The suppression of free speech—the cancelation of unpopular speakers and the banishment of counterintuitive ideas—threatens the very foundation of democratic society. There isn’t, or at least there shouldn’t be, anything partisan about that sentiment. I believe that, and so does my guest this week, Brookings Institute Senior Fellow Jonathan Rauch, who serves alongside me on the University of Austin’s advisory board. Jonathan is a man with liberal inclinations, and it is exactly those inclinations that have led him to become a vociferous defender of free speech.
I begin the conversation by asking Jonathan why he thinks cancelation is so wrongheaded, even in the case of someone whose ideas he might oppose on principle, like Charles Murray. Jonathan argues that free speech is a more powerful and effective tool for winning minority rights than cancelation, and he uses the successes of the LGBT rights movement as an example. Much of his argument for speech relies on the necessity of institutions—like academia and the legal system—to provide material support for free speech rights. “The marketplace of ideas” is necessary, but a marketplace can’t function without some regulatory system to enforce its rules. This notion explains why Jonathan thinks Donald Trump posed such a threat to democratic order—he runs down what he sees as Trump’s strategic use of disinformation to maintain power and political support. And yet, in his view, the MAGA crowd and the woke have much in common when it comes to debasing speech and free exchange. For all the problems we’re facing, Jonathan remains hopeful that we’re building tools to safeguard “the constitution of knowledge.”
If we’re going to keep free speech alive, advocates of all political persuasions are going to have to come together on the issue. Neither liberals nor conservatives can do it alone, and more conversations like this one are going to have to take place.
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Featured Content from the Manhattan Institute
0:00 What’s wrong with cancelation?
13:28 A defense of Charles Murray
21:24 Cancelation and the closet
28:08 Jonathan’s book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth
39:35 Jonathan: “The marketplace of ideas” is a necessary but insufficient metaphor
42:51 Is Trump an agent of disinformation?
54:22 What the woke and MAGA crowds have in common
59:41 Why Jonathan is hopeful about the constitution of knowledge
Recorded February 6, 2022
Links and Readings
Jonathan’s latest book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth
Jonathan’s book, Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought
Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein’s book, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life
Jeff Gerth’s four-part Columbia Journalism Review series on Trump and the press
Stanford’s Internet Observatory
Jonathan Rauch – A Liberal Defense of Free Speech