Peter Singer decries the use of violence against racists

August 24, 2017 • 11:30 am

I’m still horrified that more than one commenter on my site has said (or implied) that “first-strike” violence is justifiable for odious people like white supremacists and Nazis. I simply can’t fathom the desire to hurt another person because of their speech, or think that such tactics could accomplish any worthwhile aims. Yes, white supremacists and Nazis may themselves want to attack blacks, Jews, and the like, but we’re supposed to be better than they. I can live with people criticizing my views on free will, music, and the like, but it’s much harder for me to see violence promulgated or approved of on this site.

With that digression, on to the topic, which is germane. (I almost wrote “German!)

I haven’t disagreed with much that philosopher Peter Singer has said, as he’s a clear-thinking Leftist and an empathic man who’s carefully considered the views he holds. Nor do I disagree with his short piece at The Syndicate: “Is violence the way to stop racism?” His answer is “No!”

Singer begins by construing Trump’s remarks about “both sides” being to blame for Charlottesville’s violence more “charitably” than have others. After making a clear statement that there is obvious moral inequality between racists and white supremacists on one side versus anti-racists on the other, Singer gives a possible interpretation of what Trump said:

Rather than putting the racists and anti-racists on the same footing, Trump was saying that both sides were to blame for the violence that broke out. In support of that claim, he said that some on the left “came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs,” and added: “Do they have a problem? I think they do.”

That statement still ignores the fact that a white supremacist used his car as a weapon, with lethal results. Nothing comparable was done by any of the anti-racists.

While I didn’t construe Trump’s remarks like that at the time (and I still think he was avoiding indicting bigotry), I still saw both sides as culpable for the violence. Clearly, only one side was culpable for murder, but there were a lot of fights and beatings. And just as clearly, some of the anti-racists were to blame, for it’s now clear that many (not all!) of the counter-protestors came spoiling for a fight, ready to do battle. Yes, perhaps more of the supremacists carried guns than did their opponents, but guns weren’t used. Can we even apportion who is most to blame for the violence? I don’t see how: I wasn’t there and can’t even figure it out from the news I’ve watched.

But that doesn’t matter, nor do both sides have to be equally to blame.  What is clear is that the Left holds some responsibility for initiating violence, and yet many refuse to admit it, pointing to the car murder. To do that is putting your fingers in your ears and saying “nah nah nah nah.” The far Left is becoming more violent, and those closer to the center seem more willing to condone violence or turn their heads to it.

That’s unacceptable.  It’s not only morally unacceptable, since I see no justification for beating up someone for what they say, but, as Singer points out, it’s tactically unacceptable, as he doesn’t see violence achieving anything for the Left. I agree.

Singer (my emphasis):

In interviews, antifa activists explained their position. “You need violence to protect nonviolence,” said Emily Rose Nauert. “That’s what’s very obviously necessary right now. It’s full-on war, basically.” Other antifa activists said that it is not unethical to use violence to stop white supremacists, because they have already, by stirring up hatred against minorities, caused violent attacks on individual members of those groups.

. . . Let’s grant that the antifa activists are right about the irrationality of hard-core racist fanatics. It remains true that in the United States, and other countries where elections are the path to power, the far right can achieve its goals only by winning over middle-of-the-road voters. Even if many of these voters are also not completely rational – few people are – they are not likely to be won over to the anti-racist cause by seeing footage of anti-racists hitting racists with clubs or throwing urine-filled water bottles.

Such images convey, more than anything else, the idea that anti-racists are hooligans looking for a fight. Dignified nonviolent resistance and disciplined civil disobedience are more conducive to demonstrating a sincere ethical commitment to a better, non-racist society than clubbing people and hurling piss at them.

Violent resistance is particularly dangerous in the US because some states allow anyone to carry a firearm. In Charlottesville, a large number of white supremacists paraded through the streets dressed in camouflage and carrying semi-automatic assault rifles. If the antifa activists are going to match the racists in violence, will it be possible to hold the line at clubs? How long will it be before the deadly weapons now openly on display are also used?

I’ve heard justifications for Antifa-style violence based on history: that antifacists fought against Hitler in Germany and pro-Hitler groups in England. But, as several readers have already pointed out, that analogy breaks down, and Singer tells us why:

Some antifa activists trace the origin of the movement to groups that fought against fascists in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. In Germany, in the years before Hitler came to power, the Nazis’ paramilitary Sturmabteilung (Stormtroopers, also known as the “Brownshirts”) beat up, sometimes fatally, Jews and political opponents. In self-defense, the left responded with its own militias: the Communist Party’s Red Front Fighters and the Social Democrats’ Iron Front.

