Thanks, this is a thoughtful argument, and I appreciate you writing it in an effort to be persuasive. With that said, I still think a lot of this is wrong. To address a few points:
1. You ask "When was the last time you saw some kind of fringe political extremist change his mind because he lost a fucking argument?"
Sorry, but I think this is a bit of a loaded question.
First, because when was the last time you saw *anybody* that you didn't personally know change their mind because they lost an argument? When people actually change their minds, it's generally an invisible and gradual process. That's not specific to extremists either, it's just how most people work. For one thing, on a public forum like the Internet, there's a lot of ego and emotion, and people are generally unwilling to concede that their opponent made a good point. But also, almost nobody just "changes their mind" after one debate, not when the subject is a deeply-ingrained belief. Changing minds is more a process of erosion, of chipping away at the underlying ideas, of instilling doubt. Maybe an extremist will never completely "change their mind", but over time, we can instill enough doubts in them that they will keep silent and wrestle with their uncertainty instead of confidently arguing for bad ideas.
Additionally, I think you're misunderstanding the main benefit of public debate. No, it's often not successful at changing the mind of the person you're debating. But it's also for the benefit of the audience, some of whom will be on the fence, and could be persuaded away from extremism if they see bad ideas argued against effectively. Those people absolutely exist, and again, when they change their opinion, it's generally an invisible process.
2. You touched on one of the main philosophical reasons I generally support open debate - because I care about whether the ideas I hold are correct, and I believe that correct ideas are the ones with more and better evidence to support them. In this sense, if you consider the world to be a battleground between good ideas and bad ideas, then honest debate/persuasion is the *only tactic* that favors good ideas over bad ones. Every other tactic (censorship, mockery, memes, propaganda, actual physical violence, etc.) only favors the side that has the most power, which, depending on the whims of history, could be people with good ideas or people with bad ones. Actually being *right* is the only thing that people with bad ideas can't counter. If we refuse to use that advantage, we're just leaving things up to chance.
3. You say that self-professed "free speech absolutists" are generally hypocrites. I think you're probably right about this, which is why I don't actually call myself one. So where is the line I would draw? Well, it's more about tactics than content. I'm generally fine with moderating speech where the intent is to distract, silence or intimidate an opponent rather than countering their ideas. So yes, things like doxxing. Death threats. Shouting over a speaker at a debate so that they can't be heard. I would consider all of those non-valid uses of speech. You can decide for yourself if that's an arbitrary line or not. I don't think it is.
But subject-wise? Philosophically, I don't think I have a line. But of course, I bet Elon Musk would have thought the same thing at some point, that all ideas were fair game, that none should be moderated. Then he gained control of a huge social media platform and proved himself a hypocrite. To be completely honest, I can't guarantee that I also wouldn't be a hypocrite if given the same power. I doubt many people could.
4. You write "What Nazis are is something that began with a thought, at some point, but now the thinking has finished. Now they’re acting. You can’t fight action with debate. You fight it only by acting upon it."
Your first two sentences don't add up. Yes, it's true that "actions" can only be counteracted, not debated. But in what sense are Nazis on the Internet "acting"? Posting on the Internet is not acting. It's just speech. Speech can absolutely be debated.
5. I might as well bring up the subtext of this entire issue, since this was all triggered by the Atlantic article claiming "Substack has a Nazi problem". Does it though? The article itself admits that Nazi newsletters are a "tiny fraction" of the total. It cites "at least 16" newsletters with Nazi iconography, although it's not clear if this is out of the 17,000 newsletters that charge a subscription fee, or of the 1.7 newsletters in total. So all it's established is 1 in 1000 in the worst case, and more likely, 1 in 100,000. If the author could only establish 16 in total, is that even worth bringing up? It feels that just by mentioning their existence in the Atlantic, he's given them 100 times more attention than they would otherwise have had.
We all know that the term "Nazi" gets thrown around on the Internet when it doesn't really apply. The word "Nazi" gets spoken, and everyone starts picturing swastika-tattooed hatemongers who literally want a complete genocide of the Jewish people. You've done that here, and it's correct, that's who the Nazis are.
But let's be real. Nobody was going to write an article about Substack's "Nazi problem" if it was only about 16 insignificant newsletters. This is about people who are definitively *not* actual literal Nazis, but still espouse views the author finds distasteful. It's about people with racist opinions, but who aren't Nazis. It's about trans people in sports, a deeply complicated issue that deserves discussion. It's about people who think gay marriage should be banned (still almost 30% of Americans - you can't write them all off as "Nazis"). And this is the rhetorical trick of claiming it's all about "Nazis"; in order to argue against it, as I'm doing here, I have to split hairs in such a way that's makes it seem like I'm standing up for bigots. Don't fall for it.
This strikes me as the same type of over-zealous dot-connecting that's causing a bunch of poorly educated Zoomers to misunderstand Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance. The paradox may have some merit as it applies to actual Nazis because they literally want to violently wipe out the people they are intolerant of. It does not apply to every group that someone could consider "intolerant", and Popper understood this.
If that's TLDR for you, the 2 main ideas, as paraphrased from John Stuart Mill, are that 1. Sometimes our deeply held beliefs are wrong, so by encouraging open dialogue, we allow ourselves to be corrected about things we are wrong about, even if feel certain about them at the time, and 2. Even if we're right, having discussions with people who think differently forces us to think more critically about *why* we are right, which makes our arguments stronger and more persuasive in the future.)
