Excellent as usual. One quibble on behalf of platonic dialogue: you write, "Stanford students set out to protest the deliberately provocative invitation of Judge Duncan. They started great, modeling the variety of means available to them. They put up fliers denouncing Judge Duncan and FedSoc, they led a vigorous protest in the halls, the…
Excellent as usual. One quibble on behalf of platonic dialogue: you write, "Stanford students set out to protest the deliberately provocative invitation of Judge Duncan. They started great, modeling the variety of means available to them. They put up fliers denouncing Judge Duncan and FedSoc, they led a vigorous protest in the halls, they arrived at the speech with suitably blunt signs about Judge Duncan. Now, critics will fault them for even this, tone-policing their messages or suggesting that they ought to just sit down and have a Platonic dialogue with Judge Duncan or portraying the FedSoc members as victims of callout culture and shunning. That’s all bullshit. The protesting students’ rights and interests are neither inferior to nor superior to the interests of the FedSoc and Judge Duncan. Policing the civility of the response to speech and not speech itself is incoherent nonsense." Doesn't this conflate the separate questions of whether the Stanford law students have a right to use any tone that they like (Yes!) and whether it is good or desirable that they do so? I'd say without intending any bullshit that, insofar as the Stanford Law students are intent on vanquishing Trumpists, of all people, choosing to fight on the terrain of moral shaming, scathing tone and shock jock rhetoric is shortsighted! I'll defend the *right* of Stanford protesters to put up "Fuck You" posters all they want, but I'll also lament that law school students are engaging in a mode where Andrew Dice Clay would vanquish them all.
You can absolutely critique their tone. However, as commentators on "speech culture," we should ask ourselves if we tone-police evenly, or whether we effectively pick a side by whom we tone-police. I'm sure Judge Duncan's speech, had he given it, would have been douchey and truculent in tone. If you critique the response to speech but not the speech on a tonal level, that's irrational -- and, more to the point, it looks like bias to young people trying to decide how to feel about free speech values.
I agree that tonal critiques should be applied equally to speech and counter-speech, and that tone-policing runs the risk of looking like bias to anyone who is on the receiving end of it.
But (and maybe I errored here by using the too narrow phrase "tone-policing") I also want to assert and defend the superiority (at least in the context of law schools) of rhetoric with substance, offered in whatever tone, to empty insults like "fuck you" that convey nothing substantive save contempt; I want to assert and defend the superiority of reasoned discourse, offered in whatever tone, to unreasoned invective; I want to assert the superiority of "your jurisprudence is wrongheaded for reasons x and y" to "shame shame!" I want to assert and defend the superiority of modes that advantage careful, internally consistent thinking to modes that, if adopted as norms, would most advantage the Donald Trumps and Andrew Dice Clays of the world.
Sure, I want those things too. And a pony. My gripe is that these concerns are too often used disingenuously in public free speech discourse -- like saying "why can't you just REASON with Milo Yiannopoulos?" A lot of modern right-side discourse is characterized by a Trumpian model of elbow-throwing. I don't think you can fault anyone for responding the same way. And let's face it -- FedSoc did not invite Judge Duncan hoping he would be calm, reasonable, and polite, treating his cultural opponents as honorable people with a different view.
I share your contempt for the John Eastman wing of the Federalist Society, but I don't know enough about the Stanford chapter to be confident in assigning them motives. That said, if their intentions are what you say, I consider that contemptible, and also irrelevant to the superiority of responses with formidable substance, whatever their tone. And sure, "why can't you just REASON with Milo Yiannopoulos?" misunderstands what Yiannopoulos is doing, but one absolutely can reason with the opinions of a federal judge, regardless of how elbow-throwing he is in his comportment. Are the Stanford Law students learning how to reason with such a judge? Not via protesting this event. But they could have if they'd done it differently. And that alternative reality isn't some fantastical utopian vision. Law students manage to do it all the time. Why, it's as within reach as... a pony! https://www.equinenow.com/ponycalifornia.htm
A couple of years ago, the student officers of the Stanford chapter tried to (and temporarily succeeded) in getting a student barred from graduation because he chose to excercise his free speech rights in a manner to which they did not approve. All three of them, despite their lack of respect for free speech, went on to prestigious clerkships with conservative federal judges.
You'll have to forgive me for questioning their dedication to free speech as anything but a vehicle for owning the libs.
I don't fault you for questioning their dedication to free speech at all. I do question the relevance of their internal thoughts and feelings to the questions addressed in my comments.
Inviting Duncan as an exercise in learning about what sort of petulant troll can become a federal judge might be worthwhile, but I don't think that's a fair inference of the intent here. Besides, plenty of professors are pretty good at giving life experience on how to grin and bear it with power-tripping jerks.
Engaging with illiberal ideas on an intellectual level and learning the counter-arguments and rhetorical tactics is absolutely an important future-lawyer skill. Having a good devil's advocate (even a sincere one) in that sense is not the same thing as practicing the people skills of staying professional when the judge very much isn't and there's nothing you can do about it.
Uh... dude... it's the Federalist Society. If you are commenting on American politics in 2023, you should know that they're a bunch of insane right-wing fascists who have been incredibly successful in their goals. This is not rocket science, it is not news, they've been really loud and public about what they're doing for quite some time now.