The result was an escalation of street violence, and a sense, among the wider public, that law and order were breaking down. Many came to believe that a firm hand was required to restore order and stability. A firm hand was exactly the image that Hitler was trying to project, and as the violence worsened, the Nazi vote rose. We all know how that tragedy played out.

Is it far-fetched to think that history could repeat itself in this way? To antifa activists who see violence as the answer to the far right, it should not be. They are the ones who are drawing the historical parallels. The Times quotes an antifa activist: “If we just stand back, we are allowing them to build a movement whose end goal is genocide.” If that is the danger, we need to find a better way of combating it than the tactic that so plainly failed in Germany.

Well, I’m not very worried about a new Nazi Party in the U.S., as, like Pinker, I see that as increasingly unacceptable. What worries me more is that Trump will act in a Hitlerian fashion by quashing people’s civil rights. Even the American Civil Liberties Union seems to be reconsidering its position on defending the right to utter “hate speech.”

Now is not the time for the Left to give in—after all, we’ve had white supremacy and the Nazi Party with us for some time, and they haven’t grown despite consistent enforcement of the First Amendment. (Trump has made them more visible rather than swelling their ranks.) Rather, it’s time for us to hold the line on free speech, as Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ did in her statement yesterday.

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UPDATE:  this is what happens when violence is “normalized”; you get criminals saying that felony assault is justified against a non-aggressive “neo-Nazi”  (click on screenshot to go to article):

Good message on free speech from UC Berkeley’s new Chancellor

August 24, 2017 • 10:15 am

Carol T. Christ, an academic (an English scholar specializing in Victorian literature), became the Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley in March. Yesterday she issued a superb statement about free speech at Berkeley, a school that’s lately been embroiled in issues of no-platforming and even violence around proposed right-wing speakers like Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos. In my view, Berkeley hasn’t yet taken a very public or strong stand in favor of free expression, especially because that campus was the home of the “Free Speech” movement in the mid-Sixties. My own school remains the beacon and the model for supporting free speech among American universities.

Someone sent me Christ’s statement, which was posted on Milo Yiannopoulos’s Facebook page (does that make a difference to you?), but I also found it on the Berkeley News. It was sent to “the campus community”.  The bolding in her statement is mine.

From: “Carol T. Christ Chancellor”
Date: August 23, 2017 at 8:48:26 AM PDT
Subject: Free Speech

Dear Students, Faculty and Staff,

This fall, the issue of free speech will once more engage our community in powerful and complex ways. Events in Charlottesville, with their racism, bigotry, violence and mayhem, make the issue of free speech even more tense. The law is very clear; public institutions like UC Berkeley must permit speakers invited in accordance with campus policies to speak, without discrimination in regard to point of view. The United States has the strongest free speech protections of any liberal democracy; the First Amendment protects even speech that most of us would find hateful, abhorrent and odious, and the courts have consistently upheld these protections.

But the most powerful argument for free speech is not one of legal constraint—that we’re required to allow it—but of value. The public expression of many sharply divergent points of view is fundamental both to our democracy and to our mission as a university. The philosophical justification underlying free speech, most powerfully articulated by John Stuart Mill in his book On Liberty, rests on two basic assumptions. The first is that truth is of such power that it will always ultimately prevail; any abridgement of argument therefore compromises the opportunity of exchanging error for truth. The second is an extreme skepticism about the right of any authority to determine which opinions are noxious or abhorrent. Once you embark on the path to censorship, you make your own speech vulnerable to it. [JAC:  These are the canonical arguments for allowing “hate speech”]

Berkeley, as you know, is the home of the Free Speech Movement, where students on the right and students on the left united to fight for the right to advocate political views on campus. Particularly now, it is critical that the Berkeley community come together once again to protect this right. It is who we are.

Nonetheless, defending the right of free speech for those whose ideas we find offensive is not easy. It often conflicts with the values we hold as a community—tolerance, inclusion, reason and diversity. Some constitutionally-protected speech attacks the very identity of particular groups of individuals in ways that are deeply hurtful. However, the right response is not the heckler’s veto, or what some call platform denial. Call toxic speech out for what it is, don’t shout it down, for in shouting it down, you collude in the narrative that universities are not open to all speech. Respond to hate speech with more speech.

We all desire safe space, where we can be ourselves and find support for our identities. You have the right at Berkeley to expect the university to keep you physically safe. But we would be providing students with a less valuable education, preparing them less well for the world after graduation, if we tried to shelter them from ideas that many find wrong, even dangerous. We must show that we can choose what to listen to, that we can cultivate our own arguments and that we can develop inner resilience, which is the surest form of safe space. These are not easy tasks, and we will offer support services for those who desire them.

This September, Ben Shapiro and Milo Yiannopoulos have both been invited by student groups to speak at Berkeley. The university has the responsibility to provide safety and security for its community and guests, and we will invest the necessary resources to achieve that goal. If you choose to protest, do so peacefully. That is your right, and we will defend it with vigor. We will not tolerate violence, and we will hold anyone accountable who engages in it.

