues that the best defense against hate speech, discrimination, and prejudice is the marketplace of ideas, that of “liberal science.” If the government is allowed to define what kind of speech is acceptable, where does it stop? The subjective nature of what is hateful or not creates a never ending litany of parties with potential speech grievances (I.e. using the N word vs. saying that Zionism is wrong and the Palestinians deserve their fair share). Explains why certain systems rely on authoritarian ideological conformity; because they have no other way to justify what they say (I.e. fundamentalist Islam and Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, whom he genuinely felt as an aggressor that wanted to tear down Iranian and Islamic society). Liberal Science is not an all encompassing solution; it does not provide for human virtue or belief systems. But, it is the best system that has been devised to produce the most progress for society and ideas, be they actually scientific or otherwise. From preface (George Will), “The unvarnished truth is that some people derive intense pleasure from bossing around other people. The fact that they also may really believe they are improving the people who are under their thumb or are improving the world does not make them kindly.” Liberal science allows for freedom of belief and speech, but rejects freedom of knowledge; we reject prayer as an effective means to treat medical ailments. “To ban books or words which cretins find exciting is to let the very lowest among us determine what we may read or hear.” “In the 1980s it began to be commonplace for activists and intellectuals to conspicuously take offense. Here, there, everywhere, they were offended...As more and more people realized that they could win concessions and moral victories by being offended, more and more offended people became activists.” This, a premonition of Shant Mesrobian’s “Performative Radicalism.” “...as soon as people learn they can get something if they raise Cain about being offended, they go into the business of professional offendedness.” “...the liberal intellectual system, whatever else it may be, is not ‘nice.’” Offense can be caused in an open marketplace where we seek the truth; if you are unhealthy and are told you might benefit by eating some broccoli and doing some exercise, you may be offended by such true advice. “[Liberal science” does not give a damn about your feelings and happily tramples them in the name of finding truth... To advance knowledge, we must all sometimes suffer.” “...any fundamentalist system for settling differences of opinion—is the enemy of free thought.” Whether religious fundamentalism or anti-racist fundamentalism, one-way interpretations of the entire World and everything in it. “[The humanitarian challenge] leads to the doctrine that people should be punished for holding false or dangerous beliefs. It leads, in other words, toward an inquisition.” Liberal science is “disorienting” ”unsettling” and can legitimately cause pain and create losers – the author acknowledges all of this, “open-ended, decentralized decision-making systems are perpetually unsettling.” VS Naipaul, Christian fundamentalist, “In the modern view, the world is just one damned thing after another. A horrible worldview... that human beings cannot live with. It cannot last. It will destroy itself.” But, this is what must be born in the pursuit of truth, which is to everyone’s benefits, particularly minorities. “The fundamentalist temperament tends to search for certainty rather than for errors. The fundamentalist’s tendency is to nail his beliefs in place.” (Peirce) “[Fundamentalism] is about the inability to seriously entertain the possibility that one might be wrong.” Fundamentalists “show no interest in checking,” regardless of their beliefs. “’We are afraid of your ideas and of your customs. Which means that we fear you politically and socially.’”-Khomeini. “I do know that, during my long lifetime, I have always been right about what I said” -Khomeini. “Liberalism holds that knowledge comes only from a public process of critical exchange, in which the wise and the unwise alike participate.” Knowledge is a social process; moral error is burned away by public criticism. “...we are obsessed with debating how society ought to organize itself to create material product... but we ignore questions like, Who should decide what kind of questions to ask, what kind of research to do? The imbalance is bizarre... the greatest of all human products is our knowledge.” Given everyone has different experience, who decides what is true. “We must all take seriously the idea that any and all of us might, at any time, be wrong.” In a democracy, no one should get final say, and no one holds personal authority; knowledge is an ever-evolving process, defying people’s desires for certainty. No discussion is ever ended; sincere criticism should always be welcomed. “In a liberal scientific society, to claim that you are above error is the height of irresponsibility.” “From Locke, then, comes our public process for picking worthy beliefs... from him also comes the strongest of all arguments for the toleration of dissent... Locke preached the sermon which every generation learns with such difficulty and forgets with such ease: ‘We should do well to commiserate our mutual ignorance, and endeavor to remove it in all the gentle and fair ways of information, and not instantly treat others ill, as obstinate and perverse, because they will not renounce their own, and receive our opinions... For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns?’ This, finally, is why the Constitution protects the speech of Nazis, Communists, racists, sexists, homophobes: they may be right. And, if they turn out to be wrong, it does us good to hear what they have to say so that we can criticize their beliefs and know why they are wrong.” “...people who are used to an authoritarian moral climate have such a hard time switching to the mechanisms of democracy and markets, and so often make a botch of it.” Similar line of reasoning here to Peterson on democratic societies slowly absorbing immigrants to assimilate the culture. “In liberal society, the impulse to stamp out wrong opinion—Plato's impulse—is nothing less than the impulse to destroy knowledge itself.” “...liberal science does not obliterate the world of the soul and the spirit. it does, however, delimit it and then leave it alone. It does so because it must. The alternative is to put nonadjudicable private beliefs at the top of the public agenda... a critical intellectual system... sends us off to fill [our needs] privately as best we can. It is incomplete... as to providing for our souls.” From a professor’s letter, “’In my debates with the fundamentalist left, the main driving force seems to be a sense of impotence. So much that is so bad is going on, and they can do nothing. ‘If we can’t do this, what can we do?’” Governments have “monopolies on force” and “enormous repressive powers”; they must not stifle criticism. “When only one outcome can be legitimate, an open-ended, decentralized process is nothing more than a standing invitation to make the wrong decision. Who needs a selection process when the choice is obvious.” Thus, there is no question when belief is fixed. “... if you can’t fix the process, then fix the outcome... organize your group around a set of fixed beliefs...” “Those who know the truth should decide who is right”, the fundamentalist anointed. “In an orthodox community, the threat of social disintegration is never further away than the first dissenter.” Thus, crushing dissent in authoritarian climates is crucial; witnesseth the Soviet Union, and “Communist” China. “The us-versus-them mentality of fundamentalists all over the world is not the product of paranoia. It is the product of a clear understanding that central authority must be defended at all costs in an intellectual culture which has no other means to resolve its members’ disagreements.” Thus, there is only authority as a solution, there is no way to deduce one’s rightness through reason. “And so to call the fundamentalists nutty or irrational does them a profound injustice. When... [they] rise in rage... [or] shake their fists... they are acting in genuine self-defense. They are acting to stave off social and political chaos. That is what makes them so dangerous.” "The more I get around, the more deeply I am impressed that the gardens of human belief flower more exotically than any in nature". “The greater threat lies in our letting down our guard against ourself: in high-mindedly embracing authoritarianism in the name of fairness and compassion, as the Marxists did.” Political bodies do not get to say what our knowledge is or is not; all knowledge does not deserve “equal time” at the bequest of centralized authorities; that is illiberal. Voting and agitating do not produce knowledge. “Respect is no opinion’s birthright.” Society does not respect Holocaust deniers, but they are free to make their claims. If we had “equal time” for every sincere belief, we would have to teach Holocaust Revisionism – equal time laws make marginalization illegal. “If you believe that a society is just only when it delivers more or less equal outcomes, you will think liberalism is unfair. You will insist on admitting everyone's belief into respectability as knowledge. Or at least you will insist on admitting the beliefs of people whom you regard as oppressed—affirmative action for knowledge... [with]… fights over who gets what... [then] a knowledge-making system whose greatest virtue is its adaptiveness will turn sclerotic.” “A no-offense society is a no-knowledge society.” “A University of Michigan law professor said: ‘To me, racial epithets are not speech. They are bullets.’ This, finally, is where the humanitarian line leads: to the erasure of the distinction, in principle and ultimately also in practice, between discussion and bloodshed.” If speech are bullets, then it is okay for Khomeini to issue a fatwa against Rushdie to kill him. “The whole point of liberal science is that it substitutes criticism for force and violence.” Where does the line between bigotry and opinion exist? i.e. questioning if an individual has the capacity to choose homosexuality. Who gets to say who is right and wrong? McWhorter’s “The Elect,” Sowell’s “The Anointed.” “...we, the right-thinking, are the ones who will say who is and isn’t bigoted.” “One person’s hate speech is another person’s sincerest criticism.” “To make speech punishable on grounds of intent is to give authorities the power to punish criticism whenever they are suspicious of the critic. We should know better than to give any authority such power...” “The history of science is full of bitter criticism and hard feelings; there is simply no way around it. If you insist on an unhostile or nonoffensive environment, then you belong in a monastery, not a university.” “People who like authoritarianism always picture themselves running the show. But no one stays on top for long.” Karl Popper “Is it not a common experience that those who are most convinced of having got rid of their prejudices are most prejudiced?” Of a withdrawn invitation to Linda Chavez to speak at a university, “She had the wrong kinds of beliefs and so was the wrong kind of person.” “The only way to kill a bad idea is by exposing it and supplanting it with better ones.” -- you cannot simply tell people not to have an idea. “We cannot fight hate and fraud without seeing them and debunking them... ‘Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but fact and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it.’” JS Mill. “Our greatest enemy is not irrational hate... it is rational hate, hate premised upon falsehood... The main way to eliminate hate is not to legislate or inveigh against it, but to replace it—with knowledge, empirical and ethical.” Gives example of Frank Kameny who was dismissed from the military for being gay, and fought for 30 some odd years, eventually receiving an apology from Obama Administration.
March 4, 2022
This is a timely dated book. It was written against the wave of political correctness of the 1990s, so all the examples the author, Jonathan Rauch, gives are thirty years old, and yet it is timely because everything he writes about is worse now, with many new examples of free speech being eroded by the institutions that should most treasure it. If you are young, you might have trouble with some of the examples because the book will be like a sort of history lesson, but if you are old like me, it will jog your memory in a good way.
He advocates for free speech against hate speech, holocaust denial or any kind of speech deemed offensive. The opening gives a good example. A French law of 1990 was reported thusly, “The measures also outlaw revisionism…questioning the truth of the Jewish Holocaust in World War Two.” Look at the words there, “measures” that “outlaw…questioning”. Everything can be questioned all the time.
The author argues from epistemology, how we generate truth. He contends that a noisy debate in which people are offended and have their feelings hurt is better than social peace which is based on untruths or things that cannot be questioned. He calls this liberal science. The rules are the same for everybody, everybody must submit their opinions to public checking, everybody must be able to check your results, and criticism must be freewheeling. There is no perfect authority, no special experience not available to all, and no experience is final. This process is a game to construct knowledge, which evolves under the impact of criticism and thrives on intellectual diversity. Individuals can be as dogmatic and stubborn as they want, but they have to play by the rules. Most people will be wrong most of the time, but the system in total will sort our errors, though prone to them in the short term. In fact, over time, we can get closer and closer to the truth. We know more now than the ancient Romans or mid-twentieth century Americans.
He supports Karl Popper’s idea that we can’t prove hypotheses, we can only disprove incorrect hypotheses. Therefore, every hypothesis (The Theory of Evolution, The Theory of Relativity, Meat is Murder) is provisional. It can be used and treated as true, but we have to be open-minded to new ideas with better explanatory power and to the idea that any of these could possibly be disproved by new evidence. The cycle of criticism never ends. It is a method with an end to find provisional truth. Science is not a product of a scientist’s objectivity: it is a product of relentless criticism by other scientists.
People have no right to not be offended. The humanitarian principle is deadly for free speech. Speech can wound us mentally but not physically and the difference is important. The case of Salmon Rushdie is instructive. He wrote a book satirizing Mohamed and was sentenced to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini in the late 1980s. His book deeply hurt the feelings of fundamentalist Muslims, and their answer was to order him to be killed. These are not the same thing. Words are words and violence is violence.
Inquiries against individuals for incorrect opinions may fairly be called inquisitions. “Thought vigilantes” are the people in institutions who will punish you privately, by firing you, expelling you, or making your publicly apologize, if the government won’t punish you for incorrect thought and hurtful opinions. The problem with prohibiting certain kinds of speech is that it substitutes criticism of an idea with punishment (jail, fine, expulsion, firing) by an authority that claims to have the truth. He gives a good example. If a history professor claims that the Holocaust never happened, he shouldn’t be fired because he offended Jews, he should be fired because he doesn’t know what he is talking about. “When fundamentalism becomes institutionalized and empowers a central authority over truth, as it tends to do, it has the nasty habit of terrorizing dissenters.” This is a problem on the left and right, for he gives an example of anti-tax Republicans in the 1980s. Criticize the hypothesis, not the hypothesizer.
Another creed of the authoritarian left is that ethnic groups, genders, or groups of people with certain sexual orientations have group opinions or perspectives. Actually, individuals have opinions: those groups are as divided as the rest of us. To see where this ultimately leads, remember, the Nazis had Jewish science and Aryan science, the Soviets Marxist science and Bourgeois science.
One of the good things about this book is how the author compares arguments and shows how they have progressed. For example, Creationists wanted equal time for their arguments in schools vs. evolution and claimed the status of persecuted minority, and then persecuted minorities began advocating for their views to be given equal time as well, for example, indigenous creationism. Schools teach that the world exists on the back of a turtle. Retort: there is a difference between belief and knowledge. You can have an opinion, but it must be put through the criticism grinder and it is only knowledge if it succeeds.
The author also comes out against hate crime legislation as that presupposes a need to investigate the thoughts of the criminal, as opposed only to his actions. Also, these are passed only after the majority has come to the conclusion that prejudice is bad. They do not precede it, and so do not add anything to justice. We can’t eliminate hate and prejudice, we can only criticize it.