That’s a lot to respond to and I hope you don’t think it’s dismissive of me not to reply as comprehensively, just a few points though:
- The losing one argument thing was rhetorical flair on my part, I don’t really think anything ever comes out of one single argument. And I hope I didn’t come across as thinking that no amount of debate ever does anything (it would be absurd of me to claim that by way of writing a long persuasive essay). It’s just that turning people around with argument when they’re already neck deep in hate ideology is a mammoth project. It’s not necessarily a project for media platforms. As I wrote in a previous essay (The Hard Problem of Social Media) the hate ideologues will win that battle, not because they’re right or they win more debates, but just sheer determination, they drive everyone else off the platform.
I mean to describe the weakness of debate only as relative to the purported weakness of deplatforming. If the latter should not be used ever at all specifically because it’s less than 100% effective in countering ideology then one must show how debating is 100% effective, and that’s just not the case. We need some kind of mixture of two strategies – and I want to be clear, I definitely think that mixture should include much MORE debate than deplatforming.
- When I say Nazism is action and not speech, obviously I know it’s literally words, but the words tend to be imperative statements. “Kill all the Jews.” That’s speech, but it’s not an argument. Once upon a time there was an argument that led to someone wanting to do that. Again I think education and speech have an enormously important role to play but they’re not the only tools we have to use. You counter racist rhetoric with speech and education. You counter “Kill all the Jews” by removing that sentence from your platform and if necessary the person who said it.
- I didn’t want this essay to be a shot fired in the main controversy specifically about Substack and its problems and the Atlantic article and all that mess even though I was obviously inspired by that and talked about it. But I will say that I don’t like the argument (and it’s very regularly thrown around) that it’s not really a “problem” because there are only, like, 12 Nazis here. I agree the extent of the problem is deceptive. But people are reading too much bad faith into it, also. “Surely Nazi is deceptive language and they’re really looking at getting rid of people who don’t agree with gay marriage.”
Yes there are people on my, I guess, side of the aisle of that debate who are talking about getting Richard Hanania and Chris Rufo thrown off – I despise those people but I don’t agree with throwing them off the platform (at least for anything they’ve said to this point). Freddie deBoer thinks he’s going to get thrown off but as far as I can tell that comes from his own imagination. The literal Nazis and the Really Shitty People debates have been too mixed up and conflated. I want Nazis thrown off and I want Shitty People to be allowed to stay but don’t give them extra platform for god sakes. It makes it harder to debate shitty people with the platform owner’s thumbs on the scale on the side of the shitty people.
I’d completely written off the Hanania boosting controversy when they legitimately seemed to take a hint on that, but when Hamish came out recently and announced he didn’t regret boosting Hanania and would do it again, I sighed and picked up my pitchfork again. But that’s a different situation and a different debate, to me. I know there’s a problem with the overuse of the term Nazi. Rest assured when I say Nazis, I mean Nazis. My problem is that when Hamish McKenzie says Nazis (and they can stay and raise money) I believe he also means Nazis.
Thanks, it sounds like we're closer to the same page than I realized.
I admit parts of my comment were a bit muddled because I was trying to simultaneously make several points at once: 1) that the scope of the problem of actual, literal Nazis is overblown (and complaining about it is often a Trojan horse to justify deplatforming many other points of view), 2) that many people are far too quick to dismiss other people as "intolerant" and therefore "beyond reason" when then just isn't true, and 3) that open dialogue and free speech are inherently valuable in more ways than most people appreciate. But instead of making each point separately, some of it got glommed together. So if some of what I wrote felt confused (like, why am I conceding Popper may be right with regards to literal Nazis, but still arguing for debating them?), that's the reason.
Similarly when you complained about "any given rant waxing hysterical about censorship will insist that hate groups and fascists are simultaneously easy to stop, impossible to stop, maybe shouldn’t be stopped, are too powerful, too fringe, too broadly defined, and don’t exist", I suspect that a lot of the times you get that impression, it's for a similar reason. People have parallel trains of thought that don't quite intersect, but they still want to make all their points at once.
So, if I accept that all we're talking about is real, honest-to-god Nazis, does that change my view? The philosophical part of my brain cries out "No, of course not, free speech and open dialogue are sacrosanct!" But in practice, I admit I don't care nearly as much.
I still would argue against the assertion that productive engagement with hateful ideologies is *useless*. You've probably heard of Daryl Davis, a black man who personally deconverted around 50 KKK members by seeking them out, engaging them in conversation, and befriending them. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis). Open dialogue absolutely can work, even for those we might assume are too far gone. But I don't want to push that point any further, because I'm a white man who couldn't possibly fathom the patience or courage to do what Davis does, and so I don't want to hold him up as an example and say "See, minorities? That's all you have to do! Just go out of your way to make friends with people who fucking hate you!"
And I'll end on a related point, something you said well in your piece:
"Literally all it does when you ask the targets of hate to debate their oppressors is it subjects victims to the burden of incessantly, humiliatingly, and painfully arguing their own right to exist against people who aren’t listening and don’t care."
I agree with this wholeheartedly.
Let me be very clear that when I champion the merits of free speech and open dialogue, all I'm arguing is that the dialogue can be beneficial and should be allowed, nay, encouraged, to happen, in the abstract. I am not suggesting that anyone should feel obligated to participate. Just as a general rule, if you're talking with someone who makes you feel humiliated and disrespected, disengage and walk away. Do not sacrifice your mental health.
Just one thing about Daryl though: *he met them in person and talked to them in person, for years*. Nobody, but nobody, is going to do what Daryl did on Substack. People change their minds because something happens to them personally (a few very public anti-gay rightwingers changed their minds on gay marriage when they ended up with a gay child) or through long-term personal engagement.
This. Its hard spiritual physical work. Water over stone. And I am not entirely convinced it can be done through social media platforms though trust me I engaged in long, slogged comment dialogues for years in the 2010s with MRA types. I have no idea what good it did. But in real space with people face to face, I have seen change.
“You counter “Kill all the Jews” by removing that sentence from your platform and if necessary the person who said it.”
