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This mechanism of any form of blowback against extremists only making them stronger keeps being repeated, but there is absolutely no data supporting it. There

This mechanism of any form of blowback against extremists only making them stronger keeps being repeated, but there is absolutely no data supporting it. There is, however, plenty of data supporting the opposite: almost all other democracies have strikter limits on hate speech, and none of them have devolved into dictatorships. Indeed, one could argue that the US ran a pretty successful campaign to suppress Nazi hate speech almost immediately after it was invented.

nocoder 9y ago
>There is, however, plenty of data supporting the opposite: almost all other democracies have strikter limits on hate speech, and none of them have devolved into dictatorships. does that mean all "hate speech" is eliminated? Please share the data. The other problem is who decides which free speech to suppress? Who has that moral right?
- matt4077 9y ago
  Of course it's difficult to name the exact test that draws a bright line between legal and illegal speech, because speech exists along a continuous spectrum. But the law has literally hundreds of years of experience with such problems. The line between marketing and fraud, or porn and art is just as hard to define. So, for example, bringing Swastikas to a protest in Germany would get you thrown in jail, and so would guns, or slogans such as "gas the jews". It's been like that for 70 years, and you're still free to say really nasty things about Merkel without any fear of prosecution.
ckastner 9y ago
The quote is not about making extremists stronger, but to "attract to them hundreds of sympathizers with the persecuted who would otherwise be indifferent". I do believe that this polarization was a factor in the last US election, for example.
keyser2038975 9y ago
How about this: In principle I am quite sympathetic with the goals of the left but do not consider myself part of it. My preference ranking puts sustainability higher than equality of opportunity and far higher than equality of outcome. My observation is that society in practice does not value equality that much anyway see capitalism and IQ. Trying to force the issue might be a misallocation of resources. Plus as a white male living on mostly white neighborhoods struggles with inequality seem distant and abstract to me, far outside my monkeysphere. Other policy issues will have an easier time appealing to me directly. And that brings us to the "expense of other things". Open discourse, rationalism, free speech are also part of humanism, not just treating people as individuals. If "deplatforming", online lynch mobs and other authoritarian instruments become part of the left's arsenal then my sympathy for the left shrinks and my tolerance of the right grows simply on balance. If some well-organized nazi came around and offered me a party program with infrastructure projects that aim for sustainability as long as I turn a blind eye to some stricter immigration policy or undoing protections for certain classes which are a minority of the population anyway then on balance I might be a little more tempted to vote for them than before. Or maybe just not vote against them. Because on balance the left is just declared it is willing to suppress people on the other end of the overton window. So why not? This is not likely to happen in the US anyway, so take it more more of a thought experiment to illustrate my point, but I am trying to show that not everyone has the same value-system. Whenever I vote I have to choose between a set of value-systems where none of them are perfectly aligned with my own. So if progressives make a "small sacrifice" in values to promote a greater goal for themselves then this may have a radically different effect on their position in the energy-potential landscape as computed from my perspective. What to them might be an insignificant alteration to a very steep slope can be a significant flattening of the landscape which makes it a lot easier to just roll rightwards. Or just not roll to the left.
tomq 9y ago
There are many good examples in history of oppression making a movement stronger. Think of the Boston massacre, Rosa Parks, or British treatment of Ghandi. That said, the plural of anecdote is not evidence. In the similar domain of terrorism, the following highly cited study finds that military occupation is the leading cause of suicide bombing: http://www.ir.rochelleterman.com/sites/default/files/pape%202003.pdf http://www.ir.rochelleterman.com/sites/default/files/pape%20... So that's good evidence for a blowback effect. That said, the above arguments are against government oppression of a movement. Actions by localities to remove statues or by private companies to not provide a platform for hate speech are a different ballgame. It's not obvious they lead to blowback.
makomk 9y ago
As I understand it, Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was one of those democracies with stricter limits on hate speech, including crackdowns on the Nazis. We all know how that turned out.

nocoder 9y ago

>There is, however, plenty of data supporting the opposite: almost all other democracies have strikter limits on hate speech, and none of them have devolved into dictatorships. does that mean all "hate speech" is eliminated? Please share the data. The other problem is who decides which free speech to suppress? Who has that moral right?

matt4077 9y ago
Of course it's difficult to name the exact test that draws a bright line between legal and illegal speech, because speech exists along a continuous spectrum. But the law has literally hundreds of years of experience with such problems. The line between marketing and fraud, or porn and art is just as hard to define. So, for example, bringing Swastikas to a protest in Germany would get you thrown in jail, and so would guns, or slogans such as "gas the jews". It's been like that for 70 years, and you're still free to say really nasty things about Merkel without any fear of prosecution.

ckastner 9y ago

The quote is not about making extremists stronger, but to "attract to them hundreds of sympathizers with the persecuted who would otherwise be indifferent". I do believe that this polarization was a factor in the last US election, for example.

keyser2038975 9y ago

How about this: In principle I am quite sympathetic with the goals of the left but do not consider myself part of it. My preference ranking puts sustainability higher than equality of opportunity and far higher than equality of outcome. My observation is that society in practice does not value equality that much anyway see capitalism and IQ. Trying to force the issue might be a misallocation of resources. Plus as a white male living on mostly white neighborhoods struggles with inequality seem distant and abstract to me, far outside my monkeysphere. Other policy issues will have an easier time appealing to me directly. And that brings us to the "expense of other things". Open discourse, rationalism, free speech are also part of humanism, not just treating people as individuals. If "deplatforming", online lynch mobs and other authoritarian instruments become part of the left's arsenal then my sympathy for the left shrinks and my tolerance of the right grows simply on balance. If some well-organized nazi came around and offered me a party program with infrastructure projects that aim for sustainability as long as I turn a blind eye to some stricter immigration policy or undoing protections for certain classes which are a minority of the population anyway then on balance I might be a little more tempted to vote for them than before. Or maybe just not vote against them. Because on balance the left is just declared it is willing to suppress people on the other end of the overton window. So why not? This is not likely to happen in the US anyway, so take it more more of a thought experiment to illustrate my point, but I am trying to show that not everyone has the same value-system. Whenever I vote I have to choose between a set of value-systems where none of them are perfectly aligned with my own. So if progressives make a "small sacrifice" in values to promote a greater goal for themselves then this may have a radically different effect on their position in the energy-potential landscape as computed from my perspective. What to them might be an insignificant alteration to a very steep slope can be a significant flattening of the landscape which makes it a lot easier to just roll rightwards. Or just not roll to the left.

tomq 9y ago

There are many good examples in history of oppression making a movement stronger. Think of the Boston massacre, Rosa Parks, or British treatment of Ghandi. That said, the plural of anecdote is not evidence. In the similar domain of terrorism, the following highly cited study finds that military occupation is the leading cause of suicide bombing: http://www.ir.rochelleterman.com/sites/default/files/pape%202003.pdf http://www.ir.rochelleterman.com/sites/default/files/pape%20... So that's good evidence for a blowback effect. That said, the above arguments are against government oppression of a movement. Actions by localities to remove statues or by private companies to not provide a platform for hate speech are a different ballgame. It's not obvious they lead to blowback.

makomk 9y ago

As I understand it, Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was one of those democracies with stricter limits on hate speech, including crackdowns on the Nazis. We all know how that turned out.