Cowards Censor
If you know you won't win an argument, ensure there is no argument.
"Let me know if you don't get this!" My father used to say this as one of his famous dad jokes about 60 years ago, before the internet and cell phones. It seemed funny. How could we know if we didn't get something? It's like the speaker telling the audience to raise their hands if they can't hear him.
People who refuse to hear the other side of the debate are always sure they are right. But there are severe problems with their certitude. Jonathan Haidt has been tracking the increasing narrow-mindedness of university faculties and has been involved in a group called the HeterodoxAcademy to try to counter it.
However, this attitude has moved from universities to the elites in general. Thomas Sowell has written extensively about these people. They know they are right. It can't be their fault if their ideas don't work and the public suffers. More time, money, or public education and effort will solve the problem.
When the elite have put themselves in such a one-sided environment, they never hear conflicting opinions. This is a serious problem. Haidt gave a warning lecture at Duke in 2016, where he said we need some universities focused on a search for truth rather than training social justice warriors. He described the weakness of people who only knew one side of an issue or argument. He quoted John Stuart Mill, who wrote in On Liberty:
He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; If he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.
We see that in our leaders' reactions to disagreement with their policies. They haven't seriously studied or considered the slightest alternative to their views. It is their way or the highway. The conversations would have been civil if they had learned and considered both sides. They haven't. They've lived in a world where dissent is rude or inconceivable. For example, even a bird lover who expresses concerns about windmills is seen as a climate denier.
How do we avoid discussion and dissent? The methods are described in the great utopian novels of the 20th century: Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Brave New World. The Thought Police are here—I'm not exaggerating. If the people in control need to avoid hearing unpleasant thoughts, they simply prevent other people from having and spreading them.
In all three novels, steps are taken to ensure the public never hears ideas the leaders don't want to be heard. In Fahrenheit 451, all books are burned. In Brave New World, people are so distracted and drugged that they have no time or interest in ideas. In 1984, every action is watched, and the state destroys books, rewrites history, and redefines the language to make unacceptable thoughts impossible.
Christopher Caldwell recently wrote that Donald Trump sent J.D. Vance to the Munich Security Conference to express their concern for European freedom. Vance said:
The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is … the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.” Europe, according to Vance, had become hostile to free speech. It was hostile to free speech because it was hostile to democracy.
Even worse is the impact of European policies and laws on American speech. In England, specific internet postings are illegal. Citizens are being arrested and jailed, and violent criminals are being released to make room for internet violators.
Why do we care? Because the Europeans have limited free speech on the internet everywhere. This is covered in an excellent article, unfortunately behind a pay wall. It is Make Speech Free Again by John Rosenthal in the Claremont Review of Books.
The problem results from the European Union Digital Services Act (DSA), which restricts speech among Europeans, Americans, and other English speakers. Under EU law, any carrier is in trouble if it allows the transmission of a message to a European device that violates any of its ”be nice” and “say only what we want you to say” rules. This means the carriers are censoring the speech of Americans even when we think we are speaking only to each other.
That means your ability to hear facts and ideas is limited, and you don’t realize it. That is why I moved my DalesIdeas.com website away from WordPress. SubStack is committed to providing a forum for all ideas. In the Soviet Union, ideas not allowed in the open press were photocopied in the samizdat press.
I hope to say what needs to be said and that you will receive the message. So, as my father said, “Let me know if you don't get this!"