Right-O. Says so in Substack TOS.
According to you and your fellow would-be speech monitors, if you’re not saying “Kill all the Jews”, you can’t possibly call yourself a proper Nazi. I’m guessing there’s more to your speech standards than you’re willing to say.
That follows because the speech of the 12 Substack “Nazis” that have been identified by the self selected committee on speech monitoring, while exceeding the internalized, top secret standards of the speech monitors, aren’t quite Nazi enough to exceed the acceptable standards of speech for everyone else, or the published TOS from the owners of Substack.
What to do, speech-monitors?
Why, call everyone who disagrees with us Nazis, take our toys, hurt feelings and insecurities and go to our safe place, of course!
Oh my gosh, you are so right! That's totes what happened with Hitler: just straight out of the gate, that's what he said to everyone, all the time. He never lied about his intentions in order to get more moderate people on side. A Nazi could never *lie* right? Because they're such good people!
Too bad for your lil conspiratorial disingenuos rant that the "monitors" did in fact remove a number of the Nazi (not "Nazi") accounts.
Surely YOU do not have any hurt fee fees, and that's why you put such a rational, thoughtful, not-at-all toddler fit response in the comments! LOL
Dan writes "When people actually change their minds, it's generally an invisible and gradual process."
For normals sure. I think it is different with extremists, their beliefs are more like matters of faith Faith is believing when there is no rational reason to do so. You cannot argue someone out of their faith with just reason. Because if it was about reason they wouldn't have the faith in the first place.
People change their faith when reason is accompanied by emotional experiences, like someone losing faith in God when they lose a child to a horrible disease (how can a good God allow this to happen?). Or when someone in distress becomes born again and this brings comfort and the strength to deal with what distresses them.
I'm sorry you've had bad experiences. Don't bring them here. This has been an overall productive comment section and you don't need to ruin it just because my writing style triggers you.
No. Also, swing and a miss on your analysis. The entire thrust of my argument is the value of arguing in good faith.
Out of respect for the author, I won't continue this other than to point out the irony of you accusing me of not having a good faith argument when you admittedly didn't even read what I wrote. I mean, I get it. You came here, left a few snarky replies to other people's comments, saw that I had actually attempted something of a thoughtful response, and your lizard brain kicked in and said "no! I cannot let this stand!" so you attempted to invalidate it with a condescending dismissal. Sorry, that doesn't work.
You can have the last snarky word now if you want.
Same for 2nd amendment freaks. It does not give anyone the right to own a rocket launcher or a nuclear bomb. It is not an absolute right. We regulate “arms” all the time. We have the right to bear some of those arms but not all. Anyone not respecting common sense about such things is up to something else: probably rationalizing why nobody will have sex with them. When a man grumbles about “feminism” my immediate assumption is a few women haven’t given him what he wanted. I make this assumption because of men I’ve know. where this has been true. I don’t make things up to fit my world view. Grow up, ya morons.
“Most people who say they are “free speech absolutists” are lying their ass off.”
As evidenced by the widespread disinterest on the part of self-proclaimed absolutists in offline viewpoint suppression by right wing political actors. It’s not really free speech as an abstract idea they support. They just want unmoderated internet platforms.
Mate you and the half Scottish kid whose approval you're desperate to secure for reasons that will definitely elude me to the end of time, Lord Theodore Twombly or whatever his name is, have fewer friends between the both of you than all of the so-called twelve Nazis you're white-knighting for combined, so I'm really not sure what you imagine you're accomplishing here.
Another great article Shane. You might be interested in "The Case Against Free Speech" by by P.E Moskowitz. https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Free-Speech-Amendment/dp/156858864X. Not nearly as entertaining as your work but it's analysis of how this issue relates to debates on American college campus's is quite interesting.
Really great work. Made me think about how the debate never ends because each individual bigot thinks you owe them, personally, an explanation for whatever scraps of power you wield in life, particularly if wielded over them. So you can be like me, a 30 year accomplished veteran in tech, but still have accusations of “affirmative action hire” or more nefarious stuff surround me every step. You manage to convince one bigot that you’re “one of the good ones” and who cares, next one you run across it starts all over again and you have to prove yourself starting at basic worth all over again.
"Because if we can’t decide this right now, if we cannot bring ourselves as a society to say that genocides, holocausts, and systematic human extermination are wrong, if that’s still on the debate table then I’m sorry, guys, but what we need isn’t a debate, it’s a comet." YES.
Sartre nailed this nearly a century ago, in “Anti-Semite and Jew”:
“Never believe that anti-Semites are unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse, for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.”
I don't argue with fascists about other people's right to exist; primarily because that is the debate they want to have.
I argue with fascists that the concepts they espouse about themselves are not only fantasies, but are dangerous to themselves personally. A fascist/wingnut is at the center an egotist; who believes herself inherently superior and, if allowed to operate unchecked, will dominate over not only her perceived "enemies" but inevitably come out on top over her "allies" (bc she sees them, openly or secretly, as rivals). This of course is garbage; and they hate nothing more bitterly than someone they cannot easily "Other" away pointing that out. All the arguments and debates a fascist wants to have are strategic; so naturally they want to control the debate to only their topics. Repeatedly confronting and subverting their attempts at controlling debate does real damage to their attempts to persuade and intimidate others into alliance or compliance with their aims and their actions.
What an excellent analysis. I totally agree with the Hamish McKenzie quote you made, but at the same time, I'm torn. Everyone should have the right to express their views, and censoring them takes away that right. However, negative or harmful views have a stronger emotional effect than positive views. Everyone also knows that harmful views travel faster, just like fake news. Even if those who have these harmful views are in the minority, harmful views are so powerful that this minority can pollute the whole discussion.
