4 ms·

The best way to deal with a speaker who openly advocates for genocide is to let them be heard and be rejected on the (lack of) merits of their argument. Would

The best way to deal with a speaker who openly advocates for genocide is to let them be heard and be rejected on the (lack of) merits of their argument. Would decent people --intelligent students at a university-- truly buy into these arguments? I think not. What's to fear, then? The best approach is to actually invite them to make a presentation and thank them profusely for coming. I would start the presentation with a sustained five minute applause. Imagine, then, the message that would be sent to, say, a white supremacist speaker who, after being received in this fashion watches the entire venue slowly and quietly empty without saying a word until they are speaking to a bunch of empty chairs. A voluntarily empty hall, not by force, not by burning down the town, is the best vaccination against these people. So, yes, this means opening the doors to what we might consider to be hateful. Unless we have a fundamental lack of faith in the quality and intelligence of the student body the best approach is to let these speakers in and let them experience talking in an empty room. Maybe a few will want to listen to them. So what? Intelligent, quiet and non-violent rejection, that's the way to do it.

fossuser 10y ago
> Would decent people --intelligent students at a university-- truly buy into these arguments? I think not. The origin of the term 'genocide' arose out of eugenics ('geno'). Eugenics was primarily 'educated' people making fancy sounding (though largely incorrect) arguments which started with justifying sterilization and ended up justifying euthanasia for the 'greater good'. Critical thinking is not the default state of humans in any group and otherwise decent people have bought into dangerous ideas before.
- jhanschoo 10y ago
  > The origin of the term 'genocide' arose out of eugenics ('geno'). You've got the etymology confused. 'geno-' comes from Grk 'genos', which means race/tribe. Genocide refers to ethnic killings. Eugenics ('eu' good + 'gen-' race/tribe) refers to the goal of achieving 'better races' and methods to achieve them. Unfortunately those methods involve pruning perceived bad seeds. They come from the same root word, but genocide isn't derived from eugenics.
  - fossuser 10y ago
    Thanks - looks like I was wrong about the etymology. I'd read the term itself was created in response to what the nazis did, a lot of which started under the guise of eugenics. This book spent some times talking about it and I thought it was interesting: http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Gene/Siddhartha-Mukherjee/9781476733500 http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Gene/Siddhartha-Mu...
dchichkov 10y ago
Wouldn't there be an issue, that such speaker would use the fact that his speech is accepted at a mainstream public forum as if it was an endorsement?
kaitai 10y ago
As a prof, I just don't understand why people in this discussion think I should be spending part of the $4,000 allotted for a year's worth of travel funding for speakers on some genocide advocate. And then I gotta host 'em and take 'em out for dinner because that's the polite thing to do? No thanks. On the institution side, we invite people we want to do research with or who will talk to our classes about something useful. Fundamentally self- or student-serving, but not idealistic, because there are tenure and promotion packets to be written. Say a student group invites the genocide advocate, because they've got time for that. Then another student group wants to protest, because they've got time for that. There are the student groups who will want to protest your way and the student groups who will want to yell so loud that the speaker can't be heard, and these groups won't agree. People will start complaining to the faculty advisors about X inviting Y and Z shouting down Y and W not standing up enough to Y and X, and it will get out on social media, and you'll read about the brouhaha a few days later when the event is cancelled because the admin just doesn't want to deal with the headache and the costs. I tend to agree with you that the empty hall is the best vaccination. It just requires a coordination among the student body that would be remarkable, that would require real leadership from someone who saw this all coming. People are so mired in the day-to-day that this leadership is generally lacking. How to foster it, if that's what we want?
- rebootthesystem 10y ago
  I realize the problem is complex, partly because it has been allowed to devolve into what it looks like today. Silly idea: Each group gets to pick one speaker to invite. They all have to accept what other groups picked. If group A wants to boycott group B's choice then both speakers are eliminated and they both have to choose new speakers. Yes, it will be carnage at first, but very soon everyone is going to realize they have to play nice with each other or nobody gets a speaker, ever. Then there's education. Each group has to publish a one page summary profiling the speaker and what he/she will discuss. This will serve to allow others to decide whether they want to go listen or not. Finally, occupancy. If a speaker can't attract a certain audience size, say, 25% of available seats, the group's rating is reduced which means other groups have priority over them. It's a complicated mish-mash of stuff. I know. And probably impossible to implement. The point is that there must be a way to game-ify this business of speakers on campus in order to avoid conflicts and operate under a set of well understood rules. Prohibit all demonstrations in the name of tolerance. The idea is to support free speech while having some kind of a self-regulating system that does not require yelling and screaming at each other or worst. There's also a degree of forced tolerance, which, sad to say, is necessary. Universities have become almost the worst example of intolerance and bigotry in our society. They have to force themselves to peacefully allow other ideology to have a stage. This is important. This doesn't mean endorsing anyone at all. With regards to the funding available to pay for travel for speakers, I think the regrettable reality is that if we are going to respect the concept of free speech we need to accept the idea that we have to listen to those we might consider to be repugnant. At least for a little bit. Free speech does not guarantee an audience. If we invite and pay for a white supremacist to give a speech, applaud them at the start of the speech and just walk out without saying a word...well, these people need an audience. They'd catch on pretty quickly that you made complete fools out of them with this move. The university might waste some money the first year this approach is taken. Very soon the crazies are going to come back and say "no thanks, not interested in giving a talk". In other words, invite them, house them, feed them, even embrace them and take a picture with them...and then give them an empty room to talk about anything they want to talk about. Simple, peaceful and, I think, very powerful. The crazies would have no audiences but intelligent contrasting ideas would and that's exactly what you want. You want students to not live in an echo chamber yet you want a degree of control of the quality of the material they are exposed to. Also, another quick point: The empty hall treatment completely disarms the crazies. In sharp contrast to that, rioting in the streets, burning cars and vandalizing businesses generates huge media attention and elevates the crazies. In other words, the protest is actually great marketing for the nut-case whereas the empty hall treatment ridicules them and makes them irrelevant, nobody will be interested in covering them at all. I think that, with modifications, this is a good strategy.
tps5 10y ago
I want to live in this world too. But we don't live there, and I don't think we ever will.
- rebootthesystem 10y ago
  Does that mean we don't try?

