Two points about the Virginia Tech massacre.
1. I've been surprised at the number of people who have blamed NBC for releasing Cho's videos. There is the classic argument for free speech - that while ideas may actually be harmful, it is better to diffuse and debate them out in the open, rather than achieve dubious results by suppressing them. If you do not believe this, on some level you must be opposed to free speech, since the case for suppressing harmful ideas is immediate. Either a whole lot of people are not being consistent, or the support for free speech in our society is not as near a consensus as I had believed.
2. Now that the material is out there, we have a much better idea of what went on. This knowledge may be helpful in figuring out how to prevent incidents of this form. This article in Slate, contrasting Cho with the Columbine killers, is particularly useful.
posted by alex @ 10:32 PM
19 comments
19 Comments:
Alex,
I think you're confusing the free speech issues a little bit. Most of those, as far as I know, who are suggesting that NBC *shouldn't* have aired the video are not suggesting that NBC wasn't entitled to air the video.
That's my position -- that while NBC had a *right* to air the footage, they *shouldn't* have aired the footage, as any putative good that could have come from "debating" Cho and his "dangerous" ideas is far outweighed by the real likelihood that turning Cho into an outlaw celebrity will inspire copy cats and do emotional harm to the families of the victims. Besides, NBC had options that would have taken "free speech" and the "public's right to know" into account without so blatantly granting Cho's last wishes (make some of it available online, for instace, or provide transcripts of Cho's rantings instead of pictures).
Does this mean that, in some sense, I'm opposed to free speech? I don't know. Is someone opposed to free speech if they support the First Amendment but don't think people should say, write, or depict every ugly thing that pops into their heads? If you're going to define opposition that way, then yes, in some sense, I'm "opposed" to free speech. But then so is everyone I know; indeed, I'm sure you'll find that a vast majority of people are -- in that sense (i.e., believing that people shouldn't necessarily say everything they have a right to say) -- "opposed" to free speech.
Kate Marie,
I don't think I am confusing free speech issues; I know that there are a lot of people who believe NBC ought to have the right to air the videos, but that they should not have done so. My point is that in most cases this position is not logically consistent. In other words, if you believe NBC should not have aired the video, you ought to support a lot of government restrictions on speech, even if you currently do not.
There are some ideas out there which are harmful: they will certainly create violence in the future. The link between the KKK, various American Neo-Nazi parties, and hate crimes is pretty clear. If you banned each of the above organizations, you would most certainly decrease the number of violent crimes in the future.
But this comes at a cost - Nazism is not going to be debated in the public sphere. The tradeoff here - between lives saved and the ejection of an idea from the public sphere - is exactly the same tradeoff NBC faced in choosing to air the videos. And if you believe that making sure a certain set of statements never reach the light is OK if it saves lives, then you ought to be supporting things like holocaust denial laws.
So it follows that you have to oppose free speech in a much more expansive sense than you allow in your comment.
Dear Alex,
I'm sorry. I did misunderstand the point of the post. Not surprisingly, perhaps, I still disagree with you. :)
I think the point you make relies on a notion of harmful ideas as "causes" or creators of violence. Our free speech laws already do -- in very narrow circumstances -- limit the kinds of speech that may be said to incite or to be the proximate cause of violence. But the causal relationship between general "harmful" ideas, or the expression of those ideas, and violence is murky at best, and I don't know that criminalizing an idea will make it any less attractive to the kind of people who are *already* willing to commit criminal acts in its name.
I suppose you're correct that if I thought that there was an irrefutable link between holding and expressing a particular idea/belief and committing a violent act, it would be logical for me to support greater restrictions of speech, but I'm simply not convinced that there's an irrefutable -- or even a very clear -- connection here.
Even in the case of the likelihood of NBC inspiring "copycats," that's not enough, in my opinion, to justify governmental interference in/restrictions on NBC's speech, since NBC could still not be judged the "cause" of any copycat violence -- any more than Martin Scorcese and Paul Schrader could be judged the cause of the assassination attempt on Reagan.