This is where we become economists. We have to weigh the benefits of giving everyone unbridled freedom of speech against the cost of moderating or censoring those whose views can lead to a deterioration of the civic space. This is one way to look at it.
You mentioned Nazis and neo-Nazis in your article. We all have to remember that the Nazis started out as a minority group. They were just a few people making their Nazi noise. Look how that ended.
My dad used to give me a silly example when I was a kid. Here it goes; if you bring a very big bowl of the cleanest water you can find, and then you get a tiny piece of feces and put it in the bowl, what happens to the water?
I guess I wrote all this to say well done Peter, I enjoyed your piece.
I agree that it is worse than pointless to engage a Nazi in debate.
I propose, however, that the core argument behind true free speech absolutism is the proposition that to debate Nazism with the general public is a positive good. Proponents of Nazism lose debates where people who are decent and sensible are the judges.
The real danger of unmoderated content is the potential for people to get lured into hateful patterns of thought through algorithms that accelerate the propaganda into their feeds.
Maybe "good speech" is an insufficient defense against this phenomenon. I am certainly not arguing against it as an important tool.
I merely suggest that discussion of what "debate" does or ought to look like keep in mind the true auduence.
"When was the last time you saw some kind of fringe political extremist change his mind because he lost a fucking argument?"
It took him around ten years, but he gave it up after losing multiple arguments. This was, if I had to guess, about another ten years ago. But then, I knew him personally, and pummeled the fucking Plato out of his head. Cheers!
For legal reasons, I'm stating up front that no one should be violent ever. Never do a violence, kids. Speaking purely (purely!) academically, the force that stops Nazism is violence. Not appeasement, not debating, not ignoring, not ridiculing, not politely requesting. No. Violence solves the problem of Nazis. Academically and historically speaking, I mean.
So far this group (at least from what I can surmise on Substack) has not garnered much support nor had any real effect on either the population at large or in numbers that might be influential. What you are saying seems to be that this group is a special case, but I don’t see anything special.
It seems that the biggest point of contention is that either the group or individuals within the group are willing to say that they are Nazis. I suppose they could be, but I doubt they have anything more than superficial similarities to the Nazis of old.
More importantly, I think if you want them to be kicked off of a platform then a better case has to be made than self-identifying as Nazis. And certainly a much better case has to made to call for a preemptive strike against ordinary protections regarding free speech.
I think you’re really clever and while I do take your point about the futility of debate and the real bite of deplatforming; I think the real concern for most free speech folks is the slippery slope. You say X is a Nazi but Y says he isn’t a Nazi who decides? Is there some clear unequivocal definition we are all using and agree upon? Probably not, so like cancel culture it becomes censorship by unpopularity of ideas.
I don’t know any Nazis nor have I thought even a single moment about Nazis having any power in this country until 2020 when I started to see how easy it is for censorship creep to turn into political action and then to lives of whole groups of people being ruined: fair or not.
I don’t care about this latest Nazi frenzy on Substack. The truth is I would never have known there was a “Nazi problem” if it weren’t for critics of these people demanding Substack kick them out. So perhaps the anecdote to the Nazis of the world isn’t debate, but indifference.
But they're here and making money nonetheless; lots of people are indifferent to American Nazis, but the problem of fascism in this country is getting *worse*. Your indifference is helping them, if anything.
I disagree. Indifference takes away the free publicity which encourage casual onlookers. Indifference also mitigates the “everyone is against us” vitriol that usually appeals to younger people and makes groups like Nazis less appealing to people who are naturally contrarian and want to be different mostly just to be different. In short, Indifference demonstrates how insignificant they are in the big scheme of things.
Why the worry about the money? So what. Is it your money? I mean really of all the shady underhanded and dangerous people who are able to solicit money (or investors); these guys get your attention, time and energy?
It really doesn't. Plenty of people have been indifferent to American fascists for years and now they have people in the police, in the armed forces, in the Republican party. They do not need a REASON to think everyone is against them; Nazis are a death cult who want to kill whole groups of people just for being who they are. You're not demonstrating shit to them with your indifference; THEY are indifferent to YOU. I'm not giving them "free publicity"; what people who are shitty and bigoted really want most of all is to be shitty and bigoted with no consequences; but doxxing Nazis and making their identities public makes things *worse* for them. You think things got better for Richard Hanania when everyone found out he was posting white supremacist shit for years? Or did everyone associated with him backpedal like a motherfucker?
You've cited zero sources for your claim that Nazis don't appeal to people who are "naturally contrarian," so: bullshit.
"Why worry about the money?" Because money is power, dumbass. And yes, people who are shady also get my attention, if for no other reason than I don't want to get scammed.
In short: YOU are helping them, and it took you six days to come up with that weak-ass, self-justifying response. You're a fool.
(PS: I see you are a Hanania fan, which tells me all I need to know about you. [Spits] Diet Nazi.
How can you ban Nazis if you’re not willing to ban transphobes and other reactionaries, who UNARGUABLY cause much more harm than the harm caused by the relatively small number of actual Nazis?
Thanks, this is a thoughtful argument, and I appreciate you writing it in an effort to be persuasive. With that said, I still think a lot of this is wrong. To address a few points:
1. You ask "When was the last time you saw some kind of fringe political extremist change his mind because he lost a fucking argument?"
Sorry, but I think this is a bit of a loaded question.
First, because when was the last time you saw *anybody* that you didn't personally know change their mind because they lost an argument? When people actually change their minds, it's generally an invisible and gradual process. That's not specific to extremists either, it's just how most people work. For one thing, on a public forum like the Internet, there's a lot of ego and emotion, and people are generally unwilling to concede that their opponent made a good point. But also, almost nobody just "changes their mind" after one debate, not when the subject is a deeply-ingrained belief. Changing minds is more a process of erosion, of chipping away at the underlying ideas, of instilling doubt. Maybe an extremist will never completely "change their mind", but over time, we can instill enough doubts in them that they will keep silent and wrestle with their uncertainty instead of confidently arguing for bad ideas.
