Sacrificing Life in the Name of Life

 

  

“How lonely sits the city that was once so full of people” (Lamentations 1:1).

“Then I will eliminate from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem, says the Lord, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a site of ruins” (Jeremiah 7:24).

There is a very thoughtful article in First Things about how we have sacrificed life to preserve life in response to the pandemic. Here is a link. And here are some choice excerpts:

The effort to preserve life by prohibiting the living of it doesn’t work. It can’t work. It would work if we were mere biological machines, who need nothing but air, food, water, sewage, and shelter. It would work if men and women were nothing but detached shards of humanity who can flourish in isolation, if communion were an optional extra. It would work if life were nothing more than food, and the body no more than clothing. It would work if we could save our life by merely preserving it. 

That’s not how human life is designed. That doesn’t fit the real world. And when we try to force life into that mold, it backfires. We’ve sacrificed all the social and cultural activities that lend beauty and richness to life, things that make life more than bare biological survival. We sacrificed life to preserve life. In the name of love, we canceled love. 

It’s bound to backfire. In our frenetic necrophobia, we flee death, avoiding contact with others, locking ourselves in our homes, obsessively washing our hands, avoiding public places and gatherings—all for the sake of survival. But a life without human touch, a life in which we never venture, a life without risk is no life at all, but a living death.

A true cost-benefit analysis of our response to the pandemic should seek to quantify both the health benefits won and the quality of life benefits sacrificed. How many lives were deeply affected by lost jobs, lost businesses, lost social and cultural life, and utter loneliness and depression? We listened only to the scientists and we silenced the poets.

Philadelphia Statement on Free and Open Discourse

 The Philadelphia Statement on free and open discourse in the marketplace of ideas is one I fully support. Here is the statement:

 

"Social Media mobs. Cancel culture. Campus speech policing. These are all part of life in today’s America.  Freedom  of  expression  is  in  crisis.  Truly  open  discourse—the  debates,  exchange of ideas,  and  arguments  on  which  the  health  and  flourishing  of  a  democratic  republic crucially depend—is  increasingly  rare.  Ideologues  demonize  opponents  to  block  debates  on  important issues and to silence people with whom they disagree. 

We  must  ask  ourselves: Is  this  the  country we want?  Surely not.  We want—and  to  be  true to ourselves we need—to be a nation in which we and our fellow citizens of many different faiths, philosophies, and persuasions can speak their minds and honor their deepest convictions without fear of punishment and retaliation. 

If we seek a brighter future, we must relearn a fundamental truth: Our liberty and our happiness depend upon the maintenance of a public culture in which freedom and civility coexist—where people can disagree robustly, even fiercely, yet treat each other as human beings—and, indeed, as fellow citizens—not  mortal  enemies.  “Liberty is  meaningless  where  the  right  to  utter  one’s thoughts  and  opinions  has  ceased  to  exist,”  Frederick  Douglass  declared  in  1860.  

Indeed, our liberal democracy is rooted in and dependent upon the shared understanding that all people have inherent dignity and worth, and that they must be treated accordingly. A society that lacks comity and allows people to be shamed or intimidated into self-censorship of their ideas  and  considered  judgments will not survive for long.   

As Americans, we desire a flourishing, open marketplace of ideas, knowing that it is the fairest and most effective way to separate falsehood from truth. Accordingly, dissenting and unpopular voices—be they of the left or the right—must be afforded the opportunity to be heard. They have often guided our society toward more just positions, which is why Frederick Douglass said freedom of speech is the “great moral renovator of society and government.”

The American tradition of freedom of expression, complete with its attendant responsibilities, is our school for democratic citizenship. It trains us to think critically, to defend our ideas, and, at the same time, to be considerate of others whose creeds and convictions differ from our own. It enables us to learn from, and peacefully live with, one another despite differences. It further instills in us an understanding that the mere exposure to ideas we find offensive is not an act of “violence.” And it admonishes us that if we value the freedom of expression, we must extend the same measure of freedom to others, even to those whom we believe have gone very wrong in their thinking. 

Tragically, we are losing these defining features of our democracy. Common decency and free speech are  being  dismantled through the stigmatizing practice of blacklisting ideological opponents, which has taken on the conspicuous form of  “hate” labeling.  

Responsible organizations are castigated  as  “hate  groups.”  Honest people  of  good  faith  are branded  “hate agents.” Even mainstream ideas are marginalized as “hate speech.” This threatens our ability to listen, discuss, debate, and grow. 

Blacklisting is spreading. Corporations are enacting “hate-speech” policies to protect people from “wrong”  and  “harmful” content. Similarly, colleges  and  universities are imposing speech regulations to make students  “safe,” not  from  physical harm, but from challenges to campus orthodoxy.  These  policies  and  regulations assume that we as citizens are unable to think  for ourselves  and  to  make  independent  judgments.  Instead of  teaching  us  to engage,  they  foster conformism (“groupthink”) and train us to respond to intellectual challenges with one or another form of censorship.

