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A review by aorth
Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, Expanded Edition by Jonathan Rauch
5.0
A passionate and well-articulated defense of free speech. Even though it was written thirty years ago it rings more true than ever. In Kindly Inquisitors Jonathan Rauch makes the case for countering bad ideas with better ones—starting with Plato's Republic! No idea is exempt from the public checking and sorting game.
In the United States it is clear that many people prefer sloppy, feel-good hashtag activism to intellectual liberal discourse. Normally this would be fine: the system is working if we can speak out and check others' ideas (and they can check ours). Instead, public criticism of certain notions is met with cries of "words of violence" and widespread moral outrage. That's par for the course, but in the digital age the price is higher when the mob moves against you. "Canceling" and "de-platforming" tactics are the new blacklisting. This is illiberal and is not an effective way to suppress ideas anyways!
Because this book was written before the Internet the topic is not explicitly addressed, though the related problem of misinformation is. Nevertheless, in my opinion, the Internet exacerbates the problem of misinformation and makes liberal intellectual discourse both easier and impossible. A group of teenagers in Macedonia can write an official-looking blog post saying that Hillary Clinton is in the hospital and cause doubt and speculation, the Syrian Electronic Army can hack a high-profile Twitter account and say that the White House is on fire (crashing the stock market), etc. How do we deal with literally fake news? Before you know it the article has been shared thousands of times and the damage is done. We are too naive if we think that everyone plays by the same rule we do. How does liberalism respond?
In the United States it is clear that many people prefer sloppy, feel-good hashtag activism to intellectual liberal discourse. Normally this would be fine: the system is working if we can speak out and check others' ideas (and they can check ours). Instead, public criticism of certain notions is met with cries of "words of violence" and widespread moral outrage. That's par for the course, but in the digital age the price is higher when the mob moves against you. "Canceling" and "de-platforming" tactics are the new blacklisting. This is illiberal and is not an effective way to suppress ideas anyways!
Because this book was written before the Internet the topic is not explicitly addressed, though the related problem of misinformation is. Nevertheless, in my opinion, the Internet exacerbates the problem of misinformation and makes liberal intellectual discourse both easier and impossible. A group of teenagers in Macedonia can write an official-looking blog post saying that Hillary Clinton is in the hospital and cause doubt and speculation, the Syrian Electronic Army can hack a high-profile Twitter account and say that the White House is on fire (crashing the stock market), etc. How do we deal with literally fake news? Before you know it the article has been shared thousands of times and the damage is done. We are too naive if we think that everyone plays by the same rule we do. How does liberalism respond?