Comment by claudiawerner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by claudiawerner | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I'll give you a perspective from the other side of the fence: I used to be a liberal (and by this I do not mean as the "opposite" of conservative, I mean in the sense of "classical liberalism", the system of rights etc.) but now after reading critiques of its theory and practice and doing more investigation into the historical left movement (19th century figures who are unnameable on HN) I have turned much more to the left. I am a skeptic of the right to free speech (since I cannot find any logical basis for why it should be privileged over other rights or differentiated from other forms of action), for example, and I am against the private ownership of capital.

I've seen a significant number of posts like yours, all with the same gist, but they always make me smile; by describing yourself as a "liberal" as something akin to "left of center", i.e opposite of a "conservative", such people actually often really are liberals (in the political philosophy sense) themselves, the exact position that the left has been critiquing since the turn of the 19th century and what continued to be fashionable until about 1970.

The left has never been on the side of property rights, the system of rights in general (which they decry as bourgeois rights), the current form of the state, the existence of capital, income inequality, neoliberalism etc. and the appearance of the Left in the US as "liberal" as manifested in the Democratic Party for instance is in stark contrast to some leftist parties in Europe to whom "liberal" always meant center or center-right.

So you were always a liberal, and you still are, just not in the sense you thought.

> I am a skeptic of the right to free speech (since I cannot find any logical basis for why it should be privileged over other rights or differentiated from other forms of action)

I'm confused here - what rights do you view free speech as being privileged over?

In some cases, the right to freedom from discrimination (or right to equal treatment), for instance Catherine MacKinnon and Langton have argued that pornography does this to women, and they're waiting on empirical confirmation of that[0]. Indeed, in some cases the law has even conceded the point and still favored freedom of speech[1] simply because it is speech. To me that seems like dogmatism. There are of course other issues here such as hate speech in the U.S. and those parties that argue for unequal treatment. Speech often makes people feel unsafe, for instance a Jewish neighborhood in which neo-Nazis are marching. Susan Brison has a good overview of the case against free speech[2]. To put it another way, why is it that we have a right to free speech but not a right to swing our arms? What exactly differentiates speech from other actions? Brison finds nothing there.

[0] http://web.mit.edu/sgrp/2008/no2/EatonSAPF.pdf

[1] Easterbrook's judgement in American Booksellers Association v. Hudnut (1985)

[2] https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Bris...

I'm curious to read that paper, but it seems to be predicated on a positive conception of freedom ("right to equality", i.e. "freedom to"), which will probably make it irreconcilable with most of the philosophies it tackles (classical liberalism is typically based on a negative conception of freedom, i.e. "freedom from"). That just turns it into a battle of axioms, which is usually kind of pointless.

Rights as they are actually implemented either by the UN or the US (the right to a fair trial is often brought up here) don't figure themselves to be only negative rights, Brison finds that UDHR reads "all human beings are born free an equal in dignity an rights", and Germany has explicit restrictions on freedom of speech. The issue here is not about granting "freedom to"s, but rather investigating why the negative liberty is even there. I've never been too convinced by the negative vs positive liberty dichotomy since you can express the same rights in either framework. "Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech.." can be phrased as "Everyone [whom this constitution applies to] has the right to freedom of speech".

The only way the US manages to function (in contrast to Germany or Canada for instance) is by codifying similar rules outside of the constitution. For instance, restrictions on child porn, assault letters, threats, copyright etc.

I mentioned Rae Langton in my last comment; she claims to have found a way to challenge liberals on their own ground - pornography literally silences women by convincing people that their cries of resistance are actually encouragement. If speech is to be anything more than sounds and scrawls, it relies on meaning being reliably communicated. If women cannot convey their meaning in society at large then there are grounds to say women are being silenced. Suddenly there is a weighing act between the free speech of pornographers and the free speech of women. Caroline West defends this rather well[0].

[0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00455091.2003.10...

In some ways I can sympathize with your views on pornography, but this will backfire on you. Badly.

Your views on speech align you closely with millions of far-right American social conservatives who also dismiss the primacy of free expression. People like David Barton, who will say openly that the constitution did not intend to protect the speech of non-christians. People who would love nothing more than for the state to censor pornography, vulgarity, profanity, blasphemy, and flag-desecration.

And that's just the start. You're also in good company with the stricter sorts of muslims -- and there are many around the world -- who believe the death penalty is an acceptable punishment for blasphemy against Mohammed. Even mundane portrayals of the Prophet are labelled anti-muslim hate speech, meant to silence muslim voices, and accordingly met with demands for censorship.

You'll enjoy similar agreement from the Russian state, which purchases conservative capital by outlawing any speech that looks or sounds gay, and the Chinese state which only allows speech that doesn't pose a threat to harmony or the revolution.

I suspect you have little in common with these people in any other way. So why would you want to fight this particular battle along side them?

I think its unfair to argue that just because their viewpoints are in part shared with other groups that some consider undesirable that they should abandon or be ashamed of those viewpoints simply because any advancement in those areas would possibly benefit aforementioned undesirable groups as well.

Groups with wildly different goals can share similar viewpoints, that does not make them allies. The reasoning behind their platforms are not identical, and the desired outcome is unlikely to be identical, even though there is similarity in some aspects of their positions.

Let's say there's Group A:

    - Advocates for abortion rights
    - Ethically and medically opposed to carnivorous diets
    - Requires wearing of a fez and monocle when out in public at all times

Group B:

    - Advocates against abortion
    - Opposed to carnivorous diets because eating the souls animals may increase the chance of spontaneous combustion
    - Condemns the fez as an abomination against all mankind; doesn't know what a monocle is, still considering boycott for symmetry's sake

Those two groups are at odds in many respects, but do share a dislike for flesh mongers.

What if a member of as yet defined Group C tries to persuade a member of Group A to abandon as aspect of their platform by saying, "I suspect you have little in common with those Antifez jerks in any other way. So why would you want to fight this particular battle along side them?"

That seems like an unnecessarily combative stance to take. Comparing Catherine MacKinnon to Islamic extremists or to unreasonably homophobic Russians is for sure hyperbolic.

That's silly. We're not talking about "tangentially similar" viewpoints (as you said before you edited your comment). Denial of free expression (and thought and conscience) as a fundamental human right is arguably the pillar upon which oppressive statist ideologies stand, as well as the mechanism by which they operate.

@claudiawerner argues, albeit obliquely, that speech that makes certain particular groups feel unsafe should not be protected. She might have somewhat different ideas about what constitutes safety compared to Tony Perkins or Yelena Mizulina. But they'll all argue, convincingly and articulately, that the notion of a fundamental human right to freedom of expression is an error. In general, history has shown that the consequences of such people gaining power over societies is tragic beyond words.

So, yeah, I agree that that comparing them based on their choice of clothing or diet would be a bit of a red herring. Good point, I guess.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com