Free Speech for the Decidedly-Wrong

by Joe Miller

As many of you already know, the UNCP group Fusion Campus Ministry is presenting “Lies in the Textbooks” next week. The video presents a critique of evolution from what is purportedly an explicitly religious perspective. I have not actually seen the video in question, and given that its running length is said to be 3 hours and that it is being presented on a Monday evening and that my three year old isn’t exactly old enough to put himself to bed yet, it’s pretty unlikely that I will do so. Many of you were torn between annoyance that creationists still exist and eagerness to flaunt your argumentative skills debating them. I had chalked the whole incident up as simply another instance of the joys and challenges of teaching at a university in rural North Carolina. So I was rather surprised to receive an e-mail on Monday announcing that:

The Biology Department feels this program [Fusion’s airing of the video] questions our credibility in the classroom and voted unanimously to protest the showing of this video.

The message went on to invite the remained of the faculty to join the biologists’ protest. The announcement of a faculty protest provoked a hailstorm of replies, with some pointing out that among the other videos in the series is one with the charming title, “Why Satan Loves Evolution.” Others mentioned that as a university, we have a particular obligation to air all sides of a debate, or at the very least, that we have an obligation not to protest when someone decides to present the other side of a debate. And still others maintained that political protest is just as much protected speech as Fusion's video.

Now of course you know that there is no way that any self-respecting Mill scholar can possibly pass up on the opportunity to comment on a free speech discussion. I figure, though, that there is no need for cheap substitutes when one can have the original. So here is Mill, from chapter 2 of On Liberty:

There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.

This of course is not to say that I have much sympathy for creationism. Indeed, on the No-Chance-in-Hell-of-Being-True List, I’d say that creationists rank somewhere between flat earthers and phrenologists. Nor would I ever dream of claiming that, say, Professor Kelley ought to be required to discuss creationism (or it's bastard step-child, Intelligent Design) in Bio 422: Evolution. I do, however, join with a number of others on the faculty who think that protesting the airing of the video is the wrong thing to do.

The fact is that however vile the video itself may turn out to be, its mere existence raises at least two important philosophical questions: what is the nature of science? and what is the proper relationship between science and religion? Not coincidentally, the Philosophy & Religion Department at UNCP takes on both of those questions, the former in Jeffery Geller's philosophy of science course and the latter in David Nikkel's science and religion course. We can hardly hope to answer these questions if we deny those with alternate answers a chance to air their position.

Yes, I do agree with Pembroke's biologists that creationism threatens to undermine one of the key assumptions of their entire discipline. And yes I also agree that Fusion could have chosen a better way to make its case than to air a video that--at least implicitly--accuses members of the faculty of being in league with Satan in a secret plot to convert the world to communism, spread infanticide and genocide and eventually wipe out the human race (sadly, I'm not actually making this up). At best, Fusion's decision shows a stunning lack of tact and at worst a blatant contempt for a segment of the faculty. The folks at Fusion probably owe the biologists an apology, not for airing their views, but for airing their views in a manner that seems likely to be abusive and accusatory and not particularly likely to spark much in the way of reasoned discourse.

Still, all that said, I submit that protesting is the wrong answer here. Consider what it perhaps a less-heated analogy. I am, as I've mentioned before, a hyper-analytic philosopher. (I gather, by the way, that 'hyper-analytic' is supposed to be derogatory. I've always felt that being called hyper-analytic is just about as insulting as being told one looks like Brad Pitt or that one has a 175 IQ or that "my god that was the most incredible thing I've ever felt." No one has ever said any of those things to me, mind you, but if they did, I'm certain that I wouldn't take any offense.)

Anyway, one of the things that we hyper-analytic philosophers tend to accept is that there is such a thing as Truth (as opposed to contextual, relativized 'truths') and that reason is adequate to the task of ascertaining Truth. Many humanists reject that claim, adopting instead some variety of post-ism (postmodernism, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, etc.) that holds that humans can never really have access to Truth. Now if these folks were right (and let's face it, they've only slightly better odds than the creationists. Sorry, couldn't resist.), then it would completely undermine my discipline--or at least my version of my discipline. So what are we analytic philosophers to do? Well, we could try picketing the theory course in the English Department and protesting student theses on Derrida. But I think that it makes a lot more sense to show that the post-isms rest on mushy, non-rigorous arguments that, once stripped of their meaningless jargon, fail to hold up to rational scrutiny. The Nothing noths? WTF?

So to return to our topic, then, I would argue that while of course the biologists (and anyone else) have a complete right to protest whatever they like, doing so is the wrong course of action. Open debate is the only way to ensure the triumph of truth in the marketplace of ideas. Moreover, protesting speech that we don't like, especially when we turn around defend the rights of other academics to make equally outrageous claims (I'm looking at you Ward), merely cements the image of academics as liberal PC thugs who advocate free speech only for speech we like. Protesting actions we don't like is a great thing and highly encouraged. Protesting ideas we don't like, at a university...not so much.