Additionally, I think you're misunderstanding the main benefit of public debate. No, it's often not successful at changing the mind of the person you're debating. But it's also for the benefit of the audience, some of whom will be on the fence, and could be persuaded away from extremism if they see bad ideas argued against effectively. Those people absolutely exist, and again, when they change their opinion, it's generally an invisible process.
2. You touched on one of the main philosophical reasons I generally support open debate - because I care about whether the ideas I hold are correct, and I believe that correct ideas are the ones with more and better evidence to support them. In this sense, if you consider the world to be a battleground between good ideas and bad ideas, then honest debate/persuasion is the *only tactic* that favors good ideas over bad ones. Every other tactic (censorship, mockery, memes, propaganda, actual physical violence, etc.) only favors the side that has the most power, which, depending on the whims of history, could be people with good ideas or people with bad ones. Actually being *right* is the only thing that people with bad ideas can't counter. If we refuse to use that advantage, we're just leaving things up to chance.
3. You say that self-professed "free speech absolutists" are generally hypocrites. I think you're probably right about this, which is why I don't actually call myself one. So where is the line I would draw? Well, it's more about tactics than content. I'm generally fine with moderating speech where the intent is to distract, silence or intimidate an opponent rather than countering their ideas. So yes, things like doxxing. Death threats. Shouting over a speaker at a debate so that they can't be heard. I would consider all of those non-valid uses of speech. You can decide for yourself if that's an arbitrary line or not. I don't think it is.
But subject-wise? Philosophically, I don't think I have a line. But of course, I bet Elon Musk would have thought the same thing at some point, that all ideas were fair game, that none should be moderated. Then he gained control of a huge social media platform and proved himself a hypocrite. To be completely honest, I can't guarantee that I also wouldn't be a hypocrite if given the same power. I doubt many people could.
4. You write "What Nazis are is something that began with a thought, at some point, but now the thinking has finished. Now they’re acting. You can’t fight action with debate. You fight it only by acting upon it."
Your first two sentences don't add up. Yes, it's true that "actions" can only be counteracted, not debated. But in what sense are Nazis on the Internet "acting"? Posting on the Internet is not acting. It's just speech. Speech can absolutely be debated.
5. I might as well bring up the subtext of this entire issue, since this was all triggered by the Atlantic article claiming "Substack has a Nazi problem". Does it though? The article itself admits that Nazi newsletters are a "tiny fraction" of the total. It cites "at least 16" newsletters with Nazi iconography, although it's not clear if this is out of the 17,000 newsletters that charge a subscription fee, or of the 1.7 newsletters in total. So all it's established is 1 in 1000 in the worst case, and more likely, 1 in 100,000. If the author could only establish 16 in total, is that even worth bringing up? It feels that just by mentioning their existence in the Atlantic, he's given them 100 times more attention than they would otherwise have had.
We all know that the term "Nazi" gets thrown around on the Internet when it doesn't really apply. The word "Nazi" gets spoken, and everyone starts picturing swastika-tattooed hatemongers who literally want a complete genocide of the Jewish people. You've done that here, and it's correct, that's who the Nazis are.
But let's be real. Nobody was going to write an article about Substack's "Nazi problem" if it was only about 16 insignificant newsletters. This is about people who are definitively *not* actual literal Nazis, but still espouse views the author finds distasteful. It's about people with racist opinions, but who aren't Nazis. It's about trans people in sports, a deeply complicated issue that deserves discussion. It's about people who think gay marriage should be banned (still almost 30% of Americans - you can't write them all off as "Nazis"). And this is the rhetorical trick of claiming it's all about "Nazis"; in order to argue against it, as I'm doing here, I have to split hairs in such a way that's makes it seem like I'm standing up for bigots. Don't fall for it.
This strikes me as the same type of over-zealous dot-connecting that's causing a bunch of poorly educated Zoomers to misunderstand Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance. The paradox may have some merit as it applies to actual Nazis because they literally want to violently wipe out the people they are intolerant of. It does not apply to every group that someone could consider "intolerant", and Popper understood this.
(Edit: I'm going to link this post, which makes some of my favorite arguments in favor of supporting a culture of free speech: https://www.historyboomer.com/p/free-speech-is-not-a-luxury
If that's TLDR for you, the 2 main ideas, as paraphrased from John Stuart Mill, are that 1. Sometimes our deeply held beliefs are wrong, so by encouraging open dialogue, we allow ourselves to be corrected about things we are wrong about, even if feel certain about them at the time, and 2. Even if we're right, having discussions with people who think differently forces us to think more critically about *why* we are right, which makes our arguments stronger and more persuasive in the future.)
That’s a lot to respond to and I hope you don’t think it’s dismissive of me not to reply as comprehensively, just a few points though:
- The losing one argument thing was rhetorical flair on my part, I don’t really think anything ever comes out of one single argument. And I hope I didn’t come across as thinking that no amount of debate ever does anything (it would be absurd of me to claim that by way of writing a long persuasive essay). It’s just that turning people around with argument when they’re already neck deep in hate ideology is a mammoth project. It’s not necessarily a project for media platforms. As I wrote in a previous essay (The Hard Problem of Social Media) the hate ideologues will win that battle, not because they’re right or they win more debates, but just sheer determination, they drive everyone else off the platform.
I mean to describe the weakness of debate only as relative to the purported weakness of deplatforming. If the latter should not be used ever at all specifically because it’s less than 100% effective in countering ideology then one must show how debating is 100% effective, and that’s just not the case. We need some kind of mixture of two strategies – and I want to be clear, I definitely think that mixture should include much MORE debate than deplatforming.
