Falling Off The Rails

Anyone who reads this blog regularly has probably noticed that I'm fond of the work done by the folks at FIRE. Their "blog" The Torch has featured routinely, and always in a positive light. So, in a spirit of fair-mindedness, I'd highlight a post written by Chris Perez that I do not think that much of.

Professor Alan Wolfe channels John Stuart Mill in a recent blogpost on The New Republic’s Open University blog. Discussing the use of the label “anti-Semite,” Professor Wolfe invokes Mill’s discussion of “the social stigma” in On Liberty. Wolfe writes:

Mill addressed the application of what he called “the social stigma” to unpopular ideas. It is true that stigmatization “kills no one” and “roots out no opinions,” Mill argued, but, he continued, “the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.” Like deTocqueville, from whom he borrowed the argument, Mill was persuaded that explicit, formal censorship was not the only method, nor even the most effective method, for suppressing ideas. Attaching invidious labels to those ideas, as a way of trying to isolate them from polite company, represents an insidious form of illiberalism of which we ought to be wary.

Whether or not one agrees with Wolfe’s analysis in this instance, one cannot deny the harmful effect that “invidious labels” can have on meaningful discussion. Both sides of the political spectrum have their labels. The right, to automatically discredit arguments or people, may use “feminist,” “radical,” or “leftist.” And the left may use “sexist,” “homophobic,” or “racist.”

What? For starters, who exactly on the left is offended when they are called a "feminist"? No one I've ever heard. Additionally, how many folks on the left happily embrace the term "radical" or "leftist"? A whole hell of a lot of them. This list gives the impression that those on the right never do more than misapply perfectly acceptable names. (For example, calling a middle of the road Democrat a "leftist" is almost always inaccurate.) The reality is different. Left of center folks get called tyrants, totalitarians, communists, thought police, effete Euro-wannabes etc. They get labeled with adjectives like, Stalinist, Maoist, Orwellian, Godless, un-American, French etc.

It is fine if you want to make a plea for less name calling in the public sphere, but lets begin with both feet in the reality of the day, please.