This is a good book outlining the principles of free speech, but to a certain extent, the author is naive about human nature. Criticizing the hypothesis rather than the hypothesizer and protecting the speech with which you most disagree are great ideas, but rather difficult for humans to do. I don’t think that the situation can ever be perfect, given what kinds of creatures humans are, but the situation can get better or worse, and it is definitely worse in 2022 than it was in 1993, when he wrote the book. To argue against myself, though, I don't want to live in a world in which neo-Nazis feel free to paint swastikas on synagogues and the Ku Klux Klan shows up every Wednesday to burn yet another cross at the Black Church. The balance is hard to find.
I am from Canada and we have hate speech and hate crime legislation, and it isn’t going away any time soon. We have legislation that regulates what psychiatrists can say to their patients regarding their sexuality and gender. You may think those are good things. As Rauch would say, they are well-intended, kindly even, but their impact is to limit criticism and questioning and so weaken our ability to properly generate truth. Further, if we concede the principle that there is speech that cannot be said, principles that cannot be questioned, we will be very disappointed when our opponents come to political power and start adjusting the range of permissible opinion in their direction.
Further, the kindly authoritarian left have taken over swathes of our institutions, particularly the universities and media, and you will be penalized for questioning their opinions. Is someone a community leader or a race hustler? Is it affirmative action or reverse racism? Can boys be girls? Academics and others have lost their jobs taking the wrong side in these debates. This is dangerous because it is causing a backlash that is worse than the disease. Many people no longer trust the media or government or academia to produce unbiased knowledge and they have reason not to trust them. Noam Chomsky wrote about this from a left wing perspective, in a book called Manufacturing Consent, and he was correct. Now the right wing have figured it out too. Unfortunately, the alternative is some carnival barker generating views on social media. This is worse.
This book posits that the left wing is the bigger threat to free speech, and he is partially correct, because they are those ones who have put out the most forceful modern arguments to limit it. However, the right is still up to its old tricks too, and so what is happening now is that there is a political battle to control institutions and then shut down the speech of the other side. By the way, that is exactly what he said would happen if things continued on their way. He was a prophet. Let me give you an example. The authoritarian left wing gets control of Boards of Education and enforces Critical Race Theory, instead of just discussing it. (The wrong way to teach CRT is: here is the received word of Ibram X Kendi and though shalt obey. The correct way to teach it is: there are different ways of looking at race relations, CRT is one of them. What do you think?) And then the authoritarian right wing gets control of the state legislature and bans even discussing it. Is this a good way to govern ourselves?
The book uses Karl Popper’s thoughts about how knowledge is generated, but it omits Popper’s thoughts on the limits of free speech, which are illuminating. Popper says we need to tolerate everything but intolerance. Tolerate, not respect. You say the earth is flat. I can tolerate that, but I don’t have to respect it. And when he wrote about not tolerating intolerance, he wrote that from the perspective of a Jew who had to flee when the Nazis took over Austria after a nasty civil war and invasion. He said we can tolerate the intolerant so long as we can counter them with arguments, but not if they decide to get their way with fists and violence. We cannot tolerate people who want to break democracy. I think something in the news today is a good example. Russia Today has been on the Canadian cable TV universe for a few years. Generally, they generate propaganda for Putin’s regime. Canada could tolerate it. With Putin on the march in the Ukraine, however, it has become intolerable.
As I said, the book is dated but the arguments are timely. You don’t need to agree with everything in the book in order for it to make you think more. It will help you to organize your thoughts on this issue. Rauch’s new book is called The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. I am going to read that soon.
He advocates for free speech against hate speech, holocaust denial or any kind of speech deemed offensive. The opening gives a good example. A French law of 1990 was reported thusly, “The measures also outlaw revisionism…questioning the truth of the Jewish Holocaust in World War Two.” Look at the words there, “measures” that “outlaw…questioning”. Everything can be questioned all the time.
The author argues from epistemology, how we generate truth. He contends that a noisy debate in which people are offended and have their feelings hurt is better than social peace which is based on untruths or things that cannot be questioned. He calls this liberal science. The rules are the same for everybody, everybody must submit their opinions to public checking, everybody must be able to check your results, and criticism must be freewheeling. There is no perfect authority, no special experience not available to all, and no experience is final. This process is a game to construct knowledge, which evolves under the impact of criticism and thrives on intellectual diversity. Individuals can be as dogmatic and stubborn as they want, but they have to play by the rules. Most people will be wrong most of the time, but the system in total will sort our errors, though prone to them in the short term. In fact, over time, we can get closer and closer to the truth. We know more now than the ancient Romans or mid-twentieth century Americans.
He supports Karl Popper’s idea that we can’t prove hypotheses, we can only disprove incorrect hypotheses. Therefore, every hypothesis (The Theory of Evolution, The Theory of Relativity, Meat is Murder) is provisional. It can be used and treated as true, but we have to be open-minded to new ideas with better explanatory power and to the idea that any of these could possibly be disproved by new evidence. The cycle of criticism never ends. It is a method with an end to find provisional truth. Science is not a product of a scientist’s objectivity: it is a product of relentless criticism by other scientists.
People have no right to not be offended. The humanitarian principle is deadly for free speech. Speech can wound us mentally but not physically and the difference is important. The case of Salmon Rushdie is instructive. He wrote a book satirizing Mohamed and was sentenced to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini in the late 1980s. His book deeply hurt the feelings of fundamentalist Muslims, and their answer was to order him to be killed. These are not the same thing. Words are words and violence is violence.
Inquiries against individuals for incorrect opinions may fairly be called inquisitions. “Thought vigilantes” are the people in institutions who will punish you privately, by firing you, expelling you, or making your publicly apologize, if the government won’t punish you for incorrect thought and hurtful opinions. The problem with prohibiting certain kinds of speech is that it substitutes criticism of an idea with punishment (jail, fine, expulsion, firing) by an authority that claims to have the truth. He gives a good example. If a history professor claims that the Holocaust never happened, he shouldn’t be fired because he offended Jews, he should be fired because he doesn’t know what he is talking about. “When fundamentalism becomes institutionalized and empowers a central authority over truth, as it tends to do, it has the nasty habit of terrorizing dissenters.” This is a problem on the left and right, for he gives an example of anti-tax Republicans in the 1980s. Criticize the hypothesis, not the hypothesizer.
Another creed of the authoritarian left is that ethnic groups, genders, or groups of people with certain sexual orientations have group opinions or perspectives. Actually, individuals have opinions: those groups are as divided as the rest of us. To see where this ultimately leads, remember, the Nazis had Jewish science and Aryan science, the Soviets Marxist science and Bourgeois science.
One of the good things about this book is how the author compares arguments and shows how they have progressed. For example, Creationists wanted equal time for their arguments in schools vs. evolution and claimed the status of persecuted minority, and then persecuted minorities began advocating for their views to be given equal time as well, for example, indigenous creationism. Schools teach that the world exists on the back of a turtle. Retort: there is a difference between belief and knowledge. You can have an opinion, but it must be put through the criticism grinder and it is only knowledge if it succeeds.
The author also comes out against hate crime legislation as that presupposes a need to investigate the thoughts of the criminal, as opposed only to his actions. Also, these are passed only after the majority has come to the conclusion that prejudice is bad. They do not precede it, and so do not add anything to justice. We can’t eliminate hate and prejudice, we can only criticize it.