- When I say Nazism is action and not speech, obviously I know it’s literally words, but the words tend to be imperative statements. “Kill all the Jews.” That’s speech, but it’s not an argument. Once upon a time there was an argument that led to someone wanting to do that. Again I think education and speech have an enormously important role to play but they’re not the only tools we have to use. You counter racist rhetoric with speech and education. You counter “Kill all the Jews” by removing that sentence from your platform and if necessary the person who said it.
- I didn’t want this essay to be a shot fired in the main controversy specifically about Substack and its problems and the Atlantic article and all that mess even though I was obviously inspired by that and talked about it. But I will say that I don’t like the argument (and it’s very regularly thrown around) that it’s not really a “problem” because there are only, like, 12 Nazis here. I agree the extent of the problem is deceptive. But people are reading too much bad faith into it, also. “Surely Nazi is deceptive language and they’re really looking at getting rid of people who don’t agree with gay marriage.”
Yes there are people on my, I guess, side of the aisle of that debate who are talking about getting Richard Hanania and Chris Rufo thrown off – I despise those people but I don’t agree with throwing them off the platform (at least for anything they’ve said to this point). Freddie deBoer thinks he’s going to get thrown off but as far as I can tell that comes from his own imagination. The literal Nazis and the Really Shitty People debates have been too mixed up and conflated. I want Nazis thrown off and I want Shitty People to be allowed to stay but don’t give them extra platform for god sakes. It makes it harder to debate shitty people with the platform owner’s thumbs on the scale on the side of the shitty people.
I’d completely written off the Hanania boosting controversy when they legitimately seemed to take a hint on that, but when Hamish came out recently and announced he didn’t regret boosting Hanania and would do it again, I sighed and picked up my pitchfork again. But that’s a different situation and a different debate, to me. I know there’s a problem with the overuse of the term Nazi. Rest assured when I say Nazis, I mean Nazis. My problem is that when Hamish McKenzie says Nazis (and they can stay and raise money) I believe he also means Nazis.
Thanks, it sounds like we're closer to the same page than I realized.
I admit parts of my comment were a bit muddled because I was trying to simultaneously make several points at once: 1) that the scope of the problem of actual, literal Nazis is overblown (and complaining about it is often a Trojan horse to justify deplatforming many other points of view), 2) that many people are far too quick to dismiss other people as "intolerant" and therefore "beyond reason" when then just isn't true, and 3) that open dialogue and free speech are inherently valuable in more ways than most people appreciate. But instead of making each point separately, some of it got glommed together. So if some of what I wrote felt confused (like, why am I conceding Popper may be right with regards to literal Nazis, but still arguing for debating them?), that's the reason.
Similarly when you complained about "any given rant waxing hysterical about censorship will insist that hate groups and fascists are simultaneously easy to stop, impossible to stop, maybe shouldn’t be stopped, are too powerful, too fringe, too broadly defined, and don’t exist", I suspect that a lot of the times you get that impression, it's for a similar reason. People have parallel trains of thought that don't quite intersect, but they still want to make all their points at once.
So, if I accept that all we're talking about is real, honest-to-god Nazis, does that change my view? The philosophical part of my brain cries out "No, of course not, free speech and open dialogue are sacrosanct!" But in practice, I admit I don't care nearly as much.
I still would argue against the assertion that productive engagement with hateful ideologies is *useless*. You've probably heard of Daryl Davis, a black man who personally deconverted around 50 KKK members by seeking them out, engaging them in conversation, and befriending them. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis). Open dialogue absolutely can work, even for those we might assume are too far gone. But I don't want to push that point any further, because I'm a white man who couldn't possibly fathom the patience or courage to do what Davis does, and so I don't want to hold him up as an example and say "See, minorities? That's all you have to do! Just go out of your way to make friends with people who fucking hate you!"
And I'll end on a related point, something you said well in your piece:
"Literally all it does when you ask the targets of hate to debate their oppressors is it subjects victims to the burden of incessantly, humiliatingly, and painfully arguing their own right to exist against people who aren’t listening and don’t care."
I agree with this wholeheartedly.
Let me be very clear that when I champion the merits of free speech and open dialogue, all I'm arguing is that the dialogue can be beneficial and should be allowed, nay, encouraged, to happen, in the abstract. I am not suggesting that anyone should feel obligated to participate. Just as a general rule, if you're talking with someone who makes you feel humiliated and disrespected, disengage and walk away. Do not sacrifice your mental health.
Just one thing about Daryl though: *he met them in person and talked to them in person, for years*. Nobody, but nobody, is going to do what Daryl did on Substack. People change their minds because something happens to them personally (a few very public anti-gay rightwingers changed their minds on gay marriage when they ended up with a gay child) or through long-term personal engagement.
This. Its hard spiritual physical work. Water over stone. And I am not entirely convinced it can be done through social media platforms though trust me I engaged in long, slogged comment dialogues for years in the 2010s with MRA types. I have no idea what good it did. But in real space with people face to face, I have seen change.
“You counter “Kill all the Jews” by removing that sentence from your platform and if necessary the person who said it.”
Right-O. Says so in Substack TOS.
According to you and your fellow would-be speech monitors, if you’re not saying “Kill all the Jews”, you can’t possibly call yourself a proper Nazi. I’m guessing there’s more to your speech standards than you’re willing to say.
That follows because the speech of the 12 Substack “Nazis” that have been identified by the self selected committee on speech monitoring, while exceeding the internalized, top secret standards of the speech monitors, aren’t quite Nazi enough to exceed the acceptable standards of speech for everyone else, or the published TOS from the owners of Substack.
What to do, speech-monitors?
Why, call everyone who disagrees with us Nazis, take our toys, hurt feelings and insecurities and go to our safe place, of course!
