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Podcast

How America Became a Nation of "Free Speech Hypocrites"

Plain English with Derek Thompson

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  • Lukianoff’s Origin Story
    • Greg Lukianoff joined FIRE because he specialized in First Amendment law and was recommended by his law school dean.
    • He says defending free speech is the core reason he and many colleagues get up in the morning. Transcript: Greg Lukianoff Sure. FIRE is 26 years old. We’re best known for defending free speech and academic freedom on campus because that’s what we did for most of our existence. But in 2022, we decided to expand our mission. Actually, I mean, well, before that, we decided to. And we now defend free speech nationally, you know, both on and off campus. You know, and I joined FIRE because I hyper-specialized in First Amendment law. This was my reason for going to law school in the first place. And when they were looking for their first legal director, I was actually recommended by name by the dean of my law school. So this is not an accidental choice for me. And like a lot of people who join FIRE, this is why they get up in the morning. (Time 0:05:45)
  • Why Free Speech Matters
    • Free speech protects society’s ability to discover truth by allowing decentralized argument and critique.
    • Greg Lukianoff argues this decentralization reduces violence and improves knowledge, innovation, and mental health. Transcript: Derek Thompson Before we get into the news, you’re a free speech liberal. I want you to defend this particular piece of real estate in the American political spectrum. What’s so great about being a free speech liberal, especially today? Oh, man. Greg Lukianoff This is what I want to do with my whole career because I think free speech is one of the most powerful and healthy forces in human history. That essentially, you know, and this is one thing that especially needs to be understood today. The way historically humans have settled who is right and what is true is through violence or the threat of violence. The idea that we would settle it through argumentation, through a principle that essentially nobody gets to decide who is right in all circumstances, that it becomes a decentralized Idea of truth, that it’s a, as Jonathan Rauch would put it, it is a never-ending battle with no person claiming to be the chief priest of Zeus and being able to end any argument. So I think that it’s this powerful revelation in the limitations of human knowledge, for example, that has had massive outcomes in terms of peace, prosperity, innovation, artistic Expression, autonomy, even mental health. Because how important the idea of actually getting to be your authentic self is to the idea of mental health, I think is badly underappreciated, which is one of the reasons why my go-to Theory is not so much the marketplace of ideas, which I think is actually a pretty good theory for places like academia. But most of actually like what we talk about as a species are simpler, smaller things about preference and emotion, things like I love that movie. I really miss my brother. I, you all of these, like, that’s my favorite book. Like, all of these kind of things. But here’s the way I think of it. The most important value of freedom of speech is that without it, you don’t have a chance in hell of knowing what the world really looks like for a lot of different reasons. Not just the way we dispute reality in terms of philosophy, which is incredibly important, by the way. But also because everything a human being says, everything that indicates what’s going on in our sense internally is important knowledge to have. You are flying blind if you think you understand the world as it is and you don’t actually know what people think. So I believe it’s in society’s interest to have a society that is so free that people actually feel free to be their authentic selves because then you can actually see honestly and deliberately What our problems are and how they can be addressed without sort of imposing on the world what it should look like. So I’m going to use a jarring word to describe liberalism, which is it’s an anarchical system. It basically says that no one person, no one group will be in charge of what is true. (Time 0:10:31)
  • Polarization Fuels Hypocrisy
    • Group polarization drives radicalization when like-minded people converse, raising intolerance for opposing views.
    • Lukianoff links this social psychology to political hypocrisy and warlike rhetoric in today’s politics. Transcript: Greg Lukianoff Yeah. You know, it’s something that Cass Sunstein, you know, Yale professor and great scholar of, you know, he, like me, has an intense interest in not just constitutional law, but also social Psychology. And he talks a lot about group polarization, which is one of the better documented phenomena in social science. But essentially, if you get like-minded people talking to each other about political issues, they tend to get more radicalized in the direction of the group. And he also really brought attention to the fact that right now, you know, party affiliation is the thing that we feel the most hostility towards, that essentially people are now more Upset at the thought of their daughter or son marrying someone from the other political party than they are about them in the more traditional cases of it being somewhat of a different Race or different religion. So once you reach a high watermark of polarization, yeah, people start thinking of it as kind of a war of all against all. And it just is very unusual to have a president who fully exploits that, whose argument is, I mean, for example, basket of deplorables, like was a unbelievable mistake on the part of Hillary, partially because that confirmed exactly what the left thought of them. But she didn’t lean into that all the time. More about what the left might call dog whistles. When it comes to Trump, this is his whole kind of bag. We’re in a war against the left, it’s a desperate struggle is essentially the messaging they’re going for. (Time 0:16:02)
  • Both Sides Adopt Censorious Tactics
    • The left’s campus illiberalism created real free-speech problems, but the right now imitates those tactics.
