The tide of illiberalism that has swept over American academia for the past few years isn’t just about a few rambunctious hecklers or a militant fringe. In fact, skepticism of the idea of free and open debate runs deep among America’s future educated classes, liberal and conservative alike, according to a new Brookings survey of college students. Catherine Rampbell relays the findings in the Washington Post:
Let’s say a public university hosts a “very controversial speaker,” one “known for making offensive and hurtful statements.” Would it be acceptable for a student group to disrupt the speech “by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker”?
Astonishingly, half said that snuffing out upsetting speech — rather than, presumably, rebutting or even ignoring it — would be appropriate. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to find this response acceptable (62 percent to 39 percent), and men were more likely than women (57 percent to 47 percent). Even so, sizable shares of all groups agreed.
It gets even worse.
Respondents were also asked if it would be acceptable for a student group to use violence to prevent that same controversial speaker from talking. Here, 19 percent said yes.
These results, as many have pointed out, obviously don’t bode well for the future of democratic self-governance. But looked at another way, they are not particularly surprising. Why should people allow the airing of ideas they disagree with? That idea is a very recent one, and it is alien to fundamental human impulses. As Andrew Sullivan notes in his recent essay on the deep and enduring power of illiberal group attachments, tribalism “is not one aspect of human experience. It’s the default human experience. It comes more naturally to us than any other way of life.” For most of human history, “the idea of people within a tribe believing in different gods was incomprehensible.”
Getting around tribalism is partly a practice of collective self-improvement—of acculturating people to be more tolerant and open-minded. Most of the response to the disheartening Brookings data has focused on this approach: On the need to do a better job educating students about the American constitution and the Western liberal tradition it inherited and expanded upon.
But “liberalism”—that peculiar social order where we don’t shout down or attack speakers with opposing views—only gets some of its power from the abstract arguments of Madison and Mill. Abstract ideas on their own are not enough to overcome the powerful forces pulling us toward our default state of illiberalism and forced conformity. It’s also about taking a long view of our own self-interests—that is, recognizing that if we agree not to suppress the other tribe, then the other tribe just might agree, as a general rule, to not suppress us. If adhered to, it can be positive sum transaction—the free exchange of ideas ultimately makes life richer and more prosperous for everyone. Liberalism is a bargain between elites to set up institutions that allow this positive-sum process to take place despite all the forces working against it.
The bargain stops working, though, if the trust between different tribes breaks down—if you no longer trust the other tribe to honor your rights when it is in power, why should you honor theirs? The “idea” of tolerance isn’t enough. At its core, the institution of free expression depends on reciprocity over time.
What we may be experiencing now, more than a crisis of liberalism in the abstract, is a cascading crisis of public trust—a “run on the bank,” where each side, skeptical that its own deposits will be honored, is rushing to pull its own deposits. In 1962, the sociologist Talcott Parsons used the analogy of a financial panic to describe the McCarthy period: “A downward spin can only be checked by a restoration of ‘confidence,’ which means willingness to accept payment other than ‘hard’ cash—the return to credit. In short, there has to be a foundation of trust for the credit system to operate.” Letting a speaker with different views from your own speak when you have the power to stop them is a “credit”-based transaction. You allow it, at least in part, on the expectation that your money will be paid back in the future—that is, that your side will also be extended the freedom to dissent when you are in the minority.
On college campuses, this system is failing. One major reason is the much-discussed lack of ideological diversity among faculty and administrators. If liberal students never live under conservative authorities, how should they know whether their own rights will be honored? They can only imagine that rightists would stomp all over them if they had the chance. Meanwhile, conservative students have seen various “offensive” (usually right-leaning) speakers shouted down over the past few years. Why would they support allowing a liberal speaker to speak if he offends their sensibilities?
The bank run is evident in the rest of the country too. Donald Trump has spouted illiberal and authoritarian threats since the beginning of his campaign. And as Jack Goldsmith ably explained out in the Atlantic, the “resistance” has flouted important constitutional norms since his election, as well. Both tribes in America are increasingly anxious about the security of their trust deposits, and rushing to withdraw them.
Our challenge, then, is not only to teach students liberal ideals. It’s to make sure that we have strong institutional safeguards that trust deposits will be guaranteed—that our “trust FDIC” is fully operational and funded. So far, as Goldsmith points out, our institutional safeguards are holding under strain. But if they start to malfunction—if their integrity and solvency is called into question—the jitters we are currently experiencing could turn into a financial panic, and the liberal system could come crashing down all at once.
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