See ya, bye.
Oh my gosh, you are so right! That's totes what happened with Hitler: just straight out of the gate, that's what he said to everyone, all the time. He never lied about his intentions in order to get more moderate people on side. A Nazi could never *lie* right? Because they're such good people!
Too bad for your lil conspiratorial disingenuos rant that the "monitors" did in fact remove a number of the Nazi (not "Nazi") accounts.
Surely YOU do not have any hurt fee fees, and that's why you put such a rational, thoughtful, not-at-all toddler fit response in the comments! LOL
Dan writes "When people actually change their minds, it's generally an invisible and gradual process."
For normals sure. I think it is different with extremists, their beliefs are more like matters of faith Faith is believing when there is no rational reason to do so. You cannot argue someone out of their faith with just reason. Because if it was about reason they wouldn't have the faith in the first place.
People change their faith when reason is accompanied by emotional experiences, like someone losing faith in God when they lose a child to a horrible disease (how can a good God allow this to happen?). Or when someone in distress becomes born again and this brings comfort and the strength to deal with what distresses them.
I read exactly 3 words of this.
Nobody who has a good faith argument to make does it in an undergrad final essay in someone else's comments.
No
Bo
Dy.
Well, now you know better.
Better than what? Reading your tall deer?
I'm sorry you've had bad experiences. Don't bring them here. This has been an overall productive comment section and you don't need to ruin it just because my writing style triggers you.
"Don't bring them here."
I tell ya what. When you run your own Substack, you can moderate the living shit out of comments on what you write. Until then, have a seat.
No. Also, swing and a miss on your analysis. The entire thrust of my argument is the value of arguing in good faith.
Out of respect for the author, I won't continue this other than to point out the irony of you accusing me of not having a good faith argument when you admittedly didn't even read what I wrote. I mean, I get it. You came here, left a few snarky replies to other people's comments, saw that I had actually attempted something of a thoughtful response, and your lizard brain kicked in and said "no! I cannot let this stand!" so you attempted to invalidate it with a condescending dismissal. Sorry, that doesn't work.
You can have the last snarky word now if you want.
Same for 2nd amendment freaks. It does not give anyone the right to own a rocket launcher or a nuclear bomb. It is not an absolute right. We regulate “arms” all the time. We have the right to bear some of those arms but not all. Anyone not respecting common sense about such things is up to something else: probably rationalizing why nobody will have sex with them. When a man grumbles about “feminism” my immediate assumption is a few women haven’t given him what he wanted. I make this assumption because of men I’ve know. where this has been true. I don’t make things up to fit my world view. Grow up, ya morons.
Known - edit
*It does not give anyone the right to own a rocket launcher or a nuclear bomb.*
*When a man grumbles about “feminism” my immediate assumption is a few women haven’t given him what he wanted.*
*Grow up, ya morons*
Indeed
“Most people who say they are “free speech absolutists” are lying their ass off.”
As evidenced by the widespread disinterest on the part of self-proclaimed absolutists in offline viewpoint suppression by right wing political actors. It’s not really free speech as an abstract idea they support. They just want unmoderated internet platforms.
They're all lying. Just ask them if you're allowed to call for their murder or solicit it in exchange for money.
No worries, bunny. You’ll always find some safe spaces on the internet. Just make sure you keep your subscription to Jezebel current.
Mate you and the half Scottish kid whose approval you're desperate to secure for reasons that will definitely elude me to the end of time, Lord Theodore Twombly or whatever his name is, have fewer friends between the both of you than all of the so-called twelve Nazis you're white-knighting for combined, so I'm really not sure what you imagine you're accomplishing here.
Dragging you back through the S Pete detritus that hits my feed, mate. If just me and you know, and no one else, my job is still well done.
Guy who brags about flying a traitor flag says what now?
Don’t you have some library books that need banning?
Another great article Shane. You might be interested in "The Case Against Free Speech" by by P.E Moskowitz. https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Free-Speech-Amendment/dp/156858864X. Not nearly as entertaining as your work but it's analysis of how this issue relates to debates on American college campus's is quite interesting.
Thanks mate I might just check that out
Logan Libraries has a copy if your looking to save yourself some cash.
Really great work. Made me think about how the debate never ends because each individual bigot thinks you owe them, personally, an explanation for whatever scraps of power you wield in life, particularly if wielded over them. So you can be like me, a 30 year accomplished veteran in tech, but still have accusations of “affirmative action hire” or more nefarious stuff surround me every step. You manage to convince one bigot that you’re “one of the good ones” and who cares, next one you run across it starts all over again and you have to prove yourself starting at basic worth all over again.
"Because if we can’t decide this right now, if we cannot bring ourselves as a society to say that genocides, holocausts, and systematic human extermination are wrong, if that’s still on the debate table then I’m sorry, guys, but what we need isn’t a debate, it’s a comet." YES.
Ma’am, you’re just begging for a sharply worded cease and desist letter from the ADL legal council.
Sartre nailed this nearly a century ago, in “Anti-Semite and Jew”:
“Never believe that anti-Semites are unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse, for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.”
I don't argue with fascists about other people's right to exist; primarily because that is the debate they want to have.
I argue with fascists that the concepts they espouse about themselves are not only fantasies, but are dangerous to themselves personally. A fascist/wingnut is at the center an egotist; who believes herself inherently superior and, if allowed to operate unchecked, will dominate over not only her perceived "enemies" but inevitably come out on top over her "allies" (bc she sees them, openly or secretly, as rivals). This of course is garbage; and they hate nothing more bitterly than someone they cannot easily "Other" away pointing that out. All the arguments and debates a fascist wants to have are strategic; so naturally they want to control the debate to only their topics. Repeatedly confronting and subverting their attempts at controlling debate does real damage to their attempts to persuade and intimidate others into alliance or compliance with their aims and their actions.