We will have many opportunities this year to come together as a Berkeley community over the issue of free speech; it will be a free speech year. We have already planned a student panel, a faculty panel and several book talks. Bridge USA and the Center for New Media will hold a day-long conference on October 5; PEN, the international writers’ organization, will hold a free speech convening in Berkeley on October 23. We are planning a series in which people with sharply divergent points of view will meet for a moderated discussion. Free speech is our legacy, and we have the power once more to shape this narrative.

Sincerely,

Carol Christ
Chancellor

This is an absolutely wonderful statement, and emphasizes again the need for those of you who worry about “hate speech” to read Mill’s great work On Liberty. I agree with Christ 100%, both with her arguments about the need for not restricting even speech one deems odious, and about the unacceptability of responding with violence. When Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak on campus last February, his talk was canceled by the University because of violent demonstrations by outside “masked agitators”—in all likelihood Antifa adherents—who caused over $100,000 in damage. Since Ben Shapiro and Milo have been invited back this fall, I’m pretty positive that Antifa and like-minded thugs will once again try to shut their talks down. Christ promises they will be dealt with harshly (she means with the law, of course), and I’m glad to hear that. Shapiro is far more serious than Milo, and far more worth hearing, but if somebody doesn’t like their talks, don’t go to them. As Christ says, “Respond to hate speech with more speech.”

I have no truck with readers who have called for violence against those uttering what they see as “hate speech”, so don’t call for violence on this site.  The only justifiable violence in demonstrations is in pure self-defense, and that means no carrying weapons when you protest.

And good for Dr. Christ for making such an uncompromising statement. She’s the highest official at Berkeley, and she has power. I love the idea of a “free speech year,” which will surely stimulate a lot of discussion. And believe me, students need  that discussion.

Count on an English scholar to cite Mill!

Carol Christ, free-speech hero

h/t: Orli

Spot (and count) the frogs!

August 24, 2017 • 8:30 am

Reader Diane G. sent a photo in which you’re not only asked to spot the animals, but tell us how many you see. The reveal will be at 11 am Chicago time. Her notes:

My adult daughter, Liz, sent me this pic…taken at one of the lovely trails in or near Grand Rapids, MI, where she frequently walks her d*g.  (For the record, she also has two rescue cats and is currently fostering a foundling kitten. 🙂 )

I was able to find the frogs with just a slight effort (one’s blatant, of course!), but they are definitely cryptic; I doubt your average passerby would notice them unless they moved.

Go to town and put your answers below, including your count. (Click photo to enlarge.)

Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ free speech

August 24, 2017 • 8:00 am

The new Jesus and Mo strip, called “sing”, came with the note, “It’s been a while since we did an X-factor strip.” It forms an argument for freedom of speech, and remember that Christians and especially Muslims consider criticism of their faith to be “hate speech”. For those who call for punching Nazis, should Muslims and Christians be able to call for punching Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris?

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 24, 2017 • 7:30 am

Today we’re also including astronomy (as we sometimes do): some nice eclipse pictures and one of Saturn. And we’ll have a token animal. First, some lovely eclipse photos taken by reader Don:

I’m late to the party submitting these, but I haven’t had a lot of time to process them. The first shows the eclipse not quite half way between first and second contact, along with the nice string of sunspots near the center.  A new group of sunspots appeared the morning of the eclipse, but they are obscured by the moon.

The second two show various views of totality including solar prominences and a bit of the corona.  The Bailey’s Beads are quite spectacular, and are caused by the sun peeking through the valleys between mountains on the edge of the moon.

JAC:  “Bailey’s Beads,” whose cause was discovered by astronomer Francis Bailey in 1836, are the spots of sunlight shining through lower bits of the Moon’s topography.

The final image is a very high dynamic range view that shows the dimmest details on the surface of the moon itself (caused by earthshine), as well as the detail in the solar corona itself. [JAC: As with all photos, click to enlarge.]

I’ll put this up because it’s an amazing compilation video: it shows (repeatedly) the shadow of the solar eclipse crossing America. It’s from NASA, which gives this information:

From a million miles out in space, NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) captured 12 natural color images of the moon’s shadow crossing over North America on Aug. 21, 2017. EPIC is aboard NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), where it photographs the full sunlit side of Earth every day, giving it a unique view of total solar eclipses.

Tim Anderson from Australia sent both an astronomy and a wildlife photo:

This is an image of Saturn taken on 23 August using a 9.25″ Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and an Atik colour camera. The data are captured as a video file, then processed to extract the clearest still images, then combined to increase contrast. Somewhere in there is Cassini preparing for its final descent into the planet’s atmosphere.