This is a good book outlining the principles of free speech, but to a certain extent, the author is naive about human nature. Criticizing the hypothesis rather than the hypothesizer and protecting the speech with which you most disagree are great ideas, but rather difficult for humans to do. I don’t think that the situation can ever be perfect, given what kinds of creatures humans are, but the situation can get better or worse, and it is definitely worse in 2022 than it was in 1993, when he wrote the book. To argue against myself, though, I don't want to live in a world in which neo-Nazis feel free to paint swastikas on synagogues and the Ku Klux Klan shows up every Wednesday to burn yet another cross at the Black Church. The balance is hard to find.
I am from Canada and we have hate speech and hate crime legislation, and it isn’t going away any time soon. We have legislation that regulates what psychiatrists can say to their patients regarding their sexuality and gender. You may think those are good things. As Rauch would say, they are well-intended, kindly even, but their impact is to limit criticism and questioning and so weaken our ability to properly generate truth. Further, if we concede the principle that there is speech that cannot be said, principles that cannot be questioned, we will be very disappointed when our opponents come to political power and start adjusting the range of permissible opinion in their direction.
Further, the kindly authoritarian left have taken over swathes of our institutions, particularly the universities and media, and you will be penalized for questioning their opinions. Is someone a community leader or a race hustler? Is it affirmative action or reverse racism? Can boys be girls? Academics and others have lost their jobs taking the wrong side in these debates. This is dangerous because it is causing a backlash that is worse than the disease. Many people no longer trust the media or government or academia to produce unbiased knowledge and they have reason not to trust them. Noam Chomsky wrote about this from a left wing perspective, in a book called Manufacturing Consent, and he was correct. Now the right wing have figured it out too. Unfortunately, the alternative is some carnival barker generating views on social media. This is worse.
This book posits that the left wing is the bigger threat to free speech, and he is partially correct, because they are those ones who have put out the most forceful modern arguments to limit it. However, the right is still up to its old tricks too, and so what is happening now is that there is a political battle to control institutions and then shut down the speech of the other side. By the way, that is exactly what he said would happen if things continued on their way. He was a prophet. Let me give you an example. The authoritarian left wing gets control of Boards of Education and enforces Critical Race Theory, instead of just discussing it. (The wrong way to teach CRT is: here is the received word of Ibram X Kendi and though shalt obey. The correct way to teach it is: there are different ways of looking at race relations, CRT is one of them. What do you think?) And then the authoritarian right wing gets control of the state legislature and bans even discussing it. Is this a good way to govern ourselves?
The book uses Karl Popper’s thoughts about how knowledge is generated, but it omits Popper’s thoughts on the limits of free speech, which are illuminating. Popper says we need to tolerate everything but intolerance. Tolerate, not respect. You say the earth is flat. I can tolerate that, but I don’t have to respect it. And when he wrote about not tolerating intolerance, he wrote that from the perspective of a Jew who had to flee when the Nazis took over Austria after a nasty civil war and invasion. He said we can tolerate the intolerant so long as we can counter them with arguments, but not if they decide to get their way with fists and violence. We cannot tolerate people who want to break democracy. I think something in the news today is a good example. Russia Today has been on the Canadian cable TV universe for a few years. Generally, they generate propaganda for Putin’s regime. Canada could tolerate it. With Putin on the march in the Ukraine, however, it has become intolerable.
As I said, the book is dated but the arguments are timely. You don’t need to agree with everything in the book in order for it to make you think more. It will help you to organize your thoughts on this issue. Rauch’s new book is called The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. I am going to read that soon.
April 26, 2021
this is a must read for anyone who thinks there is room for defending safe spaces in campuses or placing restrictions on free speech.
May 8, 2021
Required reading.
Really sad that this book was written 30 years ago and it reads like it could have been written last year.
Really sad that this book was written 30 years ago and it reads like it could have been written last year.
March 20, 2021
This was a book that went in a different direction than I thought. My impression was that it would be more about telling stories of attacks on free thought, but it was instead more an argument about epistemology (and the book unashamedly defends the use of the word epistemology and its importance), and what the best system for obtaining truth (or things approaching truth) is. So it became more philosophical (even if it remained grounded in real-world applications) than I expected.
As you may guess, the book is an argument for free speech/thought, but not from a first amendment legal argument, but from a cultural/system-of-knowledge view. Rauch argues that there are several different possible conceptions of how to determine true beliefs. There is the system where those who know the Truth get to decide, all sincere people's beliefs have equal respect, beliefs of persons in historically oppressed classes/groups get special consideration, any of the these but with condition that first priority be to cause no hurt, and finally the "liberal principle" of checking of each by each through public criticism is the only legitimate way to decide who is right. Rauch considers all of these possibilities and points out why someone may find them compelling as well as their flaws, including the "liberal principle", though he clearly favors it. Rauch is a proponent of "liberal science" with the "liberal principle" which consists of two rules in practice, no one gets the final word (all knowledge is tentative and subject to revision by public criticism) and no one has personal authority.
I appreciated that Rauch took the other positions' seriously and explained his criticisms of them, but is also quite forward about the disadvantages of the liberal principle (such as that people will feel offence and hurt if their position is ignored or considered wrong, though I doubt his case will be found convincing by those who strongly value "no hurt") as well as the advantages of the system. At bottom, he argues that, like democracy, the liberal science way of getting knowledge may not be perfect but it is the best way we have, and that, indeed, it has made spectacular progress.
This book was first written in the 1990s and there is an afterword from the 2010's that looks at some more modern examples and explores moral knowledge, that is also well-argued and interesting. I think that Rauch does throughout the book to approach people's concerns with "liberal science" while also admitting that it cannot be "proved" (which would be self-contradictory given that nothing is completely proved given the rules), but that we need to fully consider the possible disadvantages of alternatives. Given the rise of social media, and the arguments about false or misleading news (or the control the social media companies now have over what people see), it would be interesting to see if Rauch would update the book to address such concerns.
I am certain that this will not be final the word on free speech issues (I'm sure that there are weak points that I missed in some of his arguments; at least Rauch would agree that the book can and should be argued about!), but Rauch makes interesting and well-formed arguments with well-written prose, and has a perspective that I thought was straightforward and different than the standard defense of free speech/thought. I usually see people go more to legal and JS Mill-style arguments when they argue for free speech/thought; Rauch has a somewhat though not completely similar defense and it certainly is worth pondering.
As you may guess, the book is an argument for free speech/thought, but not from a first amendment legal argument, but from a cultural/system-of-knowledge view. Rauch argues that there are several different possible conceptions of how to determine true beliefs. There is the system where those who know the Truth get to decide, all sincere people's beliefs have equal respect, beliefs of persons in historically oppressed classes/groups get special consideration, any of the these but with condition that first priority be to cause no hurt, and finally the "liberal principle" of checking of each by each through public criticism is the only legitimate way to decide who is right. Rauch considers all of these possibilities and points out why someone may find them compelling as well as their flaws, including the "liberal principle", though he clearly favors it. Rauch is a proponent of "liberal science" with the "liberal principle" which consists of two rules in practice, no one gets the final word (all knowledge is tentative and subject to revision by public criticism) and no one has personal authority.