In the end, I don't see why it follows that a belief that NBC's decision was bad and harmful logically entails a belief that NBC's free speech rights should have been legally restricted in this instance. I consider all sorts of things that people do harmful to society, even more harmful than NBC's airing of the killer's video. Am I logically required to support criminalization of all those harmful things? Call me obtuse, but I just don't see it.
Dear Kate Marie,
Unfortunately, I had written my post pretty late at night, so that I was eager to save myself the trouble of making the argument for my case. I ended up just writing "the case for suppressing harmful ideas is immediate," which was my way of saying "I don't have the energy to write any more about this."
I don't know about "irrefutable" but I do think the connection between Neo-Nazi speech and hate crimes is pretty clear. Anyway, if you believe that the link between speech and the harm caused by speech is very tenuous, you should not be upset at NBC for releasing the Cho videos.
To take this point further, it seems to me there is a parallel between the free speech debates and the the Cho videos - any argument you give me for why you don't want to criminalize free speech, I can turn around and make into an argument for why NBC should have released the videos.
The distinction between government intervention and self-censorship is irrelevant here - in both cases we are weighting the benefits against the costs, which are similar. NBC must decide whether the benefits of an informed, knowledgeable public outweigh the costs of having Cho's statements out there; as a society, we have to decide whether the benefits of free discussions of ideas outweigh the costs these ideas may create.
And yes, to answer the question raised in your last paragraph - if you believe the benefits of X always outweigh the costs of X - which is the typical position on free speech - this constrains you from criticizing organizations which are involved in disseminating X.
Alex,
I don't agree that the distinction between governmental interference with speech and so-called self-censorship or self-regulatioin is irrelevant, because I don't think that the *costs* of reasonable self-censorship and governmental restrictions on speech are the same. In fact, I'd argue that some of the founding principles of our constitution and democracy rely on that "irrelevant" distinction and implicitly acknowledge that the costs of the two kinds of government (state government versus self government) can be quite different.
OK, Kate Marie, how are they different? What are the different costs between the following hypotheticals:
1. NBC does not air the Cho videos.
2. The US government bans the airing of the Cho videos.
I don't accept an appeal to the view of the founders as an argument.
Alex,
I wasn't offering an appeal to the view of the founders as an argument, really. I suppose I was just assuming that the distinction between the two kinds of regulation might be clear if I mentioned the view of the founders.
Now, to your hypothetical:
1. NBC does not air the killer's video.
The costs of this decision, in my opinion, would be very little, if any -- especially if a transcript of the "manifesto" and perhaps some internet access to video clips were made available at a later date. Any good that is likely to come from a debate about the killer's methods/motives/ideas/pathologies can still be had but is more likely to be limited to people who have enough expertise to make the "discussion" worthwhile. Any member of the general public who wished to read the transcripts of the manifesto and comment on them would likewise be free to do so, and, again, any discussion that ensued would be just as free, and perhaps slightly more informed, than a discussion that relied on NBC's prime time coverage, the impact of which relied on images rather than thoughtful discussion.
2. The U.S. government bans the airing of the videos.
-- This could only occur in a context in which government was legally and constitutionally entitled to regulate and restrict speech, so that while there may not be any harm arising specifically from the government's restriction of the V-Tech killer's videos, the cost/harm of state censorship to a free society would be considerable, since the regulation of speech would no longer be considered the responsibility of private individuals and groups but the business of the state. Ceding the regulation of speech to a single monolithic entity like the state has the potential to do much greater damage to the principles of a democratic state than simply allowing private entities to decide against disseminating information that is likely to do more harm than good -- as modern history should make clear.
Kate Marie,
As I understand you, the key difference is that
"Ceding the regulation of speech to a single monolithic entity like the state has the potential to do much greater damage to the principles of a democratic state...as modern history should make clear."
In my opinion, modern history makes exactly the opposite clear. Most states in western europe had criminalized holocaust denial a while ago. The EU is about to have a law which makes illegal "publicly condoning, denying, or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide" as well as "public incitement to racism." Canada has criminalized, among other things, anti-homosexual slurs. If anything, modern history shows that you can be a fairly successful democracy while regulating speech at the same time.