And here’s your Bird of the Day, also from Tim:

This is a Noisy Friarbird (Philemon corniculatus), a common and voluble bird found in gardens across Australia. It is a member of the Franciscan Order of Grey Friars, but is evidently not bound by a vow of silence.


Here’s a photo of its head taken from Wikipedia. Though it has a bald pate, it’s not like a vulture, for it feeds on insects, fruit, and nectar:

Here’s a video of one, and then a video that shows why they’re called “noisy”:

 

Thursday: Hili dialogue

August 24, 2017 • 6:30 am

Good morning: it’s Thursday, August 24, 2017, and it’s National Peach Pie Day, a worthy dessert, especially when served warm with ice cream. I suspect this dessert is endemic to the U.S., as I’ve never seen it in the UK or Europe (which lacks pies altogether), though perhaps Canada has it.  In the U.S. it’s also Waffle Day, celebrating the patenting of a waffle iron, but in Sweden Waffle Day takes place on March 25 when, says Wikipedia, it’s customary for Swedes to eat waffles. Perhaps a local can verify this.

First, a dubious date for an event; from Wikipedia:

[August 24] 79 AD – Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash (note: this traditional date has been challenged, and many scholars believe that the event occurred on October 24).

On this day in 1349, 6,000 Jews died in the German city of Mainz after they were held responsible for an epidemic of bubonic plague. They had also been killed in in Toulon, Brussels, and Barcelona. The Mainz mob attacked Jews the day before, and, seeing a larger attack coming, the community decided to commit suicide by burning themselves in their homes rather than be murdered (some were murdered, of course). At that time, Mainz had the largest Jewish population of any European City. On August 24, 1456, the printing of the Gutenberg Bible was finished; it was the first major book printed with moveable type. 49 copies remain out of the 160-185 books printed; of these, only 21 are complete. The book is of course priceless as a historical icon, and no copy has been sold since 1978.  On this day in 1891, Thomas Edison patented the motion picture camera, and in 1954, the U.S.’s Communist Control Act went into effect, outlawing membership in the American Communist Party as a criminal act and prohibiting the Party on ballots. The act was dismantled by the courts in the 1960s and 1970s. Communists were of course feared as much then as Nazis are now, but, as with Nazis, there was never any danger that the Party would take over America. I suppose those who now call for violence against Nazis would have done the same with Communists back then.  On this day in 1981, Mark David Chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for the murder of John Lennon. He’s still in prison and was denied parole for the ninth time last year. Finally, on this day in 1991 Ukraine declared itself independent of the Soviet Union, though things look dicey now with respect to Russia.

Notables born on this day include Max Beerbohm (1872), famous surfer and swimmer Duke Kahanamoku (1890), Jore Luis Borges (1899), Yasser Arafat (1929), Anne Archer (1947), paleoanthropologist Tim D. White (1950), and Stephen Fry (1957; he’s 60 today).  Here’s a recent clip of Fry on Irish television indicting any gods for malevolence, a clip that caused a bit of a furor but is well worth watching again:

Those who died on August 24 include Simone Weil (1943), Julie Harris (2013), and Richard Attenborough (2014).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, as always, is reluctant to go home when it’s dry. She’ll only appear on the windowsill if it’s actually raining and she’s soaked. The good news is that I’ll see her soon! Lose a duck, gain a cat.

Hili: There are clouds gathering over the river.
A: We had better go home.
Hili: Why? We have nice weather here.
In Polish:
Hili: Za rzeką gromadzą się chmury.
Ja: To chodźmy lepiej do domu.
Hili: Dlaczego, tu mamy ładną pogodę.
Two more eclipse photos. Reader ThyroidPlanet sent this one:
Taken  in Massachusetts – therefore, it was hazy and at peak 70% (0.70 magnitude, as calculated by timeanddate.com – very good site for this ) at 14:46.I used an iPhone.I think the photos are interesting mostly because it almost looks like the moon disc is visible beyond the intersection of the sun-moon discs – though, this could be an illusion. The pics show that iPhone camera can still take decent pics, and that the eclipse experience, though not in totality, is still pretty good. This is unlike aurorae, which, in the same geographical location, can have an intensity value that seems pretty good (I look at Arora Alerts), but are rarely visible.
And from reader Amy, who was clearly in a celebratory mood:
We booked our campsites back in May at Babler State Park Wildwood, MO ; hanging out with 8 scientists for 3 days for the eclipse. Oh, my. The discussions and fretting over the weather. “Should we stay or should we move?” We were geared up and geeked out. Weather stations, cameras, telescopes, books etc. Having never witnessed a total solar eclipse I have to say that it was surpassed my expectations.Spectacular!!!. I wish I could say I saw the right hand of G*d but I did not even see his left hand.