One of the more illuminating events in a year short of illumination was the recent publication, in Harper’s, of a letter signed by 153 scholars, writers, artists, and journalists, and the brouhaha in response.
The letter applauds the current protests and demands for inclusion and equality, calling them overdue. But it goes on to lament a growing intolerance and narrowing of discourse on the left (it acknowledges and treats as a given the extreme levels of intolerance on the right); and it asserts that broad and open dialogue is a prerequisite for achieving the goal of greater social justice and inclusion. It is, in short, a “small-l liberal” plea for a robust, broad marketplace of ideas in a free and open public square.
The blowback came fast and hard, and in its wake, two signers recanted. Professor Kerri Greenidge of Tufts initially said that she had not endorsed the letter at all, and would be requesting a retraction from Harper’s — though an email chain appeared to contradict her. And Jennifer Finney Boylan, an author, columnist, and professor, engaged in self-criticism for having lapsed into incorrect thought patterns, concluding, “The consequences are mine to bear. I am so sorry.”
Why the fuss? The complaints about the letter are quite varied, and in some cases contradict each other: The letter is just a lot of whining by a bunch of has-beens resentful that they’re no longer relevant. Or the letter is pushback by immensely powerful people who want to retain their power. Or the letter is hypocritical because none of the signers has ever faced any consequences for anything they’ve ever written (Salman Rushdie’s name among the signers apparently having been overlooked). Or the letter is vague and incoherent, hence meaningless (so why all the excitement?). Everyone who was unhappy about the letter, apparently, was unhappy in their own way.
Nonetheless, some themes emerged. One was that, far from the “norms of open debate and toleration of differences” weakening, as the letter contends, they are actually growing stronger as the previously voiceless find their voice. The signers are merely unused to seeing their Olympian pronouncements being disagreed with, and mistake being challenged for being silenced. They can dish it out, but they can’t take it.
At least as a personal criticism of the signers, this argument is hard to sustain. Nothing in the letter suggests the signers are complaining that they themselves are being treated unfairly.
Another was that, whatever the merits of the letter, the signers were horrible people, so the whole letter was a bad faith exercise. That appears to have been at the root of Greenidge’s and Boylan’s back pedaling: Greenidge knew the text of the letter ahead of time (“it reads well”, she wrote), but had no idea that her signature would end up in disreputable company. And it is explicitly the text of Boylan’s anguished retreat, also: “I did not know who else had signed the letter”, she complained, adding, “I did know Chomsky, Steinem, and Atwood were in, and I thought, good company.” The problem was the messenger, not the message.
The notion that the truth of a statement depends on who utters it has a long history; only with the advent of the Enlightenment did society really begin to internalize the idea of an external truth, independent of our hopes, fears, or the authority of the person saying it. Before that, if the pope or the king said it, then by golly it was true, and woe unto anyone who dared suggest otherwise. It remains a staple of dictatorships to this day. And it is far from extinct even in “advanced” nations like the US, where the current President spews an endless stream of obvious falsehoods that are accepted credulously by his most fervent followers in a way they never would be if spoken by someone else. But modernity presumes that the truth of a statement is independent of the speaker. “The world’s greatest fool can say the sun is shining, but that doesn’t make it cloudy out”, as Robert Pirsig wrote.
Nonetheless, reputation matters. Even (maybe especially) in a wide open public square, a speaker’s reputation — or the company she keeps — is often a shortcut to deciding how carefully to listen to her opinions. Asked to sign a letter endorsing, say, public funding of healthcare, along with several other endorsers, most people would think twice if they found out the other signers were all members of the American Nazi Party. It’s just not company you want to be seen in.
Playing the role of the Nazi in today’s performance was J. K. Rowling, who has gone out of her way to make comments that offended transgender people. Leaving aside the question of just how bad a person J. K. Rowling is, she is one of 153 signers with a broad diversity of viewpoints. Is she a sufficiently bad apple to spoil the entire barrel? For many, the answer is apparently yes. That stance unwittingly supports the letter’s point that “censoriousness, … an intolerance of opposing views, [and] a vogue for public shaming and ostracism” are in the ascendant.
One response to complaints about “cancel culture” is that free speech does not mean freedom from accountability: people used to be able to express vile opinions (especially about race and gender) without fear of criticism; now they can’t, and that’s a good thing. There’s something to that. Some opinions are so terrible that they impair the credibility of the speaker on all subjects.
But in healthy discourse, that kind of ostracism should be the most extreme remedy, used in the rarest of circumstances. If nothing J. K. Rowling says on anything can be credited because she has expresses reprehensible opinions about transgender people; and any statement Gloria Steinem or Noam Chomsky make cannot possibly be correct if Rowling signed on, also; and inadvertently being caught in bad company is cause for groveling apology (“the consequences are mine to bear”); then the portal of truth rapidly shrinks to a pinhole. That is not the path of progress. We are all better than the worst opinion we have every expressed, and certainly better than the worst opinion of anyone we’ve ever agreed with on anything.