Alex,
We'll have to agree to disagree about what constitutes modern historical examples of state regulation of speech. I was thinking more of twentieth century totalitarianism (and its twenty first century holdouts like China) and contemporary despotisms in which the state controls speech (most of the Middle East, except Israel, other majority-Muslim states, some African countries, etc.).
The speech regulations you mentioned are so recent that it seems strange to cite them as historical examples. Obviously, Western democracies are capable of passing laws that are illiberal (in my opinion, of course) and surviving as democracies. What history's verdict will be is another matter.
To take the example, though, of European state censorship that has been on the books for any length of time . . . Is there any evidence that Holocaust denial (which is utterly morally repugnant and anti-Semitic, obviously) has either diminshed anti-Semitism or helped to minimize violence against Jews?
I was thinking more of twentieth century totalitarianism (and its twenty first century holdouts like China) and contemporary despotisms in which the state controls speech (most of the Middle East, except Israel, other majority-Muslim states, some African countries, etc.)
I'm not sure that suppression of free speech in totalitarian and dictatorial countries tells us anything useful. We live in a democracy. If we are to ask about the costs of regulating speech, we should look at what happens when other democracies have regulated speech. Yes, various dictators have used restrictions on free speech to maintain power; but our debate is about regulating speech in the usa in 2007, and we should look at countries similar to ours.
Now lets limit ourselves to democracies in north america and western europe. I want to do this since this is the most successful group of democracies - but mainly because I don't know much about speech laws elsewhere :) In this group, a large number have adopted laws which severely limit speech - and with the new eu compromise, soon all will, except the united states and mexico. So whatever "principles of a democratic state," as you put it, these laws violate, they can't be very fundamental principles. In fact, since almost all of the democratic states in question have rejected these principles, it seems like calling them "principles of a democratic state" has to be wrong.
Also, the speech regulations are not so recent; some of them have been in place for over 20 years. I realize you may still think this is recent, but this is what I had in mind when I spoke of "modern history."
Alex,
The Austrialians and New Zealanders can't be very happy that you left them out. :)
Here's what I said:
"Ceding the regulation of speech to a single monolithic entity like the state has the potential to do much greater damage to the principles of a democratic state than simply allowing private entities to decide against disseminating information that is likely to do more harm than good -- as modern history should make clear."
-- I don't see where to go from here except to say that I stand by my assessment. Such laws *do* have the potential to do damage to the principles of a democratic state, since most definitions of democracy include a notion of the state's commitment to free speech and a free press. The laws you have cited do indeed chip away at freedoms which I consider to be integral to democracy. As to whether those laws, and others that follow, will indeed do significant damage to Western European democracies, I propose that we'll have to wait and see.
But you didn't answer my question. What demonstrable *good* do these laws do? Do you think Europeans are less anti-Semitic now than they were, say, twenty years ago?
"The laws you have cited do indeed chip away at freedoms which I consider to be integral to democracy. "
But you are wrong to do so. After all, I just cited plenty of examples of democracies that violate this rule. I don't see how you can reconcile thinking these freedoms as "integral to democracy" with a large number of examples of democracies that violate them. Either these freedoms are not integral to democracy after all, or Canada, France, Germany, and soon the rest of the EU cannot be democracies.
But you didn't answer my question. What demonstrable *good* do these laws do?
The laws were adopted because they were believed to save lives. The idea is that the less racist rhetoric is out there, the less hate crimes there will be. Is is true? I don't know. But I do know it sounds a lot like the theory that the Cho video is going to encourage violence, so leaving it out of the public sphere will save lives.
Let me summarize our discussion as I see it. This will of course be biased towards my views :)
1. My argument is that if you think its better if NBC kept something out of the public sphere, you should also think it would be better if our government kept some things out of the public sphere.
2. One way to avoid the logic of item 1 is to say that its quite different to want government to do something, as opposed to encouraging private organizations to do it. You have to believe that regulation of speech on the part of the government will somehow corrupt our government or our society. Or maybe you take the libertarian perspective and simply don't trust government to do it.