I appreciated that Rauch took the other positions' seriously and explained his criticisms of them, but is also quite forward about the disadvantages of the liberal principle (such as that people will feel offence and hurt if their position is ignored or considered wrong, though I doubt his case will be found convincing by those who strongly value "no hurt") as well as the advantages of the system. At bottom, he argues that, like democracy, the liberal science way of getting knowledge may not be perfect but it is the best way we have, and that, indeed, it has made spectacular progress.
This book was first written in the 1990s and there is an afterword from the 2010's that looks at some more modern examples and explores moral knowledge, that is also well-argued and interesting. I think that Rauch does throughout the book to approach people's concerns with "liberal science" while also admitting that it cannot be "proved" (which would be self-contradictory given that nothing is completely proved given the rules), but that we need to fully consider the possible disadvantages of alternatives. Given the rise of social media, and the arguments about false or misleading news (or the control the social media companies now have over what people see), it would be interesting to see if Rauch would update the book to address such concerns.
I am certain that this will not be final the word on free speech issues (I'm sure that there are weak points that I missed in some of his arguments; at least Rauch would agree that the book can and should be argued about!), but Rauch makes interesting and well-formed arguments with well-written prose, and has a perspective that I thought was straightforward and different than the standard defense of free speech/thought. I usually see people go more to legal and JS Mill-style arguments when they argue for free speech/thought; Rauch has a somewhat though not completely similar defense and it certainly is worth pondering.
March 30, 2020
This book is essentially a defense of free thought or, as the author calls it, "liberal science." The idea is basically that because we can never be sure that we're right, we shouldn't silence others, either by political force or the court of public opinion, but instead we should all be committed to subjecting society's ideas to a decentralized and thorough process of crticism and debate. Correspondingly, no one has a "right not to be offended."
The best thing that can be said about the book is that, written in the early 1990s, it was a very early treatment of some anti-free-thought social institutions that have become ubiquitous in today's society, such as cancel culture, anti-hate-speech laws, and the tendency of college campus student groups to cancel speaker events based on popular outrage. In this sense, the book seems prescient with respect to how much of our society looks today.
However, I still didn't like the book very much. I think the best argument for "free thought" and against a supposed "right not to be offended" is that no one can count on always being on the side of the political force or court of public opinion silencing the thought, and the "right not to be offended" can easily be turned against you, even if you think you have the noblest of values or ideas. Unfortunately, this book seems largely just to take that argument, complicate it, and prolong it into about 150 pages without making the argument more persuasive or adding much that is interesting, in my opinion. Another strong argument for "free thought" is that some of its alternatives, such as trying to silence others through shame or "cancelling" them, are ineffective at persuading and seem to backfire by causing prejudiced beliefs to become subconscious or consciously hidden from society and thus not properly dealt with. However, the author gives very little attention to this type of argument, which I think is a mistake.
Also, this book fails to address some of the strongest counterarguments. One that particularly stuck out to me is as follows. In a world adhering to free thought or "liberal science," ideas gain legitimacy and "respectability" by successfully withstanding debate and criticism and becoming the consensus (although under his scheme, no idea ever becomes unquestionable). Bad ideas are weeded out by relentless criticism and, although they're never silenced by political force or the court of public opinion, they rightly become contemptible among society. Importantly, the institution of "liberal science," as the author calls it, privileges no one's and no group's beliefs or ideas above another's, even a historically marginalized group, so an idea must be analyzed for correctness and legitimacy without any regard to the identity of the speaker. As the author puts it "whatever you do to check a proposition must be something that anyone can do . . . and get the same result . . . regardless of identity." Ideas and their legitimacy and respectability must be "public" in this sense--accessible to anyone regardless of identity. And thus any attempt based on one's identity, even as a member of a historically margainalized group, to silence another or to circumvent the legitimacy of the marketplace of ideas is illiberal and wrong. The counterargument against this view is that that it forgets who the scorekeepers are in this marketplace of ideas. The scorekeepers, the people contributing to the popularity of ideas and deciding the "respectability"/legitimacy/popularity of them, are largely white males. I think this is arguably one of the strongest counterarguments and yet the author doesn't address it.
My favorite part of the book was probably the Forward at the end, which the authors seems to have written just a few years ago for the new edition of the book. In it, the author, who is gay, provides an interesting and (I think) compelling example: an anti-hate-speech law in the realm of gay rights decades ago probably would have targeted speech by gay people, not homophobes, and would have looked more like "defend our children from pro-gay speech!"
The best thing that can be said about the book is that, written in the early 1990s, it was a very early treatment of some anti-free-thought social institutions that have become ubiquitous in today's society, such as cancel culture, anti-hate-speech laws, and the tendency of college campus student groups to cancel speaker events based on popular outrage. In this sense, the book seems prescient with respect to how much of our society looks today.
However, I still didn't like the book very much. I think the best argument for "free thought" and against a supposed "right not to be offended" is that no one can count on always being on the side of the political force or court of public opinion silencing the thought, and the "right not to be offended" can easily be turned against you, even if you think you have the noblest of values or ideas. Unfortunately, this book seems largely just to take that argument, complicate it, and prolong it into about 150 pages without making the argument more persuasive or adding much that is interesting, in my opinion. Another strong argument for "free thought" is that some of its alternatives, such as trying to silence others through shame or "cancelling" them, are ineffective at persuading and seem to backfire by causing prejudiced beliefs to become subconscious or consciously hidden from society and thus not properly dealt with. However, the author gives very little attention to this type of argument, which I think is a mistake.
Also, this book fails to address some of the strongest counterarguments. One that particularly stuck out to me is as follows. In a world adhering to free thought or "liberal science," ideas gain legitimacy and "respectability" by successfully withstanding debate and criticism and becoming the consensus (although under his scheme, no idea ever becomes unquestionable). Bad ideas are weeded out by relentless criticism and, although they're never silenced by political force or the court of public opinion, they rightly become contemptible among society. Importantly, the institution of "liberal science," as the author calls it, privileges no one's and no group's beliefs or ideas above another's, even a historically marginalized group, so an idea must be analyzed for correctness and legitimacy without any regard to the identity of the speaker. As the author puts it "whatever you do to check a proposition must be something that anyone can do . . . and get the same result . . . regardless of identity." Ideas and their legitimacy and respectability must be "public" in this sense--accessible to anyone regardless of identity. And thus any attempt based on one's identity, even as a member of a historically margainalized group, to silence another or to circumvent the legitimacy of the marketplace of ideas is illiberal and wrong. The counterargument against this view is that that it forgets who the scorekeepers are in this marketplace of ideas. The scorekeepers, the people contributing to the popularity of ideas and deciding the "respectability"/legitimacy/popularity of them, are largely white males. I think this is arguably one of the strongest counterarguments and yet the author doesn't address it.
