Freedom to Spew: Appropriate Responses?

What can we do to oppose speech we hate?



Freedom to Spew: Appropriate Responses?
URL: http://www.progressive.org/wx031801.html
By Kendall Clark


   I can't believe I'm writing about David Horowitz, even indirectly.
   Oh well, the things we have to do.
   
   So Horowitz has a new publicity stunt and the money to make it
   happen. My personal thought is to ignore him whenever possible and
   dismiss and denigrate him otherwise. It's not like anything useful
   comes out of debating with him or his allies. Typically, tactically
   speaking, opposing his little pranks is exactly what he wants, and
   it only feeds his sense of self-righteousness, his popularity, and
   his coffers. Of course, not opposing them isn't great either.
   Horowitz is skilled at setting up this catch-22, and he's has had
   years and dollars enough to elaborate his traps. I suspect, if some
   response is required, light-hearted seeming humor and ridicule would
   better sneak by his defenses than direct confrontation.
   
   But what's going on with these spokeswhiners for the left who buy
   into Horowitz's premises? Witness Matthew Rothschild's:
   
     The ad, "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery Is a Bad Idea
     and Racist Too," has prompted exercises in censorship by many of
     the papers and acts of intimidation against papers that did run
     the ad.
     
     These responses show what little respect there is for the free
     exchange of ideas on campus--and, I'm sorry to say, among
     segments of the left.
     
   Why don't we just quote the Horowitz playbook? (Note: Lest we
   forget, he was [1]up in arms about Time [2]"slandering" him by
   running an opinion piece calling him a bigot. We do well to recall
   who we're dealing with.) Any slam of anti-Horowitzers, especially by
   the left, should be tempered by noting his hypocrisy and his
   tactics.
   
   Clearly, Horowitz is not primarily after free exchange of ideas. His
   bombast and name calling are designed to stifle opposition. I've
   never read anything by Horowitz that remotely invokes the principle
   of merely vague hostility, much less of charity. This is a man who
   regularly blames all the problems of African Americans on (among a
   few others) Jesse Jackson.
   
   There are four specific accusations in Rothchild's editorial which,
   together, are supposed to entail the "lack of respect for free
   speech" charge:
    1. Newspapers which don't run ads that are "politically
       inflammatory" are engaged in censorship. ("It's not up to them
       to shield their readers from ideas that may be "inflammatory" or
       to set up shop as censors who are empowered to make decisions on
       which ads are "appropriate" and which are "inappropriate"...They
       should not discriminate against advertisers on the basis of
       their political beliefs. This is fundamental.")
    2. Removing, burning, or replacing issues of a free and freely
       available newspaper is "intimidation", "gang suppression of
       speech", and "an old and discredited tactic of brownshirts
       everywhere."
    3. "Our tradition of free speech in this country is to protect the
       expression not only of views we agree with, but also those we
       abhor."
    4. "...the proper response to bad speech is good speech."
       
   Clearly, the problem isn't whether Horowitz can air his views. He
   can. And he does. The ad was derived from [3]an article published in
   [4]Salon.com, and the subject of a flurry of follow up columns, side
   columns, commentaries, letters, etc. This idea is out there. It's
   obvious and unoriginal and if you want to get it, it's easy to get.
   So, there's no shielding, no suppression, of the idea. At best,
   there is the attempt to close one avenue of particular expression of
   that idea by this particular person.
   
   Let's examine each claim in turn.
   
  1. The so-called censoring of ads and the duties of newspapers
  
   Surely the freedom of speech includes the freedom not to say
   something. Of course, when we're talking about an institution that
   controls a forum things get dicier. It's one thing for an editorial
   board not to run a Horowitz-written piece as its own, and another
   not to run it under his name. But it's also true that space is
   limited and costly -- no one has to subsidize another's speech if
   they don't want to. As a newspaper publisher, I don't have to run
   columnists that I don't think will appeal to my auidence. If I'm a
   lefty rag, that pretty much precludes running Horowitz.
   
   Ads are trickier. After all, the point of running ads is to raise
   revenue. In general, one tries not to dampen circulation by running
   ads that will, for whatever reason, make people not buy or read your
   paper. Isn't this just normal? And ads are, in general, already
   discriminated zones of speech: you have to have money to speak
   there.
   
   Further, Horowitz's "ad" isn't an advertisment; it's an editorial.
   It makes no announcment of an event, sells no product, or the like.
   Suppose if Horowitz had offered the student newspapers a bribe to
   run his article on thier op-ed pages? (This is a standard right-wing
   tactic pioneered by William F. Buckley and the noxious Darthmouth
   Review.) Would that be a worrisome infringement of the editorial
   integrity of the paper? These are student papers after all.
   
   And it's pure slander to claim that the papers were turning down
   Horowitz's ad because of his political beliefs. Clearly they turned
   down the ad becaue of its content. If Horowitz placed an ad for his
   newsletter or lecture series, especially if it were sanely
   presented, I bet all the papers would have run it. Is it permissible
   for the papers to turn down an ad favoring pornography because of
   objectionable graphics? Or one that was pro-animal rights? Isn't it
   possible to turn down those ads because they're tasteless and
   inflammatory and not merely because of the ideas expressed or the
   beliefs of the people placing the ads?
   