3. None of the options in item 2 seems good to me, as there are many examples of countries regulating speech with approval from their publics. And in none of those countries has the sky fallen. So if you want to say that something will go terribly wrong if we start to regulate speech, you have to say exactly what. No vague generalities.
Hi Alex,
Here's a brief response to your summary:
1) and 2) My argument is that just because one believes some person or private group should keep something out of the public sphere, it does not follow that one thinks the government has should have the right to keep it out of the public sphere. For example, I believe sexual promiscuity is harmful both to the society and to the people who engage in it; does it follow that I should want the government to enforce laws against sexual promiscuity? There's a distinction between trying to convince someone freely to choose not to do something that causes them and others harm and wanting the government to prevent them from doing so by force. There's *always* a question of line-drawing and how one would judge the kinds of harm that might ensue from a restriction of personal liberty versus the harm that might ensue from the perpetuation of private and freely chosen "immoral" acts.
3) As I said before, twenty years is not a very long time to judge the potential harm to civil liberties caused by laws restricting free speech. It's not like these democracies are going to vanish in a puff of smoke, or like I have to show that they *aren't* democracies anymore the moment they enact specific speech restrictions. They continue to be democracies because they still, by and large, have free speech and a free press. If you don't believe that restriction of free speech could go far enough to do significant damage to a state's status as democracy, why support free speech at all? Why not say that the public should logically support bans on any kind of speech or expression that offends them, or that they consider harmful?
Dear Kate Marie,
On 1) and 2) - Really, the fundamental question we are discussing is, why support personal liberty?
More specifically, why should we all have freedom of speech?
The classic answer is to argue as JS Mill that we are all better off in the long run when ideas are freely debated in the public sphere. If you reject this logic - as you implicitly do by saying that NBC should have withheld some things from the public - you must come up with a new rationale for free speech.
For example, I believe sexual promiscuity is harmful both to the society and to the people who engage in it; does it follow that I should want the government to enforce laws against sexual promiscuity?
It follows that you need to ask yourself (as do we all): what are the fundamental freedoms that people should have? Is sexual promiscuity one of them? Why should we have these freedoms?
On 3 - ok, I'm willing to concede the point that the evidence that restrictions of offensive speech DO NOT corrupt democracy/society/whatever is not very strong. But on the other hand the evidence that restrictions of offensive speech DO corrupt democracy/society/whatever is nonexistent.
Perhaps I should restate my point again, to avoid possible confusion.
In general, it is not true that if you think X is bad, you want government to ban X. You might, for example, believe that you ought to have a fundamental right to do X. But if this is the case, you should be able to justify why you should have the right to do X.
Going back to free speech, you have to justify exactly why we should have free speech. The usual justification - that harmful ideas are best disarmed in open, public debate, rather than repressed - is not available to you. It's not available because as the Cho business shows you clearly think that we are better off if some things are not shown to us.
Alex,
Sorry for the scattershot commenting, but I'm on the run.
I do believe in the JS Mill idea of free speech, and I don't think that position is closed to me, since I don't believe that declining to put the killer's video on the nightly news as a ratings coup is a blow to free and open debate about harmful ideas. As I pointed out before, NBC could have done a number of things that would have allowed people to be informed about Cho's ideas, pathology, etc. -- including describing the video, linking to parts of it online, providing a transcript of his rantings online, etc. I have no problem with criticizing their decision, because I don't believe it contributed to a free and open debate about "harmful" ideas; it simply provided a movie poster advertisment for murderous rage and insanity. NBC obviously disagreed with my position, but if the government had been allowed to intervene in NBC's decision, we wouldn't be having this conversation about NBC's choice.
Dear Kate Marie,
I don't know - I'm not very confident about this, but I feel that releasing the video is quite different than simply releasing a transcript. You really have to see him wielding a hammer and glaring into the camera to get the full effect of the words.
It seems that you are conceiving of the notion of battle of ideas very narrowly. Not all ideas are logical, and some are based on scarcely more than a visual appeal to anger. I don't think these ought to be treated any differently.
Also, no problem about the response delays - I am pretty busy too, and at the rate I'm posting this thread is not going to fall off the page for months.
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