My favorite part of the book was probably the Forward at the end, which the authors seems to have written just a few years ago for the new edition of the book. In it, the author, who is gay, provides an interesting and (I think) compelling example: an anti-hate-speech law in the realm of gay rights decades ago probably would have targeted speech by gay people, not homophobes, and would have looked more like "defend our children from pro-gay speech!"
January 18, 2022
The other day, I saw Greg Lukianoff, the co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, recommend this book from Jonathan Rauch. Not only did he recommend it, but Lukianoff said it’s one of the most important books of the last 50 years. I have never heard of Jonathan Rauch, and usually I don’t like books that are this old. With that being said, this book absolutely blew my mind and I couldn’t put it down. As an avid reader, when I find a book I really like, I can finish it in one or two days, but I legitimately finished this book in one sitting, and I’m so glad I gave it a chance because I was absolutely hooked.
So, what made this book so great? Well, free speech and the willingness to have conversations about sometimes difficult topics is something important to me because in 2019, I had hundreds of thousands of strangers attack me online. When that happened, I became really interested in this subject along with group think, scientific inquiry, and all that. Many books on this subject seem to pander to free speech absolutists and online trolls who want the ability to say whatever they want, but Rauch provided such an amazing, philosophical and nuanced discussions around this subject.
As a left-leaning atheist, I was surprised at how Rauch was able to remind me to practice some intellectual humility by reminding the reader that nobody has the final say on knowledge and truth. He does this by presenting philosophical arguments going back to Plato, Socrates, and Descartes. I’m not going to lie, when I was in the first few chapters of this book, I thought Rauch was basically taking the post-modernist argument that reality is subjective and we should be allowed to think and believe whatever we want. While Rauch does argue that free thought and free speech is essential, he then breaks down liberal science and why you may be entitled to your belief, but you’re not entitled to calling it knowledge.
Another great aspect of this book is that Rauch is equally critical of the liberal Left and conservative Right. I will admit that I didn’t 100% agree with all of his arguments, but I respected each one. I could write a 10-page review of this book, but I’m going to stop here. Lukianoff wasn’t joking when he said this book was one of the most important books in the last 50 years, and it should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants to have mature debates around difficult subjects.
2nd read:
I read this book again in preparation for Stephen Fleming coming on my podcast, and it’s such a great book about self-awareness. Fleming has been researching the science of self-awareness for years, and there are so many interesting studies and conversations throughout this book. Stephen is fascinated with meta cognition, and it’s really intriguing to read about how he and others have been researching how aware we are of our own thoughts, emotions, desires, and actions. I’m always interested in self-deception and denial, and I read a ton of books on the topic from the realm of psychology and philosophy. Not only does Fleming cover these angels, but he also dives deep into what’s happening in the brain, and I loved every minute of it. I binged this book in about a day, and I can see myself reading it again in the future. Definitely pick up a copy of this book.
So, what made this book so great? Well, free speech and the willingness to have conversations about sometimes difficult topics is something important to me because in 2019, I had hundreds of thousands of strangers attack me online. When that happened, I became really interested in this subject along with group think, scientific inquiry, and all that. Many books on this subject seem to pander to free speech absolutists and online trolls who want the ability to say whatever they want, but Rauch provided such an amazing, philosophical and nuanced discussions around this subject.
As a left-leaning atheist, I was surprised at how Rauch was able to remind me to practice some intellectual humility by reminding the reader that nobody has the final say on knowledge and truth. He does this by presenting philosophical arguments going back to Plato, Socrates, and Descartes. I’m not going to lie, when I was in the first few chapters of this book, I thought Rauch was basically taking the post-modernist argument that reality is subjective and we should be allowed to think and believe whatever we want. While Rauch does argue that free thought and free speech is essential, he then breaks down liberal science and why you may be entitled to your belief, but you’re not entitled to calling it knowledge.
Another great aspect of this book is that Rauch is equally critical of the liberal Left and conservative Right. I will admit that I didn’t 100% agree with all of his arguments, but I respected each one. I could write a 10-page review of this book, but I’m going to stop here. Lukianoff wasn’t joking when he said this book was one of the most important books in the last 50 years, and it should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants to have mature debates around difficult subjects.
2nd read:
I read this book again in preparation for Stephen Fleming coming on my podcast, and it’s such a great book about self-awareness. Fleming has been researching the science of self-awareness for years, and there are so many interesting studies and conversations throughout this book. Stephen is fascinated with meta cognition, and it’s really intriguing to read about how he and others have been researching how aware we are of our own thoughts, emotions, desires, and actions. I’m always interested in self-deception and denial, and I read a ton of books on the topic from the realm of psychology and philosophy. Not only does Fleming cover these angels, but he also dives deep into what’s happening in the brain, and I loved every minute of it. I binged this book in about a day, and I can see myself reading it again in the future. Definitely pick up a copy of this book.
March 19, 2021
Kitabın tarihi biraz eski. 90'ların başında yazılmış ama Rauch 2013'te bir son söz yazıp yeni bir baskı hazırlamış. Özgür düşünce hakkındaki bu kısacık kitap harika bir şekilde gerekçelendirilmiş.
Rauch, kimin görüşüne hangi konuda değer vermeliyiz, gerçek bilgiye erişimde otorite olmalı mı, olmalıysa bu otorite kim olmalı, nefret söylemi durumunda ya da alenen yanlış olduğu bilinen (yahudi soykırımını inkar etmek gibi) durumlarda fikir sahiplerini susturmak bir çözüm müdür gibi konulara çok güzel değinmeler yapıyor.
Hele çağımızda sözde bilimle gerçek bilimin eşitlendiği, yanlış düşüncelerin dahi sözde eşitlik adına her konuda görünürlük talep ettiği, politik doğruculuğun alıp yürüdüğü bir dönemde bilgi üretme ve bunu teyit etme mekanizmalarımız üzerinde daha fazla düşünmek gittikçe önem kazanıyor.
Yazar kitapta, gerçeği bilenler kimin haklı olduğuna karar vermeli ve bozuk sesleri susturmalı diyen "köktenciler", tüm samimi insanların inançları eşit dikkati hak eder diyen "basit eşitlikçiler", tarihsel olarak baskı altındaki sınıf veya gruplardaki insanların inançları özel olarak değerlendirilmeli diyen "radikal eşitlikçiler", ilk önceliğin başkasını üzmemek olması şartıyla bunlardan herhangi birine okey olan "humaniterler" gibi gruplamalar yapıyor. Bu gruplamalardaki insanları dinlersek bilgi üretme ve teyit mekanizmamızın yara alacağından bahsediyor ve gerçeğe yaklaşmanın ve kimin haklı olduğuna karar vermenin tek meşru yolunun, istisnasız herkesin iddiasının kamuoyu tarafından eleştirilerek özgür bir şekilde kontrol edilmesidir diyor.
Özellikle ABD'de ırk, cinsiyet, inanç konusunda araştırma yapan, araştırma bulgularını ortaya koyduğunda ise ırkçı, seksist, din düşmanı gibi yakıştırmalarla suçlanan, işinden edilen akademisyenlerin de hakkını koruyup "incinmiş/incitilmiş" olmanın bilimsel süreçte herhangi bir gerekçe olamayacağını gerekçeleriyle güzelce anlatıyor.