Humanity has  repeatedly  tried  expunging  undesirable  beliefs  and  ideas.  What self-appointed speech arbiters, whether in the majority or in the minority, fail to grasp is that they will likely eventually become  the  targets.  The winds  inevitably  shift,  sometimes rapidly. The  question  is whether  civility  norms  and  free-speech  safeguards  will  remain in place  to  protect  them,  or whether they will become victims of the dangerous precedents they themselves have established and advanced. 

To be  sure,  our  free  speech  tradition  is  not  absolutist.  It does  not  embrace  certain, limited categories of speech, such as defamation, obscenity, intimidation and threats, and incitement to violence. Yet the idea of “hate speech” exceptions to free speech principles is foreign to our free speech  ideals,  impossible to define, and often used by those wielding political, economic,  or cultural power to silence dissenting voices. That is why we must favor openness, to allow ideas and beliefs the chance to be assessed on their own merits; and we must be willing to trust that bad ideas will be corrected not through censorship but through better arguments. 

If we seek to change our country’s trajectory; if we desire unity rather than division; if we want a political life that is productive and inspiring; if we aspire to be a society that is pluralistic and free, one in which we can forge our own paths and live according to our own consciences, then we  must  renounce  ideological  blacklisting  and  recommit  ourselves  to  steadfastly  defending freedom of speech and passionately promoting robust civil discourse."

This wonderful statement reflects my understanding of the University as a free marketplace of ideas. Inclusive leaders in the law embrace civil debate and reject the cancel culture. The remedy for speech you dislike is not censorship but counter-speech.

Diversity, Inclusion, Freedom of Speech, and Academic Freedom: My Policy

 Each member of this class is welcome. No one is more welcome than anyone else, and no one is less welcome than anyone else. Each of you is equally welcome. Each of you is privileged to be entering into a noble profession and vocation in the law. You should be proud of this privilege because you have earned it by hard work, good choices, and by making the most of your natural abilities. Welcome!

Diversity, Inclusion, Freedom of Speech, and Academic Freedom: The gold standard for diversity and inclusion is intellectual and viewpoint diversity in a wide-open academic marketplace of ideas. Here are my thoughts (quoted from the Princeton statement) on diversity, inclusion, freedom of speech, and academic freedom in academia:

Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think. Universities should be expected to provide the conditions within which hard thought, and therefore strong disagreement, independent judgment, and the questioning of stubborn assumptions, can flourish in an environment of the greatest freedom. Because the University is committed to free and open inquiry in all matters, it guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn.

I also endorse this statement (Link) from University of Chicago:

Of course, the ideas of different members of the University community will often and quite naturally conflict. But it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. Although the University greatly values civility, and although all members of the University community share in the responsibility for maintaining a climate of mutual respect, concerns about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community.

This commitment demands that the University create a climate of respect, civility, and inclusion. We must be an intellectual community where all scholars feel welcome, heard, and encouraged to do their best work. Students, faculty, and staff all play pivotal roles in creating this environment where ideas are challenged, new fields of inquiry are defined, and [both] conventional wisdom [and new theories] are questioned.

That is how I try to teach my classes. All views relevant to the issues we are discussing are welcome. But all views are debatable. In a country as diverse as ours, there are competing versions of social justice, competing versions of what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful. 

The way to deal with ideas you disagree with is counter-speech, not censorship. Inclusion means inclusion, not exclusion. To be an inclusive leader you must always be open to the ideas of others. Debate yes. Censorship never. As the editors of Public Discourse have said: “We believe that disagreement is not something to avoid. In fact, a real and productive disagreement is an accomplishment. Civilization, in the end, is formed by men and women ‘locked together in argument.’”

The worst form of censorship is self-censorship, when you silence yourself because you fear being bullied or cancelled by your "friends." Inclusive leaders in the law don't self-censor. The best advice I have ever heard about when to speak out is this: Be silent when you want too badly to speak, and speak out when fear whispers "be silent." Always be civil but always be unafraid to speak out when you have something to say.

But remember, education is about debate and critical analysis of ideas. Persuasion--not censorship--is the goal of education. The cancel culture is anathema to academia, and to the values of diversity and inclusion. As Aaron Burr sings in Hamilton: An American Musical: "I should've known the world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me; the world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me."

Something to Think About As You Prepare for the Study of Law

  "Chesterton says that a society is in decay when common sense has become uncommon, when straightforward ideas start to appear strange and unfamiliar, and the crooked conventions of the day and the fads and fashions of the moment seem more acceptable, even more urgent."--A Wise Commentator

Now consider this statement from Orwell's great novel, 1984: 

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."

But suppose an authoritarian government decides that two plus two make five, compels citizens to affirm this governmental newthink, and forbids anyone to deny it. Can you think of any examples of this in the modern world?