What an excellent analysis. I totally agree with the Hamish McKenzie quote you made, but at the same time, I'm torn. Everyone should have the right to express their views, and censoring them takes away that right. However, negative or harmful views have a stronger emotional effect than positive views. Everyone also knows that harmful views travel faster, just like fake news. Even if those who have these harmful views are in the minority, harmful views are so powerful that this minority can pollute the whole discussion.
This is where we become economists. We have to weigh the benefits of giving everyone unbridled freedom of speech against the cost of moderating or censoring those whose views can lead to a deterioration of the civic space. This is one way to look at it.
You mentioned Nazis and neo-Nazis in your article. We all have to remember that the Nazis started out as a minority group. They were just a few people making their Nazi noise. Look how that ended.
My dad used to give me a silly example when I was a kid. Here it goes; if you bring a very big bowl of the cleanest water you can find, and then you get a tiny piece of feces and put it in the bowl, what happens to the water?
I guess I wrote all this to say well done Peter, I enjoyed your piece.
https://purplemessenger.substack.com/
american politics gives me butt huit
I agree that it is worse than pointless to engage a Nazi in debate.
I propose, however, that the core argument behind true free speech absolutism is the proposition that to debate Nazism with the general public is a positive good. Proponents of Nazism lose debates where people who are decent and sensible are the judges.
The real danger of unmoderated content is the potential for people to get lured into hateful patterns of thought through algorithms that accelerate the propaganda into their feeds.
Maybe "good speech" is an insufficient defense against this phenomenon. I am certainly not arguing against it as an important tool.
I merely suggest that discussion of what "debate" does or ought to look like keep in mind the true auduence.
"When was the last time you saw some kind of fringe political extremist change his mind because he lost a fucking argument?"
It took him around ten years, but he gave it up after losing multiple arguments. This was, if I had to guess, about another ten years ago. But then, I knew him personally, and pummeled the fucking Plato out of his head. Cheers!
I don't debate Fake Christians Nazis.
Whenever I read out of the Holy Bible, word for word, Fake Christians Nazis call me a “liar”.
For legal reasons, I'm stating up front that no one should be violent ever. Never do a violence, kids. Speaking purely (purely!) academically, the force that stops Nazism is violence. Not appeasement, not debating, not ignoring, not ridiculing, not politely requesting. No. Violence solves the problem of Nazis. Academically and historically speaking, I mean.
Really? What makes you think that?
So far this group (at least from what I can surmise on Substack) has not garnered much support nor had any real effect on either the population at large or in numbers that might be influential. What you are saying seems to be that this group is a special case, but I don’t see anything special.
It seems that the biggest point of contention is that either the group or individuals within the group are willing to say that they are Nazis. I suppose they could be, but I doubt they have anything more than superficial similarities to the Nazis of old.
More importantly, I think if you want them to be kicked off of a platform then a better case has to be made than self-identifying as Nazis. And certainly a much better case has to made to call for a preemptive strike against ordinary protections regarding free speech.
I think you’re really clever and while I do take your point about the futility of debate and the real bite of deplatforming; I think the real concern for most free speech folks is the slippery slope. You say X is a Nazi but Y says he isn’t a Nazi who decides? Is there some clear unequivocal definition we are all using and agree upon? Probably not, so like cancel culture it becomes censorship by unpopularity of ideas.
I don’t know any Nazis nor have I thought even a single moment about Nazis having any power in this country until 2020 when I started to see how easy it is for censorship creep to turn into political action and then to lives of whole groups of people being ruined: fair or not.
I don’t care about this latest Nazi frenzy on Substack. The truth is I would never have known there was a “Nazi problem” if it weren’t for critics of these people demanding Substack kick them out. So perhaps the anecdote to the Nazis of the world isn’t debate, but indifference.
But they're here and making money nonetheless; lots of people are indifferent to American Nazis, but the problem of fascism in this country is getting *worse*. Your indifference is helping them, if anything.
I disagree. Indifference takes away the free publicity which encourage casual onlookers. Indifference also mitigates the “everyone is against us” vitriol that usually appeals to younger people and makes groups like Nazis less appealing to people who are naturally contrarian and want to be different mostly just to be different. In short, Indifference demonstrates how insignificant they are in the big scheme of things.
Why the worry about the money? So what. Is it your money? I mean really of all the shady underhanded and dangerous people who are able to solicit money (or investors); these guys get your attention, time and energy?
In short, I am not helping them: you are.
It really doesn't. Plenty of people have been indifferent to American fascists for years and now they have people in the police, in the armed forces, in the Republican party. They do not need a REASON to think everyone is against them; Nazis are a death cult who want to kill whole groups of people just for being who they are. You're not demonstrating shit to them with your indifference; THEY are indifferent to YOU. I'm not giving them "free publicity"; what people who are shitty and bigoted really want most of all is to be shitty and bigoted with no consequences; but doxxing Nazis and making their identities public makes things *worse* for them. You think things got better for Richard Hanania when everyone found out he was posting white supremacist shit for years? Or did everyone associated with him backpedal like a motherfucker?
You've cited zero sources for your claim that Nazis don't appeal to people who are "naturally contrarian," so: bullshit.
"Why worry about the money?" Because money is power, dumbass. And yes, people who are shady also get my attention, if for no other reason than I don't want to get scammed.
In short: YOU are helping them, and it took you six days to come up with that weak-ass, self-justifying response. You're a fool.
(PS: I see you are a Hanania fan, which tells me all I need to know about you. [Spits] Diet Nazi.
How can you ban Nazis if you’re not willing to ban transphobes and other reactionaries, who UNARGUABLY cause much more harm than the harm caused by the relatively small number of actual Nazis?