Okuyun, okutturun.
Rauch, kimin görüşüne hangi konuda değer vermeliyiz, gerçek bilgiye erişimde otorite olmalı mı, olmalıysa bu otorite kim olmalı, nefret söylemi durumunda ya da alenen yanlış olduğu bilinen (yahudi soykırımını inkar etmek gibi) durumlarda fikir sahiplerini susturmak bir çözüm müdür gibi konulara çok güzel değinmeler yapıyor.
Hele çağımızda sözde bilimle gerçek bilimin eşitlendiği, yanlış düşüncelerin dahi sözde eşitlik adına her konuda görünürlük talep ettiği, politik doğruculuğun alıp yürüdüğü bir dönemde bilgi üretme ve bunu teyit etme mekanizmalarımız üzerinde daha fazla düşünmek gittikçe önem kazanıyor.
Yazar kitapta, gerçeği bilenler kimin haklı olduğuna karar vermeli ve bozuk sesleri susturmalı diyen "köktenciler", tüm samimi insanların inançları eşit dikkati hak eder diyen "basit eşitlikçiler", tarihsel olarak baskı altındaki sınıf veya gruplardaki insanların inançları özel olarak değerlendirilmeli diyen "radikal eşitlikçiler", ilk önceliğin başkasını üzmemek olması şartıyla bunlardan herhangi birine okey olan "humaniterler" gibi gruplamalar yapıyor. Bu gruplamalardaki insanları dinlersek bilgi üretme ve teyit mekanizmamızın yara alacağından bahsediyor ve gerçeğe yaklaşmanın ve kimin haklı olduğuna karar vermenin tek meşru yolunun, istisnasız herkesin iddiasının kamuoyu tarafından eleştirilerek özgür bir şekilde kontrol edilmesidir diyor.
Özellikle ABD'de ırk, cinsiyet, inanç konusunda araştırma yapan, araştırma bulgularını ortaya koyduğunda ise ırkçı, seksist, din düşmanı gibi yakıştırmalarla suçlanan, işinden edilen akademisyenlerin de hakkını koruyup "incinmiş/incitilmiş" olmanın bilimsel süreçte herhangi bir gerekçe olamayacağını gerekçeleriyle güzelce anlatıyor.
Okuyun, okutturun.
June 21, 2021
Jonathan Rauch’s Kindly Inquistors: The New Attacks on Free Thought was originally published in 1995, but its analysis of two opposite but dangerous trends which he noticed even then, to either silence free thought or treat all opinions as equally valid, could be seen as prescient in light of the recent uptick in campus censorship and even violent acts against those presenting views which challenge the academic progressive consensus.
Rauch’s suggestion is that we should not arbitrate our disputes with violence, nor should we condescend to treat every opinion as just as good as every other opinion. Instead, we should allow gatekeepers invested in the process of discovery to set the terms for the debate. For example, while creationists and scientific racists should not be silenced through the state, they can probably be safely ignored in the public square if the scientific community (those who should know something about this issue and have a process by which the popular view may be challenged by promising upstarts) is unmoved by their pronouncements.
While Rauch’s denouncement of state violence and censorship is commendable, his optimism about the process of critical engagement is at least partly unwarranted. Rauch himself seems to know this on some level as his critiques are often aimed at academia’s unwillingness to budge on its echo-chambering of liberal orthodoxy. This scholarly rigidity to challenges has arguably only gotten worse in recent years as we’ve seen more silencing and physical attacks on college campuses upon perceived ideological enemies (for instance, https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/us/mil...), often with the tacit or vocal support of the administration. Apart from these more extreme examples, there is also an implicit silencing that happens as the result of efforts to protect political sacred cows; for example, the trend in sex studies to uncritically accept the sometimes questionable orthodoxies of transgender activists (https://reason.com/podcast/2020/08/19...).
Of course, none of this changes the fact that free inquiry is still the best means of getting a society closer to truth. It only shows that a culture of rejecting free inquiry can interfere with even the most rigorous processes.
This brings me to another flaw in the book: its uncharacteristic uncuriosity about the process of inquiry and rejection of violence in the Christian tradition.
Rauch connects Christian faith with “the fundamentalist social rule,” that is: “those who know the truth should decide who opinion is right.” He cites Paul’s exhortation in his epistle to the Romans, that God would be right in judging all of us since all of us “suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them” (Romans 1:18-19, NASB) as an example of this fundamentalist social rule. In Rauch’s reading, Paul’s statement is one which stands behind the later “killing, torture, and repression of people who perversely, ‘by their wickedness,’ denied evident truth. Certainly there can be no right to say what is false and what you know is false.”
But is this actually what Paul is saying? This is the same Paul who, eleven chapters later, urges Christians to bless those who persecute them and never avenge or repay evil for evil (12:14-21). Could he be suggesting that Christians should dominate the public square and silence their opponents? No, this is not the course of action that Paul favored. Instead, he went into the public square and argued openly, with pagans by appealing to his day’s philosophical knowledge and with Jews by appealing to the Hebrew Bible. He did not engage in silencing or even suggest that he favored it. That’s what his theologically Jewish and pagan opponents did. Paul was arrested, beaten–sometimes almost to death, and finally killed by the state for freely speaking against and publicly debating the orthodoxies of his time.
Similarly, while the church which gained secular power often abused it by playing politics and silencing–even killing–its opponents, Christianity also has a rich history of non-violence and a suspicion of political power. To begin at the beginning, the early church’s theologians were virtually universally pacifists. After a period of tradition displacing scripture, the church began to revisit the Bible again and restore it to the people in the 16th century. When this happened, a large and outspoken contingent of Christians, called Anabaptists, followed the early church’s model and rejected political power and violence as well.
This is not to say that in the intervening centuries the process of inquiry disappeared. Even the medieval church had a tradition of carefully reading two books–the one being scripture and the other the so-called book of nature–both which came from God. This belief that nature points to God’s creative glory spurred on the Scientific Revolution as Christians believed that the universe reflected a divine creative intent and wanted to know it’s creator better (for further reading, check out Principe’s The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction and Hannam’s The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution).
In addition to this careful reading of the book of nature, a process for reading the book of scripture was also developed that closely parallels the scientific method–hermeneutics. In other words, rules were developed that allowed readers to read the Bible for understanding its authors’ original intent and allowed Christians interpreters to challenge one another to read more carefully.
In other words, despite a tragic history of fundamentalist thinking, Christianity also has not only a deep foundation, but a rich tradition, of rejecting violence and promoting free inquiry.
Finally, Rauch’s contention that religious belief is relegated to the private realm, and therefore that good scientists may appeal to faith for emotional help in private but that it should not influence their scientific work, begs the question. If there are any questions which Christian faith seeks to answer that can be checked using public methods of inquiry and criticism (and there are), then those questions cannot be segregated to the realm of the private. They can and should be put to open inquiry.