Excellent as usual. One quibble on behalf of platonic dialogue: you write, "Stanford students set out to protest the deliberately provocative invitation of Judge Duncan. They started great, modeling the variety of means available to them. They put up fliers denouncing Judge Duncan and FedSoc, they led a vigorous protest in the halls, they arrived at the speech with suitably blunt signs about Judge Duncan. Now, critics will fault them for even this, tone-policing their messages or suggesting that they ought to just sit down and have a Platonic dialogue with Judge Duncan or portraying the FedSoc members as victims of callout culture and shunning. That’s all bullshit. The protesting students’ rights and interests are neither inferior to nor superior to the interests of the FedSoc and Judge Duncan. Policing the civility of the response to speech and not speech itself is incoherent nonsense." Doesn't this conflate the separate questions of whether the Stanford law students have a right to use any tone that they like (Yes!) and whether it is good or desirable that they do so? I'd say without intending any bullshit that, insofar as the Stanford Law students are intent on vanquishing Trumpists, of all people, choosing to fight on the terrain of moral shaming, scathing tone and shock jock rhetoric is shortsighted! I'll defend the *right* of Stanford protesters to put up "Fuck You" posters all they want, but I'll also lament that law school students are engaging in a mode where Andrew Dice Clay would vanquish them all.
You can absolutely critique their tone. However, as commentators on "speech culture," we should ask ourselves if we tone-police evenly, or whether we effectively pick a side by whom we tone-police. I'm sure Judge Duncan's speech, had he given it, would have been douchey and truculent in tone. If you critique the response to speech but not the speech on a tonal level, that's irrational -- and, more to the point, it looks like bias to young people trying to decide how to feel about free speech values.
I agree that tonal critiques should be applied equally to speech and counter-speech, and that tone-policing runs the risk of looking like bias to anyone who is on the receiving end of it.
But (and maybe I errored here by using the too narrow phrase "tone-policing") I also want to assert and defend the superiority (at least in the context of law schools) of rhetoric with substance, offered in whatever tone, to empty insults like "fuck you" that convey nothing substantive save contempt; I want to assert and defend the superiority of reasoned discourse, offered in whatever tone, to unreasoned invective; I want to assert the superiority of "your jurisprudence is wrongheaded for reasons x and y" to "shame shame!" I want to assert and defend the superiority of modes that advantage careful, internally consistent thinking to modes that, if adopted as norms, would most advantage the Donald Trumps and Andrew Dice Clays of the world.
Sure, I want those things too. And a pony. My gripe is that these concerns are too often used disingenuously in public free speech discourse -- like saying "why can't you just REASON with Milo Yiannopoulos?" A lot of modern right-side discourse is characterized by a Trumpian model of elbow-throwing. I don't think you can fault anyone for responding the same way. And let's face it -- FedSoc did not invite Judge Duncan hoping he would be calm, reasonable, and polite, treating his cultural opponents as honorable people with a different view.
I share your contempt for the John Eastman wing of the Federalist Society, but I don't know enough about the Stanford chapter to be confident in assigning them motives. That said, if their intentions are what you say, I consider that contemptible, and also irrelevant to the superiority of responses with formidable substance, whatever their tone. And sure, "why can't you just REASON with Milo Yiannopoulos?" misunderstands what Yiannopoulos is doing, but one absolutely can reason with the opinions of a federal judge, regardless of how elbow-throwing he is in his comportment. Are the Stanford Law students learning how to reason with such a judge? Not via protesting this event. But they could have if they'd done it differently. And that alternative reality isn't some fantastical utopian vision. Law students manage to do it all the time. Why, it's as within reach as... a pony! https://www.equinenow.com/ponycalifornia.htm
A couple of years ago, the student officers of the Stanford chapter tried to (and temporarily succeeded) in getting a student barred from graduation because he chose to excercise his free speech rights in a manner to which they did not approve. All three of them, despite their lack of respect for free speech, went on to prestigious clerkships with conservative federal judges.
You'll have to forgive me for questioning their dedication to free speech as anything but a vehicle for owning the libs.
I don't fault you for questioning their dedication to free speech at all. I do question the relevance of their internal thoughts and feelings to the questions addressed in my comments.
Beat me to it, but here's a link: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/06/federalist-society-stanford.html
Inviting Duncan as an exercise in learning about what sort of petulant troll can become a federal judge might be worthwhile, but I don't think that's a fair inference of the intent here. Besides, plenty of professors are pretty good at giving life experience on how to grin and bear it with power-tripping jerks.
Engaging with illiberal ideas on an intellectual level and learning the counter-arguments and rhetorical tactics is absolutely an important future-lawyer skill. Having a good devil's advocate (even a sincere one) in that sense is not the same thing as practicing the people skills of staying professional when the judge very much isn't and there's nothing you can do about it.
Uh... dude... it's the Federalist Society. If you are commenting on American politics in 2023, you should know that they're a bunch of insane right-wing fascists who have been incredibly successful in their goals. This is not rocket science, it is not news, they've been really loud and public about what they're doing for quite some time now.
Oh my God, they've gotten to him!
Quick, man the guns! If Ken White has been taken, none are safe from the pony menace!
Wait you want a pony? Who are you and what have you done with Popehat?
Everyone gets a pony.
Vermin Supreme's campaign promise.
Excellent idea. You'll learn responsibility and empathy,
and when the guy you don't like comes to town to
give a speech you won't like, you have nonlethal
projectiles with which to redirect hir attention.