   Of course.
   
  2. The papers are free, dammit
  
   I've never understood the charge of "stealing" free papers.
   Presumably I can take as many copies of a free paper as I want? I
   can take the whole stack if I have urgent need for massive amounts
   of papier-mache material?
   
   Why not?
   
   Can't I take 50 copies of the school paper when it contains my witty
   editorial so I can send copies to all my relatives? I would think
   so.
   
   If I need a bit of paper to help light my grill, can I grab a handy
   school paper? Why not?
   
   If the problem is the scale and intent, would there be any objection
   to a group encouraging as many people to "take one and toss it"?
   Take one, ignore it, and throw it in our protest bonfire? Why not?
   
   Can I take some copies and make a protest collage? Why not?
   
   Why, why, why not? How is any of this stealing? Intimidation?
   Thuggery?
   
   How is it different (circulation-wise) than organizing a boycott?
   "Don't read the paper! It's running gross Horowitz stuff!" Is that a
   brown shirt tactic?
   
  3. "Our tradition of free speech in this country is to protect the
  expression not only of views we agree with, but also those we abhor."
  
   There has to be some sort of separation between what I, the citizen,
   have to do and what the government has to do. It's not my job to
   protect Horowitz. I'm not going to give him a forum, espeically on
   my nickel. I'm going to recommend people avoid him. If by sustained
   consumer action I can get Salon.com to dump him, I shall. If by
   skillful competition, Monkeyfist drives Salon.com out of business,
   I'm not going to offer him a slot.
   
   It's not my job.
   
   For a country where freedom of speech has been interpreted so
   narrowly (and broadly) as to make bribery protected and
   community-based micro-radio unprotected, I don't see the tradition
   as all that worthy of following.
   
   And to be a bit silly, aren't these sorts of protests and
   non-publishing instances of free speech? Why must we "protect"
   Horowitz's speech by restraining our own?
   
   More seriously, clearly the responses criticized are exactly the
   ones Horowitz wanted and designed his efforts to elicit. If one is
   going to be wildly annoying, one should expect that people won't be
   at their absolute best. So Matthew Rothschild is wrong to say, "And
   whether abhorrent speech inflames or not is really besides the
   point." It does matter. If Horowitz were really concerned with
   ideas, there's a simple alternative: Run a non-inflammatory version
   of the ad. Oh, whoops, the editors don't have editorial control over
   ads.
   
   The issue isn't about the ideas or about debate; it's about letting
   Horowitz spew.
   
  4. Good speech and proper responses
  
   There are many proper responses to "bad" speech. If my senator
   utters racial slurs, I'm going to vote against him and encourage
   others to. I won't donate money to him. I'll work against him. I'll
   throw away the direct mail he sends me.
   
   If an author I liked publishes a torrent of horrid sexist screeds,
   I'm going to stop buying and perhaps stop reading those books. If
   I'm on a committee that wants to invite him to speak, I'm going to
   think hard about going along with it.
   
   At lot of these actions depend crucially on the nature of the
   response and the nature of the offense. I might well invite Anton
   Scalia or Clarence Thomas to speak at a constitutional law class,
   but neither would be my first choice, and I would pick either only
   to give my students an opportunity to shoot them down. I'd certainly
   be hesitant to give them a protected, free hand to blather. I'd love
   to have Clinton, Albright, Powell, and Cheney on a panel defending
   their collective Iraqi positions, but I wouldn't think it worth the
   effort if they were just going to attack each other over who wasn't
   tough enough.
   
  The verdict
  
   It is surely ironic that Rothschild advocates good speech while
   providing no compelling example himself. His school marm's tone
   alone is repellent, but, more importantly, he's failed to establish
   the tactical or moral credentials to give this lecture. I don't fell
   all warm and admiring of a leftist who writes:
   
     Now I can understand why people disagree with Horowitz's position
     on reparations and with the specifics of his ad (to say nothing
     of his self-promotion as sixties-radical-who-now-sees-the-light).
     
   He can understand? Maybe if he tries? I take it he doesn't disagree,
   but he can understand why people do. Can he understand why
   reasonable people are driven into a frothing rage?
   
   It's not clear that these offenses are wedges in the great ediface
   of respect for freedom of speech. As indications of lack of respect,
   they seem to me relatively minor. As openings for Horowitz to trash
   African Americans and leftists and further weaken respect for free
   speech, they seem somewhat more serious.
   
   Not the least because of people like Rothschild.

References

   1. http://www.salon.com/news/col/cona/1999/09/07/bigot/index.html
   2. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/08/25/response/index.html
   3. http://www.salon.com/news/col/horo/2000/05/30/reparations/
   4. http://www.salon.com/


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Posted on Monkeyfist at http://monkeyfist.com/articles/746