Andrew Sullivan is developing an inadvertent feature of commenting on the antifa movement in his once a week missive. Here’s his latest:
I wish I could say I’m shocked by new polling on college students’ views on free speech. But if you’ve been following the culture these past few years, you could see this coming. Today’s students neither comprehend nor support the very concept of free speech, which is foundational to a liberal democracy. A full 19 percent even believe that physical violence is now justifiable to shut down speakers who engage in the vaguely defined term “hate speech.” That’s one in five students endorsing physical coercion. Antifa really is making headway, isn’t it? A small majority, 51-49, supports shouting down speakers you disagree with — and that goes to 62 percent of students who identify as Democrats.
Back in ’80s at the University of Minnesota, I recall reading in the University newspaper, The Minnesota Daily, about a non-violent movement to control speech, to find a way to outlaw “bad speech”. The soft science professors were spending many hours on this, talking to student leaders, formulating approaches, etc. And the paper then talked to a physics professor who had been involved.
Apparently, the whole thing was laid out to him, he said, “Free speech is absolute,” and walked off. That was it for him. He recognized the moment you start qualifying speech, it’s a vulnerability that can be turned on the very people who urge it. I don’t think today’s antifa adherents have figured that out.
No surprise. They’re still learning.
But what gets my attention about the movement from thirty five years ago and the antifa movement of today is the failure to understand how to define success. For that physics professor, he seemed to realize that there’s no endpoint, no time where the last brick is laid and you declare the church has been completed.
Free speech has a purpose, and that’s to facilitate the marketplace of ideas. It has no place in judging those ideas, for otherwise it becomes worthless, it becomes a political tool for those who find advantage in silencing opponents with cunning and smiles; judging must come from those who participate, willing to judge honestly and with justice in their hearts, and not from those who willingly manipulate the process in order to benefit from hidden agendas.
But, critically, it’s an ongoing process, and until we find the answer to every last question, it will always be an ongoing process.
The antifa think limiting free speech, the great oxymoron, solves a problem, but in reality it merely cripples the most important process of liberal democracies.
And that’s why this violent, illiberal antifa movement, despite any high and noble goals, is a failure from the get-go.
