There is a common-sense agreement that speech should be free unless it can cause physical harm. Thus, for example, I am not allowed to shout out “fire” in a crowded theater because the ensuing pandemonium could cause serious harm, even death, to some of the people in the crowd. However, in recent years, the right to free speech has been challenged on the ground it can pose an emotional harm to some people in the audience.
More importantly, these challenges to free speech have been raised on university campuses, including those of some liberal schools, like Berkeley and Yale. The persons denied the right to speech have varied from the notorious far right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to mainstream commentators, like George Will, the former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the former US Attorney General Eric Holder. Others, like Erika Christakis, a childhood and education expert formerly at Yale, have been forced to resign. In all these instances, and many others, the objections have primarily come from students, who claimed what these people had said or had to say caused or would cause them emotional discomfort and anxiety.
The Foundation of Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has documented 379 disinvitation campaigns in colleges since 2000, of which about half were successful. While until 2009 objections to speakers were raised in equal frequency by left and right groups, more of them have come from the left in later years, especially after 2013. In 2017, 58% of surveyed liberal and conservative students expressed the opinion that they should not be exposed to “intolerable” and “offensive” ideas on campus. One third of surveyed students also opined that violent means to cancel “offensive” speech were acceptable. Opposition is not limited to objectionable speakers but extends to parts of the classroom curriculum. Based on these survey results we can presume that had Socrates, a perennial challenger of Athenian morals, stood trial in front of these easily “offended” students, he would have met the same fate as he did in the hands of his detractors in 399 BCE.
The fact that such selective opposition to free speech became pronounced on American campuses after 2013 suggests that it is a phenomenon connected to the generation that was born in 1996 and later, and, hence, it reached college age in 2013. This, so-called iGen (i for internet) generation was the first to grow entirely in the culture of digital communication technology (smart phones) and social media.
If so, the question is then, what is different about this generation that has led to such oversensitivity to opposed ideas. In their book “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up A Generation for Failure” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt identify three myths (as they call them) that drive iGeners to intolerance. One myth is the parents’ belief that young people are fragile and need protection from “offensive” ideas. The second myth is that trusting one’s feelings is a good thing. And the third myth is the idea of tribalism that convinces young people the world is one of Us versus Them.
The fragility idea is a myth because natural selection has conditioned species, including us, to adjust to the challenges of our environment in order to survive. A new style of parenting, though, the one called “helicopter” parenting, has now turned parents to overprotective guardians of their children. This style of parenting is more prominent in well-to-do middle and upper-class families. It is usually driven by parental concern about the professional positioning of children, and nothing looms bigger in this connection than admission to a reputable college (see recent scandals in this regard). As a result, parents meticulously choreograph their children’s daily activities to maximize the chances for a good education and valuable networking. Thus, children are left with much less play time, especially the kind of play that exposes kids to interaction and conflict with playmates. It is in play that kids are challenged by rivals, learn from failures, and engage in conflict resolution.
Trusting one’s feelings and emotions can also be dangerous. Emotions can instinctively arise but that doesn’t make them accurate representations of reality. We need reason to check whether our feelings and emotions align with facts. Encouraging kids to trust their emotions diminishes the need for critical thinking. Thus, the balance between emotions and reason is distorted.
Finally succumbing to the tribalistic dichotomy “us versus them” deprives youngsters (and for that matter all of us) of the willingness to give any sort of consideration, and much less legitimacy, to the viewpoints of others. The result is: “If they belong to “them” we should not like anything they have to say.” Here, however, we need to acknowledge that tribalism among students has coincided with tribalism within the American society at large. The unusually high vocal and violent presence of white supremacists (see Charlottesville) and anti-Semitic groups has contributed to the increased intolerance against such groups observed among progressive students.
Regrettably and also perilously for the future of open discourse, universities have rushed to the parents’ side to create “safe” spaces for students. Whereas protecting students from sexual, racial or other forms of harassment manifested in physical form is a necessary and proper policy, there are universities that have tried to protect students from exposure to ideas and theories they subjectively find disturbing to their emotional or mental wellness. Even worse, academic administrations and faculty are increasingly demanding the retraction of writings they find offensive to this or that idea instead of using the traditional method of rebuttal. All this, however, amounts to abdication of the mission of universities to champion a liberal education and discourse, where liberal is to be understood as the freedom to present and debate ideas and theories regardless how objectionable – even repugnant – to some these may be.
It is not difficult to project what this attitude of safetyism implies if it were to prevail. Any idea or theory can potentially become vulnerable by being declared “unsafe” to this or that group and thus ostracized from the public square. Should we prohibit holocaust deniers from speaking, or atheist critiquing religion, or white supremacists degrading other races, or creationists attacking the theory of evolution? Unless we can defend our ideas and theories with reason and evidence, no speech barrier will make us a better society.
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