    • Lukianoff warns both sides use similar rationales (hate speech, misinformation) to justify censorship. Transcript: Greg Lukianoff I’ve focused so much on campuses, you know, career, I think there is no getting to a good place on free speech without the left doing some reckoning with itself flat out. And while you can point to like what the Biden administration did, the Hunter laptop thing, the deeper issue is that there’s been a illiberal trend on campuses that has posed a long-term Threat to free speech. And the kind of things I’ve seen on campuses over the last 10 years are horrifying to me. But I’ll give you an even darker, you know, a bit of information from FIRE’s latest campus free speech ranking. It used to be, and this is horrible, by the way, that the left on campus tended to be much more accepting of shoutdowns of speakers, of blocking people’s access to talks that they didn’t Like, and worst of all, of violence in response to freedom of speech. This is the first year where the right has caught up to the left on campus in terms of the acceptability of violence on campus. It’s now about a third of students say that at least in rare cases, it can actually be acceptable. And of course, those rare cases are when the hated other shows up on campus. Particularly when you compare that to the fact that now 50% of students all across the spectrum think that basically no controversial speakers should, we give them a list of like eight Different controversial speakers, and now more than 50% are like, nope, none of these guys should be invited in the first place. So that’s something that the left really doesn’t want to take seriously about itself. Now, I consider myself a liberal, but I’m a Gen Xer liberal, so I’ve always found liberal and the left are not the same thing. I have never felt that they are. I think their values are just fundamentally different on a lot of these issues. But I do think that the Trump administration and other administrations are playing this absolutely to the hilt to excuse incredibly illiberal and often really dangerous behavior. And they, and creepily, they are behaving like they’re never not going to be in power again. That essentially any argument that says, well, this will be used against you in the future, there’s a little bit of like a, you know, when will that be exactly? (Time 0:18:30)
  • Campus Intolerance Has Escalated
    • Campus tolerance for violent suppression of speech has grown; the right has now caught up with the left.
    • Over 50% of students say many controversial speakers should not be invited, indicating deep self-censorship. Transcript: Greg Lukianoff It used to be, and this is horrible, by the way, that the left on campus tended to be much more accepting of shoutdowns of speakers, of blocking people’s access to talks that they didn’t Like, and worst of all, of violence in response to freedom of speech. This is the first year where the right has caught up to the left on campus in terms of the acceptability of violence on campus. It’s now about a third of students say that at least in rare cases, it can actually be acceptable. And of course, those rare cases are when the hated other shows up on campus. Particularly when you compare that to the fact that now 50% of students all across the spectrum think that basically no controversial speakers should, we give them a list of like eight Different controversial speakers, and now more than 50% are like, nope, none of these guys should be invited in the first place. (Time 0:19:13)
  • Document Government-Platform Contacts
    • Document and scrutinize government communication with platforms to deter indirect censorship.
    • Lukianoff supports legislation and transparency so private moderation isn’t driven by covert government pressure. Transcript: Greg Lukianoff And you can’t do that directly or indirectly. The government is not as forbidden from demanding that private actors censor speech that the government itself is not allowed to censor. Now, can they have conversations with social media companies? Yes. Do I think those should be documented, to be clear? Yes, actually, I also think that. And that’s actually even a piece of legislation that FIRE has recommended. But I do think, as far as I’m concerned, from the record of what became Murthy v. Missouri, that there was inappropriate pressure on these social media companies to censor speakers. So what actually happened in that case was the Supreme Court found that there wasn’t – it wasn’t sufficiently proven that that was the but-for reason, that the Biden administration Pressure is why these people got kicked off social media. So those plaintiffs didn’t have standing. Now, I disagree with that polling outright, and that’s what puts me at odds with some of my friends. Derek Thompson And just to be absolutely clear, because I think you covered it, but I want to make sure that people are on the exact same page, right? In 2022, after this group of Republican led states sues, alleging free speech censorship, as you’ve described it, the Supreme Court by a six, three vote threw out the suit on standing Grounds. That’s what you’re saying, because they said the plaintiffs, the plaintiffs couldn’t show that they had personally been silenced due to the Biden administration’s requests. So the question the Supreme Court was ruling on was not necessarily whether the requests were constitutional or not, but basically that there was no effective silencing in the first Place that would give them standing to bring this vote. And so I think it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s an interesting case because it, it does, I think to some people suggest that the Biden administration never actually did cross a line that gave people Standing to say, you kicked me off of this social media platform. Yeah. Greg Lukianoff I mean, I don’t think that’s really what it says though. I, I, I that, and here’s the thing. Mark Zuckerberg has since said he regretted caving to the Biden administration. He kind of wishes he put up more of a fight. Google just came out and essentially apologized for removing people from YouTube, for example. And if anybody, I mean literally anybody from the social media universe had decided to be a plaintiff in this, they would have got standing. And I believe the Missouri v. Biden would have actually, or Murthy v. (Time 0:22:52)
  • Diverse Attitudes Toward Free Speech
    • Different political factions view free speech differently: libertarian/populist right and progressive left diverge from classical liberalism.