fossuser 10y ago

> Would decent people --intelligent students at a university-- truly buy into these arguments? I think not. The origin of the term 'genocide' arose out of eugenics ('geno'). Eugenics was primarily 'educated' people making fancy sounding (though largely incorrect) arguments which started with justifying sterilization and ended up justifying euthanasia for the 'greater good'. Critical thinking is not the default state of humans in any group and otherwise decent people have bought into dangerous ideas before.

jhanschoo 10y ago
> The origin of the term 'genocide' arose out of eugenics ('geno'). You've got the etymology confused. 'geno-' comes from Grk 'genos', which means race/tribe. Genocide refers to ethnic killings. Eugenics ('eu' good + 'gen-' race/tribe) refers to the goal of achieving 'better races' and methods to achieve them. Unfortunately those methods involve pruning perceived bad seeds. They come from the same root word, but genocide isn't derived from eugenics.
- fossuser 10y ago
  Thanks - looks like I was wrong about the etymology. I'd read the term itself was created in response to what the nazis did, a lot of which started under the guise of eugenics. This book spent some times talking about it and I thought it was interesting: http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Gene/Siddhartha-Mukherjee/9781476733500 http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Gene/Siddhartha-Mu...

dchichkov 10y ago

Wouldn't there be an issue, that such speaker would use the fact that his speech is accepted at a mainstream public forum as if it was an endorsement?

kaitai 10y ago

As a prof, I just don't understand why people in this discussion think I should be spending part of the $4,000 allotted for a year's worth of travel funding for speakers on some genocide advocate. And then I gotta host 'em and take 'em out for dinner because that's the polite thing to do? No thanks. On the institution side, we invite people we want to do research with or who will talk to our classes about something useful. Fundamentally self- or student-serving, but not idealistic, because there are tenure and promotion packets to be written. Say a student group invites the genocide advocate, because they've got time for that. Then another student group wants to protest, because they've got time for that. There are the student groups who will want to protest your way and the student groups who will want to yell so loud that the speaker can't be heard, and these groups won't agree. People will start complaining to the faculty advisors about X inviting Y and Z shouting down Y and W not standing up enough to Y and X, and it will get out on social media, and you'll read about the brouhaha a few days later when the event is cancelled because the admin just doesn't want to deal with the headache and the costs. I tend to agree with you that the empty hall is the best vaccination. It just requires a coordination among the student body that would be remarkable, that would require real leadership from someone who saw this all coming. People are so mired in the day-to-day that this leadership is generally lacking. How to foster it, if that's what we want?

rebootthesystem 10y ago
I realize the problem is complex, partly because it has been allowed to devolve into what it looks like today. Silly idea: Each group gets to pick one speaker to invite. They all have to accept what other groups picked. If group A wants to boycott group B's choice then both speakers are eliminated and they both have to choose new speakers. Yes, it will be carnage at first, but very soon everyone is going to realize they have to play nice with each other or nobody gets a speaker, ever. Then there's education. Each group has to publish a one page summary profiling the speaker and what he/she will discuss. This will serve to allow others to decide whether they want to go listen or not. Finally, occupancy. If a speaker can't attract a certain audience size, say, 25% of available seats, the group's rating is reduced which means other groups have priority over them. It's a complicated mish-mash of stuff. I know. And probably impossible to implement. The point is that there must be a way to game-ify this business of speakers on campus in order to avoid conflicts and operate under a set of well understood rules. Prohibit all demonstrations in the name of tolerance. The idea is to support free speech while having some kind of a self-regulating system that does not require yelling and screaming at each other or worst. There's also a degree of forced tolerance, which, sad to say, is necessary. Universities have become almost the worst example of intolerance and bigotry in our society. They have to force themselves to peacefully allow other ideology to have a stage. This is important. This doesn't mean endorsing anyone at all. With regards to the funding available to pay for travel for speakers, I think the regrettable reality is that if we are going to respect the concept of free speech we need to accept the idea that we have to listen to those we might consider to be repugnant. At least for a little bit. Free speech does not guarantee an audience. If we invite and pay for a white supremacist to give a speech, applaud them at the start of the speech and just walk out without saying a word...well, these people need an audience. They'd catch on pretty quickly that you made complete fools out of them with this move. The university might waste some money the first year this approach is taken. Very soon the crazies are going to come back and say "no thanks, not interested in giving a talk". In other words, invite them, house them, feed them, even embrace them and take a picture with them...and then give them an empty room to talk about anything they want to talk about. Simple, peaceful and, I think, very powerful. The crazies would have no audiences but intelligent contrasting ideas would and that's exactly what you want. You want students to not live in an echo chamber yet you want a degree of control of the quality of the material they are exposed to. Also, another quick point: The empty hall treatment completely disarms the crazies. In sharp contrast to that, rioting in the streets, burning cars and vandalizing businesses generates huge media attention and elevates the crazies. In other words, the protest is actually great marketing for the nut-case whereas the empty hall treatment ridicules them and makes them irrelevant, nobody will be interested in covering them at all. I think that, with modifications, this is a good strategy.

tps5 10y ago

I want to live in this world too. But we don't live there, and I don't think we ever will.

rebootthesystem 10y ago
Does that mean we don't try?