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NotSanguine [soylentnews.org] writes:

Jonathan Chait's recent piece [nymag.com] in the New Yorker has touched [thedailybeast.com] off [thenation.com] a fusillade [slate.com] of responses [forbes.com], sometimes [juliansanchez.com] damning the essay, sometimes [amren.com] praising it and sometimes doing both at once.

The first place I went with this was Justice Brandeis' observation in Whitney v. California [bc.edu]:

If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

Is there a place in our society for intimidation and unreasoned outrage in our discourse? Yes there is. And it's entrenched pretty well into our ideas about free speech.

At the same time, what does that impulse do to the Marketplace of Ideas [wikipedia.org]? Do the shrill (whether supported by the facts or not), unreasoning rejoinders against whatever perceived (or real) slights some speech may give reduce the quality of discourse, or do they merely add to the flavor of the discussion?

There was the hotly contested Nazi march in Skokie, IL [wikipedia.org] and more recently, the ruckus over abortion protestors at UCSB [independent.com].

This sort of thing can be seen across the political spectrum, from AGW to healthcare to police militarization. When (if ever) is the attempt to censor the speech of others, whether it be via intimidation, attempts to shame, or claims of victimization or harm appropriate?

Or was Justice Brandeis right all along, and the remedy is more speech, not the suppression of competing/antagonistic ideas?

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Original Submission