    • Lukianoff emphasizes a central liberal core still supports robust free speech across much of the center-left and center-right. Transcript: Derek Thompson I see the right often advertising itself as a defender of free speech, but once they get power, they seem to violate it. While on the left, I see lots of arguments, whether it’s students on campus or left-wing professors, in many cases saying, we don’t think the First Amendment is strong enough to hold Up against the social media companies, which are creating genocides in some parts of the country and empowering authoritarians in other parts of the country. And we actively want to and constantly say that we are supportive of measures that limit the power of the First Amendment. So I see left versus right as having somewhat distinctive attitudes towards free speech. But I wonder if you have a more sophisticated way of seeing the way that different people or different groups in America see the value of free speech today? Greg Lukianoff I guess I would say I’d like to think so. And it’s definitely been something that’s been made blaringly clear in watching what happens on campus. And I think there is a big distinction between the progressive left and the liberal left. And this comes out in polling. And there’s a big distinction between the libertarian right and the populist right. And coming up, you know, like my origin story as a former ACLU guy is that I was very much part of sort of like the civil libertarian left, which is very much part of the liberal left, you Know, which I grew up with. And on the right, we oftentimes found really great allies in the real libertarian right. I sometimes describe this as being like the people who write for Reason magazine, for example, like the people who actually really care about free speech and care about it quite consistently, As opposed to people who call themselves libertarians that are really populist who want lower taxes. And this comes out to this day in the polling. The left that you’re talking about is the one that was more marginalized when I was a kid. You know, the people were always talking about the weather underground and like all the excesses of the 70s because I’m Gen X. And like I said, it does come out in the polling. So I think that the big middle, you know, of what might be now called the center left is still pretty great on free speech. The center right is still pretty great on free speech. (Time 0:29:01)
  • Think About Who Controls Speech
    • Evaluate who gets power to decide speech rules by asking how your worst enemy would use it.
    • Lukianoff argues limiting executive or state power prevents politicized control over expression. Transcript: Greg Lukianoff Woodrow Wilson was particularly famous for these arguments, and a lot of his battle against freedom of speech was horrifying. So I think it comes down to, as per usual, really our constitution is mostly about who gets to decide these things, and actually to a degree who doesn’t get to decide these things. And I think that the left in a lot of cases falls into this trap of thinking that, well, if my people were in charge of this, you know, that then we’d handle it great. You know, it’s like, well, no kidding. That’s what people think all the time. But our system is actually cleverer than that because it’s kind of like, yes, but that’s not the way you’re supposed to think about it. Think about not what the best angel philosopher king would do with that power. Think about what your worst enemy would do with that power. And I think we’re listening. I think we’re actually living through an object lesson of why the libertarians had a point in the form of the Trump administration to be kind of like, yeah, actually, the best way to avoid These situations is not giving the executive, for example, that much power in the first place. So I think if we had, you know, a government thumb on the scale to decide, you know, what hate speech was or where your attention should be better spent and all this kind of stuff, I think It would be, you know, the Trump administration would have even more power to decide, you know, who the winners and losers are when it comes to the production of ideas. And so would the left. (Time 0:37:03)
  • Campus Norms Shape Elites
    • Campus ideas spread when elites educated at those institutions take roles in government and media.
    • Lukianoff notes rising college attainment means campus norms now influence broader society and leadership. Transcript: Greg Lukianoff Is always complex, but I will say this. I think that let’s go back to like the early part of the last century or even further back when maybe 3% of people had a college degree. And saying that what’s on campus stays on campus would be pretty persuasive unless all of your ruling class comes from that 3%. Even that tiny percentage of your population, if there is groupthink and there are illiberal values coming from that, you’re going to see those reflected in your ruling class. And those are people who are disproportionately influential, of course. And I say ruling class because I just mean sort of elite in the sense of like the people who tend to actually run the country. We’re now at a point where something like 35% of Americans have a BA. I think that it was long since naive to think what happens on campus stays on campus when you have numbers like that. And the most important thing that people miss, and this is actually a disagreement I have with Musa Algarbi, who I love and respect, to be clear, but in his book, We Have Never Been Woke, One of the things that he talks about is, you know, is that this can’t be like, come from campus because students end up showing up on campus already having these attitudes. And I had to point out to him, by the way, that’s what Haidt and I said in 2015 is they were already showing up for it. But that misses the point that we have this K through PhD situation and that so many of the problems that we’re seeing, there’s been a direct line, honestly, from American education Schools. This is something that people have been pointing to for decades. Even fans of our education schools have been critical of the groupthink in education schools and the over-politicization of education schools. Going back to the 60s, even 25 years ago, the head of Teachers College was hitting similar themes about this as a problem. So I do think that when you have certain bad ideas that both educate everyone who educates and educates their parents as well, the idea that that’s going to somehow not affect the rest Of society, particularly when practically all of the people who actually run that society come from institutions like that, particularly the ones that are the most ideological ones And the most upper class ones, elite education. So when people talk about elite education not mattering because that’s not where most students go to, I ask you to look at how disproportionate the representation from Harvard or Yale Is among both conservative and liberal leadership. And I would personally think we’d be a healthier country if that mattered less. I think if, you know, I have noticed that I find that there’s a lot more sort of intellectual sort of vibrancy and health, I think, in some of the big state schools. It’s not a coincidence, I think, that FIRE has found this, you know, that a lot of the big state schools tend to have better self-reported, you know, free speech environments. (Time 0:43:54)