While Kindly Inquisitors is an important book on this topic, if one only has time to read one, Haidt and Lukianoff’s more recent The Coddling of the American Mind not only builds on Rauch’s ideas with strong arguments and good research, it’s also more persuasive at making a case for a community of inquiry that’s open to all–even Christians.
Rauch’s suggestion is that we should not arbitrate our disputes with violence, nor should we condescend to treat every opinion as just as good as every other opinion. Instead, we should allow gatekeepers invested in the process of discovery to set the terms for the debate. For example, while creationists and scientific racists should not be silenced through the state, they can probably be safely ignored in the public square if the scientific community (those who should know something about this issue and have a process by which the popular view may be challenged by promising upstarts) is unmoved by their pronouncements.
While Rauch’s denouncement of state violence and censorship is commendable, his optimism about the process of critical engagement is at least partly unwarranted. Rauch himself seems to know this on some level as his critiques are often aimed at academia’s unwillingness to budge on its echo-chambering of liberal orthodoxy. This scholarly rigidity to challenges has arguably only gotten worse in recent years as we’ve seen more silencing and physical attacks on college campuses upon perceived ideological enemies (for instance, https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/us/mil...), often with the tacit or vocal support of the administration. Apart from these more extreme examples, there is also an implicit silencing that happens as the result of efforts to protect political sacred cows; for example, the trend in sex studies to uncritically accept the sometimes questionable orthodoxies of transgender activists (https://reason.com/podcast/2020/08/19...).
Of course, none of this changes the fact that free inquiry is still the best means of getting a society closer to truth. It only shows that a culture of rejecting free inquiry can interfere with even the most rigorous processes.
This brings me to another flaw in the book: its uncharacteristic uncuriosity about the process of inquiry and rejection of violence in the Christian tradition.
Rauch connects Christian faith with “the fundamentalist social rule,” that is: “those who know the truth should decide who opinion is right.” He cites Paul’s exhortation in his epistle to the Romans, that God would be right in judging all of us since all of us “suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them” (Romans 1:18-19, NASB) as an example of this fundamentalist social rule. In Rauch’s reading, Paul’s statement is one which stands behind the later “killing, torture, and repression of people who perversely, ‘by their wickedness,’ denied evident truth. Certainly there can be no right to say what is false and what you know is false.”
But is this actually what Paul is saying? This is the same Paul who, eleven chapters later, urges Christians to bless those who persecute them and never avenge or repay evil for evil (12:14-21). Could he be suggesting that Christians should dominate the public square and silence their opponents? No, this is not the course of action that Paul favored. Instead, he went into the public square and argued openly, with pagans by appealing to his day’s philosophical knowledge and with Jews by appealing to the Hebrew Bible. He did not engage in silencing or even suggest that he favored it. That’s what his theologically Jewish and pagan opponents did. Paul was arrested, beaten–sometimes almost to death, and finally killed by the state for freely speaking against and publicly debating the orthodoxies of his time.
Similarly, while the church which gained secular power often abused it by playing politics and silencing–even killing–its opponents, Christianity also has a rich history of non-violence and a suspicion of political power. To begin at the beginning, the early church’s theologians were virtually universally pacifists. After a period of tradition displacing scripture, the church began to revisit the Bible again and restore it to the people in the 16th century. When this happened, a large and outspoken contingent of Christians, called Anabaptists, followed the early church’s model and rejected political power and violence as well.
This is not to say that in the intervening centuries the process of inquiry disappeared. Even the medieval church had a tradition of carefully reading two books–the one being scripture and the other the so-called book of nature–both which came from God. This belief that nature points to God’s creative glory spurred on the Scientific Revolution as Christians believed that the universe reflected a divine creative intent and wanted to know it’s creator better (for further reading, check out Principe’s The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction and Hannam’s The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution).
In addition to this careful reading of the book of nature, a process for reading the book of scripture was also developed that closely parallels the scientific method–hermeneutics. In other words, rules were developed that allowed readers to read the Bible for understanding its authors’ original intent and allowed Christians interpreters to challenge one another to read more carefully.
In other words, despite a tragic history of fundamentalist thinking, Christianity also has not only a deep foundation, but a rich tradition, of rejecting violence and promoting free inquiry.
Finally, Rauch’s contention that religious belief is relegated to the private realm, and therefore that good scientists may appeal to faith for emotional help in private but that it should not influence their scientific work, begs the question. If there are any questions which Christian faith seeks to answer that can be checked using public methods of inquiry and criticism (and there are), then those questions cannot be segregated to the realm of the private. They can and should be put to open inquiry.
While Kindly Inquisitors is an important book on this topic, if one only has time to read one, Haidt and Lukianoff’s more recent The Coddling of the American Mind not only builds on Rauch’s ideas with strong arguments and good research, it’s also more persuasive at making a case for a community of inquiry that’s open to all–even Christians.
March 10, 2018
1993: "[...] homosexuals, like all minorities, stand to lose far more than they win from measures regulating knowledge or debate. Today, true, the regulators may take gay people's side. But the wheel will turn, and the majority will reassert itself, and, when the inquisitorial machinery is turned against them, homosexuals will rue the day they helped set it up."
2016: "Make America great again!"
Jonathan Rauch's essay in defence of liberalism in all its forms, free thought, free speech, democracy and capitalism feels now, sadly, like a timely warning which has gone unnoticed while it had the political power of a warning. Now it can be read as a justification of the status quo. The repressed, be they minorities or the majority, reassert themselves and turn on those who they see as their inquisitors.
The attack directed against censorship and the limitation of free speech is powerful, very sharp and single-mindedly focused on this single aspect. He does not take into consideration the difference between verbally abusing a person and dismantling that person's ideas or beliefs with arguments. However, he does make a distinction, in the afterword, between verbal attacks on abstract thing, which he sais are grouped by Karl Popper in World Three, and other types of attacks, on feelings and persons.
This book makes a compelling argument of favour of liberalism, and a reminder of the dangers which lurk behind any intention of limiting it. No conflict of ideas is won by suppressing one side or another, but only by convincing arguments and proofs.
2016: "Make America great again!"
Jonathan Rauch's essay in defence of liberalism in all its forms, free thought, free speech, democracy and capitalism feels now, sadly, like a timely warning which has gone unnoticed while it had the political power of a warning. Now it can be read as a justification of the status quo. The repressed, be they minorities or the majority, reassert themselves and turn on those who they see as their inquisitors.
The attack directed against censorship and the limitation of free speech is powerful, very sharp and single-mindedly focused on this single aspect. He does not take into consideration the difference between verbally abusing a person and dismantling that person's ideas or beliefs with arguments. However, he does make a distinction, in the afterword, between verbal attacks on abstract thing, which he sais are grouped by Karl Popper in World Three, and other types of attacks, on feelings and persons.
This book makes a compelling argument of favour of liberalism, and a reminder of the dangers which lurk behind any intention of limiting it. No conflict of ideas is won by suppressing one side or another, but only by convincing arguments and proofs.
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